Reaction to the Withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Syria, and Thoughts on Kurdistan

     On December 19^th, 2018, claiming that I.S.I.S. has been defeated in Syria, President Donald Trump announced that within thirty days, the U.S. military would withdraw 2,000 troops from that country, in a complete withdrawal.

     I applaud the move to leave Syria; and to leave any country. I hope to hear more announcements like this about Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and other countries. I also hope that, as soon as possible, the U.S. dismantles its 800 or more military bases overseas, and stations no troop farther than 100 miles from our shores.

     But while I support leaving Syria, I have some doubts as to whether the president may have ulterior motives in leaving Syria, and may not have peace in mind as a genuine interest or motivation.

     I have written this article in order to make it publicly known what my position is on Syria, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country; by publishing both my immediate reaction to the announcement, as well as my opinions on the story as it has developed between December 19^th and now (January 7^th, 2019).

     Before reading my initial reaction to the news about Syria, it is necessary to explain a bit of background information.

     Concerning the first paragraph below: Murray Bookchin was a libertarian communalist political philosopher and social theorist, who developed a school of thought which has come to be known as Bookchinism. Shortly after Trump's announcement that the U.S. would pull out of Syria, Murray Bookchin's daughter Debbie, an author and a supporter of Kurdish autonomy, tweeted in criticism of the announcement. The autonomous region of Turkey called Rojava, is populated by Kurds, and is governed according to Bookchin's principles; namely, it is a decentralized federation that values regional autonomy.

     Concerning the end of the second paragraph: I consider our alliance with Israel to be a significant contributing cause to the reason why the U.S. was in Syria to begin with. Israel and Syria aren't just neighbors, they have a border dispute; over the Golan Heights. The claims that I.S.I.S., and supposed Iranian proxy terrorist group Hezbollah, are in the country, may well be true, but they also serve as convenient excuses for the U.S. to promote joint U.S.-Israeli interests in the region. If we want to fight Iran, then we should fight Iran directly, not its proxies (not that I want us to fight Iran, I don't).

     Concerning the third paragraph: Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was described as calling for the destruction of Israel when he quoted Ayatollah Khamenei, who said “The regime that is occupying Jerusalem will vanish from the pages of history.”, which could be merely an expression of grief over the tragedy that led to the occupation of Palestine, the Nakba, in which 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, when the Israeli state was founded.

     The following is the original text of my first published reaction, written on December 21^st, 2018, and posted to Facebook.

     Noam Chomsky and Murray Bookchin's daughter both say that Trump's move to pull troops out of Syria will only put the people of Rojava in danger. Rojava is quite possibly the best example of a libertarian communalist society in the Middle East, if not the whole world, right now. They may not even be able to survive without American help.

     But on the other hand, America simply leaving them the fuck alone could cause Rojava to grow stronger. Aside from it being none of our business in the first place, because we're not supposed to have strong allies like Israel anyway.

     The fact that there's a link between Syria and Hezbollah and Iran, is meaningless to me. Iran doesn't want to destroy Israel; the comments of Ahmadinejad (quoting the Ayatollah) were willfully distorted to achieve that appearance.

     Also, we have a giant military base in Southeast Turkey, at Diyarbakir, which is a staging facility for our wars in the Middle East. So maybe dismantle that base, and Rojava will be fine.

     But what the fuck do I know?

     Two days later, on December 23^rd, 2018 - after a friend rebuked me for being too cautious about the possible negative consequences of the U.S. military leaving Syria, and too open to the idea of keeping U.S. troops there - I wrote a second reaction to clarify my position. That reaction read:

     To be clear, we should get the fuck out of Syria and Afghanistan as soon as possible, leaving neither troops nor bases behind.

     It's hard to say that, knowing that us moving out could expose Syria to a power vacuum that could be filled by Turkey, which the U.S. has had too good relations with, despite its [Turkey's] abuses.

     I don't fear the Syrian power vacuum being filled by Iran, because Western media have lied about Iran's intentions so much. Not to say that there would be no problems if that vacuum were filled by Iran, or even Russia.

     Whenever we get out, and whatever happens, I hope that leftists, Democrats, and libertarians are not ashamed to admit Trump "being right", if it means ending our involvement in one of the many wars we're currently involved in.

But we also need to be aware of how the filling of the Syrian power vacuum by Turkey – which I think will be the inevitable result of our exit – was really enabled by America and other Western actors to begin with.

     We need to not only get out of Syria, but also think about ending our ties with abusive regimes such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other nations that have committed serious human rights abuses (long imprisonment, cruel and unusual punishment, corporal punishment, human trafficking, gender oppression, etc.).

     I'd like to add some comments, clarifying my position on human rights, the nations that abuse them, and the fallacy that imposing import tariffs help restore human rights to nations which abuse them.

     I would not consider Israel immune from allegations and investigations of human rights abuses (with its occupation of territory in defiance of international law, and its refusal to promise not to sell nuclear weapons to other countries, and a number of other problems). Nor would I consider it inappropriate to wonder whether China's human rights and labor abuses should be criticized. Every country should be looked at; every government and every authority should be questioned; not excluded, Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

     I say that we should suspect every country of abuses, full well knowing that if we do not trade with a country, then we are likely to have war with that country. That is why I do not support tariffs, because they don't work. Tariffs impose a cost on domestic importers in America, not the foreign firms they're intended to target, so they don't hurt the governments and firms that are carrying out the abuses. The state and its cronies can change the law and legally steal people's money, in a way that deflects and defers and externalizes the costs of the tariffs onto other people, and they do.

