Geolibertarianism

= "no-one should own land, but that it should be a resource for all of us, and if you want to use it to farm it, then you pay some sort of compensation to your community for the fact that no-one else can use that land". [1]

Contextual Quote

Geolibertarianism is the belief that each individual has an exclusive right to the fruits of his or her labor, and thus an exclusive right to the value of those fruits; and that all individuals have an equal right to land, and thus an equal right to the value of land. (http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geolib.htm)

Description

1. Starting paragraphs from the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism

"Geolibertarianism (also geoanarchism) is a libertarian political philosophy that holds, like other forms of libertarian individualism, that each individual has an exclusive right to the fruits of his or her labor, as opposed to this product being owned collectively by society or the community. In other words, geolibertarians support private property. However, unlike "royalist" forms of libertarianism, geolibertarianism holds that all land is owned in common by society, and therefore if individuals claim the land as their property they must pay rent to the community for doing so. Geolibertarians generally advocate distributing the land rent to the community via a land value tax, as proposed by Henry George and others before him. For this reason, they are often called "single taxers". Fred E. Foldvary coined the word "geo-libertarianism" in an article so titled in Land and Liberty, May/June 1981, pp. 53-55. In the case of geoanarchism as described by Foldvary, rent would be collected by private associations with the opportunity to secede from a geocommunity (and not receive the geocommunity's services) if desired.

Geolibertarians are generally influenced by Georgism, but the ideas behind it pre-date Henry George, and can be found in different forms in the writings of John Locke, the French Physiocrats, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, James Mill (John Stuart Mill's father), David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer. Perhaps the best summary of geolibertarianism is Thomas Paine's assertion that "Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." On the other hand, Locke wrote that private land ownership should be praised, as long as its product was not left to spoil and there was "enough, and as good left in common for others"; when this Lockean proviso is violated, the land earns rental value." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism)

2. What is Geolibertarianism

"We Geolibertarians distinguish ourselves from right-wing, "royal" libertarians by our profound respect for the principle that one has private property in the fruits of one's labor. This includes the fruits of mental labor and the results of reinvestment of legitimate private property (capital) in future production. We remain consistent in that respect by recognizing, as did the classic liberals, that land and raw natural resources are not the fruits of labor, but a common heritage to be accessed on terms that are equal under the law for everyone. The statist system of land tenure empowers non-producing landlords to extract the fruits of tenants' labor. We also consider ourselves "green" in our respect for the earth as our common heritage. However, we clearly distinguish between land as common property and land as state property. Unlike left-wing or "watermelon" greens, we advocate governance of land in harmony with free market principles, and deny the right of statist bureaucracies to meddle in the affairs of individual land holders. We see ourselves as embracing the best attributes of the Green and Libertarian parties. Geolibertarians also believe in free trade, with no state support for monopoly privileges of any kind. We therefore oppose money monopolies, information monopolies, a host of lesser monopolies, and most of all, monopoly of the power to govern, as embodied by statist political systems. We are not nihilistic anarchists. We believe that monopoly privileges can be gently and methodically displaced without disrupting to society, even when statists resort to violence to prevent it. (http://www.geolib.com/welcome.html)

Typology

On the various sub-tendencies

"Now, it seems to me that there are currently three broad tendencies represented amongst those calling themselves left-libertarians: geoist, mutualist, and left-Rothbardian (agorist). There are important philosophical and political disagreements between these tendencies, but I think we certainly can (and must) develop shared projects and goals.

For instance, agorists and geoists don't accept the mutualist LTV. But they certainly can agree that present returns on land and capital are largely the product of artificial scarcity rents derived from state intervention on behalf of the power elite. And by removing the privileges and subsidies we are all opposed to and by radically shifting the bargaining power of labor in relation capital and land, labor will be much more likely to claim its full product in the market.

Mutualists and agorists don't accept geoist views on land and natural resources. However, as Kevin Carson has recently argued, left-libertarians can get behind geoist tax-shifting ideas. I don't need to summarize the benefits of tax-shifting, both economic and environmental. But I will also say that we should get behind the Citizen's Dividend idea, too. As left-libertarians, government help for the poor is the last thing to go. And a CD can provide an income floor and partial social safety net without the need for the massive, intrusive, inefficient and paternalistic bureaucracy of the welfare state.

Finally, agorists (though not all left-Rothbardians) reject engaging in electoral and party politics and instead emphasize counter-economic activity. Left-libertarians should get behind these activities as part of a larger dual-power strategy." (http://upaya.blogspot.com/2005/07/toward-new-synthesis.html)

Credo

From Dan Sullivan at http://geolib.pair.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html

"We are libertarians who make the classical liberal distinction between land, labor and capital. We believe in the private possession of land without interference from the state, but in the community collection of land rent to prevent monopolization of land.

