Land Value Tax in the 21st Century

Georgism (breaking the power of last remnant of feudalism, the landlords) presents the most important point of contact and agreement between far left, far right, and centrist liberals throughout the world. Such agreement is key during transition to a new world economic system.


H.G. Wells, in The Shape of Things to Come, appears to have been correct (if off by a number of decades) when it comes to predicting Land Value Taxation becoming a fundamental cornerstone of a saner future world system. Whether the landlords are private or public in the form of a government, the unearned rents they collect will be redistributed to all living on the land. This allows most private corporations and individual capitalists to: 


1) Redirect increasing anger against them onto a relatively small number of individuals (buying time).


2) Buy off the poor without incurring too much personal cost (buying time).


3) Eliminate critical inefficiencies remaining from the dark ages and allocate capital more effectively in a world where capital accumulation has been slowing down/stagnating for decades (buying more time).


4) Push governments (that they always indirectly control when not being fused with them) of key great powers in the northern hemisphere to reinvent themselves. This allows the European continent to take the torch from United States in becoming a fortress of safety for capital via even better high tech welfare states (buying time once again by providing livable stipends to elderly and those displaced by machines).

Although it is popular to focus on either financial cartels or inefficiencies of the public sector these days, the sheer absurdity, inefficiency, and tyranny of landlords is often overlooked. It is too much part of background scenery. However, landlordism must be tackled first and directly since it is an older structural problem from a pre-capitalist world system. As we approach an end of a global debt supercycle (with governments of key military powers having to reconstruct social order to continue to function), landlordism should be emphasized as having been the primary cause of the crisis. This would create a convenient (and very necessary!) scapegoat and allow many corporations, oligarchs, unions, and governments to save face during transition to a new world system. Obviously it is one of many causes but singling it out has critically important benefits for humanity in terms of saving political energy expanded this century.


A few words about the global transition. It will either be orderly (Bretton Woods 2.0) or disorderly (trade disruptions and corresponding hunger related political violence primarily in the southern hemisphere). 


For it to be more orderly, the states will need resources. Resources will be scarce (factories shutting down, balance sheets of governments and corporations in disarray, etc). Tapping private landowners the world over and forcing them to pay rent will free up resources to minimize these conditions of chaos. Since new land can't be created readily, since it can't be hidden, and since private landlords control most of the surface of the earth, it will be easy to find what/who we need and redirect the rent these people normally collect towards infrastructure/welfare of a new world system. 


Although not all landlords have the same parasitic pull, the argument of "what about mom and pop landlords" is much like the 19th century argument about "mom and pop slave owners" who just had 1-3 slaves rather than the hundreds of the large plantations (large corporation equivalent of the day). Having said  that, the small landlords of course will not be physically touched and will become beneficiaries of the new system that they now help provide for. Some countries already implement a partial Land Value Tax system to great benefit. Taiwan is best example today. Future merger of China and Taiwan will hopefully "infect" a large planetary role model with a more futuristic tax code.

Problem of governments as landowners


Writing in 1976, Arthur Selwyn Miller in The Modern Corporate State, articulated the rise and decay of FDRist Social Democratic arrangement in United States from 1937 onwards. What started out as a roughly coequal coalition of large unions, large corporations, large universities, and large welfare government (with emphasis on job creating benefits of the military) has deteriorated. 40 years after the book was written, we are left with large military, large corporations (private governments), large universities subordinate to these private governments, and hollowed out central "public" government subordinate to these private governments. Combined with ever present institutionalized landlordism, this heady brew can only be described as neo-feudalism (especially with the 20th century decay/stagnation of newer dynamic progressive industrial capitalist system). 


Richard Nixon, the last strong relatively-autonomous American president, tried to prevent this and wanted to develop some executive government led (as first among equals) developmental authoritarianism. Franco's Spain in the 1950s springs to mind. Nixon was shown a lesson and now we have a major problem on our hands. How do we prevent the current, mostly privately led neo-feudal arrangement from transitioning to a mostly publicly led neo-feudal arrangement? How do we go forward towards new rather than backwards (only now with a glossier high tech patina).


Tapping and tackling only private landlordism will concentrate so many resources in the hands of the state that potential for mismanagement and confusion (see Soviet and modern Chinese examples) becomes all but a certainty. It will still be a better, saner, and more comfortable social order but one that would rapidly decay unless people in public governments are also viewed as much a (potentially parasitic) landlords as private landholders. This is especially important to keep in mind considering that most states in the world are effectively fused with large corporations to different degrees. Decreasing potential for corruption should be correlated to increasing complexity of civilization since preventing social unrest is difficult as is in such a densely populated world.

taxing land monopolies has no inefficiencies since supply of land is perfectly inelastic

The more proactively humane solution will only be in a legal rabidly institutionalized framework that ties the productive resource benefits derived from the land to each individual homo sapien living on the land directly. This means that governments can no longer serve as self aggrandizing “representatives” with final authority on how to allocate the stipends in the 21st century. This means structurally and legally binding governments, these entities with monopoly on violence in a given area, to only act as middlemen service providers and enforcers of justice. For instance, individuals in a private cooperatively owned and democratically managed private corporation in the future will pay legally mandated “rent” (whether money, electrical energy, resources, etc) to a public government land"lord" (people actually owning the land via planes, guns, and missiles) who will in turn be legally bound to transfer these resources to all people on the land. With cutting edge communication and transportation infrastructure, the line between decentralized and centralized governance will increasingly be blurred.

Sounds straightforward and surprisingly libertarian in the American sense? Yes, this brings us to a prior article on Left-Libertarianism in United States as a “glue” for the opposition. North America will be the hardest hit by the global transition since the people on that continent have utilized cutting edge technology to exhaust the current system first. This also means that most cutting edge and novel experiments in creating a new social order will happen there first. Land Value Tax provides a seemingly sensible yet ridiculously radical point of agreement towards a foundational platform of political coalitions of the future.

The planetary transition (whether orderly or disorderly) to a new international social order will span a number of decades and at first the leadership in constructing and developing it will pass to elites in the eastern hemisphere (Berlin-Moscow-Beijing-Tokyo-etc). However, once US begins to (hopefully) economically recover in the late 2020s and becomes role model for South America again (continent with the worst landlordism problem in the world), leadership should swing back to the land where both hope and world crisis began.