     Foreign tariffs only make money for the foreign government, at the expense of foreign exporters and American importers. Money in the hands of governments will never be used to help workers, nor to make-up for nor prevent abuses, but only used to continue and sustain those abuses. If Americans can understand that, then we should also be able to understand that our foreign trading partners might not want to pay a tariff that effectively results in the donation of money to the U.S. military.

     Think about it: If money is fungible, and any tax can be matched with any spending purpose, then isn't that what is happening? The tariff helps the U.S. government balance its budget (as if it ever does that), or at least helps the government sustain itself, so that it can run the military, the Office of the Trade Representative, and every other thing it does.

     My point in saying this is that we ought to have free trade – that is, free movement of labor and capital – with every country that does not commit, or condone, human rights and labor abuses, and other types of deprivations of civil rights and civil liberties. We shouldn't have a situation in which we try to simply tax our problem away, by taxing things that don't make sense to tax. Taxing the importation of goods only makes that good more expensive, more costly, available in fewer places, or all of the above.

     We should make sure that we are not ourselves guilty of the crimes of which we accuse other countries, and raise our standards for ourselves first, to set a good example, instead of expecting other countries to be better than we are. And if we want to identify certain countries, and their governments, as ones that support and condone abuses, then we should apply our standards equally to all nations. But, of course, we cannot go to war with all governments at once, based on the idea that all countries commit abuses. But we should decide which countries are the worst, and start thinking about how ready we are to wage war against them.

     If a country is worth going to war with, then we should cease trading with it immediately – not restrict trade, not have highly regulated trade, not set up an intricate system of licenses and permits for trading – we should stop trade entirely. I say that, full well knowing that if we do not have trade with a country, then we are more likely to have war with it. But if it is decided that allowing trade with a certain country is only helping its government clamp-down control on its people, then we should declare civil liberties violations and human rights abuses as the reason for the war, seek formal congressional authorization of a declaration of war, and fight that war quickly and efficiently, finish it, and bring all troops and bases home.

     Additionally, if we are going to have war with a country because its government is harming its people, then we should make no distinction between an abusive government, and its cronies which are legally entitled to property and wealth under that regime. If the government is condoning those abuses, and the “private” firms receive any form of taxpayer funding, then the government is complicit in any workplace abuses occurring at government sponsored firms.

     The next section, concerning the future of Kurdistan and the relevance of Syria's location to the oil industry, is based on notes written on January 3^rd and 4^th, 2019.

     The areas in northeastern Syria and northern Iraq which were formerly held by I.S.I.S., are on or near areas predominantly occupied by Kurds. I suspect that the U.S. military desires to maintain the presence of Turkey, the U.S., and their N.A.T.O. partners. I believe that the U.S. military can achieve those objectives with or without its own presence there, through leaving the task to Turkey and others.

     It is possible that the U.S. has found a way to leave Syria and achieve its own objectives as it pertains to the future of the Kurdish people. It's even possible that the Trump Administration is planning to support an independent, autonomous Kurdish state, which the United States would co-opt, so as to maintain the illusion that the Kurdish people's interests are really being put first in that country (instead of the interests of Western actors who don't want a truly free Kurdistan and invite more Western influence and interference).

     Although I do support Kurdish autonomy and independence, I'm not certain that statehood would be best for the Kurds. Granted, in a world of nation-states, statehood is practically the only way they can get the world to take them seriously. But I believe that, given enough time, nearly any state will oppress (and even mass-murder) a certain percent of its own people, and therefore, the world does not need another state.

     It is a consolation to me that the Kurdish state would likely be federated and decentralized, as Kurdish-majority regions in Syria and Iraq tend to be. Decentralization at least helps to diminish and diffuse the risks associated with centralizing power too much. But a Kurdish government oppressing its own people too much is not my only concern.

     I am also worried about the hubris of the American government, in thinking that it can help bring peace to the Middle East; after all the damage it has caused, and after even conservative hero Ronald Reagan admitted that we have continued to underestimate the complexity and irrationality of Middle East geopolitics.

     Western media tell us that the British and French government simply “messed up”, and “didn't care” where they drew the national boundaries that resulted in the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the modern-day borders. As a matter of fact, those boundaries were delineated deliberately by the British government, as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy. The idea was to keep tribes of different languages, different sects of Islam, and different religions, all fighting against each other, instead of banding together against their common enemy, the British imperial invaders. That the location and diversity of peoples in the Middle East were ignored in that process, was intentional, not accidental. And not just including the Kurdish people, but especially the Kurdish people, who were (and are) scattered across four nations as a result of that agreement.

     Even if America can have a seat at the negotiation table (with Kurdish, Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian leaders), it probably shouldn't, because American leaders would just tout their own role in resolving the problem so much, that it irks the other countries that have to make major concessions just to come to the table. Considering the American track record in the Middle East, it would not only be pointless to have America at the negotiating table, it would make the road to Middle East peace and Kurdish autonomy longer and bumpier.

     Another reason that the prospect of Kurdish autonomy is worrisome, is that former Vice President Joe Biden might try to take advantage of the issue in order to jump-start a likely run for president in 2020. I believe that Biden might try to portray himself as a longtime supporter of Kurdish independence, since he has been promoting the idea of partitioning Iraq into three areas (one mostly Sunni, one mostly Shi'ite, and the other Kurdish).

     While a Biden presidency could very well result in a rapid acceleration of a project to achieve Kurdish independence, there is no guarantee that that project would not deteriorate into an overly centralized, excessively Western-influenced country that is full of American military bases. Additionally, Biden has a sexual harassment scandal brewing, which, if he is the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump is sure to bring up during the debates. If that happens, it will not end well for Biden, and Trump will easily win a second term. I want to prevent that, but not at the cost of allowing Joe Biden to run the country. I would vote for someone else, or not vote at all.

