Property and the family are two ideas, for the attack and defense of which legions of writers have taken up arms during the last half century. Recent systems, founded upon old errors, but revived by the popular emotions which they aroused, have in vain disturbed, misrepresented, sometimes even denied, them. These ideas express necessary facts,…

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…

Last week I set out Auburn University philosopher Roderick Long’s argument that libertarianism can’t be reasonably dismissed as strange. (A modest objective, to be sure.) After all, Long writes, mainstream libertarianism holds that each individual has a right not to be aggressed against, aggression being defined descriptively (not normatively) as the initiation of physical force….

Che direste se la vostra proprietà sulla vostra casa fosse riconosciuta solo se approvata dal Congresso? Vi sentireste più sicuri o meno? Questa è la realtà che vivono milioni di brasiliani che vivono nelle favelas, le cui proprietà sono soggette a questo genere di scherzo politico. Uno scherzo che, secondo l’opinione di alcuni parlamentari, dovrebbe…

Imagine that the title on your house would be recognized only if Congress approved it. Would you feel safer or less secure? This reality is already faced by millions of Brazilians who live in the favelas and have their possessions subjected to this political game. A game that should be extended to the indigenous peoples of Brazil,…

The talking point popular among right-leaning libertarians that the Plymouth colony is an example of the failure of the commons has been dealt with on C4SS. But it takes a list to make clear just how often the same piece has been rewritten: Tom Bethell, “How Private Property Saved the Pilgrims”, the Hoover Institution’s Hoover…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “Fairness and Possession” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Gary Chartier, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. C4SS trustee and senior fellow Gary Chartier is a Professor of Law and Business Ethics, and Associate Dean of the School of Business, at La Sierra University. He is the author of Economic Justice…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “From Whence do Property Titles Arise?” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by William Gillis, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. Forgive the digression to my 90s Nickelodeon childhood, but in illustration I am reminded of an episode of Angry Beavers in which the brothers suddenly discover that they each have…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “Open the Borders Now and Forever” read and edited by Nick Ford. Free and open movement is the natural, unconditional right of every single individual, a prerogative that precedes governments and their arbitrary borders and policies. Confronted with this fact, even some self-styled libertarians will cavil and complain, puling that…

Market anarchism is grounded in the sovereignty of each individual and the simple idea that all relationships between adults ought to be voluntary and consensual, permitting everyone the freedom to do anything she wishes, as long as she respects the identical right of all others. The “market” in market anarchism refers to the fact that…

Brazil’s Congress just passed a Proposal of Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) known as “Slave Labor Amendment.”  The new law aims to broaden the power of land confiscation without compensation by the government, including  properties on which there is exploitation of slave labor. After the modifications, Article 243 of the Constitution reads as follows: “Rural…

Recently Rodrigo Mezzomo, in an article for Instituto “Liberal,” argued for the removal of the favelas as an urban necessity in Rio de Janeiro. According to the author, favelas symbolize “disorder and illegality,” and result from “invasions and disordered occupations.” Moreover, favela dwellers are “superior citizens, not subjected to the constitutional order of the country, because they…