The Outsider visits Anacapolis

In a hypothetical universe, there is a wealthy arcology called Anacapolis where almost everyone gets along and follows the non-aggression principle. Those who don't are pressured into restituting the victim for their crimes, lest the courts refuse them service for all future infractions or defense.

On one fine spring day, a jovial character named Rothbard, fashionably dressed in light summer suit and bowtie, was taking a stroll through the park with ideas for articles to convince the surrounding, and less wealthy, fiefdoms that the political non-structure of Anacapolis was surely the best way to organize their affairs. The people residing in the surrounding governments were jealous of the vast wealth of Anacapolis, but were not allowed to emigrate. Occasionally, they tried to seize land belonging to community members, but have always been successfully rebuffed by a combination of volunteer militia with better weaponry and threats of embargo by corporations based in Anacapolis.

At the same time, the alien Zorg was flying through the area performing a planetary survey for the Solar Federation to discover whether these primitive humans were a threat to central command. For a week now, Zorg had been flying over the various continents and hadn't seen anything at all remarkable. Mostly, he found the planet filled with rival nations that occasionally shed blood over issues of pride and insult. They had primitive vehicles that ran on oil, slow trains that ran on coal, all of which polluted the air. In performing his research, Zorg had to lurk in street alleyways order not to reveal his presence and discovered the city streets smelled strongly of urine. He just couldn't understand why the local governments didn't prevent these people from soiling their own pens.

Even the entertainment was broadcast on bandwidth wasting mechanisms at far greater power than necessary. However, that extra power was exactly what had attracted the attention of the Federation, in spite of the fact that it was easily decoded and not very much fun to watch. Finally, his week long survey of poor technology, filthy cities, and bad television was nearing an end.

As Zorg flew swiftly across this last continent for his survey, he noticed that the technologies were much better than on the rest of the planet. It piqued his interest why these goods hadn't made it to the rest of the world. Of course his government would have solved that problem long ago with a centrally planned travel infrastructure reaching across the entire planetary surface.

The sight of some extravagant architecture in the distance disrupted Zorg's thought about systemically solving that problem. How had these people afforded themselves such a monument to wealth? He rapidly moved his ship closer to land in one of their beautiful parks, near a lone figure ambling along and clearly lost in his own head.

Rothbard shook with surprise when he first heard the thunderous noise of Zork's engines. He'd been using this park so frequently, that he'd become good friends with Rockwell, the park owner. Rockwell had never permitted such a noise disruption as this craft was now making. And, in flagrant violation of custom, it was descending to land and ruin the grounds with its weight! Clearly, this must be some outsider. But the source of Anacapolis' wealth was its technological superiority, so who had created this flying machine? Rothbard certainly wasn't going to miss out on this hullabaloo, and shuffled off to a safer distance for the landing.

The craft deployed support legs and came to rest of the grounds. As Rothbard waited in barely-contained excitement, a platform descended, with a lone and slender figure standing at the top. The figure walked down the plank, and Rothbard eagerly ran up to be the first one to speak to this stranger. He decided to put his best foot forward and welcome the outsider, in spite of the damage he'd done to the park. "Hello, there! I'm so very pleased to be the first to welcome you to the community of Anacapolis!"

Alien: Hello. I am Zorg, and have been surveying this planet for signs of civilization. Your arcology stands out as being the most wealthy of all places that I have visited on this world.

Rothbard: That's strong praise!

Zorg: Take me to your leader so that I may get more information about this shining city.

Rothbard: Oh, well that's an interesting request. Of course, I'm my own leader. What kind of information did you want? Surely, I can help direct you!

Zorg: You mean to say that I have the fortunate luck of meeting the leader of this community, even though I chose the first park I saw of a size large enough for my ship to land? That's surely a coincidence! And what would you be doing walking in the park by yourself, rather than commanding organization in the central administrative building? Where are your attendants? Surely there are many for a city this size.

Rothbard: I think we have a misunderstanding. I'm responsible for myself, and follow whomever I think has good ideas. There is no single person "in charge" here. We have many people, each worrying about their own business. Together that adds up to the beautiful city you see before you.

Zorg: That's not possible. Your city shows more cleanliness, better technology, and other subtle forms of higher organization than the rest of the areas I have surveyed. This level of organization requires an organizer.

Rothbard: We shall have to discuss this a little bit later. I see Rockwell, this park's owner, approaching us with some enforcement officers.

Zorg (under his breath): Well at least now I can get to the leader through his police force.

To be continued...

Liberty on the Rocks: Orange County Launch in Fullerton

Last night I attended the launching of Liberty on the Rocks group for Orange County. I give you land lubbers my optimistic sentiments. This time I wore a bow tie after the fashionable Jeffrey Tucker and venerable Rothbard. I highly recommend dressing up when you go out for drinks, women love the extra effort. Next time, it'll be full pirate regalia!