     I would like to note that, in addition to promoting Israel's interests in Syria, another major reason for U.S. presence in Syria is the relevance of Syria's location to the interests of the oil industry.

     Syria has very little oil – and, at that, only on its outskirts – but the fact that it is situated between the Mediterranean sea to the West, and oil-rich Iraq and Iran to the East, makes it a very important area of geopolitical and economic strategic interest.

     The U.S. and its allies want to build a new oil pipeline - the proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline - across parts of northern and eastern Syria. The proposed pipeline supported by the Russians and Iranians – the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline – would run the pipeline through only the Western part of Syria, near the Mediterranean Sea.

     Both proposed pipelines would brush the southern edges of Kurdish-majority territory. As far as I.S.I.S. goes, the Western-backed pipeline would cut across territories formerly controlled by I.S.I.S., while the Eastern-backed pipeline would not.

     It's hard to tell which pipeline would result in more havoc, environmental damage, or interference in the everyday lives of the Syrian people, or the Kurdish people for that matter. For all we know, Syria could feel worried about interference from both East and West, and favor neither pipeline. Stuck between Iraq and a wet place (the Mediterranean and the Western oil interests), if you will.

     That's why I have decided not to draw any conclusions on foreign policy from these facts relevant to oil. I merely wish to point these facts out, so that anyone wishing to develop their own opinion on the relevance of oil to the Syrian and Kurdish conflicts, and to U.S. involvement in the region, may do so.

     Another cause for my concern about whether our leaders' claims that we are leaving Syria are genuine - and that the exit is going according to plan, and that what we think is happening is really what's happening - came up just the other day.

     On January 6^th, 2019, National Security Adviser John Bolton said that, while we will be leaving northern Syria, our exit from Syria does not have a timetable for withdrawal of ground forces. He also said that the U.S. will not leave until Turkey's government guarantees the safety of U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters who helped defeat I.S.I.S..

     It has also been reported that Bolton reassured Israeli leaders that the U.S. will continue to help protect Israel from Iran after the U.S. withdraws troops from Syria.

     It's possible that a complete U.S. withdrawal from Syria might be delayed, or made only a partial withdrawal, due to Israel's influence. Although the Israeli narrative and Netanyahu's reputation have weakened significantly in recent months, the State of Israel will remain America's #1 ally in the region for the foreseeable future, barring a radical change in either U.S. foreign policy or Israeli leadership (or both).

     I would like to see the U.S. have the same policy towards Israel, Syria, Kurdistan, and all the other countries of the world alike: the U.S. military should withdraw all troops and dismantle all bases in all other countries, and whether the lack of U.S. presence in a country causes its government to grow weaker or stronger, more independent or less, it should be none of our business.

     Regimes in the Middle East will come and go, they don't need Western arms dealers arming them to the teeth – publicly nor privately – to make them look guilty by association, and look tyrannical because they have the means to attack others (whether they do or not).

     I won't call it unfair to argue that the U.S. should at least stay in Syria, or wherever else, long enough to fix the damage it has done over the decades. But what are the chances of that happening, really? Like I said before, it would require a radical change in U.S. policy.

     Still, though, I would rather have the U.S. simply stop interfering in other countries' internal conflicts, instead of sit around waiting for the American government to suddenly be run by honest people with decent, respectable, and realistic goals.

Written on December 21^st and 23^rd, 2018, and January 3^rd, 4^th, and 7^th, 2019

Originally Published on January 7^th, 2019

What is Geolibertarianism? (Abbreviated)

What is Geolibertarianism?

Written on January 25^th, 2017

      The Libertarian Party needs a tax policy.

      Given that Gary Johnson failed to convince certain media figures that the FairTax is the best tax plan out there, and failed to convince the American people to vote for him, it's time for the L.P. to think about its tax policy, and the principles behind it.

     Don't get me wrong; there's nothing wrong with the FairTax, Johnson simply wasn't given enough opportunities to defend it. The FairTax – which would aim to replace personal income taxes – is a proposed 23% sales tax on all goods sold nationally, in order to fund the federal government. On first inspection, the plan appears to achieve every goal of good libertarian tax philosophy.

      Despite the concerns of CNN's Chris Cuomo that the FairTax is regressive - and the concerns of John Oliver that the plan is just another social welfare program – Johnson continued defending the FairTax.

      He argued that it was revenue-neutral. He also argued that the FairTax is not regressive; because it would compensate people – in advance, to the tune of several thousand dollars annually – for those national sales taxes which they would pay on ordinary consumer goods and services. This payout – which John Oliver described as just another social welfare program – is called the FairTax “prebate”.

      The FairTax succeeds at putting into practice most of the goals of libertarian principles on taxes. And what are those principles, exactly? We want to simplify the tax code, for a start. We want make tax burdens more equal by flattening tax rates, and run government services on fee-for-service models. But we also don't want to burden low-income people who have difficulty affording taxes, because we recognize that more government involvement has made their lives more difficult in that respect.

      Lastly, we want a tax code that doesn't inhibit productive behavior. We share the concerns of former Reagan economic adviser Art Laffer, whose “Laffer curve” explained the mathematical ramifications of the observation that taxes often have the effect of punishing or deterring the behaviors which they tax. If we agree that taxes do punish, then they should punish intentionally.

      More to the point; what the FairTax lacks is an idea of how to fully apply the idea that all taxes just might punish and deter the behaviors they tax. That's where the Single Tax comes in.

