John Zube

Plans for Action

(2010)

 



Note

This text is a mine of ideas and proposals. The astonishing fact is that most of them have been put forward many years (if not decades) ago and have not lost any freshness and relevance. This is a sign that we all are very slow in picking up interesting suggestions and implementing them. However with the Internet the likelihood that some of those proposals will be more widely examined and that some are already on the way to be realised, should make us more hopeful about the future.

In any case, it is a fact that, thanks to this global circulation of information, the territorial monopolistic state has never been under such a wide scrutiny and criticism, and the individuals struggling for self-liberation have never been so much in touch with each other and aware of their rights and their strength.

 


 

PREMISES

 

There are still all too narrow limits, under present conditions, for the influence and self-management of individuals, even for those with the best ideas and talents,

So far we have been, largely, sheep (“sheeple”), which have been almost perpetually penned in, shorn and slaughtered, all too often, by our territorial “shepherds”, our supposed protectors.

Most of us have been victims rather than victimizers of territorial systems, all too often with our consent.

The “limited government” libertarians do not even want to do away with the inherent authoritarianism of territorialism but simply want to be on the top of the heap, just like all the other parties and movements at present.

Politicians and bureaucrats, with their constitutions, laws, regulations and courts, have wrongfully meddled with almost everything. - No one has the time to merely read, even once, all their laws, regulations and judgments, but, constitutionally, legally and juridically, free and just actions are wrongfully restricted or outlawed in millions of details, not only in the remaining totalitarian or despotic States but even in the best of likewise territorial democracies, which, to that extent, are partly totalitarian themselves.

Almost every attempt to support oneself and one’s family by serving other people economically is taxed and regulated or even prohibited, like e.g. free note issue banking, free clearing, and free choice of value standards and free international trade.

IF AUSTRALIA keeps making new laws at the current rate, there will be 830 billion pages of tax legislation by the turn of the next century, the Rule of Law Association’s Robin Speed said. - In the past year alone Federal Parliament passed 9042 pages of new law - four times the number passed between 1929 and 1939, he told a conference yesterday.” -Joel Gibson, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, Nov. 21-22, 2009, News, page 13.

Reforms are monopolized by territorial governments, who know how to meddle and thereby, at least unintentionally, do cause economic, social and political crises, but remain ignorant of and also show no serious interest in learning how to end and prevent them. The genuine solution would make them superfluous. Their pretended “cures” makes them appear justified and necessary, while the real cures remain largely unknown or inaccessible to most people and cannot be freely demonstrated by those already convinced of them.

Further reliance on territorial politicians and bureaucrats will only lead to further messes, crises, waste, misdirected “public funds” and exploitation via tribute levies called taxes and numerous legally enforced privileges and monopolies. It will also lead to further wars, civil wars, violent revolutions and terrorist acts, ultimately to the general nuclear holocaust.

What can one person do now? - Very little, except in the all too restricted remaining private spheres. In all “public” affairs, he is subjected to the power and decisions of his supposed territorial “representatives”, on whose election he had just one vote among all too many others. Thereby, inevitably, he only rarely gets what he wants for himself, in this sphere. Thus, under the very “democratic” franchise and “free vote” and the “representation” that he has, he is still and largely disfranchised, has almost nothing to say and is mostly exploited and directed by the decisions made by others, whom he did not himself and individually authorize. In the supposedly “free” and “democratic” States he is not fully enslaved but, often half enslaved, if one takes his direct and indirect tax tribute payments into consideration, also his subordination under numerous legal clauses that he could not even find the time to read. He can demonstrate, protest, write letters to the editor and submit petitions to the decision-makers but he is not allowed to be a decision-maker himself, not even on all of his own affairs, within all of his genuine individual rights and liberties. He is just another territorial subject. All too often he is not even enlightened yet on the consequences of this subjection or continues to be a consenting victim (e.g.: Conscription, Taxation and Laws, multitudes of them, all territorially imposed).

Libertarians have not yet sufficiently collaborated and self-organized themselves to compile, publish and develop all their ideas, knowledge tools, projects, aims, methods and resources, not even with the help of the new, powerful and efficient media. In this, too, they are far away from the free market for consumer goods and services, which they do appreciate.

Voluntary actions and experiments must come to replace imposed ones or the general nuclear holocaust will finally occur, even if only unintentionally, by accident.

Self-responsible decisions must come to replace collectivist territorial voting by largely ignorant and prejudiced votes of territorial voters and their representatives in parliaments and councils, with the latter under the pressures of party discipline, power struggles, and special interest groups.

Individual responsibility must come to replace collective responsibility, except within voluntary insurance or mutual aid schemes. - Owners and earners must again come to decide what is to happen with their property and their earnings, all of them.

All adult and somewhat rational people must become individually free to decide which kind of political, economic, and social system they want to be part of and which kind of internal policies they want to pursue within their own communities of volunteers and towards all other communities, all only exterritorially autonomous under their own personal laws. - No more territorially imposed kingdoms or empires in any form and under any pretence - except, naturally, for volunteers and at their expense and risk only. Moreover, even those should not be permitted to be “armed” with ABC mass murder devices, no more so that we should tolerate such “weapons” in the hands of any private violent criminals.

Consumer sovereignty and free enterprise competition to be introduced in the political, economic and social spheres. - See: Panarchism, Polyarchism, Multiarchism, Competing Governments, Voluntary Governments, Exterritorially Autonomous Communities & Societies of Volunteers only.

Territorial politics to become replaced by exterritorial “politics”, i.e. the choices, decisions and actions of communities and societies of volunteers only, all confined to their own affairs under full exterritorial autonomy and personal law. - All seen as preconditions and aims to achieve a lasting peace in freedom, justice and prosperity, with rapid progress and growing prosperity.

All of the best libertarian ideas will not be easily accessible to us without a comprehensive libertarian ideas archive, a libertarian library, bibliography, abstracts and review collections and several other helpful special encyclopaedias and handbooks.

The pretended or presumed fully free market for ideas and talents does not yet exist. It has still to be established.

However, while our knowledge and capacities are, inevitably, rather limited and thus, on our own we cannot achieve much, - via free collaboration and division of labor, even under governmentally still severely restricted individual rights and liberties, we could still do much together, towards our enlightenment and that of our opponents and towards our liberation and that of the adherents of other isms, - if we proceed in a sensible, systematic and tolerant way.

