Crafting a Health Insurance Law Acceptable to Both Libertarians and Socialists

     Note: The full title of this article is

“Crafting a Health Insurance Law Acceptable to Libertarians and Socialists,

and Reducing Health Insurance Rates Through Voluntary Cooperatives and Syndicalism,

by Expanding Choice and Competition, While Cutting Taxes, Subsidies, and Barriers”.

     Earlier this month, 22^nd District Michigan State House of Representatives candidate Matt Kuehnel received the nomination of the Socialist Party of Michigan. This is a phenomenal feat, especially considering that he has already received the nomination of the Libertarian Party of Michigan.

     Dual nominee Kuehnel, an HVAC service technician and carpenter residing in Warren, is a member of the Libertarian Socialist Caucus (L.S.C.) of the Libertarian Party (L.P.). That caucus, one of at least 40 in the party, was originally named the Black Flag Caucus, when it founded on August 25^th, 2017, by Mike Shipley of Arizona.

     For the past 90 or 100 years, and especially between approximately 1980 and 2006, the split between American right-libertarians and the more left-leaning anarchism and radicalism of Europe has been noticeable. Many people, Libertarians and socialists included, have their doubts as to whether and how an alliance between the two groups could work. That's because each group has its own reasons for suspecting the other of being predisposed to authoritarianism.

     On the matter of legislative policy concerning health insurance, most libertarians are adverse to any calls for “universal health care” or “Medicare for All”. Of course, “universal health care” does not necessarily always mean “Medicare for All”, so we should at least acknowledge that “universal health care” does sound appealing, even if we might not agree about which specific policies it would involve.

     That considered, it's entirely true that the vast majority of people want health care, and also want health insurance to help them pay for it. If libertarians want a voluntary society, then shouldn't they logically approve of people voluntarily pooling their purchasing power together into cooperatives? Moreover, following that line of logic, shouldn't those cooperatives be free to cooperate with each other, in order to maximally benefit from the reduced cost effect of their economy of scale?

     What I am advocating is essentially “group insurance pooling” on steroids. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky promoted group insurance pooling in 2017, as part of his four-point health insurance reform plan. While his plan focuses on allowing people to join into voluntary cooperatives on the basis of common profession, I would like to see that idea extended so as to include any voluntary association.

     The practice of urging cooperation between cooperatives on a voluntary basis may be referred to as either cooperative federalism, or syndicalism. When done entirely on a stateless, voluntary, horizontal, autonomous basis, this cooperation among cooperatives is called anarcho-syndicalism; whereas, when done as a matter of public policy, it is state syndicalism or national syndicalism. Groups of cooperatives are referred to as secondary cooperatives, cooperative unions, syndicates, and cooperative wholesale societies.

     Both Kuehnel and the current Libertarian Socialist Caucus platform accept Medicare for All as one of several “pragmatic” reforms to consider. The Platform of the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the Libertarian Party was adopted on March 21^st, 2018. Section 1.2 of the L.S.C. platform, on “Incremental Reform”, reads thus:

     “We advocate the abolition of harmful laws, regulation, agencies, and positions wherever possible. However, we do recognize electoral politics as a valid form of tactical harm reduction, provided that incremental policy reforms do not further cement the oppressive power of the state. Such incremental policy reforms may include Universal Basic Income, some version of “Medicare for All”, a Land Value Tax, and others. These are not libertarian solutions but socialist ones, which are arguably preferable to the current […] non-libertarian, capitalist model. The caucus does not endorse these policies as libertarian solutions, but will not explicitly exclude individuals supporting such policies from the caucus.”

     While right-libertarians such as at-large Libertarian National Committee representative Joshua Smith may argue that they pursue the goal of uniting all “small-L libertarians”, the so-called “Bottom Unity” which the L.S.C. is pursuing, accomplishes just that. But by any reasoning or measure, it does that much better than an alliance solely between free-marketeers and libertarian-conservatives, which the “libertarian Southern Strategy” paleolibertarians and the so-called Fusionists are proposing.

     What we are discussing is whether the Libertarian Party should be about that (that is, right-unity), or whether it should be about Bottom Unity. While right-unity focuses on preserving capitalism more or less at any cost, whether it attempts to operate with or without the state helping it, Bottom Unity opposes authoritarianism and absolutism and totalitarianism of all varieties, regardless of which economic system it enacts, or whose class interests it serves.

