Often, libertarians work towards their goals by campaigning for politicians and ballot measures that promise to enact them. Agorists work towards their goals by working towards their goals. Agorism is libertarian politics beyond policy. It’s the familiar focus on individual liberation, respect for persons and their property rights, the market process, and the self-organizing power…

I: What is agorism? There is a lot of what I’d call “201” discussion of agorism in this symposium but I think it’s helpful to take a step back and make sure we don’t let some of the fundamentals go under-analyzed. For example, what is counter-economics? What counts as a counter-economic activity and what doesn’t?…

Introducing the 2016 September Mutual Exchange Symposium  The Monthly Mutual Exchange Symposium is C4SS’s effort to achieve mutual understanding through exchange. September’s Mutual Exchange Symposium will explore the philosophy of agorism. Originally coined by radical libertarian social theorist Samuel Edward Konkin III, agorism is a theory of social change that aims to bring about a…

Proudhon on Land Value Taxation Those who have read all the contributions to this conversation so far might well marvel at how many different Proudhons had been invoked in its course. I think all of us are still in the blind man and the elephant stage with Proudhon, to some extent at least. His writings…

Networked and Distributed Communities Kevin Carson’s Final Rejoinders This final set of rejoinders to the other participants’ second replies to me, where they made them, is not meant in any way to be comprehensive. It touches only on a few points I especially wanted to address. And anyone who responds to me after this will…

Radicalism or Rules of Thumb? William Gillis’s Response to Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder With such a nice response from Kevin it’s probably incumbent upon me to emphasize some disagreements — or perhaps just nuances — I was hoping to draw out. Along the way there are a few quibbles I’d make in response to Kevin’s commentary,…

Land Allocation Rules are Necessary Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder to William Gillis As an alternative to what Will regards as the typical approach in advocating for a set of property rules — basically a sales pitch promoting the features of one compared to all the others — he proposes “one where we don’t exclusively compare prefigurative…

Land Appraisers Need Not Be Corrupted Existing Land Trusts Provide Us Ample Evidence While the rents of a land trust could be started with competitive bidding, I agree with Robert Kirchner that there should not be continuous bidding for plots of land. The land rents would be appraised by professionals. Robert is concerned that the…

The Attractions of Geo-Mutualism Appraisers Begone! I am neither a philosopher, nor an economist, nor a political scientist, and so I’ve found myself a bit out of my scholarly depth in this symposium. Prior to these exchanges, I had only slight understanding of Georgist land use proposals, and it had not occurred to me that…

Anarchism & Non-Domination Will says that I “[c]learly come from an anarcho-capitalist, individualist, strain of anarchism, which is not necessarily well-versed in the social strands of anarchism that see anarchism as synonymous with participatory decision-making processes, rather than simply voluntary association.” First of all: I do not consider myself an anarcho-capitalist. I take “capitalism” as…

Geo-mutualism Represents a Middle Ground William Schnack’s Reply to Jason Byas on Economic Rent Jason Byas asks Fred Foldvary which territory is due the rent. “Do I owe rent to the territory roughly corresponding with Decatur, Georgia? Or is it something more like the size of DeKalb County? Or is it to something the size…

The Organic Emergence of Property from Reputation Property as a Useful and Necessary Toil, Not a God For centuries radicals have debated alternative property systems, and I’m glad we’re having these conversations. But what has been consistently disappointing about them is how little they generally seek to explore the underlying roots of “property” itself. To be sure, all…

Humans Have a Moral Claim on Land and its Resources … and This Necessitates the Rental of Both Jason asks the important question of who is the relevant community to whom rent would be paid in a geoist (Georgist) system. Land rent comes from three basic sources: Natural features, commerce, and civic works. Regarding the rent due…

The Moral Irrelevance of Rent Jason Byas’s Response to Folvardy, Schnack and Kirchner In my initial response to Kevin Carson, I briefly asserted that rent from land is morally irrelevant in determining property norms. Three of the respondents in particular — Fred Foldvary, Robert Kirchner, and Will Schnack — clearly think differently. Thanks to their…

Occupancy-and-Use Reflects Moral Imperatives …Implied by Land’s Unique Scarcity, Kevin Carson responds to Jason Byas Jason starts out by accepting my blurred lines between Lockeanism and occupancy-and-use, and agreeing that the difference between them is largely a matter of degree: Non-Proviso Lockeanism is just occupancy-and-use with a higher threshold for constructive abandonment. And the proper…

How Rothbardians Occupy Part of the Occupancy-and-Use Spectrum Jason Byas’s Response to Kevin Carson Are We All Mutualists Now? Maybe: Lockeanism as Occupancy & Use The first thing to say in response to Kevin Carson’s opening essay is that he’s largely right. As this exchange’s representative Rothbardian, I agree with his suggestion that the differences…

Georgist System is Prudential Land Ownership Monopoly Results in Enslavement Kevin claims that I deny occupancy and use is relevant to legitimate appropriation. Kevin states that the choice of rules regarding the ownership of land “is a prudential matter.” However, if one believes that there exists a universal morality, an ethic that transcends culture and is…

Community Land Tax Negates True Ownership …and Indirectly Reinforces State Capitalism Fred begins by denying that occupancy and use is relevant to legitimate appropriation, so long as the “person has title to land, and pays its economic rent to the relevant community”; meeting such criteria amounts, “in effect, [to] occupying the land.” So in the…

Georgist Occupancy with Rent Community Rent Results in Fair and Optimal Use If a person has title to land, and pays its economic rent to the relevant community, then that person is, in effect, occupying the land. The economic rent is what a competitive tenant bids for the best use of the land. Suppose a…

Reaffirming Occupancy-and-Use Further Clarification in Response to Robert Kirchner Robert Kirchner is in the unusual position, in a symposium on occupancy-and-use land tenure, of defending it more uncompromisingly than my kick-off essay in favor of it. He emphasizes that he is “somewhat more doctrinaire” than me, and contrasts his position to my own of taking…