Although I arrived late because the government roads congested with traffic and doubled by travel time, I thoroughly enjoyed imbibing with fellow libertarians at the Liberty on the Rocks event at Bootlegger's Brewery in Fullerton. For a reboot of a club that previously petered out, I was quite enthusiastic to promote the message of anarchy to a crowd of about 25.

On our side, we had an entrepreneur designer working on projects that promote the message of liberty, an couple enjoying their beautiful anarchy as far as they can, some politically minded folk from Young Americans for Liberty chapters both Fullerton and Irvine, a local Libertarian Party leader who invited us to switch our registration an increase their statistical weight, and many enthusiastic others. The introductions were brief, probably lasting only about 10 minutes, in keeping with my experience with the LoTR LA group. This schedule left much time for chatter about many topics.

The Admiral has some extreme views (statists think so anyway) and doesn't particularly act as a compelling spokesman to potential initiates in the world of voluntary cooperation. Anarchism is really and truly a grassroots program, and the energy I get from meeting these people is a wonderful oasis in the intellectual desert of our statist culture. Of course, the best part was not necessarily talking to the like-minded, but in the opportunity to argue with fellow statist commoners that happened to be enjoying the brewery at the same time.

For example, a few voluntarists from our group had been working on getting agreement with a local government employee, an EMT for the Fire Dept. The Admiral, in his counter-productive and unapologetic manner unfortunately ruined the recruitment. I stepped in, because I really liked the promotion of voluntary ideals, but the EMT found my position far too extreme. Curiously, with a poorly consider ad hominem attack, our government employed EMT accused me of milking the taxpayers with my tuition and half-of-minimum wage salary! Oh what amusement!

A union-loving democrat and his radical motorcycle-riding friend also regaled us with an inspiring tale! He had been riding on the 91 freeway and was passed by some reckless (well, by state rules anyway) cops travelling an exhilarating 120mph. Not to be outdone by the uniformed officials, and filled with rage from their flagrant hypocrisy, he sped up to catch these two uniformed and power indulgent individuals. They promptly performed their duty and pulled him over for reckless speeding, but he was successful in negotiating his way out of their victim-less crime ticket. Let this be a lesson to us all, we can all succeed in pointing out abuse of authority!

I think it's great to have these events in public places, because it's such a wonderful opportunity to spread the word in a grassroots manner. Though The Admiral comes off abrasive and extreme, indeed I take great mirth in decimating conversation norms, our more socially fluent can get others to hate the state, and encourage them to self-empowerment against the uniformed.

Liberal Libation

Today, The Admiral will be celebrating the ideals of freedom with some libations among friends. That's right, he'll be drinking some Liberty on the Rocks, in Fullerton.  An after-event report will be issued as soon as The Admiral re-acquires his land legs.

Leading by Example

All of the anarchists that The Admiral meets are peaceful folk that follow one guiding principle: The Non-Aggression Principle. They think it is wrong to use force to get your way. And they believe that it is a great sadness for us to fight with each other and use government force to mold society. They all recognize that the market enables lasting cooperation between people that have fundamental philosophical disagreements.

But these positive and optimistic anarchists are a rare breed. So we all follow the words and teachings of a few role models such as Walter Block, David Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and the venerable Murray Rothbard. We recognize the value of voluntary cooperation and of freedom. But we find ourselves in a land of statism. How best to promote the path we know is right?

Imagine for a minute that you are a serf during the Middle Ages. You look around and find a few things that are really awesomely cool, like that band of bards that traveled through last month, and the seasonal harvest festivals. You compare that to the king and his castle, and think: every year he taxes some of my meager wealth and I'm not allowed to say what he spends it on!

So you go to your friend, also a poor serf, and suggest to him: Why don't we have a representative democracy like the Romans did? We outnumber this king and his guards, we can band together and force him to change, to give us a vote on how we want our tax money spent. We eat well only during festival, and he eats lavishly every day!

 

But your friend knows only his own experience and isn't aware of Italian history. Just as today, the people I suggest anarchy to have known only statism and haven't read Rothbard in their statist school. Your friend ponders the proposal for a bit, and then points out that this democracy idea would never work!

For one thing, we've always had a King. Without the king we wouldn't have someone to lead and protect us. We would be disorganized without his leadership. And why would anyone want to step down from that role voluntarily after four years? King is for life.

Supposing that we were able to convince our own King that it is good for him to step down and let us choose a new leader, what would stop the new guy from staying in power? He'd control the castle guard. Sure he'd say all the right things for us to elect him. But I don't think he'd allow another election. Nobody would give up the power of King.

So you think you're proposing a peaceful election, but really we'd just end up fighting a bloody civil war with each other every four years. And what if you and I disagreed about who should be next, then we'd probably end the friendship because only one of us will be on the right side of that battle. The winner would gloat, and the loser would feel soured.

No, democracy is totally unworkable. I think it's better to just keep our King and pay him the taxes. He's doing a pretty good job. Don't let the roving merriment of the bards lure your mind into some kind of unrealistic utopia.

Of course, The Admiral has invented this tale with some analogies. The friend basically argues from ignorance. He can't imagine that any other system of governance than monarchy would work. So, he invents some justification for how the current regime should remain. And it sounds reasonable!

