As libertarians, one of the reasons that we crave the salvation that comes with a stateless society is because we believe that within humans is the same need that we see in every living thing and even every subatomic particle that exists in the Universe–this is the ability to allow for autonomy, self-direction and the respect that should come with this responsibility. Even if something is an unthinking atom, a beautiful lantana flower, or a large beast like the blue whale, what we can say for sure is that the only thing obstructing their paths in doing what they so please and dealing with these consequences are the regularities of nature and the interspecies and intraspecies competition that comes with being part of a dynamic Universe and thriving world. I want to go over the correlation that we see between such passion in the political sphere and how it could and should extend to our personal lives.

If this is the truth, if what we so crave is freedom from oppression that comes with somebody trying to usurp your self-ownership–which can never, in fact, be done because you always have ultimate control over your own body–then what sort of deductions can we make from this on a more micro-level. Is there a way we can look at the concrete relationships that we involve ourselves in and see the mirror image of the sort of ignorant conceit that we get so uppity over the state for claiming wherein they can direct our lives instead of ourselves?

In any life form, there is a balance between competition and cooperations. As human beings, we know that the division of labor and the benefit and amount of productivity that comes with doing this is of immense benefit; we know that in order to get somebody to enter into an economic transaction with us without the use of the force, we have to offer them something not only that they want but something that they value more highly than whatever it is we want out of the trade. I believe this in our romantic, friend and our familial relationships, we need to demand the same of ourselves and of the people with whom we associate. This is an idea that has been most flushed out by Stefan Molyneux.

Ask yourself how often you look at a statist and think, how do they not see that these things are harmful to their well-being and also hurt those around them? Why in the world would any rational person accept the sort of abuse that comes from this coercive mechanism in which you have no say as to whether or not you are interested in buying, or whether you are interested in selling, as in eminent domain? How in the world has nearly the whole of humanity decided that instead of having love and respect for one another, we should constantly have ourselves split divisively by theft, by being told you may not enter into what voluntary associations that you will, by being told that your idea for a product is unsafe, by having it adjucated that your feeling of anxiety or injustice are illegitimate when done a disservice by either the State or the corporations with whom they are in cohorts? How did we get into this sad affair and why do people continue accepting it?

Now, again, I ask yourself to look around at the personal relationships that you involve yourself in. When you are in a conversation with your parents or any of your loved ones, it is important to make sure that when they voice a complaint you give that completely autonomous person the respect and thought that they deserve because their feelings are not invalid, and you should ask the same of all of those that you associate with. Why? Because we learn to accept our place in the world through not the completely abstract notion of the state but in our day-to-day doings.

As children, we are taught pretty young that we are not autonomous, that our wants and needs shall be subjucated to the wants and needs and others. That is, “you have to share,” something when you were just told it was yours, and then we are told that they didn’t really mean it was yours but it was on lease to you until the gift-giver decides that you do not have the exclusive right to use and dispose of. We ask ourselves over and over again–isn’t the philosophy of ownership so very obvious? Where have we gone wrong? It starts here. It starts with children who are given something to call their own but then they are deemed “selfish” and “mean-spirited” when they would like to use something that they were told was their own. They must share.

Delving into this selfishness more, what a blessing it would be to grow up in an environment where you are told that looking out for your own interests isn’t something to be viewed as evil, it isn’t something to be viewed as an affront to your fellow man. Man is supposed to denote the most rational being that there is, that we can possibly know of, at least, at this point in our technological development. If we are ever to truly respect other creatures including those with whom we share a species, one thing is completely and absolutely necessary to recognize: it cannot possibly be wrong to look out for your own well being. Every animal in the world is built to do it, to take fight or flight when they are in danger, to gather food, call it their own, to sustain their bodies, to mark the boundaries of their territory through chemical trails or other markers, to protect their young. If they fail to make the proper decisions, there is a possibility if they are a pack animals–as humans are, but in a different sense–that they will be lucky enough to have those with whom they are intimately involved lend them a helping hand. So, why, if everything down from ants and all of the way up to orcas have figured out this need for self-direction can we, who are oh so very proud at our ability to defeat the natural world, still so out of tune with its obviously lesson of spontaneous order and self-direction? We grow up and we hear our desire and need to look out for our own well-being is selfish; but who else will do it? When nobody is around, do we not eat because another may need the food? How far does the idea that we owe our lives to others really extend?

But then, we do not get any better at this when we are older. Our parents didn’t know so they never taught us, so we need to make it our absolute duty to take and understand the gravity of the responsibility of being a self-owner and respecting others with volition and a life to live. If we speak to our friends and tell them that this life decision is wrong, not only as a helping hand to show them the right way to go but making them feel bad about their thought process, about their own rationality which they have to use to navigate through the world, are we not seeing this same sort of abusive mentality that we receive from the state? We are telling our friends when we do not just say “perhaps there is a better course to take if you think about it like X, Y, and Z” but instead say “that is stupid. I cannot believe your so retarded that you think that is a good idea” we are reinforcing this same idea of impotency in grasping and taking control of your own personal world that we so hate to see in our government.

Another thing that we see and these two go hand in hand is the idea that you have to live at the service of others and that there are a lot of possible things that you can pursue in your life that are what you will be told is “impractical” for whatever myriad of reasons can be coughed up–because, what purpose do they serve? Who do they serve and maybe even as far as how will that service you financially. There is the stereotype of somebody going to art school when their parents wanted them to be a doctor. Where do we leave people when we tell them that their goals, the things that give them the most purpose in life, the most fulfilling feeling, are not fit to be lived?

