Rent, Profit, Interest, Usury, and Taxing Monopolies

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Purpose of This Article
2. Rent
3. Profit
4. Wages
5. Wage-Theft is Real
6. Interest on Capital
7. Interest on Money
8. Usury and the Currency Monopoly

9. Usury = Rent x Profit x Interest

10. Exclusive vs. Semi-Exclusive Rent Collection Privileges

11. Conclusion
12. Post-Script: Taxation and Monopolies
13. Links and Additional Reading

Content

1. Introduction: Purpose of This Article

     The purpose of this article is to explain why rent, profit, and interest – and why the ownership of land, labor, and capital – are the results of laws and state-upheld monopolies.

     Herein I contend – as the anarchists, Mutualists, Georgists, Tuckerites, and others have contended – that: 1) excess rent is the result of monopolies on land and housing; 2) profit and wage-theft are results of monopolies on labor; and 3) interest and usury are the results of monopolies on capital, credit, currency, and money.

     They are the results of legally granted privileges to collect the various forms of economic rent; i.e., rent on land, profit off of labor, and interest off of capital (and loans, and money).

     I have already explained, in my March 2019 article “Why Rent is Theft: Against Economic Rents and Monopolies”, why this is so. Readers wishing to better understand my thoughts on these related topics can read that article for more information. The focus of the article is to explain why “rent is theft” from the perspective of some socialists, in addition to taxation being theft from the perspective of the Libertarians.

     For those who don't plan on reading that article, it will suffice to say that “rent is theft” because economic rent is theft. This is to say that rent, profit, and interest – which are all forms of economic rent – are either stolen, or else otherwise unjustly acquired, whether through semi-legal or extralegal means, or, if in the absence of law, then through violence, force, coercion, extortion, and manipulation.

     If and when the state registers and recognizes the legal ownership of all land, labor, and capital - and allows ownership of them only through permission - then all land, labor, and capital which is legally and legitimately owned, is owned only if and when the state and its enforcers agree to protect those ownership titles.

     In the act of enforcing exclusive claims to land, labor, and capital, those enforcers come to exercise some degree of the state's unique, exclusive privilege to wield a credible monopoly on the legitimate use of force within the territory. Thus, they exert the power traditionally wielded by the state, both in custom, and in definition (especially in the definition of the state which was developed and popularized by sociologist Max Weber).

     These facts have prompted the anarchists, Mutualists (etc.) to conclude that private property (inasmuch as it is protected by the state, and/or by violence) cannot, and could not, exist, without the threat of violence being levied against anyone and everyone who

     These facts, most importantly, have prompted the anarchists and Mutualists (etc.) to ask: “How could private property exist, then, without the state to recognize it and protect it? In a stateless or consent-based society, how could anyone wield monopoly over land (etc.) when everyone else is absolutely free to question and challenge the property claims of everybody else?

     “And with no ability to legally challenge property claims, and no ability to legally challenge occupancy-and-use norms in state courts (i.e., because there would be no state courts), how could a property claimant continue to exclude others from his property, without resorting to force? Without a legal privilege to commit acts of violence in order to protect property claims, how could ”

     The remainder of this article does not answer all of those questions, but it should help to provide some foundation questioning the legitimacy of ownership of labor, capital, and currency (in addition to landed property). I ask that my readers try, on their own, to ask the same questions of just ownership of labor, capital, and money, which I have previously asked about how land can be justly owned without the state.

     Readers seeking answers to the above mentioned questions, should read my March 2019 article “Private Law and Anarchism: Is Privatization a Solution to the State's Monopolies on Legal Services?”, and also read the works of Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Stefan Molyneux, Walter Block, Roderick Long, etc..

     Of course, my answers will be much more critical of private property than the answers provided by these thinkers, save for perhaps Roderick Long. This is owing, in part, to the fact that I have spent so much attention to the various manners in which the rights of public and common actors (but not state actors) are unjustly ignored during the creation of most or all private property.

2. Rent

     Rent is the return to land. Rent is levied upon, and extracted from, buildings, and the land on which buildings sit. Landlords are granted exclusive monopoly rights (really, privileges) to collect rent on the lands which they own.

     This grant of privilege is performed by the state, through its unique (and self-granted) power to recognize and register landed property claims. The state registers landed property claims through apparati such as county Recorders of Deeds' offices. Thus, the ownership of land, under capitalists states, is not retained according to the active protection of the owner; on the contrary, it is a function of law, and of the force of the state.

     Excess rent (that is, “super-rent”) is landlordism, plantation slavery, and indentured servitude. Excess rent is therefore theft, if kept by the landlord, not reinvested into the community and/or its markets, and not reinvested into the tenants and their residences.

3. Profit

     Profit is the “return to management”. Profit is extracted from laborers, who work either in buildings which rest upon the land, or work directly upon the land (or even beneath it, as in mining operations).

     Profit is the “return to management” only because it is “returned” to management from labor. This is to say that profit is stolen wages, which are kept by management, instead of being returned to the laborers.

