A voluntary society cannot be designed at all. It will be emergent. When a critical mass of people realize that the rules we tell children to live by (namely don't hurt people, don't mess with their stuff, and keep your promises) should be applied across the board, and that no other general rules are necessary, then such a society will form.
There can be no formula for dealing with people in need. As soon as such a formula is known, most of the marginally needy and some of the non-needy attempt to game the system. Subsidizing poverty creates more poverty. The best way to deal with those in need is on an individual case-by-case basis. It's too important of a problem to be left to monopolists. Concrete answers are wrong answers.
Great post,
Just wanted to say that
I read this earlier on a train and couldn't really post in response, so allow me to say this a little late:
I was starting to get a little bored of the more /less government argument.
Also, personally I have sometimes found billyjoeallen (while obviously smart) a tad arrogant and guilty of snappy put-downs that felt unnecessarily harsh.
So, I was reacting badly to what seemed to be the utopianism and snobbery of the ancap side's arguments, mixed with frustration at the lack of a real explanation I could actually sympathise with - and I am not a conventional lifestyle type, I am all ears.
Then he posted this.
There are two basic ways to influence behavior; you can use/threaten force or you can persuade. The taxers think that persuasion is insufficient encouragement in many cases to get people to contribute to public goods. I think this ignores shame. Shaming has been regarded particularly by leftists as an unethical tactic, even if used for socially beneficial ends, but that actually depends on what you compare it to. Compared to coercion, shaming reduces violence and carries lower social costs.
There is no reason to assume that a completely voluntary society would have any less competition for social status than our present society. By imposing status costs on free riders and rewarding status to contributors, there is every reason to expect that the net level of public goods would be just as high if not higher without a monopoly government. The difference would be in how those goods were administered and their composition. Contributors would have much more control over how their contributions were distributed with a result of more efficient administration.
Competition is the force that turned single-celled organisms into vertebrates, turned apes into engineers. Sanction against violence is what differentiates civilized societies from savages and barbarians. An optimized civil society is one where competition among members is encouraged in socially beneficial ways and discouraged with regards to initiatory violence.
I am impressed and I see what reasoning is behind the philosophy. I get it.
It is by far the most clearly written, intelligent, persuasive and therefore powerful post he has written.
I have to applaud it, it has increased my respect enormously of both him and his philosophy.
Edit - missed the actual post out