When you look at your relationships in this way, if we look at our relationships in the way that we view the state, we can see that this is these are the exact sorts of things we are infuriated by.

There are a lot of theories about how to Smash the State (before it Smashes You). I have argued before that the way to go about this is person by person, case by case. To show a person from their point of view and their concerns how it is that the state is the antithesis of life and change so essential to the Universe, is the proper way to go about it. We need to do not only that but have it reflected in our treatment of the person, personally. This does not mean only believing you can have an honest, thoughtful relationship with those who hold your same views. For all we know, this can be a two way path. If we show people what it means to be respected as a individual with their own goals, their own thoughts and believe that they are worth pursuing for that individual, and they recognize how fulfilling it is, perhaps it will be easier for them to see how the State violates this right.

Charles W Elliot once said that “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.”
It is hard to argue against that, books are the most patient and wisest teachers. We learn a lot deal of things through books, books are the building blocks of our ideas and though process. Books actually are the raw material provided to us by the precedent generations to use their experiences, knowledge and desire to explore better terrains of life. Books are not only the best friends; they are a challenge for us, a challenge to develop more, to beautify the ideas further, or to at least learn that, which already has been mentioned, searched, thought and quoted in the book.
Books give us a chance to look further, think forward, and create better and revolute the life to achieve new heights.
A book can change your life, giving you new dimensions to think forward and create your own ventures to relish and enjoy. A book let you live more than one life, it let you explore the territories of ideas you never had thought of.
Here, I will discussing some of the books that I consider most influential and mind boggling, that may change the ways you think, live and act in your life. These books are full of ethical knowledge and moral rightness; these books teach us to analyze the thin line between the “wrong” and the “right”.
No, I am not going to discuss some epic of some old religion. I do not want to discuss Vedas, Ramayana, or Geeta. I will not say that to be a true honest individual you need to read Quran or Bible. Rather, I am going to discuss some practical books with no affinity to mystique or irrationalism. It would be wrong to say that reading these books is essential. Reading any book cannot be essential for anyone. If all the books, all the knowledge that we use as raw material for our living, that never was discovered or created by us, but we got it all as our privilege to use and improve further, are destroyed some day, then also, human will not stop existing. They will not stop existing morally and rationally too. Rationality, or morality do not come through books, it ignites within your own. Until human does not stop using their mind to lead their life to better ways, books cannot be essential. Yet, books have their own importance. They act as the raw material to be used for making a better new world.
Therefore, here is my list of some of the greatest books I read since my childhood and found them most influential in shaping a world of my own and to letting me use my mind to create some or more. I am sure that anyone who will ever go through these books, will find him/herself more able to understand his/her own existence and will be able to understand the meaning of freedom, and life in a free society, free market.

The Machinery of Freedom: A Guide to Radical Capitalism: David Friedman

David Friedman, the freer son of Mr. Milton Friedman wrote this excellent work in 1973. Milton Friedman himself is known as one of the premier economist with Libertarian and anti-Keynesian approach. Yet, David Friedman is way apart from his father. One may feel that David Friedman learnt Economics not from his father, but from the Genius Ludwig Von Mises himself(UPDATE: Just to clarify, he did not). Machinery of Freedom contains a range 48 excellent essays that will not only entertain and provoke your mind to think rationally, but provide you a lot more to think and explore by your own. The essays are short and ranges from defence of property rights and private property to strictest modes of anarchocapitalism. He discusses the exploration of private law enforcement in a free society to great extent and provides a good look on the issue. You will certainly have a better understanding of a model of Free Society after reading the book. The wonderful thing is David Friedman seems to be hugely influenced by Ayn Rand. His assumption, that mostly people are rational and if someone is irrational, he will loose in the free society and the loss will be the teacher to achieve rational behaviour.

The Two Treaties of Government: John Locke

The founding father of classical liberalism or Libertarianism, John Locke still remains the most influential philosopher and thinker of all times. Although, his first treaty seems to be obsolete now, because the first treaty was the direct and vehement opposition to the irrational and obnoxious support of Robert Filmer to Monarchy who claimed that, men are naturally slaves and hence monarchy is the only justifiable government. The Second treaty of the book makes it a grand work. One can find the most systematic and logical defence of Individual Liberty in that book in such an inspiring way that will make you say that John Locke is way better than Aristotle.
The book was written in 1680, yet it is not obsolete. Even now, most of the governments throughout the world keep harassing individual liberty on the name of democracy. The book makes one learn the true nature of proper Miniarchy.

Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand

One can find no better book on Individual Liberty, Rationality and clarity of conscious other than this great Magnum Opus of Ayn Rand. Fountainhead lays the foundation of libertarianism and Atlas Shrugged stands on it as the basic structure of Free Society. The book is still one of the largest selling books throughout the world even after 53 years of its publication. The book is timeless, it will never die, it will never loose its shine and ability to make minds sharper, better, proper and rational. The book clarifies most of the dilemmas of a common reader living in a world where totalitarian governments are harping on controlling the masses, where the individual is faceless and individuality is curse. Atlas Shrugged shows you who is exploiter and who is being exploited and leaves you to decide whether you want to be the exploiter, or will you accept being exploited. The book prompts you to strike against the exploiters. The book fills you up with the energy and idea of liberty for your own self. Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are the best books one can ever read. Ohh by the way, have a reality check, feminists cannot accept these books. Ayn Rand has mocked feminism, just like all other form of collectivism, and being a woman, I am grateful to her for doing that.