But anyone arguing for democracy today repeats these blunders. They can't think of alternatives, because no alternatives are mentioned by the media or state education system. Instead, we are all well versed in different aspects of centralized government: representative republic, direct democracy, and monarchy. Everyone (except my friendly anarchist compatriots) think that without government to rule us society would collapse. We need a narrative that shows otherwise!

An an anarchist, I'm proposing peaceful self-governance. Yet people think I'm proposing a total lack of law and order. But law, just as any other good and service, can be provided on the free market, for less cost and at higher quality than politically-oriented monopoly government. And order is simply the natural and spontaneously emergent sum of individuals cooperating with each other.

In a world of people that think "only one ruler for life" is the only workable alternative, they will indeed take sides between two uncertain princes and fight for one to be king. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Meanwhile, today, in a world of people that think "we need to vote for our legislature" is the only workable means of organization, they will indeed assume the necessity of government, and assign to it socially necessary goods and services, such as police protection, roads, law, courts, etc. Again, when people think they cannot make do on their own with each other, government becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And that's exactly why we need for anarchists to be vocal role models, walking in a different direction. Those following the non-aggression principle are a peaceful folk. Entrepreneurs, even when not specifically of anarchist mindset, can fashion alternatives to government services: Private security in Detroit, decentralized electronic currency like Bitcoin, and private education as reported by James Tooley in The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themselves.

With these successes, what can be accomplished when anarcho-entrepreneurs make it a point to out-compete government? Self-governance in its natural market form.

Anarchism and Self-Actualization

John Taylor Gatto

After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves. (Against School)

It took The Admiral some time to realize this, but Liberty and anarchism go hand-in-hand. By that I mean that when we take liberty, defined as independence and freedom from despotic control, to its logical extreme, we arrive at anarchism, the abolishment of government. It pays well to remember that anarchy, despite what the media portrays, is not the same as riotous, tumultuous, discord and destruction.

Think back to all the times that you were hanging out with friends in a public place. Did you notice the mass of people surrounding you were behaving themselves? That there was a complete and total lack of rioting? And did you notice the absence of police? How curious, that the majority of our lives are naturally spent in reasonable cooperation with total strangers. Does the government have to put a cop on every corner to keep people from becoming an unruly mob? Obviously not!

We don't need government nor its bully baton to get along with each other. The vast majority of people, in all cultures, simply go-along-to-get-along. We are social creatures. Were it the case otherwise, no amount of government (which must draw labor from the very people it governs) would be able to force cooperation. So government, as a mechanism of creating social order, is superfluous, for we naturally create an emergent and spontaneous ordering with each individual interaction.

So why then, do arguments about police enforcement carry such weight? Could it be, that we have a schooling system and mass media that consistently and persistently tells us that without them to tell us what to do, without their authority and direction society would collapse? Spend a day trying to spot all the instances where this message is implicitly written. The number will surprise you enough to turn off the telly.

But without the government to tell me what to do and advertisements to tell me what to buy, where would I get direction in my life? I'd be living in self-imposed anarchy! Which is really just to say: I now have to figure out on my own, what I think is best for me. Anarchy, especially personal, daily, anarchy, is about self-empowerment.

The biggest pity is, most people are so tuned-in to the authortarian message that they don't realize it's possible to tune out. That we actually, already live mostly in anarchy. So it's not hard to practice exercising control over your life. The government doesn't have the capabilities of tracking your life in every minute detail. It's reach and capabilities are still limited. The populace greatly outnumbers the police. Don't let yourself be pushed around by government, media, social pressures, etc. Their message is mental TAX that you pay for through learned helplessness. Obsequious obedience keeps you from realizing your full potential.


We don't need a bully to force us cooperate with each other. But the bully will tell us otherwise. The bully will make up scary stories to convince us we need him to protect us. But, if we give away the power to protect ourselves, who will protect us from the bully? Anarchism is about taking back from the bully what rightfully belongs to us.

Under anarchy, you direct your own life. You set the goals and aspirations that you want to achieve. It's a path of self-actualization. You get to set your value system, and take responsibility for your own success. You call the shots. And you can practice this power with every little decision throughout your day!

Anarchy isn't chaos, it's liberation that anyone can practice!

Overcome Stockholm Syndrome

Often in debates with non-anarchists, my expectations of a free, peaceful, spontaneously ordered society are met with great skepticism. I attribute this lack of imagination to the government indoctrination camps we are all forced through as defenseless children.

For example, in high school I partook in an AP Government course of United States History. For those not familiar with the Advanced Placement program, it's a statist invention that allows the more gifted students to take a course during high school followed with a test that counts for college credit, provided you receive a high enough score. I passed all of the AP tests I took except the government one.

At the time, the subject of government, particularly the lineage of Presidents, did not interest me. Now, the subject interests me in the same way that the gruesome carnage of a vehicular accident (somehow these always occur on government roads) attracts passing motorists. That is, I'm interested in government's numerous failures, inefficiencies, and manufactured emergencies. Fortunately, I can gorge my macabre attention with any daily news program. That's a market service!

