Society Without Coercion

Since time immemorial men have sought the ideal of a peaceful, prosperous and just society; a society in which they could be free to produce and act without the fear of force being initiated against them by their neighbors. Many sincere and intelligent men have attempted to create such a society; but despite their efforts, for the over two thousand centuries of human existence, the realization of that ideal has eluded a l l . Strife, poverty, slavery and fear have been the continual lot of the overwhelming majority of men throughout history; and even today, in the age of the space ship and cyclotron, it still is so. In the year 1969 over one half of the population of the earth is enslaved by totalitarian dictatorships, which differ in principle in no important way from the despotisms of ancient Egypt and Rome. Of the remaining half of mankind, half again know continual hunger; and of all of earth’s teeming billions, there is scarcely a one who will not at some time know the violence of his neighbors.