Libertarian Movement Is Dying

This rich man's propaganda wont infect the majority of American intelligentsia. Much like a very virulent flesh eating bacteria, this cognitive infection burns through adherents too quickly to infect many.





It may not feel this way but the libertarian fad is on its way out. Sure it dominates the English speaking Internet at the moment. Sure the absolute number of adherents is rapidly increasing by the day. However, as this oligarch funded movement is about to reach its moment of triumph, the engines will stall and it'll nosedive very rapidly (at least in its current form). This is primarily due to realization of early members that they are fighting for a hideous neo-feudal future that they will most likely not benefit from.

To visualize the state of the movement, picture a fire that begins in the middle of the forest. As it spreads and rages in all directions, the original center is no longer on fire. People on the outside get an impression of an endless advance.

Most of the intelligentsia (NTs) gets into libertarianism because they mean well. Due to their physiology they may not be fighting out of emotional empathic care for fellow humans but they genuinely do want a far less "stupid" socioeconomic system. Now that the field of economics has been discredited in this country, the libertarian ideology can't hide under a pseudo-scientific mask any longer. Thus even acquiring new NT members will become more and more difficult since the statement "self educate and become less stupid" now rings hollow. As libertarian thought becomes more mainstream and more adopted by elderly rural people, it also will lose its edgy rebellious attraction among the high schoolers. The alexa.com stats on viewer demographics of marxists.org provide a hint of the future.

The movement will continue expanding for some time among non-intelligentsia due to:

1) seeming lack of alternative ideological ways to express dissent (major dissident groups crushed in the 1940s-1970s period along with FDRism itself in the 80s period)
2) continuous backing for it among an older mentally dimmer faction of the oligarchy (who don't understand that the political apparatus they control actually does them a service by buying off the bottom 20% of population to not rebel)
3) continuous backing for it among the comfortable well paid white collar proletariat (out of cynical self interest since they think they'll be able to make it in a new neofeudal order)
4) some geographic "heartland" regions having to resort to neofeudal survivalism by default (throughout our time of troubles transition period when the federal center of force is receding and not providing services any longer)

However it'll be like a plane without engines, moving by inertia or crude hated necessity. The human engines of the movement will no longer have their heart in it if they have any intellectual honesty.

Previous articles covered how the libertarian movement is striving towards removing checks and balances within the elite population (making elites in government totally structurally subservient to private ones rather than at least co-equal. This is inexcusable to do if human motivation is power based rather than happiness based) and how easy it is to co-opt such a movement (which has already occurred with Ron Paul's efforts to a large degree). This realization is dawning on former libertarians throughout the English speaking world.

What to expect within the movement?

Expect a lot more "libertarian socialists", "liberaltarians", "libertarian technocrats", etc. To save face, maintain the ego, and to preserve some power, many prominent libertarian thinkers and leaders will now preserve "the best" (some much needed political decentralization and social freedoms to do consensual acts) and dump "the worst" (giving even more power to rich entrenched mafia families). We've seen such tactical transformations happen among communist movements throughout the world after the soviet demise. We should also see more emphasis on the "welfare" wording within US constitution and calls to expand the bill of rights as FDR wanted. Many can possibly still remain "libertarian" if they expand/modify the definition of what coercion means. A simple tweak away from present medieval/feudal definition does wonders.

One interesting comparison can be made to dissidents in the Soviet Union. Majority of them used Marxist theory to criticize the Soviet government (even if some secretly wished for it to end or to emulate capitalist societies). It was a lot safer and saner for critics to say that USSR was not real communism at all and not what the founding fathers intended. Many American libertarians similarly found themselves resorting to attacking the state's official ideology by saying it doesn't adhere to some mythical vision of "true" capitalism.


How to deal with them by non-libertarians?

Other dissident groups should realize that infighting among them is not helping against the ruling regime. Libertarians are still the most numerous dissident faction and can be a great ally, a sort of shock troops on the ground (especially the blue collar rural people). Attacking and slandering them only hardens them and keeps the engineless plane from hitting the ground a little longer. In the meantime, there is much common ground to be had in formulating a socioeconomic platform acceptable to every faction.

In dictionary next to false consciousness

A possibility cannot be discounted that the movement may actually produce some interesting theoretical contributions as it tries to conceptualize what to replace the current corporate shareholder rule by (and thus compete with other dissidents such as the technocrats). Sure some current attempts at conceptualizing a "voluntaryst stateless" society are comical, clumsy, and too blatantly neo-feudal. However given time the movement's thought (originally funded by the rich to defeat FDRism) may even produce something interesting and tangible.

Even as we are bombarded with all manner of absurdities and outrages, even as the ranks of youth seem to be joining a movement whose mission is to make these absurdities and outrages much worse, don't lose heart friends. Behind the forest fire things are much different and even the fire itself may help take down a rotten house. We will settle differences of opinion about how to build a new house afterwards.

Ideology Causes Societal Stagnation

When the ruling 20% of the population (NTs/NFs) overwhelmingly relies on heuristics and ideological shortcuts, the resulting storm of cognitive laziness rots society from the top down. Progress in the 21st Century will require development of a guiding yet non-ideological framework




Before diving into construction possibilities of such a framework, a few words about why this blog is titled The Pragmatist. The name was selected to be in stark opposition to the widely hated The Economist ("free" trade/ neoliberal claptrap/ capitalist propaganda arm of the British intelligence). The Economist has done more harm via cognitive pollution of world's elites than most state propaganda arms can ever aspire to. Countless countries were left in ruins by the sort of rigid one dimensional Trotskyist-esque globalization peddling that a pretentious rag like The Economist provides.

A silver lining to this was that The Economist's underlining assumption (that a certain type of development is the best) has stagnated jolly old England via its rulers. This is similar to the way the Chinese empire was stagnated by rigid adherence to traditionalist Confucian train of thought in the 19th century. If Chinese elites of old had a similar magazine, say The Confucianist, it would undoubtedly deal with alternative modes of development with the same contempt and dismissive patronizing attitude. Just like their Chinese brethren before the Opium Wars, Anglo elites of today consider the rest of the world to be barbarian even if these barbarians are developing more advanced technology and infrastructure. They may not be into the beauty of calligraphy but the various non-development obsessions (and thus unbecoming of ruling elites) are eerily similar.