Economics in One Lesson: Henry Hazlitt

Nothing can be better than this marvel by Henry Hazlitt, the American Philosopher and economist. The book has the potential to make you learn the actual economics of practical life and practical world in most easy way. The book makes you love economics. Hazlitt, through his immense simplicity explains how Free Market promotes efficiency and how government interference in market ruins the system and creates chaos. Time will Run Back and Economics in One Lesson are the two books that will not only answer all your questions regarding inflation, price control, minimum wages, unions and every other thing that influence your daily life, but will also provide you an assurance that the things can be better. The book leads you to start thinking and striving for Liberty to make world better.

Human Action: Ludwig Von Mises

Ludwig Von Mises is undisputable founding father of Austrian Economics. He along with Ayn Rand is the founding father of modern libertarian approach too. Human Action is the book that will clarify all the illusions about the stories of communism, socialism and collective welfarism. His explanation of Industrial revolution and 2nd world war and the economic effects of the situation are revolutionary. There are many who keep giving excuses for Capitalism and Individual Freedom, the frontier fighter for the sake of Individual Liberty and Human moral rights was Ludwig Von Mises.
He was undoubtedly the best philosopher of 20th century along with Ayn Rand.
In Human Action, he introduces Praxeology as the major foundation of social sciences and economic laws. He further ascertains that economic laws can only be arrived at by means of methodological individualism. He was vehement opponent of positivism, or materialism as a foundation of social sciences and morality. He was one of the truest Individualist, Rationalist and Objectivist. The major theme of all his books is inflation and monetary economics and the rational comparison between Free Society and Government controlled society. Once he said

Efforts to realize Socialism lead only to the destruction of society. Factories, mines, and railways will come to a standstill.

The failure of USSR makes him the sage who knew the future. His work on theoretical Business Cycles explains all the causes of repeatable Depressions.

The Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith

Everybody knows a little or more about this famous book by Adam Smith. He was the first to explain the importance of social distribution. His example of story of pin-making is used every now and then. People write a lot about the “Invisible Hand” and murk up the essence of the book. The book clearly states that government is redundant and it should let the market free.

The Animal Farm: George Orwell

George Orwell was one of the best Dystopian. His book 1984 is world famous along with Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World“. One can easily see how both of these writers used and criticized the Pavlovian learning and conditioning, and how they showed the world that the way it is going through will lead to certain destruction. Orwell used to say that 1984 was written to change the view of the people about the society they should try to create. The book is a masterpiece undoubtedly, but The Animal Farm is much better book on my scale. The Animal Farm is direct attack on the egalitarianism and collectivism. The Animal Farm, along with 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World” should be read to understand why government is evil, and why people should not sacrifice individualism for the illusionist welfarism.

The Law: Bastiat

Frederick Bastiat was one of the most prominent economists of 19th century who proposed and supported Laissez-Faire system and Individualism strongly. Amongst his all great works, The Law is one of the best. The book suggests the proper nature of Law and the role of legal bodies in a Free Society. The book was published in 1849, the same year when Frederick Bastiat passed away. The book suggest that the proper role of the law is the protection of Individual right, Liberty, defence of life and property. Bastiat and John Locke are the founding teachers of Property rights and Individualism; they are major inspiration behind all forms of Libertarianism.

Free to Choose: Milton Friedman

We started the list with the book of David Freidman on radical libertarianism; we will end with a book by his Father Milton Friedman. The Nobel Laureate, prominent libertarian and opponent of Keynesian economics discusses the Government sponsored education in this book along with many other issues. With his easy logic, he explains how and why big governments are a curse, a big problem. Obviously, he accepts that small governments are smaller “problem”. He shows that government-sponsored education is not improving and they cannot improve. The book is a classical approach for the defence of human freedom against the state.

There are many other books that excellently explain individual liberty and the reason to defend it; I might have missed a few of them. The mentioned above are those that I consider the best ones at the moment.
http://couplewriters.blogspot.com/