     Kuehnel's candidacy, and the Libertarian Socialist Caucus's advocacy and outreach efforts, are certainly pragmatic, as is their stance on being open to Medicare for All without wholeheartedly endorsing it. In my opinion, the Libertarian Party needs more of this: suggestion of possible, voluntary solutions - and many of them - to prove to voters that we're full of ideas, but also that we don't want to impose any of those solutions on people (at least not before they can be convinced that a measure is in their best interest).

     The Libertarian-Progressive Alliance, which South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham once called an “unholy alliance”, consisted of the likes of Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Bernie Sanders. Towards the end of the second Bush administration, these politicians banded together in opposition to illegal wars, irresponsible budgeting, unsound monetary policy, usurious banking practices, and continuing the failed war on drugs, among other issues.

     Although Nader, Kucinich, and Gravel became much less involved in politics in the several years following the 2008 election, the legacy of the alliance continued on in the halls of Congress with Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders, as well as Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. Another figure who was around at that time was Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party's 2008 nominee for president.

     The spirit of the alliance carried on with the 2012 and 2016 debates which the Free and Equal Coalition held, inviting third-party candidates for president. In 2012, Free and Equal founder Christina Tobin co-moderated the debate with Larry King, and participants included Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green nominee Jill Stein, as well as Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode, and Justice Party nominee Rocky Anderson. In 2016, Tobin moderated along with actor-turned-activist Ed Asner, and Johnson and Stein, again nominated by their parties, declined to participate, resulting in a debate between Gloria LaRiva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (P.S.L.), Constitution Party nominee Darrell Castle, and independent Rocky de la Fuente.

     I hope that the first anniversary of the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the Libertarian Party – roughly coinciding with the announcement of the L.S.C. endorsing or aligning with seven additional candidates nationwide, as well as Matt Kuehnel's dual nomination and first television appearance (on RT's “Watching the Hawks”) will hopefully prove to be a key event in the history of the revival of the Libertarian-Progressive Alliance.

     I also hope to see even more candidates reach out to multiple parties – Green, Constitution, Justice, P.S.L., etc. - in order to become dual or even multiple nominees. While living in Portland in 2014, I noticed that a Libertarian in a local race had only one challenger, a candidate who was endorsed by both the local Democratic and Republican parties. I thought, “If they can do it, why can't we?”. Unfortunately, it is illegal for petitioners to collect ballot access signatures for multiple candidates nominated by separate parties.

     But on the other hand, there is no reason why multiple parties cannot work together when their cooperation is legal (like when they're cooperating in non-political respects, such as through speech, advocacy, and activism), and when multiple parties are not competing for votes in the same races and districts. Practically, it would work like this: if you're a Green, and there's no Green running in one of the races you can vote in, then if a Libertarian or a Socialist (etc.) is running, then feel free to vote for any one of them that you like.

     Each of those parties agreeing to vote for each other wherever competition isn't occurring, and also agreeing to pursue societal change outside of politics (in addition to their political advocacy), can help to build and revive the Libertarian-Progressive Alliance and promote Bottom Unity. Not only that; they will also, very likely, inspire many anarchists and politically disinterested and disaffected people to vote against authoritarianism, and thus help spread awareness of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and the ideas of synthesis anarchism and “Anarchy Without Adjectives”.

     Additionally, I believe that these efforts will help lead the Libertarian Party (along with its platform) to the logical conclusion of libertarianism and a voluntary society; that in a stateless society, people may choose to live however they please; including as a member of any voluntary association, cooperative, or intentional community, as long as it doesn't conscript people into joining it and into paying and/or working for their services.

     Ideally, these organizations would not be affiliated with any legal monopoly on violence (i.e., a state), and they would be free to cooperate with each other, or else refrain from associating with each other if they do not choose to cooperate.

     And that brings me back to legislative policy on health insurance.

     Although Medicare for All is far from my first choice in regards to national policy on health insurance, I cannot say that I don't see the point which the L.S.C. and Kuehnel are making.

     After all, pooling everyone together would maximize the effects of the power to leverage prices down, thus reducing the costs of bargaining and the price of the policy. Moreover, there's no reason why Medicare for All, nor even a purchase mandate, would conflict with the idea that if public services serve the common good, then they must serve everybody. Given that some high-income people are being put on Medicaid while others who need it get kicked off or struggle to get insured at all - and given that the insurance that citizens buy should be good enough for our politicians as well – Medicare for All certainly looks like it could be pitched as a practical, pragmatic solution.