Why would this stagnation of the English speaking world be a blessing in disguise? For starters, from a global perspective, the socioeconomic decline of United States and United Kingdom will do as much to discredit capitalism as the decline of Soviet Union did to discredit communism. Thus we will finally exit the era of great ideological jihads that marked much of the 20th century. This will seem incredibly unfair to many in the Western world who will think the decline occurred because some idealized branch of capitalism in their heads was not adhered to enough. They have their counterparts in the former Soviet space. For majority of humanity at large however, it will mean mental liberation from rigid "isms". Failure of US will trigger bitter factional struggles in the cities of Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, New Delhi and Beijing. It will mimic similar struggles after Soviet collapse and the tidal wave of social change will be tremendous.

In fact, because both superpowers were so intertwined with the ideological systems they mouthed, the discrediting of capitalism will usher in greater change than discrediting of Soviet communism. There will be nothing to fall back on in the minds of both ruling elites and everyday thinking peoples of the world. Chinese and Russian leaderships of today are pragmatic and heterodox yet they still have FDR's social democratic industrial capitalism embedded in the back of their consciousness. China will not be able to fill the void left by US in the minds of world's elites the way US filled the void of SU.

[Note: Democracy will not be similarly discredited since the financial/corporate oligarchies in UK and US provide far less democratic input than the oligarchies of continental Europe. US doesn't have the very basic minimum democratic principle of proportional representation allowing more than two parties. UK's horrid non-inclusive first-past-the-post system makes a mockery of allowing political competition. Lack of democratic input will be singled out by future researchers as the main structural reason why the Anglo kleptocracies reached the levels of irreversible stagnation that they had.]

Well that was more than a few words but The Economist is the devil, it needed to be said. The point is that human intelligentsia wont be free to develop the rest of the herd with ideological "isms" lurking to unconsciously frame all perception. It appears that left brainers are more prone to adapting "ism" systems. That is unfortunate since they tend to be overly represented at the top of various ruling hierarchies.

The more one "educates" oneself about his or her ideology the more neural connections are created within the brain, making it easier to retrieve data. Since left brainers have more sequential processing than right brainers, their brains get the most easily reshaped by system based socioeconomic thought. In other words they build a sort of a neural muscle that aids in spouting one dimensional propaganda. Similar to an athlete just working out one muscle group while letting the rest of the body atrophy. Often having such a brain circuit devoted to a an "ism" feels empowering since:

1) Most of the population (80% who aren't NT/NF) haven't delved into internalizing a system to such an extent. They think anybody with an elaborate enough system must be an expert
2) Half of the intelligentsia (NFPs/NTPs) are right brain dominant and sample data from across a variety of systems and experiences. Their style of conversation relies on drawing horizontally from a wide range of fields. To a left brainer system peddler it would appear that they are dodging the conversation.

In any event, a person deep into system based ideological thinking is prone to debate mode of conversation rather than mutually beneficial discussion where tangible learning can occur. A sort of an interpersonal cold war mentally becomes ever present. An "us versus them" dynamic develops within the intelligentsia. We saw where that leads entire societies.

Previously I touched upon the criteria by which future leaderships will be judged:

1) preservation/expansion of human autonomy
2) speed in construction of energy plants needed for continental infrastructure projects in irrigation, transport, farming, etc.

Providing more infrastructure can never truly become an ideology any more than providing more water and food can be an ideology. If you talk to anybody whose cognitive processes are deeply caged by an "ism", it is highly unlikely that they'll mention the result of less shelter, food, water, energy as the benefit of their ideology. And of course minority death cults can be readily recognized and dismissed out of hand (this unfortunately includes some "post-industrialist" factions of the green movement). Thus we have infrastructure as our first guiding point that is flexible enough depending on the needs of a particular region/climate.

What the ideologues of course differ on is how to get to more infrastructure for humanity. We can't simply use the process of elimination of what's easier in terms of how to proceed. This may open the door to tyrannical political suggestions. Yet how do we make the above mentioned preservation/expansion of human autonomy a guiding point without it becoming a rigid "ism"?

This is a complex topic that I'll attempt to tackle in the next article. Obviously provision of shelter/food/energy and giving more cutting edge democratic proportional representation builds autonomy of the individual. Yet we can't just say "our guiding point should be infrastructure and we should build more infrastructure and build it quicker in a way that keeps expanding the autonomy of all individuals (second guiding point)". Although it may appear as if there are no trade offs with our guiding points, many political factions can easily spot trade offs that can occur (sacrificing humans in name of infrastructure construction or sacrificing infrastructure construction in the name of humans).

Therefore, the relationship between the guiding points needs to be very carefully developed to preemptively deflect accusations from ideologues of various stripes (namely libertarians and those who want to emulate Chinese dictatorship).

Comparing Deflationary and Inflationary Collapse

Both mainstream and dissident observers are coming up with "biflation" as an explanatory term to describe where we are as a planetary economy. That is a signal we're in a conceptual dead end (considering biflation has always been with us for the past half a century at least).



Some reactionary factions in the Western world desire a global return to a system of deflationary non-fiat industrial capitalism. I've began to write how "sound money" advocates are actually biting more than they can chew since deflation leads to collapse of capitalism a lot quicker than inflationary fiat funny money system. There's other very serious structural problems with the current world production and distribution system (such as machine efficiency rising faster than demand for workers) but lets focus on inflation and deflation first to see why there isn't a simple escape from current international fiat casino.