Using the political means in order to establish that the political means is inhumane and negates nature and individual sovereignty. You do not kill an innocent person to show a murderer that killing is wrong; you do not steal a persons’ property to convey to a thief that theft is a transgression.
Our means must be as worthy and beautiful as our ends. Different movements have tried to usurp governmental powers for centuries tried to “get the right people in,” or get the right legislation passed. As liberty-lovers, it is time for us to realize not only that this has never worked for movements in the past and that it is in the nature of the state to create conflict instead of harmony. As long as anything besides the economic means is available to someone, as long as they have to play in the game of realpolitik – their intentions and motivations can be as conducive to freedom as yours and mine are – but with coercion behind it, their actions will degrade their moral standing; but that to use compulsion and extortion to meet our ends will undermine our message and our movement.
We hear it said over and over again that you have to work from within the system, although there are no examples when this unquestioned mantra and no-need-to-be-proven system of dismantling the state is affirmed. If we look at any major political or apolitical revolution which has taken place in the United States, or over countries or throughout time, been done through the machine? We did not get civil rights, or women’s suffrage through becoming cogs; we did not abolished slavery, claim our independence or repeal prohibition by becoming part of the very thing that we are said to hate.
Not only is it ethically wrong to take hand in institutionalized force in order to deinstitutionalize aggression, it is also historically inaccurate to believe that this is the means through which we get back or take back what is rightfully ours – our right to own ourselves.
Anything that brings about dynamism and growth takes place within individuals, not through the regulatory state who binds us with their rules. It is time to take the message “to the people,” and talk with our fellows about why it is not only the most sustainable and viable economic system, but also that capitalism is the only system that allows for the personal and spiritual growth that we all crave. We continue to preach efficiency of the market but forget to mention what gets people at the gut: every system that isn’t individualism is morally bankrupt. I may argue and answer each detailed question on what it is that affects my life when I rail against the government, I may provide empirical evidence to show that things that are now traditionally prescribed to the states can be taken over by private individuals just fine like security, arbitration, trash collection, etc, but that is an awful approach. Let me explain why.
After starting with self-ownerships as the basic preference(I believe very few people would say that they do not own themselves) it isn’t very hard to show how any state action, especially those that suppress economic exchanges or personal freedoms, is a repression of themselves and their fellow men. As much as people want to believe that their preferences are objectively good, we need to make them realize that they cannot be. Between the billions or people on Earth and their innumerable different preferences, it is the height of hubris to believe that your choices should be imposed on every else. People believe in democracy because they believe that there can be an objectively good preference, and if enough people get to vote on it, that preference shall be chosen, but would anyone else like it if their own bodies, and their properties were conscripted in the name of a “moral good” that they couldn’t grasp and didn’t agree with?
Change occurs only within individuals. The innumerable benefits that modern man enjoys did not sprout from the collective will of some masses. Our luxuries exist because one man or woman was free to move and think outside of their preconceived notions of the world, and were able to feel safe in doing so.
This is not the philosopher kings. Humankind does not get a trickle down of their capacity for creativity through other people’s ingenuity. Each and every one of us has different characteristics and impetus to develop what we have into something that has a value to someone. Each of us has a different set of skills and because “Equality is what does not exist among equals” [e.e. cummings, “Jottings”] but this anarchy of abilities goes hand and hand with the chaos of preferences that we find among us. What is an artistic pastime to one person can be an adorning of my house which I am willing to pay for. While the steelworker who made a statue possible has benefited the artist by his productivity, that same steelworker can leave work at night, unaware and uninterested in the fact that a new sculpture now exists on a lawn of a person who gets the most value out of the day by surrounding herself with beauty, donates money to Doctors Without Borders, thus providing a doctor with the funds he needs to help people. A child that will now survive can go on to do anything, now with the ability to attain whatever value he holds the highest and even if it is a base desire such as becoming a porn star, which the lady with a new statue on her lawn finds despicable, yet has helped him through all of this. This goes on and on like this through out the whole economy.
This is not to say that we should not fight against the state, this is to say that there are better, economical means. Even though they do not live by the same means that individual citizens to, there is still one thing that they count on: the governed to give credence to them and endorse their validity. It is not the market, but there is something we can do about it. Prescribe only to voluntary relationships. Although tax protesting is more than many people are willing to sacrifice, there are other ways to do it.
In America, there are instances of neighborhoods getting together and asking their city to deed the street to them. The police officers/fire stations said they would provide “general services” to these communities, but I have not heard of an instance of which they were called upon. They use neighborhood watches in order to keep it crime free, and close the streets off at night. The people of the communities volunteer money in order to keep the sewage, lighting and paving of streets upkept. Yet somehow, they still survive. This is an economical impossibility for many people, but one of the many available.
The Black Panthers originally started as a group that watched the police who persecuted blacks by following them around in cars because they felt that the police were the biggest threat to liberty (although principally, the groups’ premises are easy to disagree.) There have also been many neighborhood associations that hirer and/or gather volunteers to watch communities for crime prevention which has been quite effective. If you can get such an organization going in your neighborhood for, depending on its size, $10 or so a month, you will eradicate the need for public protection.
As stated in my last article¹, there are many instances of private arbitration. There are many examples of this even in popular culture, especially in commercial disputes. Although the political establishment has done what it could to stop the growth in the criminal persecution sector, it has crept its way in. If there is a possible way to settle your disputes without coercive courts through one of the many third party arbitration agencies, such as the nations largest, the American Arbitration Association², who deals with “disputes involving, but not limited to, employment, intellectual property, consumer, technology, health care, financial services, construction, and international trade conflicts.”, opt for those. For those who are environmentalists, a very successful group has decided to purchase land from private entities in order to preserve it ³.
A lot of people are scared of anarchy, and are scared that without the state there will be some indiscernible chaos through the world. Many people learn only through demonstration, many people are hands-on learners. If we make it irrelevant through our actions, it will become so.
On top of convincing people that the coercion is unnecessary, immoral, and against the very principle that they are trying to protect, if we can show them that such practices can be dealt through voluntary relationships, only then we can win the war against the State.