Leonard Read, in two famous essays, demonstrated that even as “simple” consumer goods like a pencil and a can of beans, do require the collaboration of millions of people over many years. We should not assume that the establishment of a free and peaceful society would require less collaboration and division of labor.

A consistently libertarian approach would mean, among many other things, leaving our opponents the option to continue to embrace and act upon their errors, prejudices and myths, and their corresponding laws and institutions - as long as they want to - but, from then on, only at their own expense and risk, exterritorially, among their remaining volunteers. All the others would have seceded from them.

On that basis we can even collaborate with them - in order to achieve, for each group or movement, full minority autonomy, on an exterritorial autonomy or personal law basis, whereby genuine self-government or self-management can be much more comprehensively realized than it could possibly be in the territorial State model. The latter involves us in continuous struggles, lost opportunities, huge costs and delays and many risks, some of them extreme, like the nuclear war threat, which is part and parcel of that system.

Through the still remaining freedom of expression and information options individuals could come to collaborate, sufficiently to achieve the degree of enlightenment that would enable them to finally also achieve the panarchistic kind of freedom of action and experimentation and, thereby, to liberate themselves, as much as they want to.

This panarchistic or polyarchic reform would allow all others as much or as little freedom as they want to have among themselves. All of them should also become free to utilize these genuine self-government or self-management options, in their own forms of preferred competing governments and communities, all only under exterritorial autonomy, under personal laws, with all their voluntary members.

Centuries of enlightenment efforts that have, largely, relied only on the spoken word, on letters, manuscripts and, later, on printing presses, have led by now to all too little general enlightenment, especially when it comes to the “social sciences”.

If all our collaboration options are clearly stated and we are free to pick and choose among them, for our personal involvements, then many large and different enlightenment and liberation schemes (all of which do require much labor, thought and writing input), could become strongly and rapidly promoted, by many diverse libertarians, spread all over the world. All of them could become electronically connected, apart from the remaining difficulties through their different languages, imperfect search engines and the few remaining despotic regimes that still limit freedom of expression and freedom of information all too much. Sufficient collaboration could overcome the language problem, too, helped by rough translations through computer programs, with the results then checked and improved by many collaborating editors.

Without sufficient knowledge and appreciation of all the freedom and rights options people cannot achieve their realization.

Without all freedom texts, ideas and knowledge becoming easily accessible sufficient freedom knowledge cannot be acquired.

Without clarification of definitions, of first principles, of the best ideas, of the best refutations of popular errors, myths and prejudices, without clear statements of all genuine individual rights and liberties and without a complete classification system for all ideological systems offered we should not expect to achieve our aims easily and fast, if at all.

Many of man’s genuine individual rights and liberties are not at all or not fully recognized by territorial governments.

The governmental bills of rights are woefully flawed and incomplete and are likely to remain so.

We will have to compile and publish an ideal alternative to them.

Even once agreement on these rights is achieved we should not expect to be able to realize all of them - and to protect them sufficiently - without ideal militia forces of volunteers which have only that purpose and are correspondingly motivated, armed, organized and trained.

Especially the public sphere of political, economic and social systems sphere has been coercively and territorially monopolized.

Coercion, monopoly, and numerous other abuses in the public sphere have been territorially imposed, under the pretence of good government, self-government, democracy, necessity, justice, protection, security, public interest, and consent.

All government powers must become reduced to those wanted or tolerated by individual consent, expressed through individual secessionism and voluntary associationism.

Thereby, in the end, they will become reduced to insignificance for all dissenters, who would then be free to secede. - The rump governments left over could then apply their powers only among the remaining statist, at their own risk and expense, while the various groups of dissenters would, after their secession, be free to do their own things among themselves, in their diverse societies and communities, freely competing with the remaining remnants of States, which would then have lost their territorial monopoly and could no longer restrict and exploit their dissenters.

Which of the public affairs systems, all freely experimented with by volunteers, would then be a better or the best one would, under this condition, become soon obvious to the keen observer. - As free and sovereign consumers of governmental and community services, competitively offered, they would tend to go for the best bargains they can make in this sphere. - The media would report on these events and competitions just like they report now e.g. on movies, theatre and circus performances, radio and TV broadcasts, sports and entertainment meetings. Then it would, finally, require a conscious effort to remain ignorant of the resulting different success and failure rates. They would not only happen in foreign countries - but, almost, next door, by all doing their own things in the political, economic and social system spheres just like they do already, to a very large extent, in their private spheres (not yet altogether meddled with by territorial governments).

Many to most of the important libertarian jobs to achieve libertarianism, at least for ourselves, in our time, do remain still undone, unfinished or not even systematically tackled at all. However, in systematic and international division of labor, utilizing all present information storage, communication and publishing options, in WIKIPEDIA fashion, they could become finished rather fast.

Between us, we do have the manpower, the ideas, the facts and the references or we can build them up, compile and publish them - at least electronically. To leave all this information insufficiently compiled, connected and accessible, e.g. by common abstracts, bibliographies, reviews, links lists, encyclopaedias, directories and libraries, is just not good and effective enough. I even find this situation to be scandalous.

Technically and electronically, we can and should combine all our resources, knowledge, ideas, all our strengths, in accordance with our special individual interests.

 


 

What kind of tools do I have especially in mind?
(An alphabetized and still very incomplete list)

 

ABSTRACTS & REVIEW COLLECTIONS FOR ALL LIBERTARIAN WRITINGS.

 

ANTHOLOGIES: To be compiled and published, e.g. on private human rights declarations (begun with PEACE PLANS 589/590), writings on monetary freedom, on voluntary taxation, on libertarian defence alternatives, free migration essays, militia proposals, first principles of libertarians, libertarian “argument mapping”, copyrights etc. - See: Encyclopedias.

 

APPEALS, NEGOTIATIONS, CONFERENCES, TREATIES, DIRECTLY BETWEEN THE VARIOUS PEOPLES RATHER THAN MERELY BETWEEN TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS: Panarchism would greatly promote this. Mass fraternizations between troops could, too, as well as military insurrections with quite rightful aims.

