September 09, 2022

Ep 291: Jack Lloyd on Consent, Trauma, & Voluntaryism

43 minutes

Jack Lloyd, a libertarian voluntaryist who's been promoting the liberty message for over 15 years, speaks about his new book, The Definitive Guide to Libertarian Voluntaryism. He provides an introductory explanation to this and other terms including the anarcho-distinctives: anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-communism/socialism, and why he prefers the term libertarian voluntaryism. Like many libertarians, Lloyd grounds his views in the libertarian principles of self-ownership and non-aggression, but seeks to add an additional layer in the voluntaryist element, namely, answering the question of how we make manifest consent and account for what he calls ethical apartheid.

Lloyd describes a more psychological understanding of how we got to this point with the state and civil governance. He identifies public schooling as a primary source of real, legitimate trauma in the lives of Americans, which results in very real problems in our decision making processes as we become adults. This underlying problem, Lloyd believes, explains why it usually takes a psychological shock to "wake people up" to the reality of what is happening with government and society today. Lloyd insists that we can't be "lukewarm" in our messaging; it's either the hot and energizing or cool and refreshing messaging that motives people to rethink things and take action toward different goals.

In addition to these foundational principles, Lloyd touches on some other topics important to libertarians: animal rights, environmentalism, and children's rights. While many of us have emotional attachments to our pets and other animals for any given number of reasons, Lloyd explains how an ethical system concerning human justice cannot meaningful translate to one upholding a category of animal rights. Certainly, this isn't to say that animals should be treated poorly, but that it doesn't fit into a framework of justice in consistent way. More broadly, problems arising from environmental concerns are best handled in terms of specifying particular property rights, rather than painting in broad strokes.

Lloyd also mentions children's rights. As a former juvenile defense attorney and government school teacher, Lloyd has a passion for children and the trauma, however unwittingly, they're put through as children and the impact that has on their adulthood. He's also sober-minded in approaching the relationship between parent's and children's rights, being careful to adhere consistently with the libertarian principles of self-ownership, non-aggression, and taking into account their developing capacity to meaningful consent. This includes regarding children as self-owners in their own right, not chattel property, but that their parents have the highest claim of guardianship, not the state.

Finally, Lloyd doesn't want to leave people hanging with the answer to "how do we get there?" How do we achieve a voluntaryist form of civil governance? He briefly explains his idea of not-for-profit government, and taxation is not the proper way to fund it.

Main Points of Discussion:

00:00 Introduction

01:22 What is Libertarian Voluntaryism?

06:44 What are the foundational axioms of Libertarian Voluntarism?

10:36 How do we maximize the reach of our liberty message?

14:36 How radical do we have to be in our messaging as libertarians?

19:28 What about animal rights and the NAP?

25:04 Can a libertarian voluntarist be an environmentalist? If so, how?

29:36 Do we owe a duty of non-aggression to other humans yet to be born?

33:38 What about the children?

38:34 What is the not-for-profit government model?

41:12 Concluding Thoughts