The question does not define
“voluntary.” For reasons that will become evident shortly, we must be clear on
what we mean by “voluntary.” I take the questioner’s use of the term
“voluntary” to refer to the political/economic/social context--that is, to the
means by which people deal with each other.
Under capitalism, each
individual is free to act on his own judgement without physically coercive
interference from other human beings. This principle applies equally to people
as private citizens and to people acting in the capacity of government officials.
The moral principle of inalienable individual rights
sanctions that freedom, while also defining the limits of that freedom--the limit being the same rights of others.
When we speak of voluntarism in the political/economic/social context, we speak
of the interaction among individuals. Let me repeat. Voluntary means
non-coercive relationships between consenting human beings. It refers to social
relationships, and only social relationships.
This understanding has to be
stressed, because socialists subvert the term “voluntary” in order to justify
socialism’s statist ambitions. Consider the following quotes straight from the
horses’ mouths. Pay special attention to the highlighted and italicized text, all of which are
my emphasis:
Capitalism is alienating -
"Entfremdung."
Marx understood that work can be the source of
our greatest joy, but that capitalism has turned it into something we all
detest. Everyone hates Mondays. Monday is the day we lose the freedom of the
weekend to start working. But why do people hate Mondays? Why don't people
enjoy their work? Essentially, modern work has us do one thing all day, but
alienates us from what we believe we could ideally contribute to society.
Someone who might want to write symphonies may have to work in a
factory, because they need to earn money in order to afford food and
housing.
But real heart of the matter, that Marx would
tell you, is that it is because the system (capitalism) forces those
conditions upon you. In order to succeed in capitalism, it often pays off
to behave greedily, and many situations arise where to not behave greedily is
to fall behind and risk losing. And to lose in capitalism is to be made
a debt slave, if not then to be homeless, broken, hungry, and in
a word, oppressed. [sic]
[The] proletariat [is] the class of modern wage
labourers—a class of people who have no other way of living—[and] are reduced
to selling their labour power in order to live. [Engels, 1888 English
edition]
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e.,
capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern
working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as
they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases
capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity,
like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all
the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
It is a notorious statistical fact, that free
laborers generally throughout the world are suffering physical discomfort and
destitution. It is equally notorious that slaves in all ages and countries
have had their physical wants well supplied. Such suffering and
destitution as the free laboring class now endure must injuriously affect
their moral condition, and the statistics of crime everywhere attest the truth
of their theory. Man emancipated from human masters, and remitted to the
unfeeling despotism of capital, has, so far, lost in the exchange, both
physically and morally.
Socialists have always railed against the
invidious striving of the market that forces individuals to subordinate
their full personalities to narrow economic roles. Moreover, it is not only the motivations of
capitalists that are at stake—perhaps, under socialism, managers could be
trained to obey price signals simply as a guide to steering their nationalized
enterprises, with no thought of personal profit. The issue is the motivation of
working people. For the market mechanism is not merely a means to profit. It is
also a means to individual betterment by the maximization of one's income.
Without this drive, the mechanism will not work.
But is the drive for private gain compatible
with the goal of socialism? I do not see how it can be. The market system, in
order to function, requires attitudes of self-seeking that are in direct
conflict with the goal of an "other-oriented" society. If socialism
seeks to avoid both the anarchy and alienation of capitalism, it must seek
to break the hold of the market, not merely over the economy but over the
mind.'
And finally, from this
thread, self-described Marxist
Leninist David King opens his answer
with “No, of course not,” and goes on to explain:
Capitalists like to say that wage labour does
not limit freedom because it is “voluntary”, which is ridiculous. Unless of
course, voluntary choice consisted two viable possibilities. The choice
Capitalism gives the majority is between starvation, poverty, death and selling
their labor for the most basic necessities.
Since workers engage in wage labour because
they have no other choice, it essentially proves that wage labour
under capitalism is not voluntary.
All emphasis is mine, except
for King’s “no” and “not”. Do you notice a theme here? It is a recurring theme
throughout socialist literature.* However spin-doctored, socialism arises largely from a
resentment against work and self-responsibility.
What these quotes have in
common is not a critique of capitalism. It is a rebellion against nature.
Nature does not magically provide the material means of survival, like some
Garden of Eden. Life doesn’t provide only “good” options from which to choose,
like a toddler's playroom. Jobs, houses, medical care, plentiful easily
accessible food, clothing, et al don’t lie around waiting to be picked up.
Man’s needs, from food to clothing to shelter and beyond, must be produced from
the only thing nature makes available, raw materials. In other words, man must
work to live and thrive. This requirement applies not just to “the majority” or
to the “wage laborer,” but to every person, whether they choose to start and
run a business or “sell their labor” by accepting a job created by the
businessperson. Some people may attempt to parasitically live off of the
productive work of others, be it as a moocher or a burglar or by enslaving
others. But no person can survive on Earth except by someone’s work.
When the socialist condemns capitalism for “forcing” people to work to support
their lives, it is not capitalism they are condemning. It is nature itself.
Socialism is a rebellion against nature, because “work or starve” is not
capitalism’s mandate. It is nature’s ultimatum.
This is why it is absolutely
necessary to properly understand what “voluntary” means. In a certain sense,
nature’s requirement to work or starve is not “voluntary”—reality is what it
is, so we have no choice about our nature as human beings. We human beings have
no choice about work, if we want to live. But under capitalism we can
count on being free to choose our values, goals, and actions in pursuit of our
own well-being. We are free to choose our means of work, according to the
options of our personal circumstances and the willingness of others to
voluntarily trade with us. We are free to trade with others, whoever is
willing. What we can not do is force our choices on others, and
others cannot force theirs on us. We cannot force others to provide for us what
we ourselves do not produce, nor be forced to provide to others what we do
produce. We may hope for a benefactor to willingly support us while we indulge
whatever whimsical “ideal” we believe will “contribute to society.” But we can
not force someone else to provide us with food and clothing so that we can sit
at home and write symphonies.