But why would the high school, or more accurately the AP program, force knowledge of US history down my gullet? Instead of say, China or India, which both have 100 times longer history than the United States. They claim that it's important for me to know my heritage, but at the time I was more preoccupied with the future (and mostly still am). Yet, they didn't actually show me lessons that have ramifications today.

For example, did you know that all of the US Presidents that fought against central banking, or that tried to reduce its power have been assassinated? Is that coincidence or conspiracy? And it doesn't even have to be conspiracy, but merely self-interest. All it would take is a single individual with questionable ethics out of the affected group. Have you ever known a banker to willingly part from other people's money?

Or what about the introduction of the income tax? My parents and grandparents don't recall living without this kind of wealth slavery, but there was a time when America was a prosperous land without income tax. George Washington himself led an army against protesters objecting to an excise tax on Whiskey. (A tale beautifully recounted by Rothbard in When the Feds First Attacked the Americans) There was a time when nobody would take the job of tax collector because of social opprobrium.

I was taught to revere Abraham Lincoln as a political god that help to keep the union in tact. Whereas I now think of him as an exemplar politician, raping the constitution, violating human rights by suspending habeas corpus and imprisoning reporters, needlessly calling the country into war against itself, and stomping the basic sovereign right of secession. He even formed a special praetorian guard with initials SS. Lincoln is America's Hitler.

Ok, so the US government has an interest in all children learning a history approved by that same government. Any wonder these anti-government lessons were left out? Even in the "advanced" program I was fed mostly positive images of government, with outcomes of war written by the winners. An endless justification of criminally destructive behavior!

Also, my school didn't have any course with actually questioned the necessity of government. I was never introduced to Rothbard, Block, or David Friedman. I had to make these discoveries on my own much, much later! What I value most about my education, I cannot attribute to the state, but to my friends, myself, and my own relentless curiosity that somehow survived the indoctrination.

Sadly, I cannot say the same of those I talk to and interact with in daily life. They have been starved of these liberating ideas. And every time I suggest, even in one tiny aspect, that some service can be performed better through voluntary cooperation than through government coercion, I meet with desperate fanaticism, of the kind that can only come from 18 years of indoctrination. For the imprisoned so love the caves that protect them from outside illumination.

By finding this page, I know that your journey into mental freedom has already begun. Continue taking learning into your own hands. Don't trust the government school to accurately teach you the history of government.

Flush the state's deep programming from your mind by following a path of freedom and self-determination. Live your life as much on your own terms as practical, setting an example to others: the power of freedom!

Oregon's Educational Blunder

Last week, while I was out having fun and railing about the Authoritarian Lessons of Education, a statist education bill in Oregon passed through the legislative assembly. The advocates nicknamed it the "Pay-it-Forward Bill" because it aims to "replace current system of tuition and fees required to attend institution of higher education" (HB 3472), because the tuition fees are getting rather out of control.

I really have to hand it to these government types. They seriously think that the un-affordability of their public universities is comparable to the end of civilization. You don't believe me? Read the bill. They just added a section:

SECTION 4.  { + This 2013 Act being necessary for the immediate
preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency
is declared to exist, and this 2013 Act takes effect on its
passage. + }

According to the plan: residents of Oregon graduating high school will be able to prolong their childhood by attending, for free, an Oregon public college or university. But watch out! Any time he government gives something away for free, you know it shows up someplace else: "It's a TAX"!.

Sure enough, they plan to pay for current students by withholding a small percentage of income after graduation. Remember when I claimed that people coming out of a state indoctrination center are unable to imagine voluntary mechanisms? Apparently, I wasn't speaking hyperbole.

The bill’s passage did not result from a multi-year coordinated effort hammered out by elite policymakers. Incredibly, it started just this past fall, with a college senior project at Portland State University. The 6-credit “capstone” course was called “Student Debt: Economics, Policy and Advocacy,” and it sought to combine deep research of the history of student debt with the real-world experience of actively seeking potential remedies. “We wanted to propose a solution to begin to resolve the issue on the state level,” said Ariel Gruver, one of the 15 students. (Oregon Students Fight Back Against Debt, And Win)

Instead of breaking up the bureaucratic monstrosity that has led to higher tuition, these people, students even! want to double down. Graduates from this program contract to pay 3% of their future earnings for 20 years, so that the proceeds can go to pay for a new generation of state captured students. This sounds suspiciously like a scholarship, except that it's not discipline specific, so it doesn't respond to market demands for skills.

And the reporting on this program is full of optimistic nonsense. Let me poke some holes: What if graduates leave the state? what if they leave the country? Does an Oregon program extend to foreign income? What if they majored in something worthless and never pay back in because they can't get a job? or they get a job within the Oregon university system and leech the program for their entire life?