DEFLATIONARY COLLAPSE-
Caused by: Wage prices falling less fast than prices of goods
Result: Crisis of overproduction and profit collapse leading to shut downs of industry due to insufficient funds to run it, bringing corresponding misery.
Illustration of Industry versus "Consumer"/Worker deflationary cycle: 
                                                              

Industry makes KitchenBots (representing needed durable goods in general) and exchanges them for "sound" commodity backed currency. Consumers benefit in the mid stage of the cycle until overproduction leads to insufficient capital accumulation and horrendous social disturbance                                




 
1) Industry cycle begins


Pricey and new KitchenBot exchanged  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                                                    <<<<<<<<<<<<<< for 100 SoundBucks

Trickle in supply of KitchenBots begins some profit generation,  "consumers"/workers on average spend 2/3 of their total money on needed goods. Wealthier people/ early adopters create trickle of demand for the pricey good


2) Midstage of the industry cycle

Affordable and well known KitchenBot exchanged  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                                                            <<<<<<<<<<<<<< for 50 SoundBucks

Lots of supply as mass production slashes the price of the useful and desired KitchenBots yet profits increase on volume, workers on average spend 1/3 of their total money on goods (since their annual salary cuts are less drastic than cuts in the price of goods)


3) Final destructive stage of the industry cycle

Old and busted stamped out KitchenBot exchanged  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                                                            <<<<<<<<<<<<<< for 10 SoundBucks

Super supply and insufficient demand leads to inability of industry to make razor thin margins profitable. Profit collapses, capitalists cant afford to run factories and close them, laying off workers/"consumers". Workers on average spend 1/10th salary on goods yet they are now without income stream to afford the oversupply of goods all around them

Conclusion/Possible Solutions: We start out great on at least the light industry level and end up in a brutish destitute 1930s style depression (think of overproduced livestock being butchered instead of sold/given away to keep some profits). Everything grinds to a halt just as post-scarcity is within reach. One must keep in mind that life cycles of various goods overlap yet the general cumulative tendency is what is illustrated above. Possible remedies include introducing fiat inflation (see below) with serious state provided safety nets, war to destroy surplus goods/industry, and the state taking over some production to run factories without a profit motive (see 1930s-1970s socioeconomic experimentation in Europe)

And now lets turn to our current problem,

INFLATIONARY COLLAPSE-
Caused by: Wage prices rising slower than prices of goods
Result: Crisis of overproduction and profit collapse leading to shut downs of industry due to insufficient funds to run it bringing corresponding misery.
Illustration of Industry versus "Consumer"/Worker inflationary cycle:
                                                            

Industry makes KitchenBots  (representing needed durable good) and exchanges them for "fiat" faith backed currency. Consumers don't really benefit at any stage of the cycle until overproduction leads to insufficient capital accumulation and horrendous social disturbance 





                                
1) Industry cycle begins

Pricey and new KitchenBot exchanged  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                                                              <<<<<<<<<<<<< for 100 FiatBucks
Trickle in supply of KitchenBots begins some profit generation,  "consumers"/workers on average spend 2/3 of their total money on needed goods. Wealthier people/ early adopters create trickle of demand for the pricey good

2) Midstage of the industry cycle


Well known, yet still pricey KitchenBot exchanged >>>>>>>>>>
                                                              <<<<<<<<<<<<<< for 200 FiatBucks

Industry greatly increases supply of KitchenBots and KB price even briefly dips to 80-90 FiatBuck range. Yet soon enough new KitchenBots appear for 400 FiatBucks while the older generation ones are sold for 200. Industry is now trying to plan production in batches to prevent strong technology generated deflationary trends from surfacing even now. For the average "consumer", industry also designs shoddy goods that need constant replacement. Profit remains precarious yet stable with proper application of monopoly, cartel, and state ties. Workers meanwhile now spend 9/10th of their income on goods

3) Final destructive stage of the industry cycle

Old and busted KitchenBot exchanged >>>>>>>>>>
                                                              <<<<<<<<<<<<< for 1000 FiatBucks

At this stage we see normal consumer market destroyed, leaving only the luxury consumer market left standing. To overcome relentless international competition and fiat related higher prices on building materials, Industry goes all out to create super supply for ordinary people and hope to make money on mass production (whether technologically induced or using outsourced wage slave labor). These efforts fail as total mass production for KitchenBots was never fully developed due to sneaky attempts to prevent overproduction in the mid stage of the cycle. Workers now spend 10+/10 of their income on goods and increasingly only buy essential goods before gradually beginning to run out of those as well. Run away commodity inflation is the final straw of the fiat cycle. Since the rich do not need too many KitchenBots and since the rest of the workers prefer food and fuel instead, Industry begins to shut down factories and lay off people due to inability to fund further operations.

Conclusion/Possible Solutions:

We start out not that great and end up in the same poverty amongst plentiful resources scenario just as we do in the final stage of the deflationary cycle. We have witnessed what happens to a global system and its peoples under shocks from deflationary financial capitalism in the first half of the 20th century (historically, international financial cartels appear to take over the international industrial cartels regardless of fiat or sound status of the currencies).

We have not yet seen a planet wide inflationary fiat chain of collapse yet. This would imply all major currencies on the planet being affected relatively simultaneously via some failure on the part of Bank for International Settlements strategists to react quickly enough to systemic shocks. In many ways, inflationary monetarism allows Industry a variety of tools and more breathing room to play around with prices and thus survive a while longer. Inevitably, prices rising faster than wages destabilizes the whole system as surely as wages rising faster than prices.

Implications and alternatives

It appears that BOTH paths described above eventually lead real industry into a profit collapse and corresponding large scale social crisis (factory management not having the funds to keep production and distribution running and paying the workers). This would occur even if we minimized the influence of capital allocation industry (global banking cartels) on global industrial cartels. Symbiosis and convergence of finance and industry is as organic and essential to the system as is symbiosis between industry and state, banks and state, etc.

Austrian economists have done a good job continuing where original old school Marxist economists left off (when it comes to expanding a critique of capitalism in general). Namely, they ripped into the disastrous consequences of credit growing faster than real productive economy and the "statism" that often allows this. It is rather hilarious that both Marxists and Austrian economists really rely on victory by default. That is, the former group gets legitimacy by saying the planetary capital accumulating system we had for the past few hundred years is unstable, inefficient, and ultimately unworkable even with mass state subsidies. The latter group get their legitimacy on saying the fiat version of the same planetary system is unworkable due to statist interference. "If only we could purge statism from the world system!" This absurd cry rings forth from various corners of the Western dissident movement.

