Use-and-Occupancy: Practical Issues Robert Kirchner’s Response to Kevin Carson I have no desire to exchange ‘salvos’ with anybody, least of all Kevin Carson, whose work I greatly admire, who has greatly helped me to clarify my own thought on a range of economic and political issues, and who has strengthened my hope in anarchist strategies…

Geo-Mutualism Offers Inter-Community Dispute-Resolution Carson’s Occupancy-and-Use Regime Has No Such Mechanism I’d like to thank Kevin Carson for taking the time to reply to my critique of his original statement. Before I continue to respond, I’d like to also take a quick moment to do something which I should have done in my first response,…

Geo-Mutualist Depictions of Occupancy-and-Use Fall Flat Carson Adresses Schnack’s Criticisms Will begins by questioning the extent to which non-Proviso Lockeanism and occupancy-and-use really do occupy a single “stickiness” spectrum: …[H]e acknowledges … that mutualism and neo-Lockeanism may exist on a spectrum in regards to conventions relating to abandonment and community reclamation. It is implied that capitalists…

Proudhon on Economic Rent An Addendum to William Schnack’s Response to Kevin Carson Due to the unorthodox claims made in my last response, I wanted to give some supporting material for my depiction of Proudhon’s take on economic rent. Think of this as a long footnote, rather than the heart of my argument. My position is…

Panarchy Flourishes Under Geo-Mutualism William Schnack’s Response to Carson’s Arbitrary Occupancy-and-Use Doctrine My position on occupancy and use is a little different than Kevin’s, and I dare suggest that it is the position nearest Proudhon’s original intentions. Though I do believe it is a component of the original mutualism, I have branded my stance “geo-mutualism,”…

The Most Difficult Aspects of Anarchy Response to Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder by Shawn Wilbur At base, Kevin and I disagree about the possibility of, as I put it, “a truly anarchic space, outside the legal order and beyond the realm of permissions and prohibitions.” That’s a serious disagreement, since it amounts, for me, to a…

The Spirit of Dialectical Libertarianism Rejoinder to Shawn Wilbur by Kevin Carson At the outset, before going on to dismiss the “usual” criticisms of occupancy-and-use, Shawn raises some far less common questions of his own — very much in the spirit of dialectical libertarianism — about how the character of an occupancy-and-use system would be…

Limiting Conditions and Local Desires Occupancy-and-Use: Neo-Proudhonian Remarks by Shawn Wilbur There is a great deal that could be said in response to Kevin Carson’s opening statement, from the “neo-Proudhonian” mutualist perspective, but I’ll try to keep things at least relatively short. Like Kevin, my introduction to the notion of occupancy-and-use land tenure was through…

Are We All Mutualists? Some General Comments on Occupancy-and-Use It falls to me, in this opening salvo in a symposium on occupancy-and-use land tenure, also known as usufructory property, to write a defense of it. Theoretical advocates of it go back, in some form, at least to Godwin and Paine in the Western tradition. I’m…

Introducing the November 2015 Mutual Exchange Symposium Discourse on Occupancy and Use: Potential Applications and Possible Shortcomings “It’s a shame there’s even a need to say this, but ‘property’ is a word that’s used by different people to mean different things,” reckons Kevin Carson in his opening salvo. Carson’s statement neatly summarizes C4SS’s November 2015…

Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder to Steven Horwitz. As with Derek Wall, I’m gratified by the thoughtful tone of Steven Horwitz’s response to my lead essay. Where he agrees with me, he makes some good points of his own that add to what I was trying to say — particularly in regard to “free markets” not meaning the…

Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder to Derek Wall. I appreciate the thoughtful tone of Derek’s response, and I’m certainly gratified by whatever role I may have played in inspiring him to take up brewing beer. And having been strongly influenced by the work of Elinor Ostrom myself, I was pleased to learn that an Ostrom scholar was…

Steven Horwitz’s Response to Kevin Carson. There is much to like in Kevin Carson’s lead essay and even where I think he goes astray, he performs a valuable service by reminding us of the ways in which the state has affected the evolution of really-existing capitalism and he thereby challenges us to think more critically…

Derek Wall’s Response to Kevin Carson. My background is in ecosocialism. I am not an anarchist; in fact, I am currently International Coordinator of the Green Party of England and Wales. I would see ecosocialism as rooted in Marxist thought. So unsurprisingly I would tend to argue that non-capitalist markets tend to lead to the…

Some anarchists and socialists argue that, even if markets can theoretically be non-capitalist, and non-capitalist market economies can exist, the dynamics of the market will eventually lead to the restoration of capitalism. The argument used by non-market anarchists and socialists is that, in a competitive market — even a competitive market of widespread distribution of…

Introducing Mutual Exchange: Do Free Markets Always Produce a Corporate Economy? What would a free market look like? Most people agree that totally freed markets are nowhere to be seen in today’s world. States intruding on voluntary exchange and standing in the way of free association is commonplace across the globe. There are some markets, yes. But…

I’m happy to announce the official launch of the Center for a Stateless Society’s (C4SS) Monthly Mutual Exchange Symposium. C4SS’s effort to achieve mutual understanding through exchange is now a monthly project. Mutual Exchange will explore many issues from a variety of different perspectives. Mutual Exchange is C4SS’s goal in two senses: We favor a society rooted…

Mutual Exchange is the Center’s goal in two senses — we favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to the Center’s audience. A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside and…

Mutual Exchange is the Center’s goal in two senses — we favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to the Center’s audience. A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside and…

Mutual Exchange is the Center’s goal in two senses — we favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to the Center’s audience. A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside and…