I see no reason why similar contracts, individually negotiated wouldn't achieve similar goals. I mean, my parents were able to secure students loan for their tuition. These loans were not as heavily regulated at the time, so the provider had to worry about default. Because of this concern, STEM majors had an easier time getting loans. Rates followed market demand for skills, discouraging abuse on all sides.

This Oregon plan doesn't have those balances. In fact, people with no understanding of economics think of this deficit as a virtue:

This [pre-tax payroll deduction] creates an incentive to choose a career based on personal fulfillment, rather than one that earns lots of money to pay down student debt. Income-based repayment exists at the federal level, but it’s a higher percentage of income (capped at 10 percent of discretionary income) and it merely pays off individual student loan debt. It does not have Pay It Forward’s element of universality, where everyone pays into the program and attends college tuition-free. (Oregon Students Fight Back Against Debt, And Win)

So Oregon is basically toying with implementing a universal income-based repayment (IBR) scheme, something I have been (probably excessively) advocating on behalf of for over a year.
...
Additionally, because a universal IBR system requires individuals to pay back a percentage of their income, it ensures that graduates that go on to more lucrative careers effectively subsidize graduates that do not. So, it is (in a sense) internally redistributive, which is a positive from an egalitarian perspective. Finally, because repayment is based on income, no one will find themselves overly burdened by the repayment obligation. (Oregon Is Doing Free Higher Education the Right Way)

So it's egalitarian to make others pay? To force the highly skilled that are now to subsidize the mediocre. To allocate costs to society, the same one that you claim to be saving! which now has to pay for the malinvestment in worthless majors! Oh but wait, this plan is approved by politicians, who probably did pick such majors, and journalists, who undoubtedly picked such majors!

Don't do it Oregon! Free (statist) Education is a TAX!

Breaking Free of Authoritarian Schooling

In the last few posts I've recorded some ways in which the state schooling system indoctrinates its victims to respect its authority, even when that authority is later abused. This system keeps most people subservient to government bureaucrats and politicians. Fortunately for you, now that I have pointed out only a small portion of the damage, you are ready to continue breaking out of their control.

Winston Churchhill

Schools have not necessarily much to do with education...they are mainly institutions of control where certain basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school.

George Bernard Shaw

My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself.

Today, we face an entirely different world than when government schooling was first invented. In fact, the primary reasons for its invention no longer apply, for the free market (as taxed as it has been for these last 150years) has delivered several mechanisms through which we can educate our children, each other, and ourselves. We can finally be free of the government lessons. We have the opportunity to think independently, and to nurture that skill in others.

John Holt

A person's freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take from someone his right to decide what he will be curious about, we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must think not about what interests and concerns you, but about what interests and concerns us.

For the parents of young children, I strongly recommend home schooling. There are many resources online that can help out. Using the internet for tight communication and sharing of ideas, many local communities have home schooling meetups. They trade off the burden of teaching and "socialization". They share learning techniques. It's an investment that pays off over time.

For example, I know one capable and self-motivated individual who learned his skills under the direction of his own parents. By the time he was in 9th grade, he could be told "write an essay on X" without any further direction. He'd internalized the self-correction mechanisms necessary for critical thought and independence. The government didn't hand him everything on a silver platter, or force him into maladaptive behavior like learned helplessness and fear of being wrong. Rather, he learned the most useful skill of all: how to self-educate.

Isaac Asimov

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

I often feel rather hopeless compared to those home-schooled, equally smart and knowledgeable individuals 10 years my junior. But it's never too late! Even as an adult you can give yourself a remarkable education. You simply have to take advantage of the materials available. These are both more plentiful and more accessible today than ever before.

For example, Scott Young, did some self-study using MIT's OpenCourseWare. In one year he did their entire 4-year CS program, and motivated himself using a website about the MIT Challenge.

MIT's not the only one. Some of my friends are using Coursera, Udacity, and KahnAcademy, just to name the biggest names. The only drawback seems to be a lack of credentialism. But these educational pioneers are working rapidly to solve that problem (and make a profit doing so). With many of these courses coming from the big-name institutions, like Stanford and Georgia Tech, you have very little reason to pay both the quarterly admission and housing fees plus 4 years of your life attending a brick and mortar. You can get nearly 80% of the quality at home, at your own pace, provided you have the self-discipline and diligence.

And it doesn't matter if you don't have credentials for the stuff that you learn at home. You can ussing the same medium that you use to acquire those skills, namely the Internet, to make a page that advertises your abilities! What employer would turn down Scott Young, after they see his page? Surely he's worth more, after a single year, than an actual MIT attendee after four years!

Stanly Kubrick

I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

So let go the statist mentalities that hold you back. Pursue the topics that most interest you. Set some plans for self-improvement, and work on your goals a little bit each day.

John Holt

Education now seems the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and 'fans,' driven in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to improve 'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves.

Self-realization, self-actualization, and self-empowerment are the goals of anarchy. And they all begin with self-education!