 

APPEALS, PUBLIC AND QUITE RIGHTFUL ONES, BY THE PEOPLE, sufficiently informed about them, in large and broadcasted as well as permanently recorded meetings, declarations and statements, rather than by territorial governments.

Territorial governments have very good reasons not to trust the statements of other territorial governments nor have the people, in all their varieties, good reasons to trust territorial governments any longer. On the contrary.

For instance: After centuries of governmental bills of rights declarations, they are still flawed and incomplete, do not include some very important rights and liberties, like e.g. individual and group secessionism and full monetary and financial freedom. Few of them even mention the right to resist and even these do, largely, want to confine it to juridical avenues!

 

ARGUMENT MAPPING & MIND MAPPING. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map

 

ARGUMENT MAPPING, MIND MAPPING, SIGN DEBATES & FLOW-CHART DISCUSSIONS: The linear and page by page continuation of arguments in books and essays, combined with an ordering systems particular to the writers only and the frequent absence of alphabetical indexes, abstracts and reviews, or the offering of incomplete or misleading ones only, together with the repetitiveness of books and the usual sparseness of valuable ideas in them, has led to much confusion, forgetfulness and misunderstandings. A more sensible arrangement of involved and controversial questions would be their setting out in large flow-chart discussions, showing, e.g. on rather large sheets, the original topics in the centre and all around and derived from it and interconnected as required, all the pro and con arguments. Such charts could form the basis for oral and written discussions for many people in different places and at different times and they would help to carry discussions forward - instead of letting them begin all over, again and again. Repetitions, oversights and misunderstandings would be largely avoided. Try it out for yourself and by yourself with your favourite controversial topic. Admittedly, it does cost time and patience. But it does provide clarity. There are numerous references to electronic “argument mapping” and “mind-mapping” online but I have still to find the first attempts by libertarians to apply this electronic discussion method. - I do consider as highly desirable an anthology of all the libertarian argument mapping and mind mapping already done or still only proposed and somewhat begun. - Already half a century ago I did my first ones - but only on large sheets of papers. Unknown to me but referred to on the website on “argument mapping” by Paul Monk et al., I had several predecessors, decades before me. It takes often as long before significant new methods spread widely enough. Even through the Internet these electronic forms remain still largely unknown, also among libertarians.

I wonder how libertarian discussions of this kind would look like and how effective they would be. Electronic “argument mapping” is described by Paul Monk et al. online, also “mind mapping”, with the latter, even described in a N.Y 1991 printed Penguin book: T. Buzan, The Mind Map Book. - In a mere paper format I had described a similar written discussion as “Plakat-Diskussion” or “sign-debate” and offered some explanations on this method, which I have, sometimes, used since 1958, and partly described in my first peace book of 1962. However, only these two and much later electronic versions seem to make this form of discussion relatively easy to construct, copy and communicate, potentially involving many other people, spread all over the world and providing input at different times. To duplicate any of these discussions on large sheets of paper via photocopying would be expensive and the duplicates would also be expensive to mail. Microfilming them and sending microfilm duplicates would be easier and cheaper - but still not popular and cheap and easy enough. Digitization has solved this problem, apparently.

However, I have not yet tried out either of these electronic formats offered. I do not know whether any anarchist or libertarian has done so as yet. I mentioned these methods several times in my correspondence with libertarians but never received any feedback.

Just like most of the all too short or too long and, often, biased and unsystematic oral discussions, those in parliaments, in “courts of justice”, in most “royal commissions”, in page by page written discussions, from letters, editorials, articles, pamphlets to books and sets of books, many important questions have remained unsettled and controversial for all too long, sometimes even for centuries, because of some inherent flaws in these forms of discussions. Flawed and primitive or quite false “ideas” still predominate in almost all government “laws” and “policies” or “programs”. The discussion of e.g. free will vs. determinism has been going on for over 2,500 years, as far as I know. - Nor have written discussions been quite satisfactory in electronic discussion groups, more or less selected, edited, and still only insufficiently aided by the present numerous automatic search engines. - Most of the few online discussions that I have seen, on libertarian topics, do reveal the still predominant confusions and disagreements on such topics and do not arrive soon enough at sound conclusions. There is also the ease by which these discussions, too, can become sidetracked by one or the other sub-topical controversy. According to a recently received hint to the description of “mind mapping” in the WIKIPEDIA, it does not offer all of the special advantages of “argument mapping” for written discussions. Someone might already have made a close study of both systems.

 

ARTICLE ARCHIVES OF LIBERTARIAN WRITERS: Rockwell.com for instance provides personal article archives of numerous libertarian authors. If these were also listed together, by subjects, in alphabetical form, with enough cross references, then they could already form a very attractive libertarian encyclopaedia. To wade through their often long list of articles, for as many authors, would take weeks to months of reading. Are search engines already of sufficient use for this? Sometimes the titles of the authors do not agree with those given by this publisher. A common alphabetical index to all these titles would certainly be helpful. One would encounter ideas or fact that one had not thought of searching for. Ideally all libertarian writings should become alphabetically indexed together. Starting with some special subject books and articles, e.g. those on panarchism and monetary freedom. Perhaps automatic indexing systems are already good enough for this job? If not, then personal additional entries should be facilitated.

 

AUDIO TAPE & DISC LIBRARY & SALES AGENCY FOR LIBERTARIAN AUDIO & VIDEO RECORDS. There are some large collections already. Add current links here. They ought to get at least a combined listing. Listing and sale of all electronically recorded libertarian lectures and discussions could also become helpful and affordable for many. In combination all these offers and all digitized libertarian texts would come close to a world-wide libertarian university and library offer.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY, LIBERTARIAN: With an efficient open input system a comprehensive libertarian bibliography, including abstracts and links to the full texts, could become built up very fast. Chris Tame’s monumental effort, unfinished but having reached already 7 volumes, before his untimely death in 2006, and, to my knowledge, now in the possession of the Libertarian Alliance of the UK, is, alas, still not published online, as far as I know. Nor has it appeared in print, or did it appear in print, to my knowledge. This happened in spite of the fact that the free offer online has often promoted the sale of the printed editions! - The Libertarian Alliance in the U.K. is aware of that. If no copyrights had been claimed and completion by others had been invited, even more could already have been achieved in this respect.