      Now commonly known as Land Value Taxation, the Single Tax is the philosophy of 19th-century American economist Henry George. Students of George's philosophy – called Georgists, or geoists – have adopted slogans such as “tax land, not man”, and “tax bads, not goods”.

      This means that Georgists want government to be funded entirely through the collection of rents on the non-improvement of landed property. In a Georgist system, local governments would levy fees against wasteful “uses” of landed property, while “community land trusts” would be charged with preserving and allocating land.

      I know what you're thinking, and you're right; your property taxes are high enough already. But under Georgism, you would incur no tax liabilities from making productive use of your land (as long as you don't render the land unusable). You would be free to make sustainable improvements that increase your property value, without paying increased property taxes.

      Despite the “Single Tax” label, there are numerous types of activities which would be taxed in a Georgist system. These include but are not limited to: hoarding, abuse, misuse, disuse, blight, pollution, and unsustainable development of land; as well as the extraction of natural resources without compensating the community.

      The Georgist system would levy taxes with the intent of deterring and punishing the undesirable behavior (the “bad”); while avoiding taxing man's productive economic behaviors; like engaging in labor, and buying and selling “goods”.

      The advantage that Georgism has over the FairTax is that Georgism taxes waste, while the FairTax taxes consumption. This is problematic because consumption is not always wasteful. Conspicious consumption (that is, excessive consumption), on the other hand, resembles waste. But to tax only the waste of land, while refraining from taxing purchases, could help avoid the risk that the FairTax could deter the purchase of ordinary goods.

      Truth be told, as long as prices and the value of the dollar were to remain stable, the FairTax's prebate would probably remove that disincentive to make purchases. But nonetheless, the Georgist plan to tax waste, in all its forms, achieves the goals of libertarian tax philosophy even more thoroughly than the FairTax does.

A geo-libertarian tax policy would most likely be funded through 1) voluntary donations, 2) user fees), and 3) taxes on the non-improvement of land.

      Henry George's philosophy was praised by the late former Reagan economic adviser Milton Friedman; as “the least harmful tax” ever proposed. For the last fifty years, Nobel Prize winner Friedman – as well as his son David, and grandson Patri – has been an important influence on conservative and libertarian thought.

In 1968, Friedman defended the Negative Income Tax (N.I.T.) against William F. Buckley's questioning. The N.I.T. was not devised by Friedman, but it was supported by Sargent Shriver and Daniel Moynihan, and considered by presidents Johnson and Nixon.

      The Negative Income Tax would be paid for through a flat tax on those above a certain income level, with a “negative tax rate” being applied to people below that income level. This imposition of a negative tax rate would result in a cash payment, which Friedman explained could be equal to (as an example) 50% of the difference between the low-income person's annual earnings, and the income level that establishes who will pay taxes and who will receive payment.

      One intention of the N.I.T. is to phase-out requirements that a person must give up benefits as soon as they become employed; these requirements create what some call “the poverty trap in the welfare system”. Another intention of the plan is to pay low-income citizens their own money back.

      Such a plan could be argued to provide reparative compensation (that is, reparations) to the impoverished; as an redress of grievances; grievances against the federal government such as growing beyond its appropriate scope of power, putting taxpayer money in the hands of cronies and lobbyists, and creating artificial scarcity of land through the hoarding of land into federal ownership.

      A libertarian implementation of the N.I.T. would most likely involve shrinking government involvement in health and education, while returning the moneys that fund health and education to the taxpayers, so that they may more easily be able to afford buying health and education goods and services on the open market, just as they would with ordinary consumer goods.

      Now the similarities between the FairTax and the Negative Income Tax are becoming apparent.

      Both plans impose a tax upon a productive economic behavior which is not related to land; the FairTax taxes sales, while the N.I.T. Taxes income. Both plans would be levied in the hope that they would make at least one other way of sourcing government revenue obsolete. Additionally, each plan would be administered concurrently with reductions in the size and scope of government; returning money to the taxpayer, in a way that is effectively progressive, even if some describe them as flat.

      Aside from the FairTax, the Negative Income Tax, and the Georgist plan, the ideas of Thomas Paine should be considered. At the Libertarian Party's 1998 convention, a group of libertarian Georgists called the Thomas Paine Caucus hosted a booth, hoping to get their land platform into the party's platform.

      The caucus was unsuccessful; and although some caucus members did become L.P. members, the caucus did not become part of the party. As a result, in the last twenty years, the party has perhaps paid less attention to Paine than it should. However, that does not stop today's geo-libertarians from calling for the party to consider Paine's ideas on welfare, in addition to George's and Friedman's.

      In Common Sense, Paine articulated what could be described as a geo-libertarian proposal for a citizens' dividend program. He essentially argued that, since government must deprive individuals of full private property rights (in order to maintain basic zoning and land-title systems), government should be obligated to compensate all adults in the country with a certain guaranteed income; an income equal to the value of the vast set of landed property rights which they would otherwise fully possess.

      Of course, without access to land and natural resources, it is practically impossible for most people to be productive. As a result, competition for resources, trade, and currency, are all more prevalent than they would be if individuals sustained themselves. Poverty and dependence go hand-in-hand; this is what libertarians, conservatives, and Georgists all want to address.

      That's why we should consider what people like Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman, and Henry George have taught us about taxes and welfare; as well what libertarians leaning to the left (such as Charles Murray) have to say on the matters. Murray (of the American Enterprise Institute) has been criticized for supporting a basic income proposal.