One way to proceed would be to expand the credit supply at exactly the rate at which expansion of the real physical economy occurs. Some dissident thinkers believe we can bypass the inflation/deflation debate by having the state provide credit for high technology infrastructure (thus creating real economic growth). Another way to proceed would be to overlap the dying capitalist system (whatever form it'll take in the next 10 years) with energy accounting. Both can easily function in parallel for a time. Indeed, if we think of the global socioeconomic transition and experimental period in the decades ahead, overlaps and diverse systems running in parallel will be a must. Which of these experimental sandboxes will expand to swallow the imagination of the whole globe will be left for us to determine.

Collective Land Ownership: Journey and Implications Part 1

Beginning of exploration concerning certain issues on the way to global governance and international problem solving



Now that Georgism and resource based socioeconomic theory (technocracy) are having a major revival, it's time to look at the ins and out of collective land ownership.

As explained in one of my earliest articles Story of Joe the Land Baron, private land ownership is a feudal concept that capitalist/libertarian thinkers just came to defend without giving it much second thought. Their arguments on taxation being theft and coercion are much more applicable to private holding of territory (if basic history and dynamics of control over land are looked at). It is likely that in the years to come, there will be a rise in popularity of bridging theories (such as geolibertarianism) due to the desire of Internet hatched free market zealots to reconcile their socially atomizing beliefs with psychological communal longing.

The most likely focus of attack would be private land ownership (first the unrestrained corporate variety and then smaller scale slumlord variety due to severe housing shortages). Such a hallowed notion under attack is the result of educated individuals now increasingly seeing the world as one splintered country in formation and themselves as citizens within it. The globalist mentality of elites has been infiltrating the minds of middle classes for some time now as they realize that key problems are international in nature. The massive damage to the ecosystem puts large scale land owners under greater scrutiny than ever before. The realization that capitalist theory doesn't defend private land control makes this scrutiny all the stronger.

The nation's and world's environment being a collective responsibility inevitably leads to certain clarifications.


Idealist Statement: Environment belongs to all of humanity.
Realist translation of statement: The state is the ultimate landowner (practically and morally)

Working with accepted definition of the state being a monopoly on violence over a given area, it's clear that most of the land acquired throughout the world was via the state providing muscle, support, and protection. This could be anything from an absolute monarch settling a territorial dispute to the federal government engaging in Louisiana purchase.

In 2010, the ultimate defense of all the land in the world is given by statist military guarantee. At least on paper. There may be de facto areas not under state control in which case the armed individuals creating leadership in those areas become temporary micro states rather than remain private individuals. Yes, the public government may devolve power to individuals when it comes to day to day defense and maintenance of specific bit of land but you can bet that if another government lands helicopters there and puts a flag in, there would be a massive statist reaction (see Georgia 2008).

Idealist Statement: The government is people's tool and is a managerial extension of the people.
Realist translation of statement: People are indirect landowners of all the land under their state's military protection.

If people ideologically (and naively given the oligarchic reality) perceive the government as their tool and servant, then they claim ownership to the totality of territory under that government's control. This seems as a no brainer in that in many nations nativist patriots would be enraged and feel violated if a neighboring country's people invade with the goal of land acquisition. The concept of nationalism has psychologically imbedded the idea of collective ownership of land for many decades now. Statement of "our country" is amusing coming from the mouth of a pro-private land ownership libertarian. It's no less amusing if this person says "the state's country" and then proceeds to argue how he is just in some contract with the state to get contract enforcement, etc.

Whatever the socioeconomic structure and popular legitimacy of any given state is, it is evident that most people within it have had their ancestors acquire the state's land by force, kept it by force, and continually claim strong joint psychological ownership over it. The fact that the notion of private land ownership still exists in the modern world points to the continuing strength of feudal power (large landowners having incredibly larger leverage in using the government as a tool compared to masses at large). Seizure of land by the government from private interests "in the name of the people" is like a car owner seizing his glove compartment to reestablish control over it. Legality and morality of it is as absurd to discuss as legality of modern country borders. Ownership of improvements on the land (contents of the glove compartment) are a different matter to be discussed below.

Implication 1: Acceptance of collective ownership of land results in elimination of feudal middlemen as rents are now publicly collected.

The rents that land owners collect is based on the value of the land (that landlords are allowed to sit on by the state). Since the state is the ultimate landowner, these rents need to go directly to it while cutting out the feudal middlemen out of the equation. This means that private rent collection is to be eliminated as a practice. Private individuals are not allowed to collect whatever tax they like at the moment and same would apply to rents from locations they happen to occupy.

to be continued in part 2

Ron Paul to Tea Party Protests

How a kindly ideologue had his movement partially co-opted by oligarchic corporate influences



It has been almost 3 years since Ron Paul decided to run for president of the United States. His decision led to an embryonic movement that has since mutated, been partially co-opted (by oligarchic interests), and came to be known as the Tea Party Protests. The time has come to evaluate and dissect the evolution of Ron Paul's project to sort the confusion around it. Let's begin with analysis of Ron Paul who contributed greatly to the civil wars within the GOP which in turn resulted in Ron Paul staging an alternate republican convention nearby the official one in 2008.

For a brief moment during the Republican primaries it looked as if Ron Paul might get third place in the Iowa caucuses. Third place was exciting in that it would mean some sort of brief lifting of the heavy corporate media censorship (no other way to explain disproportionate lack of attention towards a reformer who raised more money and had greater national following than Tancredo or Thompson). Alas, Fred Thompson has done his favor to McCain solidly and performed well as a fake candidate to split anti-establishment Republicans. We may see more fake diversionary candidates in the future. A 6-7 figure to pretend to campaign for a few months? Which actor with political connections wouldn't jump at the chance?

Ron Paul was different than other reformers (such as Nader and Kucinich) that were long censored by corporate interests  in that he wasn't a person. He was a mouthpiece for a libertarian ideology. One might think something like this occurs often but it is ridiculously rare and stunning to witness in politics. Such a rare breed doesn't make it far nationally (the way a real Coptic Christian wouldn't in a megachurch industry or an orthodox communist in a Chinese politburo). However people like that have a claim to incorruptibility. This and Ron Paul's track record created an instant passionate following.

Even with this ideologue background Ron Paul shared one thing seen in great reformers like Ralph Nader. He described news events, history, and dynamics of government the way he personally saw them and without spin. This bears repeating. He spoke an approximation of truth to power. A good example of this is an interview he gave to an alternate news organization in 1988. The interview is as relevant today as ever and he describes how the financial industry in essence now owns congress and is the dominant faction within the American oligarchy.