Authoritarian Schooling Lesson 3: The State Controls You

The lessons of Authoritarian School build on each other, just as you might expect of any cold mathematics. The first and second lessons reveal how the state teaches every child that it provides for them and knows better than they do what they should do with their lives. We shall now see how damaging the government schooling program can be. Every generation put through its mental grinder emerges without the creativity and independence that would make for a better world. But that independence, while valuable for society, is dangerous to the state, and must be systematically crushed.

The Third Lesson of State Indoctrination is that the state controls you. It can kidnap your children for hours each day. During that time it provides a structured environment that teaches learned helplessness and dependence on authority.

This lesson has a stark effect on both the children and the adults, nobody escapes its pressures. Through mandatory attendance laws, the state restricts learning opportunities to institutions that it controls and administers. Today, adults go along with these laws because, having been through school themselves, they can envision no alternatives. They are taught as children the first two lessons in a state-controlled environment and grow up to think that mass kidnapping is somehow OK, and even for their own good.

Wendy Priesnitz

The mere fact that most school attendance is compulsory reflects an attitude of mistrust of children and their desire to make sense of the world. In fact, if governments were really serious about their professed goal of developing, nurturing, and enhancing the intellectual and moral autonomy of the young, would they not have to abolish compulsory, externally imposed education?

I want to say that they give up their children because they fear the men with guns, but the reality is far more insidious. The kidnapping is mostly voluntary. But it takes some explanation to reveal the mental damage behind this poor choice.

Think back to your experience in school, and what you remember most from it. I'd wager the majority of your time spent could be summarized in one word: boredom.

Wendy Priesnitz

One of my early memories of school is wondering when they were going to start teaching me the things I didn't know, rather than what I already knew. Many years later, I began to understand how, insidiously, school had reinforced my inadequacies and had left me with what I now called 'learned incompetency' and a fear of not being able to do things 'right' the first time.

Ivan Illich

School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught.

The structure of the classroom wreaks an incalculable damage on entire generations. The lessons are arranged to hand out the tiniest morsels of knowledge. The state controls the rate of learning and sets it at the lowest common denominator.

Wendy Priesnitz

Because schools suffocate children's hunger to learn, learning appears to be difficult and we assume that children must be externally motivated to do it.

And the contrived appearance of difficulty convinces children and adults alike that they need the state to tell them what to do and how to think. Not coincidentally, once children have been starved of their intrinsic motivation for learning and exploring, they stop trying to do so. Inquisitive minds are destroyed by the regimented classrooms. Instead of practicing discovery the brightest minds either invent ways to entertain themselves, both productive and destructive, or they start playing the waiting game.

Wendy Priesnitz

The force-feeding process of schooling is so relentless that many students gag on it. They tune out or leave school, and in some cases, become permanently soured on learning.

Jean Piaget

When you teach a child something you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself.

John Holt

Children are born passionately eager to make as much sense as they can of things around them. If we attempt to control, manipulate, or divert this process, the independent scientist in the child disappears.

Students may be embittered by the experience while young, but are numbed by the time they graduate. Then, as parents, they think that this hideous, taxatious system of indoctrinations is the only way to learn. Even as they recognize, in the workplace, that they use hardly a fraction of what they still remember. Far better to build skills valued in the economy through vocational apprenticeship.

Seymour Papert

Nothing enrages me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn maths and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization…I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.

There can only be one conclusion about state education: It kidnaps children to train them to obey orders from uniformed police and smug politicians.

Sandra Dodd

Some people can't leave school because they're carrying it around like a snail and his shell. They live there, still. School became an ingrown, hard part of them. They still define themselves by their school failures and successes.

Wendy Priesnitz

Our schooling has led us to misunderstand the difference between the power to do something and the force that makes us do something. We were told one too many times to sit in our seats and listen, to put up our hands when we had to go to the bathroom, and to buy what we were offered.

So the state schooling system not only manufactures a willing compliance among the populace, but it simultaneously and systematically destroys self-initiative and robs the world of a great many explorers and potential scientists.

Agatha Christie

I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.

This loss affects us all, and in an incalculable way. I cannot begin to imagine how much more we might have in this world: more ideas, more efficient production, more inventive media, more imaginative entertainment. Fortunately for the state, this lost opportunity cost is unmeasurable. Otherwise, people would never have allowed it.

H. L. Mencken

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

Bertrand Russell

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

When the self-educated put it to task (the school's inculcates are taught to never ask), the state claims that this lost economy is the price we must pay to have an orderly society.

Laurie A. Couture

Schooling was influenced by the idea that self-directed learning created 'dangerous', free-thinking, intelligent people who would make sure the government never became more powerful than the people.

I call bullshit on the state's claims.

John Taylor Gatto

I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

Las Vegas

The Admiral in on holiday in the city of voluntary lost wages and enjoying himself immensely. The planned post on education will have to wait until the Admiral has either imbibed so much that he cannot contain his conviction on the criminality of state education or until he is sober enough to operate a keyboard properly.

Celebrate Secession

Today, the Admiral has to battle traffic on his way to celebrate the outcome of the American War of Insurrection. Being an anarchist, the Admiral is a strong fan of secession, and supports all groups around the world that wish to go their own way. Simply try to imagine, if you would, how small government (all governments!) would be if taxation were replaced with voluntary donation?