1. Why a public judicial system creates corrupt incentives? Author: Amelia Vreeland, RFL [↩]
2. http://www.adr.org/ [↩]
3. The Nature Conservancy Conservation Easement [↩]

Meaning of Life

What is the difference between a dead or unconscious body and a living man?
One may say, it is the conscious, and that would mean that consciousness is life.
To be conscious means to be aware, so awareness or consciousness of what makes a man living? Consciousness of his needs to maintain and further his life and the consciousness to find out the ways to fulfil his needs actually makes a man living. That is, life is consciousness of needs, or desires.
Now the needs of a man or his desires are infinite. Man desires this, that, and something else again, also life is such a weave that to attain a desire and save it, he has to sacrifice some other of his desire. You can not eat your cake and have it too. If you desire for a house, you will have to pay the price for it, your desire to have a plenty of floatable cash will be sacrificed. You can eat a cake after paying say Rs10 for it; you sacrifice the desire to keep those Rs10 in your pocket.

Intellect

So what is that, which helps a man to decide which of his desires is to be sacrificed and which desire he should fulfil? One may say his intellect helps him decide which desire is more important, so does the intellect of a man masters his life.
Intellect of a man is his tool to estimate and understand the relative importance of various desires of his present and the future. As intellect is his only tool, it cannot be his master, rather it is his slave on whose loyalty, the success of his life resides. How his intellect does helps him find which desire is more urgent and needs his attention more and which desire he may sacrifice?
He uses his intellect to be aware or conscious of the varying degrees of urgencies of his desires. If a man does not have desires, he cannot have intellect too, because he will not have any need or purpose of intellect, even if he has some intellect he will never improve it nor will use it. He thinks to solve problems he faces in fulfilling his desires, if he has no desire, he has no problem and hence he does not need to think.

Throughout his life, he remains enmeshed between the struggles of various desires, and he tilts towards that desire which is most necessary. Like, a child may desire to play cricket today, while he has to face his mid-term exams next morning, as he wishes to gain good marks in exam, he may decide to abort the plan of playing cricket this evening. An elderly man wishes to buy a luxury car, so he decide to sacrifice some of his spending on some other of his desires to save money to acquire a car, a son wishes to buy a house, but he sacrifices his desire to own a house to save money for the desire to provide cure to his sick mother and so on. Ultimately, consciousness of desires is life, intellect is the tool of life and Desires themselves are the actual master of the man’s life.

“I“

Now one may say, desires are not the master; rather he himself is the master, or the master is I or me, or myself. How can one define “I”? What is “I”?
“I” actually represents totality; it represents a person’s body, intellect, mind, memory, imaginations and his desires in total at a given moment as a single unit. Without his body, he cannot define “I” he cannot remove his mind while defining “I” too and so on. When one say, “I” am running, he mean that his legs are running, carrying the rest of his body, his brain, intellect and memory with them, when he says, “I” am thinking, he means his intellect is thinking, his eyes are not thinking, his ears doesn’t think and so on. Similarly, when one say, “I” decide to do this now, what he means to say is, the urgency of that desire to be fulfilled is maximum at that moment relating to other of his desires. He decided that by experiencing the varying intensities of the desires he is aware of, his desires rules his decision, he uses his intellect as a tool to understand the order of the desires and then he acts in accordance with his desires to fulfil them. So, saying “I” rule myself is equivalent to saying his desires masters him.
Desires can be good, can be bad, a man can have desire to help others, a man can have desire for welfare of his family, or his locality, or his city, his country or whole mankind, he can have desire for love, prestige and self-respect, in all cases, it is his own desire to achieve which, he uses his intellect, thinks and acts, and hence in any case, he depends on his self, his desires, he remains selfish, his own desire becomes his motivating force.

Will and Will Power

Sometimes, people create a mystical illusion of spirituality by stating that to overcome your desires is the way for emancipation, or freedom. They further suggest that one may overcome his desires by the virtue of his “will” or “will-power”.
So what is will or will-power?
Actually, “will” is the synonym of the desires itself. What people ignore is the fact that to overcome one’s desires itself is a basic desire of his and that is his will.
What is the difference between an animal and a rational being? All animals follow their impulses, so do the rational being, yet there is a difference. An animal does not have the rational ability to be conscious of the varying degrees of his desires, he lacks the tool to signify the various desires and dignify the most important or rational one. On the other hand, a rational being have that tool to perfect his sense or conscious of the varying degrees of his impulses or desires. A savage is slave to his immediate impulses, he will not save for old age, and he will not think for better life (or improved conscious of desires and varying degrees), he has no tool to do so. While a rational being has that tool, so he thinks and relates, he experiences which desire is most important, or rational, and properly makes a plan to achieve it.
What happens when the intellect of a man fails to signify the rational degrees of his desires? In such situations, he often commits mistakes of varying degrees, and is vulnerable to undesired complications, because he has to pay the price of each of his desire. His life becomes a chaos.
Nearly all of his desires follows the same trend, he has to pay for a desire by sacrificing some of his other desires. For his desire of emancipation, heaven, spiritual pleasure, knowing the omnipotent etc, he sacrifices his other materialistic desires. That is, will, or will power indicates the exact desire, which that particular man has decided to be strongest for himself at a given moment with the help of his intellect, hence, will is synonymous of desire, and will-power is synonymous of the power of the desire, which masters the man at that moment.