     I would hope that if such a measure were implemented, it would only be temporarily, and I would hope that it would be done in a manner which balances both the needs of voluntary participation and the interest of the states to self-direct on health policy to the extent to which they have negotiated with the national government that they retain such authority.

     As someone who wants free, open, and fair markets, one issue that I have with calls for “universal health care” is that the response to that is usually to implement a single-payer system. In a single-payer system, the government would be the sole entity allowed to purchase health insurance (which it would do on behalf of all citizens). We might describe this state of affairs as giving the government a “monopoly on purchasing”, but the proper term is monopsony.

     While a “monopoly” describes a situation in which a single firm sells some good or service, a “monopsony” describes a situation in which a single firm buys, purchases, or pays for a good or service. Therefore, the single-payer system which “Medicare for All” would create, would be a “monopoly” on the purchase of health insurance.

     It sounds good, because it includes everyone, pools purchasing power, and potentially even abolishes for-profit health insurance. However, no individual person, nor entrepreneurial nor cooperative firm, nor voluntary association, nor “lower-level” state or local government, would then be free to purchase health insurance; only the federal, national, or central government would. Such a measure might violate antitrust and anti-monopoly laws, and if it doesn't, then maybe it should.

     Additionally, such a measure might only be possible through requiring all citizens to purchase health insurance, which would almost certainly lead to higher costs. This, for the simple reason that if you can force someone to buy something, then you can charge them whatever you please. That goes even if they're “forced to choose” from among a small set of insurers, because it's illegal not to buy from one of them, so collusion becomes likely. Additionally, subsidies for insurers render the health insurance market rigged and unfree, even if those subsidies are intended to lower policy rates.

     I do not buy into what I consider the false dichotomy between “free markets” vs. “free stuff”. I believe that there is a way to achieve “free markets” (free competition and free cooperation) and low-cost health insurance at the same time. And that is to legalize untaxed not-for-profit insurance, and to allow cooperatives leverage their purchasing power against the selling power of large companies, so that costs can decrease. If similar measures are done in industries aside from health insurance, the likely result would be increased cooperative ownership of property, but without abolishing markets (or, at least, not before most of us are ready).

     I also believe that private health insurance might even continue to exist; and maybe even without hindering the freedom of individuals, cooperatives, charities, and public options to exist and compete as well. I believe that the key is to tax the profits of any subsidized insurers and medical technology sellers, but to tax solely the unimproved land value of non-subsidized insurers.

     While I do not believe that Senator Rand Paul is perfect or always right, he is a doctor and he does understand a few things about health care and insurance. Paul believes that it's possible to make health insurance available for $1 per day. He supports refundable tax credits, expanded access to health savings accounts, and keeping people with pre-existing conditions on Obamacare subsidies temporarily for 18 months.

     Senator Paul has even admitted that capitalist health care is flawed, saying “the reason capitalism doesn't work in health care is the consumer is disconnected from the market”. explained that this means capitalism hinders the ability of consumers to demand low prices. I even heard a rumor that Paul's home state of Kentucky has established a $26 monthly price floor on health insurance policies. If such a statute truly exists, then it should be repealed, or else efforts to legalize low-cost health insurance in that state are almost certainly futile without significant reform elsewhere in the law.

     One of the most important points in Paul's four-point health insurance reform plan is to allow “group insurance pooling”, and the creation of what he terms “buying pools”. That is, he wants to legalize the purchasing of health insurance by cooperatives, organized on the basis of a common profession. Potentially, such cooperatives could be organized on any other basis aside from profession as well, but I believe that the idea which should drive Paul's idea forward is the practicality of insuring people based on mutual safety and health risks to which they are predisposed to being exposed (depending on their profession, membership in any type of club, school attendance, etc.).

     Through uniting large numbers of people, voluntary cooperatives can leverage their purchasing power against the selling power of large insurance sellers, in the same way that pooling people together in a “public option” can. The only difference is that a voluntary cooperative plan would do that voluntarily. Given these facts, it would be difficult to argue that an implementation of "Medicare for All" could prove to be the most economically efficient solution to the problem of high health insurance costs (that is, as long as it includes significant deference to separation of powers, decentralization, and individual rights).

     Through sufficient consumer information and voter education, I believe that it would be possible to convince at least 60% of the American population, if not significantly more, that universal pooling would be financially advantageous for all insurance customers. But I also doubt that most of those people would object if the cooperatives plan were implemented on a voluntary and local basis rather than a mandatory and centralized basis.