     Excess profit (that is, “super-profit”, “surplus profit”, or “excess surplus value”; extra-Mehrwert in Marx's and Engels's German) is the withholding of wages, benefits, and improvements in conditions, by management, from labor.

     Excess profit, stolen from labor and kept by management, is therefore theft, when it is not reinvested into the community and/or its markets, and not reinvested into workers.

     This reinvestment should be done chiefly for the purpose of: 1) improving the workers' benefits and conditions, including pay, and safety and health conditions; 2) helping workers to own their own tools, and to own shares of the means of their productivity and livelihood; and 3) allowing workers a realistic chance of buying-out the owner, and of creating a new (and, hopefully, self-managed, and more egalitarian) franchise, of the original firm, or perhaps even an entirely new company which has the full ability to freely compete against the original firm.

4. Wages

     Wages are the return to labor. They are the return of compensation to the laborer or worker, rather than to management.

     All wages, not returned to the laborer, are possessed mainly by either management, owners, or outside investors. Outside investors have little or no stake in the firm's long-term success, and management and owners have more stake but also a more realistic chance of thriving financially if they leave the firm as compared to workers.

     Wages are funds not reinvested into the firm in a way that directly benefits workers and their families, and are “returned to” managers, owners, and investors (whom cannot truthfully claim that those funds are actually returned to them, because they never possessed nor earned those funds in the first place). This is to say that all funds not stolen from workers and kept by others, and not reinvested into the community and/or its markets, are excess profit (superprofit), not wages.

     But those funds should be wages, and they should be returned – from management, owners, and investors – to the workers, so that the workers can spend those funds in the community and/or its markets.

     Wages are earned income, appropriately distributed and allocated; that is, wages are earned by workers, as compensation for performing labor. The idea that the worker's labor, is done chiefly for the benefit of himself and his family (and to a lesser extent, the community and its markets in which they will be spending those wages), stands in direct opposition to the notion that the laborer works chiefly for the benefit of managers, owners, and investors.

     Thus, the notion that labor entitles all that it produces, stands in direct opposition to the practice of profiteering from labor.

5. Wage-Theft is Real

     There may be some argument that “wage theft” does not exist, because while the laborer is a renter of capital, the capitalist is, just the same, a renter of labor. This is to say that owners and managers employ laborers, by “renting-out their hands” or renting-out their time.

     But the capitalists' “rent” of workers' time, talent, and physical effort, is never fully paid, and it never can be. That's because managers never compensate workers for the opportunity costs, and other indirect costs, which the workers bear before and outside employment.

     This is to say that few firms compensate new hires for all of the costs they undertook while seeking employment; few firms allow new hires to deduct, as work expenses, costs like the identification documents, clothing, sanitary items, paper and ink, printing costs, postage stamps, phone calls, and bus tickets, which they buy in order to apply for jobs and travel to job interviews.

     This occurs because, evidently, managers and owners feel that those costs are the workers' problems, and have nothing to do with the everyday operation of the firms, and especially nothing to do with the owners. But they could not be more wrong. A new hire – especially one who struggled for a long time before finally finding employment – will often spend months and months, even years, paying off debts and budgetary deficiencies created by those expenses.

     And the more a worker is thinking about where his next meal will come from, where he will sleep next, how his family will make ends meet, and what will happen if he gets sick or injured on the job, the less productive the worker (and, in turn, the firm) becomes. And thus, the less profitable it becomes to “rent” workers.

     So, in many ways, labor is not getting the full return from its effort, and wage-theft is real. Unless you believe that a worker is supposed to only earn as much as is necessary to keep him working another day, with nothing left over to develop himself, either through skills or education, even if he becomes more productive because of it.

     That increased production will only cause him to become self-sustaining, and independent; and thus less dependent upon others for what he needs to survive. Thus, increased self-management of workers, is not in the interest of managers because it puts them out of a job, and is not in the interest of owners because it makes workers less dependent upon owners, and more reliant upon themselves.

6. Interest on Capital

     Interest is the return to capital. Interest is extracted from capital investments, loans, and currency or money (which are not the same thing).

     Capitalists – that is, capital investors, lenders (and, less importantly for the purposes of this section, owners of labor, i.e., employers) – are granted exclusive monopoly rights to collect interest upon those loans and capital investments.

     Capitalists' ownership of those loans and capital investments, are secured through the state's legal recognition of the contracts which capitalists make. These include contracts wherein: 1) capitalists agree to employ laborers; and wherein 2) capitalists agree to rent and occupy buildings and/or land owned by others, and pay rent to those owners (and/or fees or taxes to state owners of land and buildings) for the privilege of occupying some of those lands and developments.

     Additionally, the continued ownership of capital assets, is secured (and securitized) to the owner – on either a temporary or permanent basis - through the state's power to grant L.L.C. status. L.L.C. grants allow owners of firms, and individual workers within them, to become both financially and legally irresponsible for their criminal actions. This is done through distributing and deferring the risk of financial culpability for lawsuits involving the firm.