Freedom

So if the desires inevitably master a man, what is the freedom¹ ?
Freedom (self-governance) signifies no restriction on the man to use his tool, his intellect to decide what desires he need to fulfil. Freedom is his natural right and necessity to lead a better life. His freedom is to be lead by his desires with the help of his own conscious (intellect) freely. It is his natural right because naturally, he has to pay for every of his desire to fulfil. Therefore, if he commits a wrong or irrational, he certainly pays for it, if instead of saving his desire of peace, security and honour, he let the irrational desire to rule him, he commits the crime and he pays for it, by loosing the social security, his rights, his freedom and so on. Without freedom, he cannot use his intellect properly, and that would restrict his progress, and reduce his thinking capability, his evolution and hence, freedom is his most urgent desire.
Conclusion: Man is essentially a set of desires, his life is his consciousness of the varying degrees of his desires, his intellect is the only tool he possess, to distinguish the rationality of varying desires and chose the appropriate action, his will, or will-power is the exact desire he feels to be fulfilled at any particular moment, and his freedom is his most urgent desire. Overall, its nothing, but only desires, and no one can be free of desires, as to be free of desires itself is a desire. On the other hand, a dead or unconscious body certainly have no desire or consciousness of desires. More complicated the sets of desires a man feels, more improved he becomes, his conscious evolves, his intellect sharpens and this is evolution² of desires.

1. Meaning of Freedom, ReasonForLiberty [↩]
2. Moral Degradation of Modern Society or Moral Evolution, ReasonForLiberty [↩]

Decades ago, our forefathers fought for their and our freedom against the odds of kingdoms, feudalism and the foreign rulers. They fought on the premise of the rights of man as they said, “Self-governance is an individual’s birthright” and expressed the concept of self-governance as the inalienable right of an individual to his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. In those days people knew the essence of liberty and self-governance, not only those who expressed them but also those who heard, appreciated, accepted and subscribed to the words of liberty and self-governance knew what those words meant. They knew the essence of freedom is “life free and secure from coercion and tyranny, in which all individuals would have the liberty to pursue happiness”.
They were clear about the word “pursue”, they did not mean just to trail happiness but to work for it and earn it, they knew that happiness is not just pleasure and idleness but it is peace, dignity, independence and self-respect. They knew that if self-governance is a birthright, then self-dependence is the responsibility, they knew the importance of self and thus the fight for freedom was the most virtuous, holy, selfish and clear concept for them. They understood that individual’s inalienable right is the peace and freedom in which, by his own efforts and hard-work, he could gain dignity and self-dependence owing nothing to any person and hence be liable for self-governance.
Freedom means the absence of the initiation of physical force or absence of any form of coercion. Physical force means damaging, injuring or otherwise physically doing something to or with the person or the property of the person against his will, or a threat of doing any of these things.
When one has freedom, it means that he is free of or free from the initiation of physical force by other people in any form including the form of majority rule or government, as for example, an individual is free when he is free from threat of being murdered, robbed, beaten, assaulted, kidnapped, imprisoned or defrauded. Fraud essentially represents a kind of theft because it means taking away property against the owners will. As for example, if a realty dealer sells you a piece of land, which someone else owns without his will and takes money for it, he is guilty of force, as he took money from you for something he does not own and hence cannot give or sell you.
The idea of freedom is based upon the shear fact that independent people living on the principles of rational self-interest (i.e. selfishness) leads to a harmonious progressive system where one man’s gain is definitely not the other man’s loss, rather it is the basis of the gain of other men. The free society represents a system not as an entity over and above the individual, to which he “must” sacrifice his self-interest, but an indispensable means within which an individual can fulfill the ultimate ends of his own life and happiness. The concept is based on the principle of “man is an end in himself”, that the individual and his freedom is the superior entity than the system itself. Individual rights, the right of an individual to his life and property to pursue his happiness represents his freedom. Individual rights guarantees that an individual won’t be restricted by any physical means to pursue his living and happiness, that he is free to work and earn and use his full earnings in whatever way he likes and that he owes nothing to anybody and nobody owes anything to him. Such a system favors the mutual agreement for various dealings worthy for better living providing maximum possible space for pursuing self-interest and happiness for which the individual work, toils, innovates, and enterprises.

The system of such society, where the man is free to govern himself cannot interfere in the life and realms of neither an individual’s life nor it can dictate the rule and terms for the possible mutual agreements and dealings. Such a system represents a free market society where each and every man is free to govern himself and is free to use all his potential and talent to live, work hard and earn and pursue his happiness.
It should be clear that freedom strictly means economic freedom along with political and religious freedom, because without economic freedom, freedom neither can be defined nor it can be explained. Thus, in a free society that provides sovereignty for every individual and a harmonious atmosphere for having mutually beneficial contracts, any individual or a group of individuals representing the government will not have any sort of interference in the economic sector, that is, the government will not interfere in education, agriculture, health-care, public services, industries and other productive activities, the government will not control the money supply and create the business cycles of booms and busts. Government would not enforce quotas and reservations, provide taxes and subsidies, rather it would be left free for the market ruled by the individuals and their mutually beneficial agreements because that is their right, right to govern themselves and decide for themselves freely.