     There are several health care and insurance proposals which I believe would do wonders to both alleviate poverty and restore individual choice to the health insurance system. Among them: 1) offering incentives for providers of health care who operate on charity bases; 2) eliminating barriers to untaxed non-profit and low-cost health insurance; 3) eliminating barriers to untaxed non-employer-provided health insurance policies; and 4) eliminating unnecessary sales taxes on medical devices, as well as eliminating import fees on foreign medicine. These proposals, along with the “state lines plan” - which Trump praised in the debates, but failed to adequately explain - would do wonders to achieve a free interstate market in health insurance. I hope that it will be one which is open to participation by private, public, cooperative, non-profit, and individual actors alike.

     Despite the many flaws of Trump, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz, I believe that they are more or less correct in their agreement that the solution to health insurance will involve “getting rid of the lines around the states”. The “state lines plan” will help establish an interstate market for health insurance, enticing companies to expand their geographic market reaches outside the boundaries of the states in which they are headquartered, and allowing companies to compete to provide better and cheaper policies. Once competition is introduced, fewer places will be stuck having to “choose” from among only one insurance company, which due to its monopoly can charge whatever it wants. If done right, the “state lines plan” will result in more choices and lower prices.

     What the plan specifically involves is convincing certain states to legalize health insurance policies issued from other states, as long as those policies satisfy the laws of the state in question. This probably sounds familiar. Although Obamacare's authors and architects stated that the A.C.A. would accomplish exactly that, they unfortunately lost sight of that original goal very early on (because they decided that a monolithic federal law was the only way to ensure the uniformity of insurance policies).

     Unfortunately for our representatives in Congress, the “state lines plan” is not something that cannot be done by the federal government (at least not constitutionally). Only five states currently allow their citizens to purchase plans from out-of-state, so the most that a person holding a federal office can to is to urge governors and legislatures of the other 45 states to support the “state lines plan”, by enacting statutes legalizing purchase of out-of-state policies which comply with state health insurance laws.

     Senator Ted Cruz notes that another way to help this “interstate health insurance market” plan along, is to eliminate the federal tax credit for employer provided health insurance. That tax credit makes it comparatively more expensive for an employed person to find and afford insurance when he changes jobs or moves to a new state. If you think about it, it's almost as if the employer tax credit serves as a financial incentive to fire people before they get coverage through their employer, or to reduce their hours to part-time, such that they're no longer required to insure those employees. Amending H.I.P.A.A., so as to eliminate that federal employer tax credit, will remove the disincentive for employees to purchase any policy other than one which follows them from job to job and from state to state. My hope is that someday such a policy will be legal and offered by a non-state actor.

     Three things that I feel are making medicine and medical technology more expensive than they should be, are: 1) taxes on the sale of, and profits from, medical devices; 2) non-tariff importation barriers on foreign medicines that are perfectly legal in (and approved by) other developed countries, and 3) unnecessarily long duration of patents on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, which hinder the ability of technology to adapt quickly. I hope that Libertarians begin to see intellectual property protections as not just contracts but laws; enforced by the state, the Patent Office funded through coercive extortion from the taxpayers' earned income from productivity.

     I praise Senator Sanders and Senator Paul for their opposition to importation barriers which affect health products. Senator Paul, for example, supported a law that would legalize the importation of foreign medications, as long as they come from industrialized developed countries that have approved those medications, and 90 days have passed since approval. Senator Cory Booker notably opposed a similar measure regarding importations of cheap drugs from Canada, on the grounds that he felt that the bill in question did not do enough to establish sufficient consumer protections.

     I believe that these three measures will cause the price of health goods to plummet, leading to improved affordability for the most vulnerable people in our society. So will eliminating subsidies for Big Pharma, the employer tax credit, and the individual purchase mandate. But in the spirit of promoting free trade among nations, we must also achieve free trade among states in regards to health insurance policies. That is why I believe it will also help reduce rates to establish an interstate health insurance market; through the “state lines plan”.

     Allowing medical technological innovation and competitive pricing to run their courses will help the cheapening process along, without either diminishing quality, revoking the rewards of "innovation" prematurely, or hindering people's freedoms to find and produce alternatives which adopt those "innovative" scientific developments (which are not inventions, but merely applications of known scientific laws, which are nobody's property).

     In the best-case scenario, and if all taken together, these measures could potentially cause health goods to become so cheap that the entire health insurance industry becomes obsolete, not just the for-profit model.