However, this is also only one important project among many and all of them are still nowhere listed together, like addresses in a telephone directory, the White Pages and Yellow Pages.

While waiting for a large and general libertarian bibliography to become finally published, at least online or on disc, we should certainly not refrain from compiling and publishing, as far as we can, special libertarian bibliographies, like my own, one on monetary freedom and one on panarchism, both already long digital files but still very incomplete.

Perhaps no individual can complete such large tasks but if we use the online options then they could be completed, for the time being, and then updated fast.

If Chris Tame’s bibliography is withheld from the public any longer, then by sufficient collaboration an alternative and even larger one could and should be compiled fast.

Merely one or several email reception points for such messages should be agreed-upon, by the first collaborators, as well as the format for all such submissions.

 

BOOK LOVERS & CONTACTS BETWEEN THEM: If book lovers could get in touch with each other by means of library catalogues, many additional opinion and information exchanges would come about. The isolation of many specialists could thus, to some extent, be broken down and a wider basis for their organization for concerted enlightenment efforts could be laid. - While originally I thought that interested people should be allowed to enter a corresponding notice in the library catalog, to their special interest books, by now it would be possible to enter and view such a list on a computer in the library. Quite a few friendships, educational and action groups might thus be started. The chance factor for people with similar interests meeting each other should be eliminated as far as possible. Libertarian personal contacts could be promoted by an annotated comprehensive libertarian bibliography, abstracts and review compilation. We are no longer bound to paper or index card options.

 

BOOKS & ARTICLES by libertarians that are already digitized somewhere, by someone in one format or the other. They should all be listed together instead of being listed only partly, in small batches, on thousands of different websites. Naturally, a comprehensive libertarian bibliography would point out all of them and where and in which format they can be found. The beginnings of such a list is already on - http://www.panarchy.org/zube/list.index.html

 

BOOK & ESSAY PUBLISHING, ELECTRONIC, ONLINE & ON CD’s: There are also several free website options for digitized libertarian texts. One is called: SCRIBD http://www.scribd.com/

 

BRAINSTORMING, ELECTRONIC & INTERNATIONAL, with sufficient follow-up procedures, also involving international division of labor among interested people, to check out the result of such ideas-production and collection efforts, with, possibly, tens of thousands of entries. One might also call them “perpetual electronic libertarian conferences”, continued until real solutions are achieved and made sufficiently known. - Compare Ideas Archive, Encyclopaedia of the Best Refutations, Argument Mapping and Mind-Mapping.

 

BROADCASTING: Broadcasting must become unrestricted - except by the equal liberty concept, and this not only on the CB wave lengths. The technical broadcasting barriers are presently already gradually broken down but the legal restrictions wither away or are repealed only all too slowly.

 

BROADCASTING: LIBERTARIAN BROADCASTING, INCLUDING PIRATE BROADCASTING. LIBERATING THE BROADCASTING SPHERE: This is already done, to some extent via the Internet and DVD options, allowing all past broadcasts to become publicly accessed and also all new input being made world-wide accessible via the Internet, otherwise than through the existing large or small and government licensed and regulated stations. Video output by anyone can also be made available for spread through the Internet by anyone. We are no longer confined to the few government controlled and licensed channels. Nevertheless, the remaining and legalized governmental restrictions should be repealed. This sphere can become self-regulating, too, just like oral communications, by which one strong speaker can reach up to 20,000 listeners, without loudspeakers. Milan, in Italy, at one stage, had more radio stations than all of Australia. Satellite broadcasting has certainly not yet sufficiently been used for educational purposes, as Arthur C. Clark recommended many years ago. But now we do have xyz Internet options for this purpose as well. Our dependence on governmentally licensed and restricted broadcasting stations has already been greatly reduced. But this is no reason for not abolishing the remaining restrictions. Property rights in broadcasting waves are neither justified nor necessary.

 

BUILDING ENCYCLOPEDIA: An encyclopaedia of house building and housing finance alternatives to the multitudes of governmental interventionism in that sphere. Wrongful, primitive and irrational mistakes are still made in the sphere of home building finance, as the current economic crisis has demonstrated. Ulrich von Beckerath surveyed the best practices of housing finance via building coops already in the 1930’s. For a while he made a living as a roving consultant on the subject. Not only governments but also private building societies made all too many mistakes in this sphere and were not aware of the best and safest practices.

 

BULLETIN BOARDS: The old Romans and Greeks had them near their market places or near their popular assembly places - at least for the promulgation of new law proposals. Now we need such facilities again, for the cheap, although only local, propagation of new or unusual ideas. Ideas are developed by individuals and held for a while only by minorities. Individuals and minorities can't afford most of the mass media - and the mass media are often unsuitable for them. But bulletin boards are almost cost free - and yet, to any considerable extent and for opinion exchanges and information, they exist so far almost exclusively in universities. Once local government building and advertising ordinances are removed, such boards could be established near busy thoroughfares and they would allow any innovator or proponent to reach, potentially, hundreds of people with a single written message exhibited at negligible costs and efforts, even lower than those of leafletting. Some foundations or enterprises might even cover the costs of such boards. As libertarianism aims at releasing all creative abilities, it ought to recognize even these simple means as part of its program.

 

CD PROJECT: The fact that one CD could offer up 3,000 titles, one DVD up to 15,000 and one external 1 TB HD over 3 million, and that their prices for them are very much down by now, with Harvey Norman, for instance, offering a 1TB external HD in September 09 for only 127 Australian Dollars, should have inspired enough libertarians to attempt to fill one with libertarian texts plus a comprehensive contents list, index and search engine, so that, with some mark-up for the labor and costs involved in the collection, editing and mailing, every libertarian, at least in the developed countries, could come to acquire an almost complete electronic freedom library, sized only like a single book and thus with space for it on almost every desk of ever serious libertarian, in the somewhat free countries.

Nevertheless, how many were inspired by these opportunities, so far?
When whole special freedom libraries are offered at a low price on a CD or DVD, then they could spread rapidly and widely. But if they are only offered in a scholarly way, e.g. the collected works of Bakunin and this for something close to 1000 Gulden, then their spread will be, largely, only to some libraries.