In true sense, in a society that promises complete sovereignty for the individuals to self-govern, there would hardly be any need of government, as the individuals would be governing themselves, they would be free and responsible enough to look for their individual and mutual self-interests.
The right to self-govern, the right to be free doesn’t mean that there would be a superior entity in form of government providing free education, free health-care, free food for everyone, that would not be freedom, rather it would be slavery.
The right to self-govern strictly means the right to be responsible, responsible for one’s own life, progress and happiness, owing nothing for anybody else.
A free man cannot demand quotas and reservations or subsidies; a free man would not pay any price too for his living and pursuing his honest life. A free man on the other hand would be vigilant, honest and hardworking enough to earn his own rightful living, his own health-care plans, he will decide what to learn and how, what to grow and produce and he will have the right to decide to sell his products or services to others and get the mutually agreed prices. He will have full freedom to work and make his fortunes for which he would not need any license. In a free society, all individuals will have equal freedom to use their talent, mental caliber, physical capacities to make wealth, but the results of their endeavors will depend on their caliber and standard of their efforts. A free society cannot be the society of equals; rather it would be rationally based on the division of labor, that is, the system in which the individuals lives by producing, or helping to produce, just one thing or at the most a very few things, and is supplied by the labor of others for the far greater part of his needs for which he pays rightfully. The prices of the goods he produce and the goods he needs to fulfill his needs will depend on the marginal utility of the goods.

Such a society would be free from the “irrational self-interest” as it would be thoroughly dependent on the rational sense of self-interest with complete freedom for all individuals to pursue their “rational self-interests” freely that is their won’t be any governmental interference in the market to provide special privileges, quotas, reservations based on religion, caste or sex, there won’t be any government subsidies, price supports, tariffs, licensing laws, exclusive government franchises, labor-union privileges, immigration quotas and the like.
Freedom is a natural right, as the responsibility to be self-dependent is natural. Self-dependence means one will not be demanding anything from anyone else or even the government, rather he would be working to earn for it and as he would earn it, it would be his right to enjoy his earning.

Licensing system, state governed education system, state governed currency system and state backed paper-currency, reservation and quota policies, health-care policies, subsidies, price-control, tariffs and like all comes as the physical force against the individual as all such acts are strictly the acts of fraud. In a free system, an individual would have complete security from such governmental frauds.
In the current system, the representatives of the majority decides for the individual, and individual remains a slave for the majority law, paying for it and obeying it, this is not freedom.
We, the children of our ancestors who fought for the independence considering the right to self-govern as every individual’s birthright, actually have forgotten the real sense of freedom that is why we consider ourselves free and accepts the current form of government to rule over us. We never got that right to rule ourselves to decide for our own hard-work and its consequences, rather our ruler and the system of ruling changed and we remained under the slavery of government, interfering in the market and our lives as it wished. We did get the right to choose our ruler to govern us as in form of democracy and political freedom, but we never got the right to govern ourselves, that is, we never got the freedom for which our ancestors were fighting.
It is the time for us to be responsible, to assert that we as individuals are capable of responsibility and freedom, of fidelity and endurance and courage, that we not only can distinguish good and evil but we can individually choose good from evil as it would necessarily be in our interest, that we strictly do not need government to rule us, to tell us what we are capable of and what we are not. It is the time for us to resist the control of government over the individual and call for the sovereignty of the individual and his inalienable natural right to govern himself to pursue his self-interest and happiness.

“I”

‘I’—am the witness. Witness of countless creatures passing by….
By the hazel spread of this sun, ’I’ exist.
Perpetual! In this perpetual light…
My broad, sturdy branches—complement my being.
I look up to the sky and it resounds—sky is your limit!
Every shred of my structure—a life giver.
Passing days—they are calm and I like spending time with them,
I can see—“see through” things.
I laugh…
Under the same sturdy branches, I witness virtually all gamuts of emotions—Broken hearts, meeting hearts, success’, failures, vows, maturing thoughts.
All blossoming and withering right under me. I smirk at it, I laugh and then suddenly I am drawn towards myself—and I am happy again!
Myriads of “colours” pass by me without even noticing me; except a ‘few’…
And to those ‘few’ I know, I give courage…
Courage—to face a lifetime.
Those ‘few’ who stop by to notice me are my epitomes. My alter egos….
I smile again, looking at them; those eyes, those beautiful, pristine eyes watching me and they give me—sheer pleasure.
Pleasure of watching them. The same pleasure which they derive, watching me…
We don’t talk but we understand a lot.
A reverence we pay to each other…..
I look back at myself and here again I am reaffirmed that Life holds new opportunities in the form of those ‘few’ and that Life goes on and that Life sees ‘Colours’,”Colours” don’t see life..
‘I’— am the world, ‘I’-am life,’I’-am complete.
I am I, the Individual.

Stefan Molyneux in his book “On Truth-Tyranny of illusion¹ ” covered a whole lot idea of Voluntary and Involuntary relationships properly.
We also had an article by renegade division” here on same lines.²
The idea makes sense, if it is properly understood; otherwise, it can create further illusions.
The idea suggests, “You do not have any liabilities towards your parents”³ because it is an involuntary relation for you, although for your parents, it is a voluntary relation, hence they have a certain duty towards you, which they accepted voluntarily.
As a matter of fact, it is right and basic principle of the concept of children right.
Yet, we should understand that there is no such written contract to be enforced on the parents. OK, accepted that it is their voluntary choice to have babies, and hence it is their rightful duty to take care of their babies, but we cannot force such duty for ever, and there remains a need to limit the right of children over parents.
That is, even children have only a certain degree of rights on their parents. Your parents have full liabilities to take care of you until you reach the Age of Consent.
That is, once you reach the Age of Consent⁴ the parents can say you goodbye, it is their right, the right to disinherit. Furthermore, we have discussed that there can not be any fixed “Age of Consent”⁵ , and any such question if arise then each case should be appraised independently without establishing any dogmatic law of “Age of Consent”.