     That these practices are acceptable, rests upon the premise of the “right of increase”, i.e., the right to acquire unlimited profits from investments, in perpetuity, forever. Most terrifyingly, the “right of increase” ethos now embodies itself in the pretended right of multinational corporations to sue national governments for passing laws which “limit their right to profit”, even when those laws are passed in order to protect workers, civilians, plant resources, and the ecology from being exploited by those firms.

     These capital investments, and loans, are further secured to their owners with the help of the state, through the various forms of wage-theft (and deprivation of improvements of benefits and conditions) which make workers more dependent upon loans, and upon employment by capitalists chiefly for the benefit of other people, than they otherwise would be (if they were independent, self-employed owners of their own means of production).

7. Interest on Money

     Leaving aside the issues of interest on capital investments, interest on physical capital, and loans to entities besides treasuries, and focusing only on interest on loans and currency (i.e., financial capital):

     For all intents and purposes, interest functions as a form of debt, when it is built-into currencies. Through inflation – whether accidental, or as a result of intentional “quantitative easing” of the monetary supply through the issuance of newly minted currencies – currency is imbued with interest, and with some measure of debt.

     The presence of this debt, causes the value of the currency issued, to be constantly decreasing. When done intentionally, the intent is that depletion of the value of the currency will lead its possessor to spend it earlier, and/or more quickly, than he otherwise would. This assures a prompt return to all those who invest in currency (i.e., bond-holders).

8. Usury and the Currency Monopoly

     Excess interest (that is, “super-interest”) is usury. Usury exists because of the exploitation of the demand for money, in order to increase the value of monetary assets already possessed by owners of money and currency.

     That the demand for money and currency is being exploited – and, at that, officially – should be obvious. Currency - which is not itself money, nor value, but a representation of value and money, and to some extent a representation of work – is created by the state. Through the state's self-granting of the legal privilege to designate an official currency, and to coin moneys and regulate their values, few transactions can be made without the use of the state currency to mediate the exchange.

     Thus, the state is able to cite these privileges – and also the supposed need to levy taxes upon potentially all transactions – in order to monopolize the creation and issuance of currency. This increases public demand for money and currency – that is, state-issued moneys and currencies – in order to perform most any and all of the tasks necessary to survive (i.e., labor, trading, etc.).

     If there were no monopolistic state to choose an official currency, regulate its value, and compel us to pay taxes on as many transactions as the state wants us to, then it would be difficult for most of us to imagine how useful such a medium of exchange could be for a free people.

     That's because free people would, more likely, use the value of labor, and human need, as more important indicators of the value of the compensation that someone is offering in exchange for work or items. Free people would not accept a currency with debt (that is, interest) built into it, unless they understood why, and under what circumstances, that debt is helpful (i.e., when that debt causes currency to be returned to a publicly-held issuer of currency or credit).

     Excess interest (i.e., usury) is bankerism, capital misallocation, and pernicious predatory lending. Excess interest is theft, whenever interest (and debt, and excess monetary value) are kept by the lender or the investor of capital.

     Whenever lenders do not allow borrowers to pay some of what they owe into a security reimbursement fund, for emergency purposes - and whenever the returns from investment and lending are not reinvested into the market and/or community, and into making loans available for those same borrowers as well as others – then a theft has occurred.

     This is no less “theft” simply because it does not appear violent on its surface. The dependence of the borrower upon the lender, only exists without challenge, when the lender is free to change the terms of the lending contract at will, without review by the lender. Each the state's recognition of the legitimacy of the contract while it changes, and lack of transparency into the justice of contracts on the part of community agencies or voluntary associations, can lead to borrowers being dependent upon lenders.

     And, of course, in the presence of the state and its official currency, few transactions (loans included) can be conducted without the state's approval, without using the state's official tool of oppression (i.e., its currency), and without paying taxes upon those transactions (in that official currency).

9. Usury = Rent x Profit x Interest

     While in the previous several sections, I have used the word “usury” to denote “excessive interest” (especially on capital and loans), usury possesses characteristics unique among the various types of economic rent. As such, “excessive interest” alone, does not constitute usury at its fullest and most pernicious extent.

     While interest on capital and loans is popularly referred to as “usury” when it is excessive, excessive interest on currency is a different animal altogether. That's because currency – the medium of exchange through which loans and capital investments are made – possesses characteristics more strongly associated with rent and profit than with interest.

Meme created by the author on November 30th, 2017;

first published here on May 22nd, 2019

     Think about it: the act of profiting off of the state issuance of official currency, results in misappropriation (that is, theft) of all three major types of economic rent: 1) interest; 2) rent; and 3) profit.

     First (and most obviously): profiting from currency results in excessive interest, because the debt which inflation imbues in our currency, results in pernicious levels of interest, because of the artificial, state-created, unnaturally high demand for acceptable media of exchange.

     Second (and second most obviously): profiting from currency results in excessive profit, through profiteering from the lending of that currency, and for the same purposes just described, pertaining to interest.