New book prices are still a purchasing barrier for many people like me. I still buy mostly only second-hand books, which cost me only 10 cents to 50 cents, in most cases, rarely a dollar or two, rather than $20 to $60 for new printed books. Possibly even more of the newly printed books are of less interest to me than of the older and second-hand books.

The last large book collection that I bought in a Campbelltown bookshop, about 2 years ago, contained 4000 titles, on a single CD, not all of them books, and cost me only $ 20.

The LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE, on a CD, was in its earlier editions sometimes attached as a freebee to computer magazines. In its last editions, that I read about but have not seen, it is supposed to offer 5,000 titles.

Several of these literature collections on a CD, do also contain some freedom titles.
How many libertarian equivalent offers do you know of?

There is one disk, “Ideas on Liberty”, offering FEE titles.

David Hart, some time ago, offered about half of the titles of Liberty Fund's online publishing, of classical liberal titles, on a CD and aims to offer electronically at least all classical liberal titles.

Some electronic freedom literature offers I mention in http://www.panarchy.org/zube/list.index.html but so far only a few appreciated such a listing of electronic freedom titles and provided some further input for it.

We could already get far on this road if we could induce each libertarian book collector to scan in one or a few of his scarce old titles, long out of copyright or not copyrighted or all too long out of print, ignoring copyrights claims. Unfortunately, these opportunities are not even sufficiently discussed and thereupon used, just like the microfilm options were not even mentioned in most of the libertarian websites and in the general conventional media.

 

CHAIN LETTER SYSTEM FOR WORTHWHILE LIBERTARIAN IDEAS? Every participant obliges himself or herself to pass on a message to at least 2 to 10 other libertarians, preferably together with his or her comments. - Compare: Ideas Archive.

 

CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES, LIBERTARIANS ONES, FOR ALL POLITICAL, ECONOMIC & SOCIAL SYSTEMS: I believe that a comprehensive anthology of all of them, together with their pro and con, on the road towards the perfect one, which would include e.g. the panarchistic options as well, should be electronically published. Verbal as well as graphical versions should be included. The best verbal one was, possibly, the one by Robert LeFevre. A Sydney architect contact, Patrick Brooks, once attempted to turn it into a tabular one. I do not know whether he succeeded. How diverse, incomplete, flawed and territorial all or almost all of them were so far would only be revealed by a such an anthology, which may still have to be compiled or published and would, finally, lead to a comprehensive and ideal classification system of this kind.

 

COFFEE HOUSE TRADITION TO BE REVIVED - NOT FOR SPECIAL COFFEE BRANDS BUT FOR DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN INTELLIGENT & INTERESTED PEOPLE: The international coffee-house tradition of discussion centers should be re-established, at least in cities. They ought to be open every day and allow anyone to listen to or join any interesting discussion. Whosoever has studied the history of such coffee houses will not underestimate their importance. Many newspapers were first started as a result of such meeting places. To establish or promote them is also a job largely for libertarians, to promote personalized freedom of expression and information in their area and to help to break down their own degrees of isolation. They should attempt to initiate the development of this form of meeting places, not only for libertarians but also for all kinds of other isms, so that, via mutual advertising, merely by the existence of such places, local libertarians, too, could benefit from them. They would, probably, be easier to establish within cities. By now, most people being motorized, some would be prepared to travel a considerable distances to such meeting places, at least occasionally. In the country district where I live, with 3 small towns only a few miles apart and, altogether, a population of ca. 30,000 people, there are over two dozen coffee shops. They promote the consumption of various kinds of quality coffee and cakes and are, by now, often associated with bookshops or offer at least a few newspapers and magazines, but, to my knowledge, they have not yet revived, in any case, the tradition of coffee-houses for discussions between intellectuals. - (In West Berlin I tried once, in vain, to establish, in a large hall, a meeting centre in which a dozen different groups could assemble at the same time, discussing different topics. It was to be at least a temporary substitute for an open air meeting centre, which remained prohibited. Neither of us, alas, could afford to spend enough on advertising this place to attract enough participants for each group. Thus it finally shrunk to just another single discussion group. - The old intellectual coffee-house tradition could and should be revived but, preferably, in combination with local meeting calendars, for all kinds of educational meetings in a city or district. It would also be wise to establish one or even several such places in the vicinity of an open air free speech center. Are the existing the world-wide electronic contact discussion group a sufficient substitute? Can they quite replace personal meeting places? - I found so far that access to them is still all too formalized and restricted and in this respect very different from open air discussions, coffee-shop or salon meetings. However, I do admit that for these electronic groups the danger exists of dozens to millions of unwanted “gate crashers” suddenly turning up, not always with the best intentions. This is a real danger, against which they built up their defence. But at least mere tacit viewing of their discussions and, perhaps, leaving short message for them, for potential inclusion, after editorial approval, should be made easy for any outsiders, not formally registered a members of the group. After all, even politicians allow petitions or letters to them. (Naturally, they do, almost habitually, ignore their contents.) The positive results of many of such discussion groups could and should also be offered on CDs, sufficiently sorted out and cross-referenced.

 

COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY: The full case against it may still have to be established and published. It is long overdue already. For several thousand years even atrocities and mass murders were committed under this “principle” and yet writings that systematically criticize this principle and its wrongful application are still very rare and, to my knowledge, nowhere combined.

 

COMMUNICATIONS: Michael McCloud seems to believe that every libertarian could and should turn himself into an effective speaker and writer for libertarianism, following his advice and writings, based on many years of exploration and experimentation. Some could but all could not. Nevertheless, many of the less effective speakers and writers do also have something worthwhile to say - and that remains largely inaccessible, or difficult to access, even with the Internet and numerous search engines. So far no one has a libertarian complete freedom library on hand, an every growing libertarian encyclopaedia, bibliography, abstracts and review collection, a libertarian ideas archive and a handbook of the best refutations, one of the best definitions and one on the best wordings. All such reference tools could and should be provided, quickly, by many libertarians, in division of labor, mediated through a few websites or email collection points. In other words, we could and should use Archimedean leverage in this sphere, too, but haven’t bothered as yet to provide it.

Does each libertarian have to become a light tower or is it enough if he can light his candle and with it, potentially, a million others, without this becoming a prolonged chore for him?