      If it doesn't, then perhaps a “radical” solution might involve encouraging provider networks to ask doctors and nurses if they would like to formally, and voluntarily, agree to be held liable to the part of the Hippocratic Oath which requires them to treat people regardless of their ability to pay. This could be accomplished through signing a contract which obligates the network to penalize or dismiss them for refusing to treat those who are incapable of paying, and it could be enforced by a non-state-affiliated dispute resolution organization just as easily as it could be enforced by the state.

     Contrary to what “market fundamentalists” on the right will tell you, free markets are supposed to give us “free stuff”. Some libertarians love to say “T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.” (“There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch”), which is basically code for “there's no such thing as a free anything”. However, it doesn't make sense as a motto of a group that is supposed to be telling us how great freedom is; that it can and does exist, that we're born free, that nature is free, and that markets should be free. Yet not a peep about freedom is coming from these people anymore, because they're worried it means stealing in order to get free stuff. But government subsidization isn't the only way to make things inexpensive; as a matter of fact, sometimes subsidization only protects the producer from having to rely on improving productivity in order to acquire wealth, instead of getting by on taxpayer money that was arguably extorted (at least from a libertarian perspective).

     Achieving “universal coverage” or “free health care” doesn't necessarily have to mean stealing from people, nor taxing people more, nor even taxing the rich more (although certainly we should be taxing those who take advantage of the public to make money, whether they're rich or not). Achieving lower-cost health insurance and care through free-market measures should involve: 1) advocating for free markets, free competition, and free cooperation to provide lower costs and lower prices; 2) establishing open markets, free trade, and free interstate commerce, with free movement of goods (in this case, of health insurance policies, medicine, and medical technology); and 3) simpler taxation, and letting taxpayers keep more of their own money.

     When discussing health insurance, keep in mind that it's impossible to insure against something that has already happened; because sick people don't need health insurance, they need health care. Getting bogged down discussing health insurance legislation can do a lot to distract us from talking about how much of our suffering could be relieved by some of the amazing technological and scientific breakthroughs that are happening right now in medicine, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. These include surgery performed with robotic assistance, adult stem cell treatment, gene therapy and telomere therapy, and 3-D printed organs.

     It is regrettable that, considering all of these advances, many people still call for the legalization of euthanasia (“the right to die”). Nevertheless, I and the L.S.C. support voluntary euthanasia. But we also support the “right to try” unapproved medications which might save lives, even if their potential hazardous effects are yet unknown. But on the other hand, reducing the costs of bargaining for lower health insurance rates, and eliminating unnecessary taxes on health providers, might just help make health care and insurance so cheap, that the development and dispersal of medical technology accelerate to the point where more terminally ill people demand access to experimental medications and devices than the number of terminally ill people demanding doctor-assisted suicide.

     Maybe then, we can relieve the paradoxical burden of having to work while injured in order to stay healthy, and we can direct our attention at taking care of ourselves - and towards living longer, healthier, better lives - instead of being focused on competing against our friends and family for the means of survival, in (what is supposed to be) a voluntary and civilized society.
     Something else that will help us focus on avoiding and preventing unnecessary stresses on our bodies, is to promote the mass production, and mass ownership, of robotic assistants in the home and workplace, specialized for the task of assisting in the movement of heavy objects. Additionally, it will help to promote their affordability and availability. Additionally, to promote the affordability and availability of 3-D printers; whether it be for use in home manufacturing, or C.A.D. (computer-aided drafting) and C.N.C. (Computer Numerical Control) router cutting and related fields, or medicine, etc.
     Finally, another thing that will help us avoid getting sick in the first place, is to get poisons out of the consumer products we buy, and toxins out of the air we breathe and the food we eat. But as libertarians, we should not jump to bans are the way to solve the problem of hazardous materials near us and inside of us. Voluntary and legitimate methods should remain available, and be considered; including lawsuits (with increased responsibility for corporate board members), or voluntary recalls of unsafe and unhealthful products.
     If right-libertarians claim to support the free market, yet they believe that we should protect the freedom to charge exorbitant rates on insuring the health of the poor, then maybe they can be convinced that it's in the interest of people's freedom to charge  exorbitant rates to insure firms that produce and sell dangerous products (and then get the government to pass taxes and subsidies to effectively order us to buy those products and work for those companies).