     Third (and least obvious of all): profiting from currency results in excessive rent, because in a way, users of currency (as well as those who borrow in official currency) are paying a rent on the currency they possess and use. This rent is levied upon bearers and users of currency, through – you guessed it – the imbuing of the currency with debt (caused by inflation).
     To summarize, to reap usury on money is to profit off of the rental of money at interest. It is to take maximum advantage possible of the artificial need for money; artificial, because it is compelled by the state, through the state's granting of a legal monopoly on currency to itself.

     Thus, usury is that most destructive and deadly of economic rents, because it is the best example of an economic rent, and the best example of how economic rents overlap and become almost indistinguishable. Especially when a monopoly currency, and monopolies on financial capital, are combined with a system wherein land, labor, and physical capital are owned according to the recognition and dictates of the state.

     If the above is an accurate assessment, then it may perhaps be fair to conclude that we must measure – and multiply together – all three economic rents (rent, profit, and interest), if we desire to come up with accurate measurements of the degree of “usury” (in its fullest sense) existing within an economic system.

10. Exclusive vs. Semi-Exclusive Rent Collection Privileges, and a Note on Emergency Funds

     If what I have said above, and also what the anarchists say on these topics, is correct, then in state-capitalist and protectionistic economies (forms of economic governance which feature monopolies heavily), to claim property ownership, and to get it recognized in a manner which is monopolistic, monolithic, unquestionable, unchallengeable, and final, requires a lot.

     It requires either: 1) the state and its violence to uphold the claim and keep people out; 2) the use of violence, to do the same, without the use of the state; or else 3) 100% approval by the remainder of society, that a person deserves and earned what he claims as his property.
     Furthermore, to claim ownership (in these economies) entails making a claim to an exclusive and exclusionary right (or privilege) to access and make use of certain lands, buildings, or other assets (even including, unfortunately, other people's labor).

     The tangible outcome of the practice of exclusive and exclusionary private property ownership, is that people are met with violence, for attempting to “squat” on a property (“engage in adverse possession”, in fancier terms), even if they pose no threat of physical harm to the property's claimant(s).

     But must we suffer this? Can we suffer this? Absolutely not.

     We cannot survive much longer if, every time we try to use one of what we thought were our own possessions, we are obligated to pay that possession's actual owner (from whom we are merely borrowing, renting, or accessing and using the things which we possess but don't own). We cannot survive much longer, if we are not allowed to fully own any of the things that we use every day; if we have to pay and ask permission every time we want to use one of “our own” possessions.

     Although, in a sense, for everyone to be able to fully own their possessions, constitutes universal, ubiquitous ownership of private property; this would not grant those owners “private property” in the same sense in which the anarchists, Marxists (etc.) have traditionally conceived of private property.

     This is to say that private property owned for the sake of owning and using, is fundamentally different in purpose, from private property owned solely for the sake of producing more value therefrom. For everyone to own property - and for everyone to be able to acquire it through their own efforts and defense - would not result in depending upon others to acquire property; for precisely the reason that if everyone had property, nobody would have to please anyone else (through paying or begging) in order to acquire property.

     I do not wish to give the impression, through this essay, that all forms of rent, profit, and interest, result from perfectly exclusive ownership of property, nor from grants of total rights to exclude others from accessing property.

     The returns of rent, profit, and interest, are, however, certainly, greatly increased, the more exclusive, exclusionary, and monopolistic that ownership gets. For example, if a renter has no realistic opportunity to buy his residence from his landlord, then the renter will pay rent for a much longer period of time than he otherwise would.

     Likewise, if a laborer has no realistic opportunity to own his tools and a share of the company, and no opportunity to buy-out his company and start a new franchise, then the laborer will end up working for a much longer period of time than he otherwise would. And, to repeat, if a borrower has no chance of recouping any sort of emergency funds paid to the lender, because the lender kept them, then the borrower will end up owing the lender for a much longer period of time than he otherwise would.

