Voluntary Democracy - Part 2

In Part 1, I proposed a new sociopolitical model called Voluntary Democracy. I suggested that the three branches of government—the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary—could be replaced by three voluntary bodies: the Volexec, the Volegis, and the Volcourts.

This would create a real democracy. There would be no government and no political state but simply the jurisdiction of the people—voluntaryists. The three new administrative branches—Volexec (short for Voluntary Executive branch), Volegis (short for Voluntary Legislative branch), and Volcourts (short for Voluntary Courts)—would form the voluntary democratic jurisdiction of the voluntaryists.

All adult voluntaryists who chose to actively participate in the jurisdiction would need to agree to voluntarily serve, at any moment, in all three branches of the voluntary democracy. The Volexec, Volegis, and Volcourt juries would be formed using a random sortition of the people. Much as is done in so-called “representative democracies” today, the jurors would serve on a temporary basis and would return to their regular lives once their jury service was concluded.

The Volexec and the Volegis would be drawn from the entire population of the jurisdiction. In each jurisdiction that adopts this system, the jurors in Volcourts across the land might be selected from more localised populations, depending on the size of the whole jurisdiction.

The most essential component of voluntary democracy is that every Volcourt would have the united and annexed power to annul any and all legislation issued by the Volexec and the Volegis. All Volcourts would have equal standing. There would be no higher courts. Each of the Volcourts would be sovereign, as would each and every citizen of the jurisdiction. Each Volcourt would represent and exercise the supreme rule of law, as would every voluntaryist citizen of the jurisdiction.

In a voluntary democracy, the supreme rule of law would serve one function only. The sole purpose of the law of the jurisdiction—that is, the law of the land—would be the restoration of justice. Where any citizen or group caused injustice, harm, or loss to any other individual or group, the Volcourts' role would be to restore justice.

Those who want to live in the jurisdiction but who do not wish to serve in any of the three branches of the jurisdiction would be free to opt out. Opting out would make little practical difference to their lives. As long as a person doesn’t cause any harm or loss to others, the Volexec, Volegis and Volcourts would have no notable impact on them. That said, there would be unavoidable, though extremely limited, exceptions.

Whether they volunteer as voluntaryist citizens or not, everyone who chooses to live in the jurisdiction would need to agree not to cause harm or loss to anyone else. This seems to me like a reasonable basis for any society. Observing justice—living honourably—would be the only requirement made of any adult in the jurisdiction. We’ll cover the few “unavoidable exceptions” in a moment.

Just as we have national and local government today, so voluntary jurisdictions would operate at the macro and micro jurisdictional level. The checks and balances on authoritarian political power, supposedly provided by the mythical “separation of powers” in modern political states, would be provided by Volcourts, in whose hands the power to annul legislation would reside. There would be no political authority, but the rule of law could impinge on some on rare occasions.

Obviously, urban and rural communities face different kinds of issues. Local or micro Volexecs and Voleges could be tasked with addressing specific local problems and might issue micro-legislation to address them. Such localised micro-legislation would not apply to the whole jurisdiction.

Setting macro-legislation for the whole jurisdiction would be done at the central or macro jurisdictional level. Perhaps the entire jurisdiction might create a capital where the macro Volexec and Volegis would convene. However, in nearly all circumstances, no hierarchical structure could possibly be enforced.

Regardless of whether legislation was issued at the macro or micro jurisdictional level, every Volcourt, no matter where it was located in the jurisdiction, would be able to annul any and all legislation where it was found to cause injustice. As micro-legislation would be applied only at the micro-jurisdictional level, it would be the responsibility of the relevant micro-Volcourts to ensure that the micro-legislation was just.

Since the Volcourts would exercise the supreme rule of law everywhere, you might wonder what purpose the Volexecs or Voleges would serve in a voluntary democracy. In other words, if every piece of legislation issued at the macro and micro level could be annulled by the Volcourts, what would be the point of issuing any legislation?

The point is this: The very possibility that legislation could be annulled would be the primary advantage of living in a voluntary democratic jurisdiction. Legislation would be allowed to persist only if it were just. Unjust legislation would be eradicated. Because legislation would be decided by the people, it would effectively be little more than necessary regulation to maintain justice in the jurisdiction.