It may seem weird that an ideologue is able to describe the real nature of power within a society but if you think about it, Ron's libertarian orthodoxy aids in the process. Most politicians subscribe to a movable, fake, and incoherent ideology (some meaningless notions of center-left and center-right which are always in flux) to get elected and that requires them to apply a very simple yet muddy ideological filter to everything they do. If they don't do that, they of course will be accused of flip flopping and weakness by the opponents. It is an unfortunate state of affairs that is the worst possible hybrid between ideological orthodoxy and absolute pragmatism. Freedom of meaningful thought and action is restrained in often absurd and situationally dependent arbitrary ways.

Ron Paul does not have that problem as he is firmly anchored in Austrian economics and constitutional legalism. His actions and empirical appraisal of reality is still horrendously restrained but we all know where he stands at all times. It is no coincidence that immovable die hards like Paul and Mike Gravel are children of the depression. Paul responded to the crisis of the depression and stagnation of liberal structures in the 1960s with idealistic reactionism (his homeland of Texas was on periphery of FDR social revolt) while Gravel wanted to further evolve and put additional energies into structures and promises started by FDR.

Having said that, people like Ron Paul are more than capable of siding with certain factions (that are either ideologically muddy or rather moderate) IF it moves society in the direction of that rigid utopian construct they have in mind. "Ends justify the means" and "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of dynamic has long been a staple of genuine ideologues. This is different than most politicians because of its teleological nature. Two extreme examples stemming from the same hypothetical person can illustrate this:

1) a communist in Soviet Union who wanted United States to win the cold war because SU was a state capitalist abomination in his view
2) this same person now supports free trade because he thinks it'll make the world's workers sufficiently miserable and build international solidarity which in turn ends capitalism quicker (Famous Marxist theorist Georges Sorel for instance wanted unhindered globalization so capitalism could burn itself out quicker)

We see how ideologues can support something which seems complete opposite of what they want (temporarily) to achieve an ultimate goal. It's a very old game that some casual observers seem to forget about. There is no telling to how far the mental rabbit hole goes. Considering many "neo-conservatives" were Marxist in their youth, it is worth noting the ultimate result of their actions and to consider what goes on inside their minds under many layers.

Ron Paul's actions of course do not deviate this psychopathically far "for the cause". The key reason why he was able to make an otherwise hideous pro-oligarchy ideology of stifling development for majority of the population so palatable was due to him being a kind and gentle soul at heart. It is readily evident in videos of Dr Paul's interviews and speeches. One cannot be mad at him or suspect nasty behind the scenes motives since he lived his entire life as a role model libertarian and an exemplary helpful human being. Ideological pragmatism did make Ron associate and collaborate with certain ideological "free market" think tanks and foundations whose only purpose was to increase the net worth of the oligarchs who started these think tanks in the first place. [here's more on how easy it is for billionaires like David Koch, Steve Forbes, or Richard Scaife to use a bit of their pocket change to create fake grass roots movements and to put educated people on a payroll so they could ideologically serve rich people). Since GOP in itself is just a vehicle for rich people's ideas and power, Ron's association with it in his presidential run allowed oligarchic interests to make inroads into the energized pool of new people that Ron brought to the party.

Considering the fractured nature of GOP during the presidential primary battles, the shrinking and now regional status of the party, Ron Paul's lack of support for McCain, and McCain's support of bailouts and electoral failure, the re-energized libertarian faction provided GOP with a powerful and independently minded influx of pure activists. Many of these people had their own links to various think tanks and oligarchic "research" data. This rich man's infiltration of a movement that prided itself with small donation support may have remained relatively limited considering the above average education and anti-corporate perspective of many libertarian activists (one needs education to engage in understanding and application of a sufficiently complex economic theory, regardless of theory's merits). However, Sarah Palin emerged on the scene and sufficiently re-energized the uneducated rural theocratic factions of the GOP. McCain of course picked her to co-opt not just Hilary voters but power bases of his primary rivals (which included uneducated anti-government people as well as Paul's libertarian ideologues).

What happened next was rather simple. Since there are more elderly rural uneducated anti-gov people in GOP than younger college educated anti-gov libertarians, the Sarah Palin block swamped Ron Paul's people after the presidential election. People with education low enough to think Sarah Palin was an actual capable person were always traditionally manipulated by corporate/theocratic interests (although under Reagan's era of think tanks it became an art form). This story repeated itself as corporate front groups such as freedomworks began to utilize the successful tea party themes of Ron Paul's movement to direct anti-government people against the Obama administration rather than against the federal reserve and the current fiat money monetarist system. Since many of the energetic libertarians remained as a minority to "remake" the GOP, they were now surrounded and overshadowed by whichever dwindling GOP base still remained ( theocratic, crypto-fascist, semi-literate, imperialist, and goofy people of all stripes). Palin faction for its part now found itself under 3 influences:

1) Traditional corporatist money that funds the GOP (now reduced due to status of GOP as regional party and many of America's oligarchs now throwing their funds on the democratic party organs)
2) Traditional Reagan era pro free trade think tanks and newer libertarian think tanks (whether corporate or genuine is irrelevant) that rode into GOP on the backs of Ron Paul supporters
3) Ron Paul supporters themselves who utilized their youthful charisma and grasp of capitalist theory to sway and inspire the older GOP activists

The third in effect helped facilitate migration of republican regulars away from GOP into the broader non-institutionalized tea party movement where individual personalities have a lot more sway. So far we can just guess at the ratio of those that stayed to vote GOP and "purify" it, those that left to influence the GOP from outside so as not to be taken for granted by party leaders they call RINOs, and those that left for good to try to create their own third party. It can be guessed at that libertarian leaning propaganda organizations (indirect corporate influence to a large degree) are now displacing direct corporate influence (elite fundraisers and the like).