Child Marriage

There is another twist in all this, parents are free to choose what sort of upbringing they provide to their children, one cannot force any sort of necessities on parents. As for example, one can suggest that providing health boosters like Bourn-vita or Complain, parents can remove any fear of malnutrition for their kids, yet there cannot be and should not be any law, which makes it compulsory for the every parent to provide Bourn-vita, Complain, Boost, or any other sort of tonic for their kids.
That is, although parents have duty towards their kids, the nature of duty is not forcible it is voluntary. Similarly, a couple may decide to send their kid to the best schools of their city to get education, other couple may decide for home-schooling, and some other couple may decide for alternative-education to provide certain skills to their kids.
In addition, there are child’s rights, which suggests that parents cannot make any such decision regarding their kids which essentially need a personal able consent of the child, as for example, if parents decide to marry their child, it is against the child’s right, child marriage is not proper, because it will be child’s freedom in future to decide for his/her sex partner when they will be able to make meaningful decisions with consent. Thus, although parents are free to decide how to grow up their kids there are certain restrictions in form of child’s rights.

Can Parents sell their Parental Rights?

Yet, if because of any circumstantial condition, a couple want to trade their parental rights over a kid to another couple fully or partially, can we stop it, or should we stop it? That is, if a couple want to sell or give their kid for certain/any reason to another needy couple who is ready to adopt a child is it legal?
Basically, any couple or single mother have this right, it is nothing different then the right of a woman to provide services as a surrogate mother, or as a foster-mother, mid-wife or second-mother.
Thus, although parents cannot force child-marriage, they certainly can decide to give their children to other couple/parents, just like Vasudev and Devaki decided to let Nand and Yashoda adopt their child Krishna.
Thus, we maintain that although parents or a single mother can sell their parental rights fully or partially to another couple according to a contract without worrying for child’s consent, they cannot arrange a child marriage. This is because of the fact that our relation to our parents is already involuntary, we cannot choose them, although a marriage is not an involuntary decision it is voluntary choice and hence, parents cannot enforce child marriage or even arrange marriage, although the children after growing up may opt for having an arranged marriage voluntarily.
Now one can raise the legitimate question that what will happen if this assumed right of parents to sell their parental rights and duties partially or completely to other couple is used to facilitate human trafficking or prostitution or child labor.
My question is, just as a parent can invigorate, exhort and inspire their kid to study and try to be an engineer, doctor, cricketer or teacher etc, if some parent decides to teach their child to be a belle dancer, or a bar dancer, an actor, a porn actor or even a prostitute, can we oppose it? Can we oppose if a couple want to teach their kid agriculture techniques, shoe-making, shopkeeping, trading, or sculptor making, or painting? How can we oppose it, and why should we oppose it?
I support the idea of freedom to kids, the idea of Montessori schooling⁶ , but no law can stop the parents or peers to provide a certain taste to be developed in a child, which may/may not decide his/her future. It is parent’s voluntary choice to provide free healthy upbringing of the child, others can provide awareness and help voluntarily, there can be and should be no compulsion.
Since we cannot stop the original parents to induce certain tastes in their kids, nor it is our duty or right to interfere in anybody’s family, although we can make common statements, articles and advertises against anomalies, hence we can even not stop a couple to give off their kid to anyone who will facilitate such acts. Yet we can stop any paedophilic action based on individual case study of the issue to look for age of consent. That is, although a couple is free to trade off their parental right, child rights remain intact and protected.

Child Labour

Now there again erupts the question of child labor. If we can oppose pedophile actions and make laws against it, why cannot we make laws against child labour?
The issue is of the differentiation of various works categorized as per the risk involved.
We can make laws against child labor in dangerous or more risky zones of work, yet we cannot stop child artists from working, we cannot stop child painters, musicians, dancers, singers, actors, players etc from working, practicing, performing, that is their basic education. We cannot stop a child from working at a tea stall or a hotel or even at home. We can certainly stop a child to work in risky industrial works and other sort of risky works involved including sex-works, yet again, here also we will have to study each case with unbiased perspective to check for age of consent.
My intentions with this article are to raise the issue of freedom of parents about how to raise their kids, my intentions are to raise this issue towards the gender inequalities and issues of inheritance.
We have maintained that although parenthood is a voluntary relationship, parents are free to choose about how to grow-up their kids, kids do not have much to say about that yet, can children demand any inherent right in parental property?
The only right an Individual possess is right to live free, he cannot have any such right as to own a property without earning it or getting it freely gifted for him. Thus, parents possess the right to disinherit their child after a certain age of consent⁷ .
I will discuss the Indian laws of inheritance and the parental right to disinherit in next addition and my intentions will be to raise the issue against son or daughter’s right to demand partition of parental property.

1. On Truth-Tyranny of Illusion, Stefan Molyneux [↩]
2. Tyranny of Involuntary Relations, Reason For Liberty [↩]
3. Tyranny of Involuntary Relations, Reason For Liberty [↩]
4. Age of Consent, Reason for Liberty [↩]
5. Age of Consent, Reason for Liberty [↩]
6. Montessori Schooling and Peer Pressure, Reason for Liberty [↩]
7. Age of Consent, Reason for Liberty [↩]