Read a 23-point plan expanding on these ideas at:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2018/08/twenty-three-point-plan-to-repeal-and.html

Written on July 4^th, 20^th, 26^th, and 27^th, and August 1^st through 4^th, and 6^th, 2018

Edited and Expanded on August 23^rd, 2018

Originally Published on August 23^rd, 2018

Capitalism is Incompatible with Free Markets, Voluntary Exchange, and Libertarianism

Table of Contents

1. The 2018 Libertarian National Convention

2. The Debate Over the Libertarian Party Platform

3. The Debate Over Economic Systems and Property

4. Wealth Acquisition: Chrematistics vs. Economics

5. Libertarian Capitalism vs. Libertarian Socialism

6. The Social Safety Net, Basic Income, and Revolution

7. Restoring the Libertarian Alliance with the Left

Content

1. The 2018 Libertarian National Convention

     Since the summer of 2017, the Libertarian Party has been abuzz about the rise of the party's Libertarian Socialist (abbbreviated LibSoc) Caucus, one of at least forty caucuses in the party. The existence of a Libertarian Socialist Caucus in the traditionally free-market party has caused some controversy, especially considering that the party also has an Anti-Socialist Caucus as well.

     At the 2018 Libertarian National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana – held from June 30^th to July 3^rd, 2018 - Nicholas Sarwark retained his national chair position after debating three challengers. Those challengers included Joshua Smith, Christopher Thrasher, and Matt Kuehnel, a LibSoc Caucus member who's also running for state house of representatives from Michigan's 22^nd District.

     Sparks flew at the debate when chair candidate Joshua Smith called Kuehnel a “confirmed communist”, and implied that Kuehnel's being a socialist or communist meant the party was being infiltrated by authoritarians. Kuehnel asserted the same about Smith, citing his concern that Smith seems to be cozying up to the Alt-Right. While Kuehnel insisted that he is an anarchist and a libertarian communist, not an authoritarian communist, Smith pledged to help grow the party by “reaffirming our principles, including property rights, to make sure this country knows what we stand for.”

     The exchange between Joshua Smith and Matt Kuehnel exemplify one of the most important debates going on right now in the Libertarian Party; whether the party will support free markets or capitalism. You might be thinking, “Aren't those the same thing?” Well, that's certainly what followers of Ludwig von Mises, and the anarcho-capitalists, want us to believe. But is that true? Could it be possible that capitalism is a free-market system, but only when it's not “crony capitalism”, as these people claim?

2. The Debate Over the Libertarian Party Platform

     The Libertarian Party (L.P.) of the United States was founded in 1971. The following year, the party held a convention in Denver, Colorado, nominated John Hospers for the presidency and Tonie Nathan for the vice-presidency, and laid out its national platform for the first time.

     In 1972, the Statement of Principles of the L.P.'s platform originally read, “People... should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders on a free market; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of man's rights, is laissez-faire capitalism.”

     However, at the L.P.'s 1974 national convention in Dallas, Texas, the Statement of Principles was modified, so as to read, “People... should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.”

     Thus, “man's rights” was changed to “individual rights” (to reflect the need to make that language more inclusive and gender-neutral), and “laissez-faire capitalism” was changed to “the free market”. This change was part of what came to be known as the Dallas Accord, an attempt to unite factions within the L.P..

     This conflict between socialist-leaning libertarians and capitalist-leaning libertarians is by no means a new thing; it has been going on since the party's infancy. Not only does this economic divide exist within the party, it also affects the conversations the party is having about whether the party should favor a minimal state (by whatever definition) or else the abolition of the state altogether.

     Libertarian socialists and anarcho-capitalists have somewhat different ideas about what a state looks like, and different ideas about which economic systems are most strongly associated with statism and control. They also have very different ideas about whether the presence of a statist government helps protect and foster an environment of economic growth, or whether it instead fundamentally interferes with voluntary exchange, the free flow of labor and capital, and the spontaneous adjustment of prices according to the laws of supply and demand.

     The so-called “right-libertarians” insist that terms like “capitalism”, “property rights”, and “self-ownership” should be included in the L.P. platform; while “left-libertarians” are more likely to question the rhetoric of self-ownership, question what makes property ownership legitimate, and question whether explicitly endorsing “capitalism” could lead to the oppression of people who wish to practice socialism voluntarily.

     At the 2006 Libertarian National Convention in Portland, Oregon, delegates deleted a whopping 46 planks from the party's then 61-plank platform. This change came to be known as “the Portland massacre”. Delegates also added the sentence “Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property.”