The thrust of the tea party protests are still guided by rich people in that the protests focus on a president and democrats rather than socioeconomic structural fundamentals of United States. Rich people of course don't want their proxies to focus on dismantling the banks and auditing the federal reserve. The tragedy is that the bulk of the tea party participants are anti-corporatist in nature and have been badly swindled by the financial sector oligarchy for decades. The economic situation was so bad for years and has deteriorated throughout 2009 to such a degree that the bulk of the tea party protesters are first timers. They might have been outwardly directed with fear by past presidents, but a black democratic president pushed desperate angry people to start paying attention domestically like never before. Rural elderly republicans began large scale dirt digging on the political system that preoccupied younger progressives since 2000. A quote from Chomsky illustrates why Palin was a blessing and a curse to find herself with such a riled up audience:

"I mean, we're very lucky that we have never had an honest demagogue. I mean, the demagogues we've had are so corrupt that they never got anywhere--you know, Nixon, McCarthy, you know, Jimmy Swaggart and others. So they were kind of destroyed by their own corruption.

But suppose we had an honest demagogue, you know, a Hitler type, who was not corrupt. There's probably--it could be unpleasant. There's a background of concern and fear, tremendous fear, and searching for some answer, which they're not getting from the establishment. "Who's responsible for my plight?" You know, and that can be exploited. And unless there's active, effective organizing and education, it's dangerous."

Hopefully the libertarian faction will act to educate the Palin faction on the necessity of anti-imperialism, anti-prohibition (on all consensual acts), and deep radical structural reform of the socioeconomic system. The presence of anti-corporate (still serving the rich in theory but at least articulating elimination of subsidies to the current rich practically) young libertarians should moderate the bible thumping authoritarian views at Tea Party events in general. So far it seems that the elderly white "crazies" have done more to unnerve and stifle the federal government than young pacifist progressives did throughout all 8 years of the Bush administration. The libertarians undoubtedly enjoy the newfound muscle at their disposal but also hold the Palin faction in contempt. To them these are the same nasty authoritarians that voted for Rudy, McCain, etc. The alliance of anti-corporatist people and people who were controlled and led by corporate interests for so long seems counterintuitive and will probably lead nowhere long term. The recent loss of the Massachusetts senate seat is less an indicator to the contrary but an indicator of democrats total disgust at lack of anti-oligarchy moves on Obama's part and thus a protest vote. Ron's people just spend too much time and energy arguing/convincing the Palin people on things that are ridiculously simple like war and the prohibition. Remember, an incredibly capable technocrat and high level managerial intellect (Mitt Romney) was rejected by these people because he was of a different faith and "too RINO".

Young libertarians and young progressives have more in common culturally than young libertarians and elderly anti-government religious people. There is also the anti-banking anti-corporatist bond that unites them due to less influence exerted on them by mainstream media and blatantly obvious think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Total disenfranchisement of progressives by Obama's cabinet picks should lead to efforts at a common libertarian/progressive/populist front that results in the dismantling and then reorganization of our socioeconomic system in the years to come. We've seen such popular fronts of convenience in many countries before. They serve to remove the established dinosaurs but always collapse into infighting after the key objective is achieved.

Problem of Defining Self-Interest for Libertarian Society

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block that libertarian ideology faces is that human self-interest may be based more on power rather than happiness


The notion of self interest is altered if we think that the biggest human motivation is gathering more personal power rather than struggling towards constant repetition of joyful moments. Current popular understanding of self-interest goes hand in hand with the classically liberal notion of the right to "pursue happiness". That's the idea libertarians use to justify their maximum allowance of freedom of action for individuals. The pursuit towards something psychically warm and cuddly such as happiness seems so right and wholesome for a human being to undertake that denying it seems cruel and out of the question.

Let's look deeper into the supposed utopia proposed with increasing frequency by ideologues like Ron Paul and youthful college educated people around the world who view themselves as having what it takes to become successful capitalists themselves (regardless of the fact that social mobility is constrained in United States as well as in most countries by a small number of oligarch families gaming the system). I don't have any country in mind in this discussion and will use clean abstract concepts ( haha "clean abstract") for simplicity.

For a moment let's forget all the various assumptions and constructs that are needed for libertarian theoretical defense to work at all such as:

1) Free will or what's left of it after a century of Freud, Nietzsche, Marx and now brain scanning experiments

2) Rationality or some common thought process pretending to be rationality in a diverse population with individuals of vastly differing educational backgrounds and consciousness levels

3) Equality before the law as well as rule of law itself for a contractual society to function (laughable fictions in most societies on the planet right now since the most powerful individuals constantly evolve and change the concept of the rule of law through force and brilliant law technologists)

4) Reality. This is a big one in that applying a "perfect" libertarian construct to say, United States is like applying "perfect" proportional representation democratic construct to Afghanistan. Of course the ideologues insist it can work if the whole world united in this purpose and gradually moved towards this workers paradise

Any one of these by themselves are enough to discredit an ideology that relies on everybody being a utility calculating rational computer. Any one of them is enough to cause people in 20 years to say familiar statements such as, "well libertarianism sounds good on paper but you know, human nature and the inherent contradictions of the system make rapid application of the concept disastrous" (in terms of creating inefficiencies, inequalities, exploitation, suffering, and stagnation).

My focus however is on self-interest as the driving mechanism in a libertarian society. There is still lack of consensus on what is true human motivation but it increasingly looks that it is a mixture of power seeking as well as pleasure seeking with power being a better explanatory human goal. Many of us have seen the famous quote by Adam Smith,


"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest"

At this point many automatically think that being self interested is just wanting to be more happy and that the most important thing to aid our self interest is money. Since desire to make more money is accepted, pursuit of self interest is thus seen as harmless and even sturdy enough to build a radically different socioeconomic system. As mentioned above, there are other takes on what life is all about besides just seeking money fueled happiness. Let's take Nietzsche for example,

"Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one's own forms . . "

The mere fact that growing and living may involve more than just joy seeking poses a critical and fundamental problem for free market ideologues. Let's follow them on the road towards a more capitalist society while keeping in mind that it may be more important for people to keep getting stronger as well as trying to be "happy"...