For example, the macro-Volexec might propose legislation to ensure that food products aren’t laced with poison. The macro-Volegis might consider this proposed legislation worth adopting and could issue the legislation. No Volcourt is likely to annul this legislation; doing so would cause harm through negligence. If a Volcourt lost its mind and did overturn such legislation, it would set a case precedent that would soon be overturned by every other Volcourt. Thus, the food safety regulation would probably remain.

Equally, if the Volexec and Volegis lost their minds and, for example, set legislation making it a crime for anyone but pharmaceutical corporations to research, trial, and sell potential cancer cures, Volcourts throughout the jurisdiction would annul such legislation as soon as someone was prosecuted for this ludicrous "crime."

Consequently, at both the macro and the micro level, Volexecs and Voleges would, practically speaking, be able to legislate only for the purpose of trying to resolve extant macro-jurisdictional or micro-jurisdictional problems. If the consequence of their legislation was injustice, perhaps unforeseen injustice, a Volcourt would highlight the problem.

Volcourt annulment wouldn’t necessarily require the complete removal of a piece of legislation. The issuing Volexec and the Volegis would need to convene to deliberate on potentially amending the legislation as required to ensure justice is maintained.

Legislation in a voluntary democracy would be very limited in scope. It would be a tiny droplet compared to the current ocean of legislation under which we are collectively drowning. Providing that individuals and groups (corporations, for example) caused no harm or loss to others, they would be free to exercise their inalienable—or unalienable—rights in full.

Striking a just balance between rights and necessary responsibilities would be crucial to sustaining voluntary democratic justice. Ultimately, the necessary mechanism for serving justice would be delivered by the Volcourts.

Voluntary democracies would operate along genuine free market principles. A cattalaxy—a self-organised market system—would replace the regulated economy common to representative democracies (that is, the state).

Competition in a free market would mean that some businesses would be winners and others losers. The commercial activity of one company might lead to losses suffered by a competitor. But this is not the same as unjustly causing loss. If the losing company were to make a claim of injustice against the winning one, the Volcourts would examine the evidence. Then, if the winner were determined to have acted honourably, the Volcourt would be unlikely to require them to make reparations.

If, on the other hand, the evidence showed unscrupulous business practices were used to gain unfair advantage, the competitor's loss would be considered unjust. In that case, the Volcourt would likely rule in favour of the claimants.

Voluntary democracy would end neither poverty nor the accumulation of wealth. And, because there would be no government, there would be no welfare state—or, indeed, any state.

Statists often point to the idea of dismantling the welfare state as an argument for keeping government. In Part 3, we’ll consider that statist objection and many others. But for now I’ll merely point out that this criticism is based on the assumption that the population is comprised of people with statist mindsets. Anyone voluntarily living in a voluntary democracy would have a very different worldview. Again, we’ll discuss the implications in Part 3.

Harm and loss are suffered by individuals, true. Yet individuals form communities. It is in meeting the needs of the community that a voluntary democracy would have to establish a hierarchy to prioritize projects—not to gain personal power over other people. Vital infrastructure projects, for example, may require some individuals or groups to face unwanted loss. In a voluntary democracy, though, that loss could never be unjust.

Let’s say a city requires a new hospital to meet the health needs of thousands of people. Construction may require the purchase of a few individuals’ properties against their wishes. The city Volexec and Volegis would need to deliberate on the matter in good faith and with no prejudice. If they considered the hospital essential for the good of the community, they would “legislate” to compulsory purchase property where necessary. Since causing no harm or loss would be the foundational principle upon which the whole voluntary democracy is based, minimising the infringement of an individual’s property rights would be a core objective of infrastructure planning. Nonetheless, some transgressions may be unavoidable.

If thousands of people continue to suffer for lack of a hospital and there is no option but to buy some properties in order to build that hospital, then the property owners' refusal to sell would cause direct harm to others. On the other hand, in a voluntary democracy it would be absolutely unacceptable, under any circumstances, to inflict harm or loss on any individual. Therefore, anyone required to forego their property rights must be fully compensated in order to ensure that justice is maintained.