      Some of the more conservative members of the Libertarian Party might criticize basic income (and similar proposals like citizens' dividends and sovereign wealth funds) as proposals that advocate redistribution. But given our belief that most taxation resembles theft, and the fact that the First Amendment recognizes the natural right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, Libertarians shouldn't rule-out all proposals that would put cash directly in the hands of the people.

      That's because any one of these proposals could result in payouts that are parts of a long-overdue civil settlement between the people and their government. We the People have no duty to forgive the federal government for the self-defeating, unjustly punitive tax policies which it has administered since the Founding; we should instead hold it responsible. Government and its cronies should be found guilty of legitimized unconstitutional mass-scale theft of wealth and property rights; and the rewards should go to every resident under federal jurisdiction.

      Many L.P. members and Georgists would probably agree that the federal government should pay compensatory damages to its victims (We the People). We might argue about how much we can trust the states on land issues, and about whether people should have a choice between receiving land and money. But what is clear is that, if all “social welfare programs” keep people in poverty, then none of the reforms mentioned herein are social welfare programs.

      That's why we should continue to consider sales tax prebates, negative income tax payouts, basic income proposals, the citizens' dividend, and the sovereign wealth fund. We should also keep our minds open to new ways to put into full practice all of our principles on taxes. We must craft a tax policy that is fair and equal; that affords as much freedom to the taxpayer as possible; and that holds government (and its largest land-hoarding and polluting beneficiaries) responsible for funding government.

      We must levy fines that punish civil and criminal wrongdoing, not fees and taxes that deter people from working, trading, and engaging in productive activities that harm nobody. To do the opposite is to continue to grow government; to enrich cronies; to make land more expensive; and to keep the poor in poverty. It is to continue down the same path that has given innumerable unsustainable budget deals and irrational forms of taxation.

      That's why the Libertarian Party should not shy away from making tentative alliances with those slightly to the party's left, nor should the L.P. shy away from the party of free land and free money.



See other articles on this blog about Geolibertarianism here:
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-is-geolibertarianism.html 
http://www.lclp.org/articles/geolibertarianism/

What is Geolibertarianism? (Expanded)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Gary Johnson and the FairTax

2. Libertarian Tax Principles

3. Georgist Tax Principles

4. The Basics of Georgism

5. Georgism, Advanced

6. The Geo-Libertarian Synthesis

7. Georgism as Libertarian

8. Thomas Paine's Citizens' Dividend

9. Taxation and Social Welfare

10. The Geo-Painean-Friedmanite Synthesis

11. Conclusion: Social Welfare Programs

Content

1. Introduction: Gary Johnson and the FairTax

      The Libertarian Party needs a tax policy.

      In 2016, the party's presidential nominee Gary Johnson advocated the FairTax. Under this proposal, the federal tax on individual income would be replaced by a nationwide value-added tax on consumption; a 23% tax (paid by the customer) on all goods sold nationwide, functioning the same way that state and local sales taxes do.

      Since about half of federal revenues derive from taxes on individual income, it's possible that if the sales tax rate could be doubled (to 46%), capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and gift taxes, and maybe other types of taxes as well, could become unnecessary, in addition to personal income taxes (of course, few libertarians - and few followers of Henry George's Single Tax philosophy - would support prohibiting voluntary donations to government paid from charges on earned income, sales, capital gains, etc.).

      During the 2016 campaign, on Chris Cuomo's CNN show, Gary Johnson answered concerns that the FairTax proposal is regressive (despite the plan's “prebate” which would compensate consumers for their purchases). Additionally, John Oliver criticized Johnson for declining to go into enough detail about whether the FairTax's “prebate” is a welfare program.

      It seems that the public and the media are not quite ready for the FairTax. Judging by Johnson's disappointing 3% vote in the 2016 presidential election (after sustaining 5-9% polling averages, and even registering as high as 13% in one poll, all still short of the 15% threshold to get into the debates), party members themselves might be ready to move on to better tax policies as well.

      Given the misinformation and contentiousness surrounding Johnson's candidacy and surrounding the FairTax, it might behoove the party to consider tax policies that are different from the FairTax, but which still retain its intent and spirit. A new tax policy should ask the same question that inspired the FairTax: “Which behaviors ought to be taxed in the first place?”

2. Libertarian Tax Principles

      The tax-skeptical party that we are, we go back to first principles. Our members might be likely to advocate funding government entirely from voluntary contributions, others from user fees, perhaps others want to keep income taxes but allow individuals to choose which spending items to pay for.

      Others simply want whichever tax policy will place the lowest burden on people who engage in productive economic behavior. We understand that income taxes and sales taxes are really taxes on earning money and taxes on buying and selling (respectively). We also understand that when you tax an activity, you risk discouraging that behavior if you impose too high a tax rate. This is because high tax rates can deter people from engaging in the activity that is being taxed.

Hence, each kind of tax has the effect of penalizing and deterring the activity that it taxes. The result is that when you tax income and sales, less people are working and earning money, and less trade is taking place because fewer things are being bought and sold.

Art Laffer, former economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, theorized what is called the “Laffer curve”. The Laffer curve is essentially a bell curve, plotted on a graph; a graph in which the X-axis depicts rates of income or productivity, while the Y-axis depicts tax rate percentages.

Laffer hypothesized that some nominal tax rate might exist, which, if applied, would allow the government to take as much revenue as possible from our paychecks, without risking making us quit our jobs altogether because we can't afford to pay taxes at rates any higher than they already are.
       The pervasiveness of the sentiment that we're “taxed enough already” - and a new political environment that firmly believes that too much regulation and taxation stymies production and growth - suggest that Laffer's concern is valid. Some among us might even believe that the Laffer curve peaks at zero; which is to say that any percentage tax rate - even 1% - at least somewhat deters a person from engaging in taxed behaviors.