All human associations are
voluntary under capitalism. Government protects everyone’s right to live and
act on his own judgement, so long as his actions don’t involve forcing his
judgement on--violating the inalienable rights of--any others. Under
capitalism, aggressive (or initiatory) force is banned from human
relationships, and people can deal with each other only by voluntary, mutually
agreed-upon terms. And by force I mean physical force--the power of a gun,
a whip, a fist, or a law, or derivatives thereof such as extortion or fraud.
Capitalism permits force only as a defensive mechanism and only against those
who initiate force against others—a principle that applies to government as
well as to individuals (which is why a free society needs a government-limiting
constitution).
Capitalism doesn’t “force”
anyone to work to survive and thrive. The laws of nature require that: If
you want to live and thrive, you must work. Capitalism merely recognizes
nature’s fundamental ultimatum, work or starve, and leaves people free to work,
sell, and buy in a market free of coercion, and protects from thieves whatever
property you have earned by such methods, on whatever level of productiveness
you have achieved it. If you lived alone on a deserted island, you would still
face the same choice, work or starve--but without the businesses to provide you
the job opportunities to “sell your labor” and without the benefits of trade
with others. But you would be free to act to achieve your goals, without anyone
there to impede you or steal the product of your labor. Capitalism legally and
constitutionally protects that same basic freedom in a social context.
The socialist resents nature, and rebels against it in the only way any human
being can, by force—by enslaving productive people and seizing the
product of their labor in order to “guarantee” what nature does not, a chance
to live without effort or without personal responsibility. That’s why socialism
as a political/economic/social system always begins with
organized armed theft by government. And socialism, properly understood, is not
merely so-called “welfare capitalism”—capitalism with a government-run “social
safety net.” Socialism goes well beyond forced redistribution of wealth,
immoral as that is. Socialism is complete top-down central planning. As the
socialist Robert L. Heilbroner honestly acknowledges, central planning is by its nature
authoritarian, if not totalitarian, and is incompatible with economic,
political, or intellectual freedom, including free markets, freedom of speech,
and the other liberties that the open society of capitalism provides.
Heilbroner is brutally clear:
Nor can we wriggle off this hook by asserting
that, among its moral commitments, socialism will choose to include the rights
of individuals to their Millian liberties. For that celebration of
individualism is directly opposed to the basic socialist commitment to a
deliberately embraced collective moral goal.
[A] socialist cake with bourgeois icing [is a]
delusion.
My emphasis. Though the “new”
Democratic Socialists try to “wriggle off this hook,” Heilbronner is right: You
cannot force socialism’s “collective moral goal” onto an entire society from
the top down while simultaneously preserving liberty. Individual rights will
always get in the way, so those rights—the “bourgeois icing”—must be wiped out.
And anyone who believes it’s “only” your money and property that is at stake is
delusional. Intellectual freedom is not possible without economic freedom. In
order for government planners to control your life and seize your earned
property at will, it must forbid dissent or challenge to the planning authority
of the state. Contrary to the delusions of their latest fad, democratic
socialism, socialists can tolerate no intellectual opposition. For socialists,
warns Heilbroner, “Dissents, disagreements, and departures from norms assume a
far more threatening aspect than under bourgeois society, for they hold out the
possibility of destroying the very commitment to a moral consensus by which
socialist society differs from capitalist.” That’s because the “moral
consensus” is imposed by government force whether any individual consents or
not.
It is socialism that is
strictly involuntary.
Socialism by its very nature cannot countenance the possibility of being voted
out of office. Protecting its power is the only way an authoritarian government
can work. Unlike a free capitalist government, a socialist government must rule
by aggressive governmental force, or the threat thereof. In exchange for
“relieving” you of the “alienating” responsibility to support yourself through
the “destitution” of your “free labor”, socialism offers the
“benefits” enjoyed by the “slaves in all ages and countries.”
Is
capitalism voluntary? So
long as you respect others’ rights, you are free to pursue your goals. No other
human can legally stop you. With voluntarism properly understood, uncorrupted
by socialist spin-doctors, the answer is unequivocal: Capitalism is
voluntary.
SUPPLEMENTAL: The following
two essays are very helpful in contrasting the fundamentals of socialism and
capitalism. Importantly, both authors defend their respective social systems on
fundamental moral grounds, where the heart of the conflict between collectivism
and individualism lies. Read What is Socialism by Robert L. Heilbroner and What is Capitalism by Ayn Rand. Very clarifying. Whichever side you’re on,
you should be fully aware of precisely what you are supporting and what you are
opposing.
__________________________________________________________________________
* [Another example of socialism’s rebellion
against work and, especially, self-responsibility is the self-described
Democratic Socialist Billy Bragg’s The
Three Dimensions of Freedom.
In The Three Dimensions of Freedom, Bragg writes, "Freedom
has been repackaged as the right to choose, but genuine choice—in housing, in
the workplace, at the ballot box—is hard to come by."
[Bragg, a successful musician, harps on the same
old socialist narrative: Life is hard. But it doesn’t need to be. Just give
me—i.e., the state—power over the economy, and I’ll give you an ideal utopian
life--by restricting your rightful freedom, starting with censorship.]
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