 

CONFERENCES, PERPETUAL, ELECTRONIC & FULLY RECORDED, NOT BY THE POLITICAL LEADERS, BUT BY THEIR VICTIMS, THOSE REALLY INTERESTED IN THEIR OWN AFFAIRS & STRIVING TOWARDS THEIR LIBERATION, THROUGH THE REALIZATION OF ALL THEIR GENUINE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS & LIBERTIES: In other words, the summit conferences and parliaments of territorial rulers (power addicts, who cause problems in the first place) are to be replaced by conferences between genuine representatives of all of the diverse peoples, those of all voluntary movements, societies and communities only, conducted publicly, providing freedom of expression, information and action opportunities for all of them, within and far beyond the present limitations imposed by territorialism. They should be using the potential influence or power of public declarations and appeals of the people, e.g. on quite rightful war and peace aims, unilaterally offered quite just treaties, genuine individual rights and liberties vs. those offered by States or the UN. Furthermore, they should discuss nuclear disarmament steps by the people themselves, explore rightful revolutions and military insurrections options against despotic regimes, recognize all kinds of governments and societies in exile, established in opposition to these regimes and only for their present and future volunteers, aim thus at the abolition of all territorial monopolies and the renunciation of all claims to them. Thereby they could help to establish genuine self-determination for all kinds communities and societies of volunteers, on the basis of exterritorial autonomy under personal laws, all just doing their own things for or even to themselves.

 

CONTACTS: MEETING CALENDARS IN EVERY CITY & DISTRICT. It should be one for all kinds of educational and cultural meetings in every city or district, preferably run by libertarians and especially stressing their events. Now their meeting information can be offered very cheaply and fast, digitized, on line, on discs or via email attachments. They could also can be supplemented by numerous online discussion groups and permanently audio or video recorded lectures and discussions made accessible on tapes or discs or online.

 

CONTROVERSIES, QUESTIONS & DOUBTS REMAINING AMONG LIBERTARIANS: XYZ topics still remain unresolved among libertarians, still controversial, although, e.g. through electronic "argument mapping” or “mind mapping" or even through a comprehensive electronic libertarian library, they could become settled relatively soon. - Here a "refutations encyclopaedia" could also be invaluable. Whatever refutations do already exist online are spread over all too many sites, instead of being brought together, alphabetized by catchwords and cross references.

 

COOPERATIVES, PARTNERSHIPS, SELF-MANAGEMENT SCHEMES: Productive coops, and open coops, partnerships and all kinds of employee-shareholding systems, to counter both, remaining State socialist notions and misunderstandings of and prejudices against free enterprise, capitalism, property, markets, profits and earnings. - From page 99 of Kurt Zube’s (K. H.Z. Solneman’s Manifesto for Freedom and Peace, 1977, with figures for 1975: “If Marxism were correct in asserting that exploitation arises only in the sphere of production and especially through the employer, then the exploited workers and employees could very easily bring an end to that by buying up, with their savings alone, the total stock capital e.g. of German industry, whose market value on the exchanges is estimated at 130,000 million DM, of which actually only 51 % would need to be purchased. That would be more logical and also easier and faster to effect than any form of socialization by the State. The savings deposits in banks and savings associations amount at the moment to 390,000 million DM: Among these funds there is only little from a few self-employed persons, as these do not, as a rule, invest their liquid assets in this form.”

Thus, roughly, one sixth of the "little" man's bank deposits could give him the controlling interest in all German share companies, especially the one in his own firm! These figures do not even include the large funds in private pension funds and various other insurance funds which could also be, largely, mobilized for this purpose. As Ulrich von Beckerath used to say, frequently: The combined purchasing power of associated and determined people is one of the largest and yet still least used forces in this world. - J.Z., 1980.

 

COPIERS & SCANNERS FOR LIBERTY: Especially needed is a network of photocopier and scanner users, who, between them, copy, if necessary for this, and then scan-in all the relevant texts - towards an as complete electronic freedom library as can be provided now and could or should be made accessible if not online then at least on CDs, DVDs and an external HD. Naturally, all would concentrate on those texts that they like most. They should also systematically avoid duplication of efforts. The tools for this are there and affordable by now as well. Only the will, the determination and the organization for such an effort are still lacking. Imagine the final result, a complete electronic freedom library in a single external HD the size of a book and quite affordably priced.

 

COPYRIGHTS: Copyrights acts should at least become amended so that all titles that are out of print and not offered cheaply in alternative media would, thereby, lose their copyrights for their reproduction in alternative media.

Libertarians should at least see to it that, between them, all not copyrighted and no longer copyrighted libertarian texts become easily and cheaply accessible.

Without a complete libertarian bibliography, a complete electronic libertarian library, abstracts and review compilations they are not even aware how many such electronic texts do already exit.

All websites that would accept already digitized libertarian texts should also be listed together. They should not only be some such sites for all kinds of literature but also sites especially for libertarian writings.

We should also agree upon compilation addresses for the production of libertarian CDs and DVDs and, finally, for an external HD for all such information.

 

CRISES, THEORIES & HYPOTHESES ON ECONOMIC CRISES: The cause and cure ideas and proposals still remain to be properly surveyed and evaluated. - All of them, at least ca. 150 by now, should be collected and combined and then electronically published, together with all their pro and con arguments and facts, in a special anthology.

They cannot all be completely right and most are partly to largely wrong. - Then territorial governments could no longer, as they did recently, respond to the economic crises they caused in the first place, with extreme ignorance and carelessness, primitive Keynesian notions and practices like “pump priming”, “stimulation” and “bail-outs” via the note printing presses, by means of monopolistic exchange media and despotic central banking, with its manipulated and mostly depreciated “value standard”, its coercive interest rate, monetary and currency “policy”, causing most crises in the first place, while leaving the real causes of the crisis unexamined and unchanged and avoiding the real cures: full monetary and financial freedom.

So far there seems to exist no reference work on ending and preventing economic crises, not even on the best forms of currency reform.

Thus the same wrongs and mistakes are made again and again.

