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Freedom Book of the Month
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Free-Market.Net's F r e e d o m B o o k o f t h e M o n t h
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Edited by Thomas L. Knapp. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this and
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July 2001:
DISSENTING ELECTORATE:
Those Who Refuse to Vote and the Legitimacy of Their Opposition
Edited by Carl Watner and Wendy McElroy,
McFarland 2001, paperback, 135 pp.
I vote. Sometimes I do so gladly, believing that I will make a difference;
and sometimes I do so with a sense of resignation, believing only that I
have a responsibility to stay in the game and fight to the bitter end for
what I believe. "Dissenting Electorate" is an enlightening collection of
material defending an alternate course, that of refusing to participate in
a process which legitimizes state power.
The issue is not new, of course. Since the franchise was created, debate
has raged about the obligations voting imposes. Is the losing side bound to
abide by the outcome? Are the non-voters bound by the will of the voters?
Who came up with this nose-counting scenario anyway?
Carl Watner and Wendy McElroy are voluntaryists: they reject electoral
politics as incompatible with libertarian principle. Voting, according to
the voluntaryist idea, gives government an undeserved mantle of legitimacy,
and the proper approach is to forego even the tacit cooperation with, or
approval of, the state implied by participating in its elections.
In "Dissenting Electorate," Watner and McElroy distill 150 years of thought
on the subject, from the 19th century writings of Lysander Spooner, Herbert
Spencer and Adin Ballou down to the latest libertarian debates.
The argument is compelling: "In all conscience, is it not better for us
even to bear the nearly unbearable ills afflicted upon us by the laws
already made ... than suffer ourselves to be made over into such grotesque
and horrible shapes as a new set of lawmakers would make us into, if we
suffer them to try their powers upon us?" asks Lysander Spooner in "Against
Woman Suffrage."
Or, as Ed Crane said in his response to last November's survey of how
prominent libertarians voted, "It only encourages them."
Among the most interesting and revealing items in the book is a table
analyzing the U.S. presidential vote from 1920 to 1996. During that time,
no elected American president entered office with as many votes as were
cast, so to speak, for "None of the Above" -- by registered voters who
simply did not go to the polls.
"Dissenting Electorate" is sure to raise questions that are not easily
answered, and to provoke new thoughts as to how freedom might be secured --
and how it will not be.
o Order "Dissenting Electorate" from Laissez Faire Books for $24.95:
http://www.laissezfairebooks.com/product.cfm?op=view&pid=PT8444&aid=FM
o Visit the Voluntaryist Site:
http://members.aol.com/vlntryst/index.html
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