     This means that – through trust, mutual obligations, and a mutual desire for all parties involved to be prosperous and eventually own property – it is possible to lessen the exploitative effects caused by legal recognition of ownership titles to land, labor, and capital.
     Such exploitative effects could additionally be lessened through increasing the prevalence, and variety of form, of emergency security disbursement funds - for not only the lender/borrower relationship, but for the landlord/tenant and employer/worker relationships as well. Security deposits on housing rent could be paid into a fund which is held in a neutral territory, which landlord or renter may only access upon absolute verification and agreement that the landlord's and/or tenant's expenses justify the expenditure of part or all of the security deposit. Such funds would be subject to total transparency, and this could be done with the help of blockchain technology, or through any number of practices involving multiple forms of verification.
     Setting up more worker-managed firms, or allowing communities to offer tax incentives to businesses in order to transition their model of private ownership into a collective one - for example, E.L.M.F.s (Egalitarian Labor-Managed Firms), or W.S.D.E.s (Workers Self-Directed Enterprise) - will also help increase the number of firms that have funds set up for their employees in emergency situations.
     Additional solutions to the lack of emergency funds of all of these borrowers, may be found through firms offering E.S.O.P.s (Employee Stock Ownership Plans). U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Kristin Gillibrand have supported proposals requiring the establishment of E.S.O.P.s in large companies. Sanders has additionally called for corporations to seat workers on their boards.
     Proposed and adopted programs similar to E.S.O.P.s and so-called "funds socialism" include: 1) the Meidner Plan in Sweden, calling for the establishment of "wage-earner funds"; 2) the American Solidarity Fund, proposed by the People's Policy Project; 3) the Norwegian G.P.F.G. (Government Pension Fund Global); 4) the U.K. Labour Party's proposed "Inclusive Ownership Funds"; and 5) the NSW Generation Fund in New South Wales, Australia.
     More solutions may be found through modifying Disaster Relief Emergency Grants, retainer fees, or emergency corporate legal funds and insurance plans, to something which is mutually acceptable to all parties to contracts involving financial trust.
     Emergency funds - whether accessible by all parties to a contract, or to none - should be set up for all borrowers. They should be set up for people who borrow land, labor, and capital alike. That's because the people of the proletariat, lacking land and capital, sell their labor. They own  nothing else, and thus have nothing else to sell. It should not be ignored, that, in selling their labor, they are selling the last thing they have, and thus have nothing else, save for what little compensation they receive from work. The security of that compensation should, at the very least, be transparent to the worker.

     What I am recommending, in general, is diminution and lessening of the monopolistic, exclusive, and exclusionary characteristics of property ownership. Thus, monopolist property owners would be turned into oligopolists.

     The propertyless become property owners, and the monopolists become oligopolists, at the very moment when renters, borrowers, and workers begin to receive sufficient amounts of exclusive property (and sufficient rights to that property) as compensation. That is, as compensation in exchange for the efforts they put into their relationships of financial trust with landlords, lenders, and employers.

     Once the privateers of the bourgeoisie (that is, the government, landlords, land speculators, lenders of physical and financial capital, and employers of labor) come to wield oligopolies on possession, instead of outright monopolies on ownership, then renters, borrowers, and workers (i.e., the proletariat) can increase their “market-share” of possessed assets, and increase its value relative to the value possessed by those who desire to be monopolists.

     Thus, through increasing their market-share of property, and the degree of their control over their property, the proletariat can lessen the degree of their exploitation, and lessen the monopolists' degree of control over their property claims; and in so doing, they make it easier for workers to work for shorter periods of time, in order to acquire their own slices of property.

     But – again – for proletarians to own such property, can only be rightfully described as the result of violence, if no constraints whatsoever are placed upon the owner's (landlord, boss, lender, etc.) ability to exclude others; upon the owner's ability to unfairly estop people from fulfilling their obligations (i.e., by buying the residence, buying the workplace, repaying loans, etc.).

     If those constraints exist, then the property is not fully private, because the exclusivity is not total, and, in effect, not fully exercised. And those constraints, by the way, do not even need need not be imposed by the state, but can be accepted as a matter of mutually beneficial contract; between the owners, and the workers and their associations.

     Finally, I must add that, to turn monopolists into oligopolists, would, by no means, result in universal property ownership by itself.

     It is not enough to resign ourselves to allowing “property ownership” to increase, simply by allowing current owners sub-contract and sub-let all their properties out to others. This is not ownership, but renting-out what's already being rented. It is rent upon rent; that is, compound rent. Creating hundreds of shell corporations within one-another, while the original firm gets all the profit - or sub-letting-out smaller and smaller portions of a residence, while the tenant is increasingly boxed-in – don't have anything to do with either anarchism, or a just conception of property rights that desires for all people the realistic potential to become owners.

     What is necessary – in addition to the practical opportunity to acquire property without either the hindrance or assistance of a state – is for workers to struggle.

     Not suffer, mind you, but struggle. Not work too hard, nor work their fingers to the bone, nor work themselves half to death. By “struggle”, I mean that workers – after they are freed from the legal constraints placed on their ability to acquire property justly – must also free themselves from the economic and social constraints which hinder them from acquiring property.

     What, exactly, it means to “free oneself from economic and social constraints on acquiring property justly”, is beyond the scope of this essay, so I will allow my readers to form their own ideas about what this means, and how it could be achieved.

11. Conclusion

     I hope I have made it clear, in the above, why I believe that rent, profit, interest, and usury all result, and thrive, due to monopolistic as well as oligopolistic ownership of property.

     Additionally, due to monopolistic and oligopolistic control of property rights; for example, through hiring privatized security forces to protect property claims, and through hiring lobbyists who petition the government for property laws which are favorable to people who already own property.

     If it weren't for the state, and its self-granted privilege to recognize exclusive title to land, then monopolies on labor and capital (which rest on that monopolized land) would not exist. It is because of the state's self-granted privilege – to recognize the monopoly privileges of all of its other favored marketplace actors – that other monopolies exist.