      That's why it's important for us to ask ourselves how to ow do we adopt a tax policy that satisfies the concerns of all members of the party, while making sure that the people who actually deserve to be “punished” (with these punitive taxes) are the ones that will bear the burden of federal taxes?

3. Georgist Tax Principles

If taxes do punish, then they should be levied with intent to punish. Understanding this could lead to a society where the people who pay for government, are criminals - those who destroy lands, restrict access to vast areas, rob us of our natural rights, waste our tax dollars, and enrich themselves through cronyism - while the people who reap the rewards are, by large, innocent civilians who engage in little or no economic activity which harms anybody else.

      The key to achieving that kind of society is to “tax bads, not goods”; that is, fund government through imposing intentionally deterrent, quasi-punitive fines on wasteful behaviors, not through imposing “taxes” on productive economic behavior that harms nobody and steals nobody's property.

      But taxing waste is precisely the issue; the FairTax taxes consumption. And so, we must ask, do we want to tax consumption? Do we risk discouraging people from buying things; from using the products they want to buy, including eating the foods they want to buy? Why should we be taxing economic activity at all? Shouldn't we tax luxury items before we tax ordinary consumer goods? Isn't conspicious (excessive) consumption a more waste-like activity to tax instead of taxing all sales nationwide?

      That's why “tax bads, not goods” and “tax land, not man” are some of the slogans of the Georgists (also called Geoists). Georgists are students of 19th-century American economist Henry George, whose 1871 book Progress and Poverty influenced the development of philosophy and policy concerning property rights, taxation, environment, economics, and other topics.

      Some of George's modern-day admirers have created a hybrid “geo-libertarianism”, integrating George's libertarian communalist philosophy into the broader ethics and politics of libertarianism, bringing George's “Single Tax” (or Land Value Taxation) together with a die-hard support for civil liberties, and a desire to decentralize government towards local communities.

4. The Basics of Georgism

      While adherents to the Libertarian Party's platform are, for the most part, known as strong supporters of private property, Georgists want most land held in common (with open access), but with communally recognized private property rights. However, Georgists and geo-libertarians want intentionally deterrent fines to be imposed on people who have full private property ownership rights, including the right to exclude others from their land.

       Henry George's philosophy is known by many names: Georgism, Geonomics, Land Value Taxation or location value taxation (L.V.T.), split-rate taxation, two-rate taxation, two-tier taxation, or "the Single Tax". The Single Tax is a policy that funds government entirely through taxes on land; specifically, through taxes on the non-improvement of land, collected as land rents. Despite the "Single Tax" term, taxes on the non-improvement of land actually include multiple different types of taxation. This is because the full economic definition of land includes space, air, water, raw materials, mineral deposits, parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and other natural resources that exist in fixed supply.

The more libertarian among the geo-libertarians might argue in favor of limiting the types of behavior which the perhaps deceptively-named Single Tax might apply, but to fail to fully tax all behaviors, goods, and services which fall under the full economic definition of land (which includes raw materials, and does not include land not yet capitalized) would likely mean deserting George's vision to some degree.

A full “Single Tax” could potentially involve imposing monetary penalties upon: 1) the hoarding of landed property; 2) the enclosure of common lands; 3) emission of pollutants, potentially including the emission of carbon; 4) the extraction of natural resources without compensating neighbors or the community; 5) allowing land to become unusable and fall into disuse, disrepair, or blight; and / or 6) failure to homestead, otherwise sustainably develop, and demonstrate sufficiently frequent and active use of the land.

      The main revenue sources of a hybrid geo-libertarian tax policy would most likely be: 1) (as much revenue as possible from) voluntary contributions (from whatever sources); 2) (most of the remaining revenue) from user fees (through running as many government services as possible on fee-for-service models); and 3) taxes on land (funding whatever constitutional and necessary programs cannot be funded through donations and user fees.

      It's important to keep in mind that not all Georgists want to abolish the individual income tax, corporate income and capital gains taxes, and sales taxes. Of course, neither Georgists nor libertarians could rationally argue against abolishing voluntary donations to government from any of these sources. Despite those facts, it's not unreasonable to suggest that taxing solely land should logically involve eliminating (mandatory) personal income taxes, sales taxes, luxury taxes, capital gains and corporate income, estate taxes, and gift taxes. However, personal or corporate income from land sales, and gifts and bequeathing of land, might also be taxed. These provisos should provide plenty of room for negotiation with parties representing a host of different ideologies.

5. Georgism, Advanced

      An extensive application of Georgism might even include something like a carbon tax, but if each community could develop its own method of taxing pollution, then these communities could have a chance to convince urban and suburban communities not to adopt the United Nations carbon taxation plan.

      While this might sound unusual or risky - maybe to the more conservative members of the L.P. - taxing non-improvement of land could turn property taxes on their head, making it unnecessary to tax property value, freeing people to make unlimited improvements to their own property without paying taxes to the community (as long as the improvements are sustainable).

As a side note, in addition to George's demands, adherents of the property philosophies of John Locke and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon would likely promote punitive measures against property owners who do nothing to physically protect and secure their land, and instead rely on government to do it for them instead.

Additionally, these property owners - "absentee property owners" - rely on government to make land artificially scarce, resulting in takings of common lands that drive populations into urban centers, conscripting the people into the reserve army of labor, so that they are artificially impoverished through deprivation of natural rights, and are forced to compete for artificially scarce resources. This competition in the job market is not limited to the profession of working as a security guard to protect and defend someone's private property.

