Just words can change the world. Do you believe that? People in the Voluntary Law Development Association (VLDA) do. We use words and the power of persuasion to build a better world for everybody.

The VLDA is many things. It’s a blog run by a last-wave Baby Boomer, Jonny Stryder, who writes it from his urban  microfarm just west of East LA. It’s an idea about righteous order (“law” in the natural sense)  arising from the grassroots, a society in which each earns honor by following their own code. If you want, you can imagine that VLDA is like a club without any hierarchy, written rules, tangible assets, income, or membership roster.  Members know each other by their fruits, by how all treat others.

Once, Jonny had big dreams for VLDA. But he hit a wall. It turned out that the word “law” was a bad choice. For a lot of people, “law” and “justice” are triggers for pain from oppression by police, prosecutors, lawyers and plaintiffs. So Jonny doesn’t use the term “volutary law” anymore. A more recent snapshot of his thinking on voluntary order is captured in the book Blockchain Faith.

The essence hasn’t changed. VLDA is still about how to resolve conflicts and develop mutual understanding between people with different moral views. It’s about finding new ways to build strong communities that are open and accepting.

VLDA’s logo is a concept diagram showing voluntary law societies in the process of dissolving states. Wouldn’t life be wonderful if we all just realized that we don’t need wars or top-down governments anymore? It will never happen unless we each take responsibility for ruling ourselves with honor and mutual acceptance. We’ve given up so much of that responsibility. Learning how to take it back won’t be easy.

Come dream with us. Come build with us.

All content on this site is available for republishing under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license, without any permission required. If you do republish content found here, we would appreciate a link back to http://www.vlda.org, but the only requirement is to provide attribution to the author and the Voluntary Law Development Association.