Roy A. Childs, Jr.: Governance

“And more: by rushing into politics, what principles are the conservatives abandoning, and which are they accepting? Voting and political action itself implies a sanctioning of the state, and hence of its basis — the rule of man by man. The conservatives would fight the principle by adopting it. They oppose the state — by sanctioning the entire governing process. What will be the result? The growth of the state.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr.

“Autarchy and the Statist Abyss,” 1968

Fight

“Taxation is by definition legalized robbery. Clearly, it is initiated coercion. As such, no Objectivist can in good conscience support it. So, naturally, most of them don't. Ayn Rand, in her essay in The Virtue of Selfishness entitled "Government Financing in a Free Society," states emphatically that the financing of the state in a free society would be voluntary. But can it be?”

Roy A. Childs, Jr.

“The Contradiction in Objectivism,” 1968

Support , Nature , Selfishness

“It is important to remember in this context that statism exists whenever there is a government which initiates force. The degree of statism, once the government has done so, is all that is in question. Once the principle of the initiation of force has been accepted, we have granted the premise of statists of all breeds, and the rest, as you have said so eloquently, is just a matter of time.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr.

“Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand,” 1969

Question , Time

“It is my contention that limited government is a floating abstraction which has never been concretized by anyone; that a limited government must either initiate force or cease being a government; that the very concept of limited government is an unsuccessful attempt to integrate two mutually contradictory elements: statism and voluntarism. Hence, if this can be shown, epistemological clarity and moral consistency demands the rejection of the institution of government totally, resulting in free market anarchism, or a purely voluntary society.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr.

“Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand,” 1969

“Now, state socialism, by objecting to one form of ownership, mainly the right of individual ownership over the means of production, in effect, placed the lives and liberty of all its citizens in the hands of a government clique and does this very simply because no liberty could be achieved in society. If the state apparatus alone has control over means of production like printing presses and the broadcast medium of the airwaves, this control of the means of production is a control over the ends that people in society can seek.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr.

Roy A. Childs, Jr. “Property Rights/Civil Liberties: Two Sides of One Coin,” lecture presented at Stanford University for Cato Institute’s Summer Seminars on Political Economy (August 6, 1978). Reprinted in Liberty Against Power, San Francisco: CA, Fox & Wilkes (1994) p. 210

People

“The only logical attitude that any Objectivist should take toward the present government and constitution is one of uncompromising hostility. And since one does not sanction evil in any capacity, that means that every Objectivist should withdraw his sanction from the political establishment immediately and in every possible way.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr.

“The Contradiction in Objectivism,” 1968

Hostility , Way , Evil