We believe that all government activities should at least be limited to those which increase the value of land by more than what the government collects, and that government should be funded entirely from the land value increases it creates.

We oppose direct state monopolization of land as well as state-sanctioned private monopolization of land, and advocate that state and federally held land pay land rent to the communities the same as private land.

We advocate that government be allowed to spend only what is authorized by voter referendum or similar device and that it take for itself the minimum it is authorized to spend. Those who advocate collection of the full rent stipulate that the proceeds be divided among community members on a per-capita or similar basis, for the land, and the rent, belong to the people, not the state.

We condemn the taxation of property improvements, and of all activities, productive, consumptive, or recreational, as invasions by the state into the private affairs of free individuals." (http://geolib.pair.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html)

History

The historical background: Henry George and Benjamin Tucker

"George's contemporary and anarchist rival, Benjamin R. Tucker (1854-1939) of Boston and New York, editor of the journal Liberty from 1881 to 1908, had a somewhat similar vision of the free and fair society--the abolition of all monopolies and of the state as an oppressive power. Tucker was a self-proclaimed disciple of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the great French anarchist and socialist rival of Karl Marx. Following up Proudhon's declaration "Property is theft," Tucker declared that "there are at bottom but two classes,--the Socialists and the Thieves. Socialism, practically, is war upon usury in all its forms, the great Anti-Theft Movement of the nineteenth century" (Liberty May 17, 1884; Instead of a Book 1893:362). Tucker took Proudhon's mutualist anarchism, including his Bank of the People, into a characteristically American direction, synthesizing European socialism with frontier-style individual sovereignty. Similarly, George prefaced Progress and Poverty with his own mission of synthesis: "... to unite the truth perceived by the school of Smith and Ricardo to the truth perceived by the schools of Proudhon and Lasalle; to show that laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to a realization of the noble dreams of socialism." (p. xxx). In this, Tucker and George, the Anarchist and the Single Taxer, were in agreement--their respective positions can be seen as variations of libertarian socialism or, to borrow a label from Peter Valentyne and Hillel Steiner, Left-Libertarianism." (http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/05/george-and-tucker.html)

Discussion

Pat Conaty with interviewer from Lowimpact.org :

"I recently came across the philosophy of geolibertarianism – that no-one should own land, but that it should be a resource for all of us, and if you want to use it to farm it, then you pay some sort of compensation to your community for the fact that no-one else can use that land, because you’re using it. It’s similar to Georgism – Henry George. I thought it was very interesting. So if you’re a huge landowner, it’s going to cost you a lot to ‘own’ it.

PC: That’s the idea of land value tax – to tax the land out of private ownership and bring it back into common wealth. So basically, there’s a big difference between John Locke’s theory of private property – which could be infinite, which is the libertarian right view. But the Robert Owen / co-operative view was that there are certain things that should be brought into common ownership, like land and like money, like the means of production.

Don’t the labels ‘democratic’ and ‘non-extractive’ nail it? It highlights the fact that, for example, farmers, who are doing useful work, can have wealth extracted from them by huge landowners who do nothing useful." (https://www.lowimpact.org/the-commons-pat-conaty/?)

More Information

Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism

FAQ at http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geolib.htm

What is Geolibertarianism, at http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geolib.htm

Details on the Geo-Rent proposal, at http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/FoldvaryIntellectualTyrannyApril2005.pdf

Websites

What is Geolibertarianism FAQ, at http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geo-faq.htm

What are some other geolibertarian web sites? Links to Geo-Libertarian organizations, at http://geolib.com/util/links.html

Dan Sullivan's Geolibertarian Home Page http://geolib.com

The Thomas Paine Network http://www.tpaine.org

Fred Foldvary's Home Page http://www.foldvary.net

The Banneker Center for Economic Justice http://www.progress.org/banneker

The Henry George Institute http://www.henrygeorge.org

The School of Cooperative Individualism http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org

Major geolibertarian writings

List from http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geo-faq.htm#websites

Agrarian Justice - by Thomas Paine

Progress and Poverty - by Henry George

Social Problems - by Henry George

Democracy vs. Socialism - by Max Hirsch

Selected Articles by Harry Gunnison Brown: The Case for Land Value Taxation - by Harry Gunnison Brown

Libertarian Party at Sea on Land - by Harold Kyriazi

Rights vs. Privileges - by Robert De Fremery

Public Revenue Without Taxation - by Ronald Burgess

Land and Taxation - edited by Nicolaus Tideman

The Corruption of Economics - by Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison

The FAQ recommends:

"Of the above list, Libertarian Party at Sea on Land and Rights vs. Privileges are the two best introductions to geolibertarian principles. If you enjoy heavy reading, the two best are Progress and Poverty and Democracy vs. Socialism. (In the latter, Max Hirsch improves upon Henry George's treatment of interest, thereby removing the sole logical blemish from the economic views expounded in the former." (http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geo-faq.htm)