6. The Geo-Libertarian Synthesis

      But the geo-libertarians simply want to realize George's vision of ending taxes on all forms of labor (like personal income taxes), ending taxes on all forms of capital (like sales, capital gains, and taxes on profits), and taxing the waste and destruction of landed property, instead of taxing productive and sustainable improvements to landed property.

      Such a policy would render about 90% of current revenue sources obsolete. It would shrink the tax burden of renters, low-income workers, and ordinary consumers to practically zero; causing the burden of funding government to fall mainly upon the wealthiest of landed property owners, and the companies that release the most pollutants into common land, water, and air.

      This policy would ensure that the people who deserve to be punished by taxes - the beneficiaries of government protection of landed property (in addition to other artificial, taxpayer-funded privileges which destroy true free market conditions) – are the ones being punished. Additionally, this policy would minimally interrupt ordinary production and trade (aside from land); like sales, the earning of income, the earning of dividends through investment, and sustainable improvements to one's landed property (however, as one small possible downside, community governments' roles in mediating the sale and transfer of landed property would increase).

      The Land Value Taxation rate could even be set at a fixed number – maybe the same 23% as the FairTax; or maybe another number, maybe reflecting a very different budget – so Georgism would likely satisfy those in the L.P. who desire flat tax rates.

7. Georgism as Libertarian

      Without government taxing the income and purchases of ordinary people, prosperity would likely rapidly increase among low-income people. Social welfare programs could become unnecessary, making it possible to eliminate the majority of the activities of the Internal Revenue Service, focusing it on the taxation of non-improvement to landed property.

      Aside from simplifying the tax code and scaling back the affairs of the I.R.S., Georgists and Libertarian Party members might also choose to embark upon any or all of the following: 1) scale down the affairs of the Department of the Interior and bureaus of land management; 2) loosen requirements to claim homesteading, such as demonstration of exclusion and duration of occupancy; 3) pass homesteading tax credits at all levels of government, credits which are applicable to apartments, trailers, and small homes; 4) urge the federal and state governments to sell and grant public lands to local governments, potentiating more land sales to citizens; and 5) passing a new Homestead Act, allowing each resident to claim up to 7 or 8 acres of land.

      But perhaps the most important way to test the viability of a geo-libertarian alliance will be to see where libertarians and Georgists agree about what to tax, why we should be taxing it, and how much it should be taxed.

8. Thomas Paine's Citizens' Dividend

      In 1998, a group of libertarian Georgists called the Thomas Paine Caucus hosted a booth at that year's Libertarian Party convention in Washington, D.C.. Some members of the caucus were also members of the Libertarian Party, while others were not.¹ The caucus's efforts to get the L.P. to accept its land rights platform were derailed, so as a result, the party has perhaps paid less attention to Paine - and to George - than it should.

In Common Sense, Paine explained that each of us deserves compensation for being deprived of the natural right to inherit and fully own landed private property, we begin to understand that if we want our government to perform basic functions like zoning and recognizing exclusive property titles, then we should be free to have private property; we should be free to claim an area of land commensurate with world land divided by world population.

      But we should also be free to choose monetary compensation instead of landed private property. Paine advocates a citizens' dividend; similar plans are called residents' dividends, sovereign wealth funds (such as the Alaska Permanent Fund), and the kind of universal basic income guarantees advocated by libertarian Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute (and many on the left, and in Europe).

      If you think about it, the idea of cash payouts to citizens, may not be too far off from the FairTax's “prebate”, which would compensate consumers up to several thousands of dollars for paying taxes on everything they buy in a given year.

9. Taxation and Social Welfare

Despite the suggestions of John Oliver and others, a “prebate” isn't exactly a social welfare program. Citizens' dividends and basic income guarantees don't have to be run like social welfare programs either.

As libertarians, we interpret the Constitution's General Welfare Clause, and the direct tax and capitation clauses, to suggest that taxes and spending should impact all citizens universally, and equally, with spending benefiting everyone.

Given these principles, a prebate, basic income, or citizens' dividend should only be passed if it leaves more money in the hands of ordinary people, so that they can buy in the market what those tax dollars previously paid for. The idea is to shrink spending and revenues, and return those revenues to everyone in the form of cash payouts.

      Truthfully, any basic income program, citizens' dividend, sovereign wealth fund, or Negative Income Tax -type program, could easily be implemented and administered in a way that ensures that as flat as possible tax rates - and the tax burden in general - fall equally upon those who can afford it (i.e., those above the poverty line); while ensuring that each citizen receive an equal share of the government's cash payout (and / or land-gift), as long as they are not a beneficiary of government land protection.

10. The Geo-Painean-Friedmanite Synthesis

      Out of the debate between FairTax and Negative Income Tax proponents, and basic income advocates, has come the suggestion of a “Geo-Painean-Friedmanite Caucus” in the party; one which unites the ideas of Henry George and Thomas Paine, with those of Milton Friedman.

      Friedman supported the Negative Income Tax, though he did not originate it. Daniel Moynihan and Sargent Shriver advocated for the passage of similar legislation, while presidents Johnson and Nixon considered similar measures.

      The Negative Income Tax aims to eliminate the "poverty trap" created by rules that cut people off from social welfare benefits when they start working, thus removing the monetary incentive to work rather than stay on welfare. The N.I.T.'s solution is to flatly tax people above the poverty line (or some nearby amount), while paying "negative taxes" (i.e., rebates) to people below the poverty line.