The ability to withdraw your financial consent is the most powerful check against abuse. So on this Fourth of July, even if you are not American, find a company, organization, or even just an individual, that behaves in a way that you strongly disagree with, and boycott them. Financially re-arrange your life so that you no longer support their behavior. For your ability to go your own way, to opt out, to defect, to leave, to quit, to defect, is the true power of anarchy, for it's the most powerful way to communicate your dissatisfaction.

Liberty on the Rocks, Summary of Discussion

So, I went to the Liberty on the Rocks event in Casey's Irish Pub in Downtown LA, and had a rousing bout of discussion. Naturally, the other attendees (about 15 of them, the largest crowd for this group so far) were mostly Libertarian. I did connect with some anarchists, and those who are almost anarchist, but wish not to use that label to avoid stigma.

I met a socially charming woman who studies law. She's more minarchist and thought that its a good thing we have a centralized system of Law and Order. I've been there believing the same thing myself, because top-down-tree organization with precedence is just so... right, so organized. The mental model is so natural. Plus the many years of learning state-based law in a state-sanctioned school. I think she may never have discussed alternative systems, and automatically assumed that without a court-of-last-resort, it would be anarchy! I cannot blame her for this neatness fetish, for I used to have it myself (and still do in some areas).

But then, about a year and a half to two years ago, I ran into some videos by David Friedman and learned about polycentric law. And found out that competing legal systems have so much more flexibility. And I don't mean that a judge gets to make up arbitrary rulings, because they would certainly lose their clientele, and fail in the legal market. Rather, I mean it in the sense that the laws no longer restricted to appeal to precedent. So rulings can adapt to cultural norms and expectations of the legal combatants.

Pretty much everyone there agreed that the government isn't needed for roads! And Andrew, the newly self-appointed organizer for the Liberty on the Rocks gathering for Orange County, gave me a neat joke: "What's the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist?" "About six months."

I did meet some detractors, who think that anarchism is untenable or unstable. That it wouldn't work unless everyone thought that way because all it takes is for one guy to raise an army, push people around, and take over. It's a legitimate fear, that I think David Friendman adequately addresses. But, even if events turn out that way, Anarchy is still worth a try anyhow. Because it's worst outcome is what we have today: Government, and that's a TAX.

Liberty on the Rocks

Today the Admiral will be attending Liberty on The Rocks in Los Angeles, where he will meet with others of like mind and we shall all freely indulge in some merry libation. A full declaration of the liberated mind and loosened tongue will be posted afterward.

Then, provided the dehydration of sobriety doesn't desiccate my squidly typing appendages, I'll continue with the Authoritarian Schooling Lessons.

Authoritarian Schooling Lesson 2: The State Knows Better than You

In the previous lesson, I simply showed how the state monopolization of Education makes my anarchic position sound alien. When I suggest that we should get the government out of education, most people think I hate education. They can't seem to envision any alternatives to state schooling. This reaction is not a coincidence, for they grew up in a state school and were not exposed to any alternatives. But it's because I care so much about education that I actually did some research on alternative systems.

I will eventually point to a few alternative systems, because they do actually exist and work quite well. But, before covering the vast universe of solutions, I want to explore more problems. More lessons learned in government indoctrination centers.

The Second Lesson of State Indoctrination is that the state knows better than you do what skills you will need in life. It has a lesson plan that stretches from birth to young adult. It and it alone is qualified to write on the tabula rasa.

Think back on your experiences with school teachers, and especially administrators. Did you ever meet one of these certified (insane?) education "professionals" who thought they knew better than you? Was it perhaps motivated by their own internment with the system? Next time you run into one of the self-congratulatory authortarians, catch them off-guard by directly questioning their position. Ask why those many years spent away from you (and your child) have any bearing on present circumstances. Ask why those elective education classes about topics different than the one under discussion are relevant.

But really, children are born learners! I mean, it doesn't take an extra-ordinary child to begin speaking by age 2, and pretty well by age 5. If one of these children missed kindergarten, would they not know their basic colors? Would they not know the names of some common animals and fruits? Seriously, the toddlers are soaking this stuff up from their household environment.

Linda Darling-Hammond

If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would memorize lists of sounds in a predetermined order and practice them alone in a closet.

Government lesson plans take knowledge and arrange it so that it reaches the minds of youth one tiny morsel at a time. The content is scripted into discrete lessons and delivered through a very unnatural format, where all the kids sit in neat rows and aren't allowed to move.

This setting discourages questioning of any kind. I don't have to conjecture that this design is a deliberate attempt to mentally malnourish us at the precise time we need knowledge and experience the most. I've read quotes from the designers of this mental slammer in John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education (you can read it free online, educate yourself!).

Grace Llewellyn

All the time you are in school, you learn through experience how to live in a dictatorship.

William Glasser

There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.

Carl Rogers

If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.