     If not for the state's recognition of the privilege of the owner to exclude, the privilege of the landlord to evict, the privilege of the boss to fire, and the privilege of the lender to collect – the vast majority of these privileges being completely unchecked by any agency other than those of the state – then people would acquire property and find work according to their own efforts, and according to what all parties to a contract believe is a fair (not just adequate) amount of compensation, in a manner which is beneficial to the mutual long-term interests of all parties involved.

     Finally, it behooves me to note that the above mentioned problems, are precisely why the state cannot be trusted to perform either its antitrust or its anti-usury functions. Because, as I have stated so many times in the past, the state creates monopolies, and thus cannot be trusted to do away with them. The state creates currencies, and all but compels people to use them (when they'd rather use money, which is backed by real value, unlike currency), and thus no other currency has a chance to compete against the state's “money monopoly”.

     Granted, firms which generate profit should be taxed at a higher rate than those which reinvest all would-be profits or generate no profit at all. [Note: This is to say that non-profit, cooperative, and egalitarian firms should not be taxed, provided that they don't receive any privileges to wield exclusive monopolies.] Moreover, firms which do not generate profit, should probably not pay taxes at all. But the only reason they should be taxed, is because the funds being taxed away were “earned” (acquired) thanks to the assistance of the state's monopoly powers.

     The reason, however, to tax those profits, should not be construed to imply that the state should collect those taxes. Granted, the state is the only entity which we perceive of as capable of collecting all those taxes in the first place (at least right now). But being theoretically capable of performing this task, does not make it morally deserving of the task, nor does it guarantee that the government will collect as much taxes as it intends to, nor that it will collect solely those taxes which are duly imposed for the privilege of financially benefiting off of the state's monopoly protections (which can even include extorting funds from taxpayers in order to provide privileges, subsidies, and bailouts for firms that are supposedly “struggling”).

     What will be necessary - and appropriate, and moral - for the collection of taxes upon the funds gained from wielding monopoly privileges, will be for a non-monopolistic, or less monopolistic, form of economic governance, to emerge. The monopolistic nature of the state, just like the monopolistic nature of exclusive and exclusionary property rights, can be lessened. This can be done through decentralization, localization, and strict delineation of spheres of policy influence across the various levels of government. One example would be for community associations to levy taxes on profits, rather than for the state or federal government to do it.

     Readers desiring to know more about my ideas about how our government could be made “less statist” (which is to say, less monopolistic), can read my July 2013 article “On Max Weber's Definition of the State”.

     All legal and economic monopolies must be destroyed.

     We will destroy monopolies by making them into oligopolies, and gradually into polyopolies. The final form of our economy should be a polyopoly-polyopsony, a state of many sellers, many buyers.

     Without legal titles, any de facto, monopoly which is perceived of as “natural” (except for land, the monopoly on which is natural, at least in a limited, local sense) will not last as a monopoly for very long, given the total freedom of all others to enter into competition with it, and to challenge its right to exclude. (Note: Land would likely prove to be the easiest monopoly to abolish, because of the vast amount of it which exists; however, many people have yet to be convinced of this fact. Once land proves abundant, then the cost of mixing labor and capital upon the land will plummet.)

     Without the state, people would have the unlimited right to challenge a company's privilege to “exclude” some people; especially if it forcibly includes them at the same time. Firms with significant financial privileges and/or legal immunities often exclude workers and customers from benefiting sufficiently from the company, while at the same time compelling them (as well as taxpayers), to pay the company through taxes (due to the privileges, subsidies, and bailouts for which those taxes pay). Thus, the taxpayers, workers, clients, and consumers have little to no recourse with which to free themselves from this benefit-free obligation, save for hiring a lobbyist to change the law, so as to allow them to fully boycott the company, by removing all of those privileges and favors which help keep the company afloat.

     However, the anarchists, of course, would object to such lobbying, and rightfully so, since lobbying the state to change its laws, requires the legitimized use of violence. Unless, however, if in the process the state ceases becoming a state as we know it - like by shedding all of its monopolistic aspects and abdicating all of its power to rule and enforce with finality - then a change in the law is just what we need. Especially if only those contracts and agreements which are both mutually beneficial and voluntary, come to be accepted.

     Only by establishing “O&U norms” (that is, occupancy-and-use norms) can we avoid depending upon the state, and its legitimized violence, for a resolution to our property disputes.

     It's time to say “R.I.P.” (“rest in peace”) to “R.I.P.” (rent, interest and profit). And, with them, usury, the most complex and pernicious form of economic rent and excess return.