In a 1968 interview with William F. Buckley, Friedman defended the Negative Income Tax. He gave as an example a 50% negative tax for those below the poverty line; explaining that everyone below the poverty line would receive half of the difference between the poverty line and their annual income.

Friedman described it essentially as a flat tax which is not regressive, but which is effectively progressive because the “negative tax” (read: payout to people below the poverty line or some other income threshold) would be redistributed from the rich, who would pay the same flat tax rate on all the taxable productive behaviors in which they engage.

That would go regardless of whether that would involve keeping the current tax code, or whether the code were totally overhauled; this fact could allows some wiggle room for compromise on probably almost all forms of taxation.

      Additionally, to exempt low-income earners from having to pay the Negative Income Tax, and to relieve the tax burden of those who own the smallest areas of land, could both be described as plans to compensate ordinary residents for the taking of their property; both administered as flat taxes with exemptions for those below a certain level of property earning or ownership.

And there's nothing left or right about government compensating the people for the illegal theft of their property rights, whether you want to call that "redistribution" or a "welfare program" or just call it what it is, which is shrinking government and giving it back to the people (as money and/or land rights), while restoring reason to the tax code.

      Some of the more conservative members of the Libertarian Party might criticize such proposals as advocating “redistribution”, “bleeding-heart” policies, or “leftism”. But given our belief that most taxation resembles theft, and the fact that the First Amendment recognizes the natural right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, Libertarians shouldn't rule-out all proposals that would put cash directly in the hands of the people.

      We the People have no duty to forgive the federal government for the self-defeating, unjustly punitive tax policies which it has administered since the Founding. Government and its cronies should be found guilty of legitimized unconstitutional mass-scale theft of wealth and property rights; and the rewards should go to every resident under federal jurisdiction.

      That's why we should continue to consider sales tax prebates, negative income tax payouts, basic income proposals, the citizens' dividend, and the sovereign wealth fund; that's because any one of these proposals could result in payouts that are parts of a long-overdue civil settlement between the people and their government.

      Many L.P. members and Georgists would probably agree that the federal government should pay compensatory damages to its victims (We the People). We might argue about how much we can trust the states on land issues, and about whether people should have a choice between receiving land and money. But what is clear is that, if all “social welfare programs” keep people in poverty, then none of the reforms mentioned herein are social welfare programs.

11. Conclusion

      A new synthesis is emerging. It is a synthesis that wants decentralized community control over land, environment, and tax policy; that wants to simplify the tax code and avoid deterring economic growth; and that recognizes that government largesse has enriched its cronies with taxpayer funds through artificially limiting the ability to buy and afford land, and that due to the injustice which maintaining these institutional, market-distorting privileges perpetuates, residents are owed reparations: reparations in the form of increased personal liberty, more localized control, and choice between free land and free money.

      Libertarians would do well to draw inspiration from Paine, Friedman, and George, in order to formulate new, innovative proposals of sweeping reforms to (and overhauls and simplifications of) the existing tax code. They must be proposals that face modern economic realities, and plan to do something about the artificial scarcity and artificially inflated prices and taxes of landed property. Thus, followers of the teachings of Henry George should remain forever welcome in the Libertarian Party, and their advice and concerns on taxation and environmental policies should always be heeded.

      Given the attraction of some Green Party members to Georgism and similar proposals, convergence upon geo-libertarianism may even prove to be a strategy for aligning many of the goals of the Libertarian Party and the Green Party; and with them, Debbie Dooley's Green Tea Party, the Tea Party movement of the American right, the Constitution Party, socialist parties, and other independent parties and activist movements.

      The Libertarian Party must be careful to avoid embracing the capitalism and mercantilism of the traditional American right, and instead embrace true free enterprise, heterodox economics, and a critique of capitalism from a position that values property rights. That's why Georgism, the ideas of John Locke, and the influence of Proudhon, Friedman, Paine, and many modern libertarian authors concerned about welfare matters (such as Charles Murray) will and should remain important influences on the party for generations to come.

      We should also keep our minds open to new ways to put into full practice all of our principles on taxes; aiming to craft a tax policy that is fair and equal, and one that affords as much freedom to the taxpayer as possible. Most importantly, we must craft a tax policy that holds government, and its largest polluting and land-hoarding beneficiaries, responsible, for shouldering the burden of funding government. We must levy fines that punish crime, not fees and taxes that deter people from working, trading, and engaging in productive activities that harm nobody.

      To do the opposite is to continue to grow government; to enrich cronies; to make land more expensive; and to keep the poor in poverty. It is to continue down the same path that has given innumerable unsustainable budget deals and irrational forms of taxation.

      Without access to land, and the ability to derive productive value through the use of natural resources, productivity is difficult for most people. As a result, trade, currency, and competition for resources, are all prevalent, when they would most likely not exist if each person were capable of sustaining himself. Poverty and dependence go hand-in-hand; this is what libertarians, conservatives, and Georgists all want to address.

      That's why the Libertarian Party should not shy away from making tentative alliances with those slightly to the party's left, nor should the L.P. shy away from the party of free land and free money.

Sources

1. "Libertarian Outreach Successful" (about the Thomas Paine Caucus at the 1998 L.P. convention):

http://commonground-usa.net/gagnon-paul_libertarian-outreach-successful-1998-jul-aug.pdf

Written on January 22^nd, 2017

Edited on January 23^rd, 24^th, and 29th, 2017

Edited and Expanded on January 25^th and February 18th, 2017

See other articles on this blog about Geolibertarianism here:
http://www.lclp.org/articles/geolibertarianism/
http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-is-geolibertarianism-abbreviated.html