     While right-libertarians may rejoice at the addition of this sentence – being that it arguably reflects a desire to explicitly endorse property rights – it is troublesome for all libertarians, because it arguably justifies the existence of the government, based on the idea that if government was created with the intention of protecting life, liberty, and property, then it should continue to do so. But on the other hand, it might simply mean that if government must exist, then it should only do basic things, like protect life, liberty, and property.

     Radicals and anarchists in the party weren't pleased by what came soon after this change; an influx of constitutionalists and libertarian-conservatives into the party, which appeared to be the result of the L.P.'s new embrace of property rights and government protection of individual rights.

     People like Bob Barr (the 2008 presidential nominee) and judge Jim Gray (the 2012 vice-presidential nominee) rubbed these radical and anarchist libertarians the wrong way. One such radical was 2008 presidential candidate Christine Smith, who said in advance of Bob Barr's impending nomination, “Put a real libertarian on the ballot”, while also criticizing Barr's history with the C.I.A. and his “yes” vote on the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act.

     The Portland massacre arguably set the stage for the recent influx of Alt-Righters - and Trump supporters who think they're libertarians - into the L.P., likely spurred-on by the party's refusal to distance itself from Ron Paul (the L.P.'s 1988 presidential nominee before and after being a Republican, who continues to hire and associate with racial supremacists).

     Another issue dividing people in the L.P. along left-vs.-right lines, is whether the party was wise to nominate Gary Johnson for president for the second time in 2016, after he said that he would have signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even though it prohibited discrimination in “public accommodations” (restaurants, theaters, hotels, etc., which serve members of the public). Right-libertarians view these properties as private, and believe that they should be run according to the rules set by the owner, rather than by government.

     However, it's not just the farthest-right members of the party who oppose Johnson on this issue; in fact, Gary Johnson was the only one of the L.P.'s five presidential candidates who refused to condemn the 1964 C.R.A. as a violation of the rights of property owners. While Johnson refused to explain the reasoning for his position during the party's five-way presidential debate, during that campaign he told a crowd in Utah that as president, he would not be prepared to regress on that issue, or go back in progress, on what he considered to be an important civil right.

     I personally believe that Johnson's position on the 1964 C.R.A. should not disqualify him from nomination, that the Dallas Accord helped the party, and that the changes made in Portland in 2006 had some negative consequences. I would like to see the party pursue “Bottom Unity” - cooperation between all libertarian philosophies, right or left – and bring more radicals, anarchists, and even libertarian socialists, into the fold.

     While more radicals could arguably lead to people leaving the party, the only people likely to be upset by this, are the exact people whose “authoritarian entryism” we are concerned about. These flag-waving bootlickers, who believe that evil is necessary, will not be missed by anyone. At least not anyone who is serious about making sure that the party supports freedom against force, instead of just a merciful-enough form of tyranny that tries to achieve freedom through enforcement.

     People who make excuse after excuse for the state, and for harsh and exclusionary immigration and borders measures which discriminate on the basis of national origin, have no business making public policy, let alone business in a party which supports non-discrimination in the public sphere (as well as individual civil liberties, including the right to a fair legal process, and equal justice under the law). These are the kinds of people whom we should hope are encouraged to leave the party - whether due to an influx of anarchists and socialists or not - so that they stop tainting the Libertarian Party with a bad reputation through associating with it.

3. The Debate Over Economic Systems and Property

     Although the Libertarian Party platform now supports property rights, and seems ambivalent about whether government is necessary, it nevertheless excludes the term capitalism. Instead, it supports free markets and voluntary exchange. The term “laissez faire” - literally French for “let them do”, referring to producers, but more accurately, “leave them be” or “leave them alone” - is no longer part of the platform, but its meaning (or at least its connotation) is retained through the inclusion of the phrase “free market”.

     Therefore, it could easily be argued that the Libertarian Party did stop supporting “capitalism”, at least in name, just three years after the party was founded. Thus, it wouldn't be a big leap to infer - from the facts that the party supports free markets and voluntary exchange, and that it explicitly excluded the word “capitalism” - that the party is against capitalism.

     After all, there are non-capitalist economic systems which support “property rights” - again, at least in name – but which do not support capitalism. These include Mutualism, Georgism, anarchism, and libertarian socialism. All of these (except, arguably, the latter) might be perfectly willing to support a libertarian society or a system of voluntary exchange, if not for right-wing libertarians' insistence that that is exactly the “free-market capitalism” towards which they wish to strive.