12. Post-Script: Taxation and Monopolies

     While I have explained at length why monopolies deserve to be taxed, and alluded to an answer as to whom ought to tax them, I have yet to explain the issues of whether taxation is a monopoly, and whether taxation has to be done in a monopolistic fashion.
     I believe that taxation is currently a virtual monopoly, at least in the United States. I say this because federal government expenditures constitute about 25% of the G.D.P., while state and local government expenditures constitute 15%, while other expenditures constitute the remaining 60%. Since 1789, the federal government has certainly demonstrated its ability to suck whole sectors of the economy into its legislative purview. And with it, a much higher percentage of the economy is taxed-away by the federal government; both in comparison to state and local governments, and in comparison to the level of taxation which Americans enjoyed 100 years ago.
     Having the state and local governments spend more than the federal government - or, to put it a better way, having the federal government spend less than state and local governments - will help reduce the federal government's monopoly over the legislative and judicial functions related to taxation, and thus enable state and local governments to take-over any federal functions which they can handle.
     [Note: The executive function of taxation, has already been sub-contracted-out to our employers, whom are obliged to collect taxes from our paychecks. What would our country be like if those taxes were retained in a mutually accessible fund, or would only be paid to the government on April 15th if both employers and workers agreed that the government had done a good job the previous year? It simply cannot be, that we "can't afford" to have a basic level of financial transparency in all transactions; it should be financial transparency which dictates what is affordable, rather than the amount of wealth thought possessed.]

     Because the only morally just goal of taxation (in my opinion) is for the purpose of diminishing the influence of monopolies, taxation cannot and should not be performed by a single institution, nor by any agency affiliated with the state (which I contend is an intrinsically monopolistic institution).
    As I explained earlier, if community associations were to levy taxes, instead of the state or federal government, then it would be a less monopolistic way of doing things. Other agencies which could perform the task of taxation in a stateless society, aside from the most local governments possible, which would also lead to the diminution of the monopolistic enforcement and characteristics of taxation, could include:
     1) voluntary associations;
     2) Georgist C.L.T.s (Community Land Trusts);
     3) mutual public banks; and
     4) private (though non-state-affiliated) security agencies (and other types of firms) which charge dues based on one's ability to pay, or based on the value of the property being protected (such as the libertarian activists who protected portions of Detroit, Michigan following the 2007-08 financial crisis).
     But more importantly than one's ability to pay, however, is the issue of to what degree one's wealth was acquired because they helped the state extort people in exchange for land, labor, and capital.

     Taxation does not have to be performed by an agency wielding any monopoly powers, nor even privileges to make any decisions bearing any sort of finality whatsoever. Decentralized governments, and non-state-affiliated nonprofit organizations can levy taxes.
     Community Land Trusts can be set up, which levy "taxes" (although Georgists call them dues and fees) in a decentralized manner, for the benefit of the community. But that community need not exist with territorial limitations, however; if nobody can be stopped from joining, and nobody can be excluded, without unanimous or consensus-based agreement of just cause, then the community is not a state, because it is neither monopolistic, exclusive, nor exclusionary.
     Additionally, it is possible to fund an entire government solely through charitable contributions, without punishing people for refusing to pay (save for social ostracism). We know this from the experiences of the Jewish people who lived in the Holy Land (i.e., Israel-Palestine) in the 1930s and 1940s; they set up charitable funds which were spent on building Israeli government buildings and bringing the land back to life.
     Any tax which a person can be convinced to pay, is voluntary (unless he is tricked or defrauded, or otherwise unjustly deprived of the freedom to choose other viable forms of taxation). Any tax which is agreeable to all people, is voluntary. Taxation systems based on voluntary payment of dues (for as long as one wishes to receive benefits), and fee-for-service models, could and should replace compulsory taxation.
     I mean, we have to do something. People should not get shot to death on their front lawns for refusing to pay their taxes. Harsh punishments for tax evasion are only warranted if the tax is just and unanimous, and people enthusiastically sign up to be shot if they refuse to pay. Only the very insane, and the very suicidal, would do such a thing. Or, perhaps, the very confident.

     Finally, I would be remiss if I neglected to mention the following: While it is very good to tax monopolies, governments would have no need to do so, if they did not create those monopolies in the first place.
     And a government which consciously reduces the monopolistic characteristics of all of its functions - legislative, executive, and judicial functions - is less likely to have enough power to create imbue firms with monopolistic privileges and rights to exclude.

13. Links and Additional Reading

     As promised, I will hereafter include links to additional readings about the topics of why most monopolies are state-created; as well as how to tax profits without the state (as solutions have been offered by left-anarchists and right-anarchists).

Articles about the taxation of monopolies, written by various authors:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1008701?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
http://www.economicsdiscussion.net/monopoly/effect-of-taxes-on-monopoly-equilibrium-with-diagram/17081

http://mnmeconomics.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/taxing-a-monopoly-firm/



Articles by Left-Anarchists / Anti-Propertarians / Anideotists:

- introduction to anarchist economics (no state, no private property):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_economics

- Jeff Smith, student of Henry George, on replacing taxes with Land Value Dues:
http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/Land_Dues.html

- website about Georgist student Ralph Borsodi (look for the articles about Community Land Trusts):

http://www.schoolofliving.org/borsodi

- explanation of Community Land Trusts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_land_trust

- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's “The Misery of Philosophy”, on monopoly and property:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/philosophy/ch06.htm

- Benjamin Tucker's “Four Monopolies” (land, money, patents, and tariffs):
http://attackthesystem.com/2011/06/03/benjamin-tuckers-four-monopolies/

