10. Is Voluntary Government Possible?

Tags: Political Theory, U.S. History

06/10/2006 Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Walter Block and Tom DiLorenzo have looked at Constitutional Economics, and determined that politics are not just another market. There is only a curious analogy to the public choice approach. Social contract theory has been used as an excuse for all types of state intervention.

Just because we do not all commit mass suicide does not demonstrate that we have all consented to some social contract. The origin of commonwealth was force and violence. The state is economic exploitation of the majority tax-payers by one ruling tax-eating group within government. Government is force. Submission to force is hardly voluntary.

Lecture 10 of 10 from the Steven Berger Seminar: Thomas DiLorenzo on Liberty and American Civilization.

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member