Since happiness can undertake many forms, the individual thus has a strong case to argue for the right to personally negotiate governance with others and reduce as many regulations on modes/fruits of pursuit as possible. Libertarian ideology then seems the most attractive as individuals become their own utility calculating contractual lawmakers. The result is that the legislative branch in a libertarian society finds itself with little to do. By definition, making laws is creation of uniform regulation on human behavior. This type of government sponsored uniformity becomes redundant (since each citizen is now consenting to enter into contractual regulation of his or her own choice) at best and "coercive oppression" (or any number of silly names given at the GOP protests in recent months) at worst. The libertarian society would then rightfully prevent uniformity from arising and applying to all (unless perhaps dealing with matters that cause grievous harm to others and corporate externalities).

However, if we think of real human motivation as pursuit of influence over their environment (and other human beings within it), allowing humans the maximum playing room begins to take on a more sinister dimension.

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The familiar actor of legislative branch and the area covered by it is mostly displaced by a great multitude of smaller actors making contractual agreements with one another and creating a great patchwork of powers and networks throughout society. Without the counterbalancing small actors of local government (assuming libertarian society is libertarian top to bottom), an endless multitude of free market actors would be responsible with creation of regulation for all (for example: road company figures out with local land owner how many tolls to have, dimensions of certain infrastructure, fine limits for jaywalkers on private roads, etc).

This thriving overlapping regulatory complexity with greatly decentralized nodules of influence (assuming the invisible hand goes against all history and human nature so far and prevents monopoly formation) is a double edged sword. Free market is relatively efficient at distribution of capital (at least on sub-national local level when legal conditions are favorable) and the regulatory contractual patchwork is often better able to adapt to pressures of time and social flux. One thing the invisible hand is less good at is redistribution of justice (giving people what they think they deserve).

At the end of the day in the modern world, justice (in all its current forms) is mostly in the monopolistic hands of the legislative branch. The legislative branch makes it uniform and standard for a time. In this branch, all individual free market actors ( the people) have a say about what uniform sort of justice is right for a particular society. There is of course, indirect influence from larger clusters of power and bigger free market actors (ranging from small businesses to billionaires to churches to transnational corporations) that cannot totally be avoided.Their influence is generally somewhat counterbalanced through sheer numbers of lesser powered individuals and their allies in the powerful agent of the legislative.

Since free market libertarian justice is inseparable from wealth (arising from selling one's labor via the most cold blooded meritocracy that doesn't recognize inequality of origin), only the individuals with sufficient wealth form nodules of power necessary to create various relatively wide ranging regulatory norms in society. With wealth comes increased bargaining power and better contractual positioning. Considering the goal of human motivation is personal expansion of influence, the sheer size of some of the power nodules in society is cause for concern as their contractual arrangements affect the lives of millions of less powerful individuals. An ideologically libertarian oriented society would reduce the influence of the biggest guardian of less powerful individuals (legislative branch) by transfering regulation of society to a multitude of powerful players with their own spheres of influence.

A new form of feudalism arises. Whatever people "deserve" in this society is whatever they can wrestle from others through raw financial power (acquired by individuals with personal physiologies that thrive in free market conditions or those who were born into wealth or both). The new creators of standards and norms are thus illegitimate (nobody voted for them unless it is stock owners voting for new company leadership) and they are constrained by nobody but market conditions. Even market conditions can be shaped with strong enough players and enough money. In a legal legislative vacuum, even informed consumers and workers have little bargaining power against the abuses of various cartels, guilds, and land barons (whatever new name they would go under informally or formally). Less powerful individuals would strategically be forced to dedicate substantial amounts of time to collective bargaining. Emergence of powerful unions for service industry is difficult to speculate on but without government protection new forms of protection will have to be devised and vigilantly implemented ( 1> this in turn creates inefficiencies/other abuses as union leaders are as interested in power as CEOs and use up substantial amounts of productive resources on court battles and organization 2> union power receded in part due to rise in service industry and in part because the legislative addressed their concerns through legal regulation)

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In an interconnected world where wealth and influence from powerful players is transferred without regard to borders and the needs of localities, complete deregulation is dangerous.We need rigorous functioning legislative branch not just out of fear about re-emergence of old abuses (ex. blacklisting workers) and rise of new ones. We need a strong legislative branch because the powerful there counterbalance the powerful in the private sector. In libertarian world the powerful (masters of wealth acquisition with wide ranging powers derived from it), would be free to collude or battle each other with stifling consequences for the weak. Denying them some freedom of movement is not a cruel practice of denying somebody their shot at happiness but tempering raw power and reduction of private tyranny at home. Powerful entities providing services to us at our own choosing does not eliminate our reliance on them. Hand that helps for money is hand that controls. We can't imagine the police or the courts being privately owned due to fear of corruption and abuse and it is no less horrifying to think that private individuals will take over from the legislative in a libertarian world.

Sidenote:

This discussion had a medium sized country in mind. If a libertarian country is smaller, one can easily see the whole of society dominated by one or two international corporate actors with the wealth flowing out of the country. A dystopian cyberpunk future in the mold of William Gibson is essentially a libertarian one. The unhealthy corporate influence in America and its corrosive effect on government is due precisely because the strong in the legislative are splintered against each other while the strong in the private sector are gaining through attrition. Having a poorly functioning legislative battling the executive does not stop excesses of power. It just creates dysfunctional weak government. The excesses continue in the private world that permeates the public. Parliamentary government with proportional representation (with constitutional protection) is thus a much better guarantor of decentralization of power within society.

The 21st century cannot afford a disjointed slow self cannibalizing government concocted by 18th century aristocrat intellectuals. Something so out of date is in no position to face a fast paced world or promote freer development of vast majority of individuals against the designs of domestic and foreign elites. It does us disservice to think of power as just residing in government that we should be free from. Better separation of powers would be the strong in private and public spheres balancing each other in a healthy dialogue with the weak being the middlemen between the two.

So emerges perhaps the biggest argument against libertarian designs, that:

1) in a free market world there is insufficient separation of powers and mechanisms to keep them separated

2) this is dangerous in that human motivation is not just about getting happy through making more money (and making trickle down economics work in deranged minds of some propagandists)

3) only democracy through some sort of proportional representation creates enough of a split and balance between power elites by creating a strong legislative branch that can check the feudalistic desires of many oligarchs

The biggest dangers affecting many "civilized" and "developed" nations are thus not too much government but a government that is too weak to stand up against private financial interests. Proportional representation democracy is not perfect of course but it seems like a step forward than backward at the moment for most of the population of any given country.