- Roderick T. Long and Charles W. Johnson on “the many monopolies”:
Long: http://fee.org/articles/the-many-monopolies/
Johnson: http://praxeology.net/cjohnson-state-monopolies.pdf

- Gary Chartier on redistribution without the state:
http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/04/bleeding-heart-libertarians-for-redistribution/

- on Spencer Heath, Heathian anarchism, proprietary communities, and multi-tenant properties:
http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Heathian_anarchism.html
http://www.explorersfoundation.org/glyphery/280.html
http://attackthesystem.com/spencer-maccallum-interviewed-by-wayne-john-sturgeon/
http://fee.org/articles/introduction-to-proprietary-cities/Articles by Right-Anarchists / Propertarians / Ideotists

- Walter Block's support of Rothbard's criticism of Henry George:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/henry-george-weak-economics-example-rothbard-rule/

- Hans-Hermann Hoppe on different types of property:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNTDqAunbCc

- Robert P. Murphy's Chaos Theory (read the section on security, especially the parts which address the issue of how people could secure property claims in the absence of the state):
http://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/Chaos%20Theory_2.pdf

- Robert P. Murphy's “The Economics of the Stateless Society”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoJF_psh8AI

- Stefan Kinsella's criticism of Occupancy and Use norms:
http://mises.org/wire/critique-mutualist-occupancy

- Linda and Morris Tannehill's “The Market for Liberty”:
http://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/The%20Market%20for%20Liberty_2.pdf
See also: articles by Joe Kopsick on related topics:

- Joe Kopsick on the taxation and securitization of property:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/11/panarchist-securitization-and-taxation.html

- Joe Kopsick on private alternatives to the state:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/privatization-or-anarchism-providing.html

- Joe Kopsick's “Why Rent is Theft”, criticizing economic rents (rent, profit, and interest):

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-rent-is-theft-against-economic.html

- Joe Kopsick on Max Weber's definition of the state, and how to make government less monopolistic:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2013/07/on-max-webers-definition-of-state.html

- Joe Kopsick on Geolibertarianism (a description of how to turn a system based on rent and taxation, into a system based on the collection of dues from vacant land):
http://www.lclp.org/articles/geolibertarianism/

- Joe Kopsick on why Libertarians should be interested in Georgist Land Value Taxation:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-is-geolibertarianism.html

- Joe Kopsick on how prisons could be privatized without risking corruption by the profit incentive:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-to-fully-privatize-prisons-without.htmlSee also: a free-market perspective from in the middle:

- “Property is Only Another Name for Monopoly”, by Eric A. Posner and E. Glen Weyl:
http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12668&context=journal_articles





See also: taxation without the state among Jews in Palestine in the 1930s-1940s
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1983331




See also: descriptions of private dispute resolution in a stateless society:

- traditional definition of a private dispute resolution organization:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dispute_resolution_organization

- more detailed definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispute_resolution

- Stefan Molyneux on Dispute Resolution Organizations (D.R.O.s) as an alternative to the state:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B-5Lbpk_3Y

- David D. Friedman on medieval Iceland's justice system:
http://notendur.hi.is/bthru/friedman.htm (link within leads nowhere)
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/Legal_Systems_Very_Different_13/Book_Draft/Systems/SagaPeriodIceland.htm
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Iceland/Iceland.html
http://praxeology.net/libertariannation/a/f13l1.html

- Roderick Long on dispute resolution without the state:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth#Legacy
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2002/06/roderick-t-long/the-vikings-were-libertarians/

- other authors on dispute resolution without the state:
http://libertarianism.fandom.com/wiki/Dispute_resolution_organizationSee also: links regarding the management of firms by labor:

- Richard Wolff on worker self-management and Workers Self-Directed Enterprise (W.S.D.E.s):
http://www.geo.coop/content/richard-d-wolff-worker-co-op-solution
http://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/workers-control-coops-wright-wolff-alperovitz/
http://www.rdwolff.com/crispy/legislative_package_introduced_to_encourage_employee_owned_companies

- Richard Wolff on WSDEs:

http://www.rdwolff.com/faq_worker_coops_wdes

- the labor-managed firm (or Egalitarian Labor-Managed Firm; E.L.M.F.):
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00213624.2017.1391592

- articles about workers' savings funds:
http://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/05/29/bernie-sanders-gives-the-nod-to-funds-socialism/

- Occupancy and Use norms:
http://c4ss.org/content/41421http://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnarchism/comments/1rf2ly/what_is_the_occupancy_and_use_theory_of_property/

Based on notes taken in April 2019, and May 19^th, 2019

Written on May 21^st and 22^nd, 2019

Edited and Expanded on May 27th and 31st, 2019
Edited on October 30th, 2019

First image created in May 2019
and re-created on September 8th, 2021
and added on September 8th, 2021

Originally Published on May 22^nd, 2019

Author's Post-Script written on May 22nd, 2019

Additional Links Added on May 31st, 2019