Naturally, the absence of full experimental freedom for various panarchies or polyarchies does not help, either. Under that freedom the flaws of current territorial government schemes would become fast revealed. But even now, without that panarchistic and experimental freedom, the untenable hypotheses and practices, the wrongful and harmful, even counterproductive ones, could become rapidly revealed by such a survey.

However, there should also be freedom to experiment even for the adherents of wrongful and long disproved crisis theories - among their remaining supporters. Let them do their things to themselves. Deterrent examples are needed too.

The flawed theories should not only be theoretically refuted but by the free actions of their supporters, among themselves, i.e., without imposing their flawed theories and practices and their costs upon anyone else, which is the current practice in all countries.

 

CULTURAL REVOLUTION, A GENUINE ONE, towards as much enlightenment as possible for all present societies and communities of volunteers.

 

DATABASES ON ALL LIBERTARIAN SUBJECTS.

 

DEFINITIONS ENCYCLOPEDIA: Showing the variety and the flaws as well as strong points of all the various definitions of terms important for libertarians.

 

DIPLOMACY BY & FOR THE PEOPLE, with their good will and rightful intentions clarified by resolutions in public mass meetings, reported by the mass media and put on permanent and accessible records. No secret diplomacy by governments any more, as a rule.

 

DIRECTORIES to libertarians and their groups, indicating their special interests and activities.

 

EDUCATION: Alternative, free and fast as well as cheap public education, of e.g. Bell’s and Lancaster’s Monitor System, the Summerhill type, of O’Neil and e.g. including freedom information for beginners via a variety of introductions or primers, on the road to ideal texts of that kind.

 

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING, ESPECIALLY ON CDs: All freedom writings on a single and book-sized 1 TB HD?

 

ENCYCLOPEDIC EFFORTS, WIKIPEDIA TYPES, with open input and mutual correction, special reference works and handbooks stating the cases as fully as possible today, Blueprints for liberty. All offered as freely or cheaply as possible and also permanently.

 

FREEDOM ACADEMY, LIBERTY UNIVERSITY: Such service institutions could be offered cheaply and almost completely digitized, i.e., serving people all over the world.

 

GOVERNMENTS IN EXILE, all for volunteers only and for full exterritorial autonomy, all recognized, at least by democratic governments and public opinion as alternatives to the existing territorial and despotic ones and also themselves recognizing all other governments, societies and communities of that kind, thus ending the usual infighting among governments with territorial aims and methods. - See: Panarchism, Personal Law, Voluntarism, Exterritorialism, Territorialism, Secessionism.

 

HANDBOOK ON TAX STRIKES & VOLUNTARY TAXATION: Wrongful governments should run out of money and victims, rather than their involuntary victims running out of money.

 

HEALTH ENCYCLOPEDIA: Electronically including all health and anti-aging knowledge of the orthodox and naturopathic type, with all their pro and con, compiled in Wikipedia fashion. It could also be used as a medium to spread libertarian ideas and practices, since it would be offering individuals more and informed choices in that sphere, opposing all monopolies in that sphere. Healthy options are freedom option and identical with basic survival rights.

 

HUMAN RIGHTS DECLARATION, AN IDEAL ONE: An ideal draft for all genuine individual rights and liberties, one that has been openly, cooperatively and digitally and internationally compiled and improved.

 

IDEAS ARCHIVE, starting with a libertarian ideas archive.

 

INTELLIGENCE EXPANSION OPTIONS: Have all of them as yet been sufficiently publicized and examined?

 

INTERNET: All those websites available for uploading and downloading of libertarian texts to be listed and more such options to be provided. I for one do not consider an endless proliferation of individual websites, insufficiently linked with others, to be ideal, no more so that e.g. a proliferation of individual self-publishing on paper, usually only in limited and temporary editions. - However, if the web archive does its job, then even disappeared private websites might still remain permanently accessible there.

 

LIBERATION PROGRAM: A comprehensive libertarian program is still missing, ideally one with input from millions.

 

LIBERTARIAN A TO Z BOOKS: An electronic combination, of all present and future books of that type would be desirable towards a comprehensive libertarian encyclopaedia.

 

LIBERTARIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA

 

LIBERTARIAN LINKS LIST

 

LIBERTARIAN LIBRARY: By now it could, probably, be offered on a single 1 TB external HD, which I have seen offered for as little as 127 Australian Dollars.

 

LIBERTARIAN PRIMERS: Many do exist already. Are all of them listed together? Could the best in all of them become effectively combined?

 

LIBERTARIAN REVOLUTION HANDBOOK: Towards ending all wrongful and violent revolutions by one that would liberate all kinds of societies, communities and groups as far as they wish to be liberated for the time being, fully in accordance with their own individual choices. I believe it would be the most important defence and liberation tool or “weapon” against all despotic, tyrannical and totalitarian regimes and much cheaper to provide than advanced weapons for millions of people taken out of the production and exchange process. To the extent that religious liberty or tolerance was introduced religious wars, civil wars, despotism and terrorism were ended. The same can and should be realized a.s.a.p. for all political, social and economic systems that can be tolerantly practised by their volunteers. I do not believe that anything still needs to be territorially regulated by any government at any level, instead of being left to private and free actions based upon property rights. - See: Panarchism, Secessionism, Personal Law, Exterritorial Autonomy, Voluntarism.

 

LIBERTARIAN SPECIAL HANDBOOKS, on panarchism, monetary freedom, financial freedom, nuclear disarmament, defence without nuclear weapons against nuclear power.

 

LINKS LIST TO ALL LIBERTARIAN WRITINGS ALREADY ELECTRONICALLY OFFERED.

 

MILITARY INSURRECTION PROGRAM, LIBERTARIAN TYPE.

 

MONETARY FREEDOM HANDBOOK.

 

OPEN AIR SPEAKING CENTRES & DISCUSSION COFFEE HOUSES: Public meeting places in the open air and in coffee shops, for the discussion of all kinds of topics at least somewhat related to libertarianism and the tolerance of panarchism. (So far, in coffee shops, special coffee types and cakes are taken more serious than serious topics and the few and time-limited open-air speaking centers remain under-developed and bureaucratically restricted. Only one open air speaking centre for all of India, so far! Probably none exist still in Russia and China and in numerous other countries. Even local bulletin boards, for mere paper notices, are still all too few, small and insufficiently organized in their displays. Are there already enough comprehensive libertarian “classifieds” and leaflet etc. posting options online - or, rather, too many and all too dispersed ones?

