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Friday, October 13, 2017

TGIF: Is Secession by Referendum Libertarian?

I have concerns about secession by referendum. Individual secession, of course, is no problem; that’s simply libertarianism. Before I get into my reasons, let me stipulate that smaller political jurisdictions are on net preferable to larger ones if for no other reason than the lower cost of exit. That in itself may constrain government impositions. Competition is good, and a race to reduce oppression would obviously be laudable by libertarian standards. But governments of any kind may find ways to collude with one another to minimize the effects of competition. Governments today cooperate with one another to catch tax evaders.

Read TGIF at The Libertarian Institute.

TGIF (The Goal Is Freedom) appears on Fridays. Sheldon Richman, author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited, keeps the blog Free Association and is executive editor of The Libertarian InstituteHe is also a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. Become a Free Association patron today!


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I support a cardinal voting system for secessionist referenda. That would be more just than a mere "yes or no". Let's say a citizen votes with some number between 100 and -100, the higher number meaining Absolutely Yes and the lower number Absolutely No.

piety piet said...

interesting .. .didn't know that ... "cardinal voting" huh?
i'll check the images that phrase throws up in a minnit .. but came here to say that a 7th or 8th of the stuff under the link i just posted under the latest post, was inspired by the panarchy crowds (won't repiet it here for fear of being pegged as a spammer).