But what about the structure of the lessons themselves? Is it really true that all children need to learn the same things, in the same order, and at the same age? Will any system, that has such bureaucratic planning actually produce good results when fed strikingly unique minds, each looking at the world with fresh eyes?

George Evans

Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way.

Again, I did not attend any classes offered by the School of Education at my university, but I can only surmise that teachers exiting any government school actually think that a life in the day of a 7 year old can be scripted and planned. Preposterous! Anyone who pays attention to children, knows that their eyes light up when you present them with new and wondrous material. They instinctually want to learn!

John Holt

All I am saying ... can be summed up in two words: Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.

And where, of all places, do you think we were taught that lesson? But it doesn't have to be that way! Today, we have the technology that enables rapid communication of education methods. Technology that can put parents together as they each teach their own children. Technology that reaches into the dilapidated buildings of the third world.

Sugata Mitra, in his TED talk, Build a School in the Cloud, tells about how he has grandmothers in the UK can encourage children in Africa to learn and study complex topics like DNA. And the method of teaching is profoundly simple. You don't even have to know the material yourself. Just show a bit of interest, ask a few questions, give them time to explore on their own, and then follow-up by asking for them to teach you!

For the good of our own future, if not for theirs, let's release the children from these government camps of concentration!

Victor Hugo

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

Authoritarian Schooling Lesson 1: The State Provides

Today, in most of the western world, the State commands control of childhood education. I think this arrangement is a monstrous catastrophe. I know so, because their indoctrinations didn't completely work on me. Oh, it had an effect. They slowed me down considerably and I'll never recover the lost time or energy. But, I'm happy to be able to tell you all today about this particular tentacle of state control.

This topic will probably consume the entire week's posts. I'll talk about the work of Sugata Mitra and James Tooley, who both show ways out of the mess that I explore today. I'll talk about John Taylor Gatto, who worked within the system and has become a long-standing out-spoken critic of the evils that only government bureaucracy would invent. I'll even talk about my own personal experience, or at least what is still left in my memory. But before we get to all these wonderful conclusions...

Let's begin our navigational journey through the intellectual wasteland of statist training that's mistakenly referred to as education. We'll start first with the position of the state itself.

The First Lesson of State Indoctrination is that the state provides education. Without state systematization, learning would be in anarchy. People would have a wide diversity of experiences and the distribution of opportunity would be uneven. Therefore, we couldn't have common culture. Thank the state, it can provide for us a lesson plan!

Seriously, the teachers graduating from statist schools actually agree with this statement! They don't wonder about the roots of the training system. I see these indoctrinators suffering from such severe myopia that they can't imagine any alternatives. Despite the obvious historical fact that people learned from each other and shared knowledge before the state ever existed. Really, all the state does, all it can do, is stamp its approval on certain lessons. Little wonder that the first lesson is to respect the state itself.

Think of the DMV and the quality of service that you get there. Do you want your children to be educated by people with such low levels of commitment? If the government is really, actually, beneficial in providing this service, then why are children forced to recite the pledge of allegiance? What's the deal with teaching everyone the same material? If my child skips kindergarten will they really miss out and never learn names of the primary colors? Let's find some independent thinkers to see what they have said about government schooling. I've specifically mined for quotes that relate to the First Lesson of State Indoctrination.

Oscar Wilde

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

Maya Angelou

"My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors."

Mark Twain

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

Carl Rogers

“If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.”

Winston Churchill

"Schools have not necessarily much to do with education...they are mainly institutions of control where certain basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school."

Grace Llewellyn

“All the time you are in school, you learn through experience how to live in a dictatorship.”

And for the seriously condemning quotes, we turn our attention toward the Russians.

Franz Kafka

As far as I have seen, at school...they aimed at blotting out one's individuality.”

Ivan Illich

"School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is."

But what happens when you question this lesson? Being the staunch (and self-educated) anarchist that I am (wait, would any anarchists be proud to advertise themselves as state-educated?) ... I'm losing my point here.

Oh yeah. The other year I accepted a fellowship in pedagogy at my university, and took a class about teaching. So, though I may not be an education major myself, I have spent 20 years in state school and ended that sentence with a course on teaching. During one of the class discussions, I found that every single person there took issue with the term "for-profit education". They automatically assumed that the teacher was somehow robbing the student. Yet, simultaneously, they recognize the value of private tutors!

These fellow classmates, who aim to be university-level educators themselves, implicitly thought that "for-profit" was intrinsically bad. That education is so very special it must be provided through government. In spite of the fact that these people were also very interested in their own subjects and majors and each of them held intrinsic motivation for the pursuit of knowledge, they still rejected the "for-profit" label. I'm left to wonder, why learn? Is it not to better oneself? to acquire marketable skills? to use the knowledge to help others? in a word: to profit?

I'll let a brilliant billionaire, who funds a fellowship that rewards high school students for skipping college, so that they can learn actually useful skills by practicing entrepreneurship, answer the question in his own market-based way:

Peter Thiel

"A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It's like telling the world there's no Santa Claus."