Mention of "compensation" brings us to a discussion of how the voluntary democracy will be funded. Obviously, running a voluntary democratic system of Volexecs and Voleges and potentially tens of thousands of Volcourts will cost money. The forced extraction of people’s wealth without their voluntary consent—namely, taxation or theft (one and the same!)—is wholly unjust and would be completely unacceptable in a voluntary democratic jurisdiction. Therefore, voluntaryist citizens would need to pay for everything voluntarily. Our envisaged hospital would not be built if the community it serves were unwilling to pay for it, including justly compensating those required to sell their property.

Furthermore, in a voluntary democracy, participation in the Volcourts could not be compulsory. Providing everyone with equal access to justice, however, would be compulsory—by sheer necessity. We’ll discuss the necessity in Part 3.

It is not just to deny someone access to justice—or to healthcare—simply because they honestly aren't able to pay for it, try as they might. This point raises the possibility that some people will end up paying for everything, both for themselves and for the people who don’t—who can't—pay for themselves.

Statists will argue, therefore, that there exists no such generosity and that therefore no one will end up footing the bill. Society, they say, will collapse as a result, and “chaos”—which they wrongly call “anarchy”—will reign.

Indeed, statists will foresee any number of practical shortcomings of my proposed voluntary democracy. They will argue that without taxation—aka theft—no one will voluntarily choose to pay for roads, sanitation, defence, and everything else currently covered by our taxes. Again, these objections are based on the incorrect assumption that the people who would form a voluntary democratic jurisdiction would hold statist beliefs.

To be clear: there would be no state in a voluntary democracy. No state “protection” from violence. No state law enforcement. No welfare state “safety net.” No state military. The bottom line is that each and every citizen of the jurisdiction, whether they be active or passive voluntaryist participants, would need to take complete responsibility for everything. Citizenship in the voluntary democratic jurisdiction would imply acceptance of that responsibility, whether you chose to participate Volexec, Volegis, or Volcourts or not.

Citizens would have no state to rely upon or to do anything for them. The people would rule themselves, and all social problems would be theirs to resolve. The people would have to no choice but to take responsibility for everything.

Through the macro and micro Volexecs, Voleges, and the Volcourts, every citizen would have the opportunity to exercise the full rule of law. Voluntaryists would accept the responsibility to serve, protect and deliver justice, even on behalf of those who decline to participate. Anyone who opted out of voluntary contribution would still have to take full responsibility to live honourably, to never cause harm or loss to anyone else, and to accept the duty to maintain justice by their actions as long as they lived in the voluntary democratic jurisdiction.

Setting up a voluntary democracy would require adoption of a radically different political philosophy. In fact, embracing this philosophy would be a prerequisite for any group of people who want to establish a voluntary democracy. Presently, those who have already adopted this political philosophy, though they may call themselves voluntaryists, are generally labelled by statists as "anarchists." But anarchism is a wide umbrella term for a whole range of political philosophies, often seemingly opposing each other.

At the heart of all anarchist political philosophy there is, however, a common unifying belief: all human interactions should be voluntary, the use of force or coercion to control human interaction is morally unacceptable, and minimum force can be used only to restore justice where the actions of an individual or group causes harm or loss to another.

The wide adoption of this nonaggression principle, as well as the citizens’ commitment to voluntary interactions, rejection of force or coercion, and acceptance of full responsibility to maintain justice, would be the foundation of any voluntary democracy.

Considering that every state and every government is based on the use of force and coercion to make citizens comply with its claimed political authority, the voluntary democratic jurisdiction would only be formed and maintained by people who reject the state in its entirety. A voluntaryist, by definition, does not believe in the supposed political authority of the state or, indeed, of any entity attempting to exert power and control over others. The concept of political authority is anathema to the voluntaryist.

In Part 3, we will contrast the state with voluntary democracy. We will consider the impact of rejecting the statists' political philosophy—they have only one—and will look at how we can move from the present violence of the state to a better alternative: a voluntary democracy.