I posted this answer:
It’ll take a little doing to unpack the fallacies and contradictions in the question.
To begin, Capitalism is more than simply “voluntary exchange.” Capitalism is integral to a broadly free society. So for now I will use the broader term “voluntarism.” I will get back to the narrower economic term “voluntary exchange” later.
Any society has laws that restrain voluntarism—even a fully free society. You can’t, for example, voluntarily decide to disregard traffic laws, thus endangering other drivers. In the broadest philosophical sense, if you want to live in a society, you must obey the society’s laws, which are by nature backed by the police power of the state. So you can’t simply “volunteer to not be part of the system”—that is, wantonly disregard the laws—if you are a civilized person. You’ll end up with fines or in prison.
Government is the one institution in any society that has a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. Both socialism and Capitalism have governments. So what we’re comparing here is two types of social systems that feature two different legal applications of physical force. The two types of force are, defensive and offensive. Offensive force can be symbolized by a street thug pulling a stickup. Defensive force can be symbolized by the cop that comes to the rescue of the victims of the street thug.
Both types of government use defensive force. Capitalism features a government that uses force only in defense and only in retaliation against those who initiate its use. While both socialism and Capitalism use defensive force, socialism uses both defensive and offensive (aggressive or initiatory) force against its citizens: In other words, Socialist government protects its citizens only from the private thugs. Its government officials, acting as representatives of the state, are outside the law, taking people’s freedoms at gunpoint (the threat of arrest and incarceration) for its rights-violating collective purposes (wealth redistribution, regulation, controls) regardless of whether the private citizen consents or not. Capitalist government * uses only defensive force, and it constitutionally subordinates its government officials to the same laws as it applies to private citizens. In other words, Capitalism not only protects you from street thugs. It protects you from the government ever becoming the street thug.
In practice, a socialist government is one that empowers an elite (elected or not) to use the coercive legal machinery of the state to force people into its collectivist programs. You can’t “simply volunteer to not be part of the system.”
Capitalism is the opposite of a socialist system. It’s government protects each individual’s inalienable right to make his own choices, and only steps in against those who violate the same rights of others. In other words, a socialist government is predominantly an offensive force, coercively subordinating the citizen to state interests. A government in a Capitalist society is strictly a defensive force -- an agent of the individual’s self-defense, a protector of individuals’ rights to pursue his own interests. That is the political difference between Capitalism and socialism. It’s a fundamental moral difference. It’s a difference in the legal application of physical force.
Capitalism is the banning of the initiation of force from human relationships, including in the relationships between government and the governed. Returning to the economic concept, “voluntary exchange,” there is no other legitimate kind of exchange. Any method of exchange other than voluntarism is the method of a criminal. Voluntary exchange is the absence of force. To say it is “a violation of voluntarism to force capitalism” is nonsense on stilts. “Forced Capitalism” is a contradiction in terms, because forced voluntarism is a contradiction in terms.
Let me add, for further clarity, some real life context. Voluntary socialism—socialism separate from the state—is perfectly compatible with a Capitalist society. Fortunately, there is ample historical evidence for this fact. The Communistic Societies of the United States; Harmony, Oneida, the Shakers, and Others by Charles Nordhoff and History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes, both first published in the 1870s, feature first-person accounts by the authors of their experiences living in and/or founding voluntary socialist societies within the American free market system. Socialism separate from the state can, does, and historically has, existed—even in history’s pioneering Capitalist bastion, the United States of America.
Under Capitalism -- that is, in a free society -- people can form socialist societies or associations through voluntary consent. Like-minded people can voluntarily transfer, by mutual agreement with others who choose to join, their “voluntary exchange” or other freedoms as a means of personal support to a central authority representing the collective. But that is a voluntary contractual agreement. What people can’t do in a Capitalist society is to install, by vote (democratic) or other means, a socialist government to force others to give up those freedoms. People can volunteer to not participate in the Capitalist system, within the confines of the society’s rights-protecting laws—that is, as long as they leave all others free to pursue other values unmolested. You can’t say the same about state socialism. Just observe the myriad socialisms of the past century, from national socialist nations like NAZI Germany or Fascist Italy, to straight-up Communisms like Soviet Russia and Red China, to hybrids like Venezuela.
As to “what is wrong with people democratically electing a socialist government?”—plenty. Such a process means the majority is forcing the minority into socialism. There is nothing voluntary about majoritarian tyranny. It’s just another example of how democracy unconstrained by constitutionally protected individual rights—so-called “pure” democracy or democracy fundamentalism—is just another form of totalitarianism. Democratic socialism is just as immoral and illegitimate and hostile to individual liberty as fascism, communism, theocracy, monarchy, or military dictatorship. An elected legislature can trample an individual’s rights as easily as any dictator can.
* [Or to the extent Capitalism exists: Today’s “capitalist” societies are in reality mixed systems.]
For more of my thoughts on this, see my essays Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society and QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’. Also see Foundations of a Free Society. Also compare through these two essays:
What is Capitalism?—Ayn Rand
What is Socialism?—Robert L. Heilbroner
Both Rand and Heilbroner are consistent, honest advocates of their favored social systems. As you will come to understand, Capitalism is the “laissez-faire” system, leaving peaceful, rights-respecting citizens free to pursue their lives. Socialism, as Heilbroner readily acknowledges, is incompatible with personal freedom, including freedom of speech.
Related Reading:
QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’
Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter
QUORA *: ‘What makes someone a socialist?'
On ‘Capitalist Government’ and Corporate Bailouts
Socialism's Totalitarian Nature Cannot Be Obscured by 'Democratic Socialism'
Democracy Fundamentalism vs. Americanism
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