 

PANARCHIST ALPHABETIZED ENCYCLOPEDIA: The beginnings of it, in a PAN AZ file are already offered by me, but my input to it is by far not sufficient. I have not even got around to include all the panarchist information available to me by now and could not include, on my own, all that is offered by others.

 

PEACE PLANS, LIBERTARIAN PEACE PLANS: I offered as much as I could on microfiche, until 2002, in 1779 issues. But the job is much too large for an individual and by now they and very much more should all be published and discussed digitally.

 

Q & A COMPILATIONS, LIBERTARIAN ONES. The best that I have seen so far was offered by Bryan Caplan: https://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm

 

QUESTIONNAIRES: LIBERTARIAN Q LISTS TO STIMULATE INTEREST

 

RED: “REDENSARTEN”: The best wordings for all occasions, from insinuating to down-putting ones, when it comes to advocating freedom and rights ideas. Too many communication attempts fail through unsuitable wordings.

 

REFUTATIONS ENCYCLOPEDIA: A refutations encyclopaedia for all the prejudices, errors, myths, false premises and conclusions, which are obstacles to enlightenment and progress, with input from anybody who has something to offer on this. Too many of these blockages are still in the minds of all too many libertarians. A mutual re-education effort is required in this respect. An encyclopaedic tool of this kind, constantly improved, added to and made electronically accessible online or on disc, could become very effective in this sphere. Most of the required knowledge is already there, in some heads or reference works - but not yet sufficiently combined and optimized.

 

REVOLUTION PROGRAM, LIBERTARIAN TYPE: Urgently needed and still not comprehensively provided, largely due to insufficient interest in this subject - according to my own limited experience.

 

SLOGANS FOR LIBERTY: My collection of such quotes, aphorisms, definitions, sayings, proverbs etc. came to 37 Mbs and is finally online. The rest is up to other libertarians, mostly only offering shorter collections of this kind. All of these collections should become combined, corrected and commented upon on a single site or disc.

 

TRANSLATIONS OF LIBERTARIAN TEXTS: International division of labor could also become effectively organized to achieve the translation of all important texts into at least major languages. Wanted e.g. is still a Russian and a Chinese translation of De Puydt’s essay on panarchy.

 

UNIVERSITIES, ELECTRONIC, LIBERTARIAN. All relevant university lectures, discussions and seminars to become permanently and cheaply offered on audio and video discs. An electronic freedom academy. Supplemented by a complete electronic libertarian library.

 

WAR AND PEACE AIMS, rightful ones, openly developed and justified and declared.

 

WORLD LIBRARY, including, naturally, a complete freedom library, all electronically provided in any required segments on discs.

 

Sufficient knowledge could and should become a sufficient influence for successful defence and liberation efforts.

 


 

SUMMING UP

 

ENLIGHTENMENT, LARGELY THROUGH NEW ENCYCLOPEDIAS: What is still needed or has only been barely begun? Among the many new tools and improved old tools required for accelerating and assuring the process of enlightenment, especially when it comes to liberty, rights, peace, are, I hold, at least the following electronic libertarian tools:

- Encyclopedia

- Libertarian library (even the attempt to list of many texts already offered in one or the other electronic format, on www.panarchy.org/zube/list.index.html , long as it is already, is still very incomplete, i.e. does so far cover only a fraction these texts. It needs the input from thousands of others. - By now it would, probably, fit onto a single external HD)

- Abstracts and reviews collections

- Bibliography, with many special bibliographies

- Q & A compilations

- Free Trade encyclopaedia (Protectionism is on the rise once again!)

- Free Migration encyclopaedia (Whole national territories and their kind of State Socialism are still mixed up by some libertarians with private property rights!)

- Encyclopaedia describing and discussing details of an ideal militia for the protection of individual rights and liberties

- Encyclopaedia describing all alternative, affordable and effective methods to promote enlightenment

- Encyclopaedia on libertarian defence & self defence

- Encyclopaedia on libertarian revolutions, putsches and military insurrections

- Panarchist encyclopaedia (“On Panarchy”, volumes 1-24, digitized, is long but still only a small and very incomplete beginnings)

- Monetary freedom encyclopaedia

- Encyclopaedia of all the false and all the correct views on unemployment and its abolition and prevention

- Encyclopaedia of all the false and all the correct views on inflation and its abolition and prevention

- Voluntary taxation encyclopedia (There are many references to it online but, to my knowledge, not yet an anthology of all the different proposals with their pro and con.)

- Peace plans encyclopaedia (I did as much as an individual could, with 1779 PEACE PLANS issues, most only on microfiche and not yet digitized)

- Slogans for Liberty (My collection of them is long but still very incomplete: SLOGANS FOR LIBERTY, ca. 38 Mbs, including ca. 520 Kbs of Jokes extracted from these files.)

- Projects list

- Ideas archive

- Refutations encyclopaedia for all the popular errors, myths, prejudices, false assumptions and conclusions that obstruct progress towards liberty, justice, peace, space travel, intelligence expansion and life extension.

- Definitions encyclopaedia, indicating and reproducing the multitude of different definitions for the same important terms,

- Encyclopaedia of the most appropriate wordings to be used in any particular case, from insinuating, challenging to down-putting phrases (the latter when justified and needed against loud-mouths, dogmatists and fanatics),

- Directory to people and organizations by their special interests (If email addresses cannot be provided, because of the spam and virus attack danger involved, then at least snail mail addresses should be offered. - For some worthwhile first contacts a resort to the postal monopoly may still be effective and fast enough.)

- A comprehensive libertarian links list

- Many more specialized libertarian electronic newsletters and magazines, offered free online or via email attachment, either free or upon a subscription. Naturally, all of them should be listed together.

- An electronic newsletter and calendar indicating all libertarian and other public enlightenment attempts, in various forms of public meetings, in person, taking place within one’s easy reach, in cities or country districts.

- Permanent electronic conferences on certain important subjects, with open input, should occur online and be reported on, periodically, with discs.

- Libertarian Yellow Pages (Is there as yet an effective libertarian “Yellow Pages”?)

 


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