     In my opinion, capitalism is compatible with neither free markets nor a libertarian society. If free markets are what Rothbardian “anarcho-capitalists” (“AnCaps”) and Misesian “free-market capitalists” want us to believe they are, then market “freedom” allows people to own things they didn't earn. Capitalists believe that it's acceptable to accrue unearned income through speculation; through collusion and strategic combination to establish oligopolies; and through profit, rent, interest, and usury; claiming the “right of increase” to justify it. These practices have little, if anything, to do with entrepreneurship and meritocracy.

     Essentially, capitalists believe that it's not a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle (N.A.P.) to collude with other property owners to make money by excluding people from what they need, and that exploiting people's labor doesn't violate the N.A.P.. This is because capitalists believe that working for employers is always voluntary, because the value of our labor is subjective, so therefore the laborer's rights are not violated because they are not directly aggressed, nor threatened, into working for an employer. Additionally, because capitalists believe (or, more accurately, assume) that working for oneself, earning one's needs through foraging and hunting and gathering, and otherwise getting by while avoiding working for other people, are viable options; viable alternatives to selling one's labor. When it comes to rent, capitalists believe that a person has the choice of living anywhere else, so therefore the housing unit to which they pay rent is a matter of their personal choice.

     Libertarian socialists, of course, reject that pro-capitalism argument, and believe that it is an N.A.P. violation to use any sort of pressure to get people to give up any part of the product of their labor (or their full rights thereto). Socialists believe that capitalists use coercion and exploitation as tools to put people into states of duress, such that they are indirectly threatened into settling for working for some particular employer and living in some particular housing unit.

     To repeat, workers and renters are not directly threatened; rather, they are indirectly and implicitly coerced. While nature itself offers the possibility of abundance, it also imposes the inevitable risk of starvation if what's produced is not efficiently and equitably received. Whether or not they directly benefit from the tyranny and largess of the state, and from its historical enclosures of the commons, private owners and capitalists coerce laborers and renters into accepting bad terms of employment and shoddy living arrangements.

     Landlords and employers do this by extending the threat which is potentially posed by nature, to people near them - using the Pauline, colonial, and Leninist maxim "He who does not work shall not eat" - in order to issue an implicit threat to laborers and workers. This threat coerces them, under duress, to "choose" to accept the least oppressive or most convenient employment opportunity, and to assent to, and settle for, the least shabby apartment, or living arrangement of least resistance. Which is occasionally living where one works, which - due to the fact that the laborer is essentially earning money to buy his way off of living on someone else's private property - can bear many similarities to indentured servitude.

     Capitalism relies on convincing people that things are worth less than the cost of producing them, and that people are worth whatever the cost of supporting their survival is. Additionally, that people should endorse the faulty premise of self-ownership, which arguably uses rhetoric that reduces human beings to mere pieces of "owned" property. In my opinion, this line of thinking seems a little too closely associated with the notion that it is permissible to contractually sell oneself into slavery. Any true "anarcho"-capitalist ought to know that without the state, nobody would be able to enforce such a contract. If a private, voluntary contract enforcement agency tried to enforce such an "agreement", free people who understand that this is wrong would use their boycott power, and if need be, even come to the aid of those who are unable to defend themselves or refuse to. We cannot assume that contractual slaves truly consent, simply because they refuse to defend themselves from their "willing" captors; this is not true consent, but assent; submission, the giving up of struggle.

     Capitalists extract surplus rent and profit which they didn't earn rightfully, because they didn't earn it through their own labor, but instead, somebody else's. Libertarian socialists see this - rightfully, in my opinion - as a form of stealing, and thus, an obvious violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. This is why capitalism is incompatible with voluntary exchange; because capitalism relies on involuntary exchange. It relies on veiled threats - the implicit threat of starvation on the street - against those who refuse to sell their labor, and against homeless vagrants who trespass upon private property (which they do because they cannot help but do so, having no private property of their own).

     Although I once believed “anarcho-capitalism” to be the fullest expression of anarchism, I now understand that “individualist anarchism” and “market anarchism” are distinct schools of thought. That is why I no longer support the belief that these are inevitable features of capitalism, whether in a stateless society or under the supervision of government or the state.

4. Wealth Acquisition: Chrematistics vs. Economics

     Capitalism is usually defined as an economic system in which the means of production are owned in private hands. The operation of those privately-owned means of production for profit, and the establishment of a strong system of property rights, are often included in that definition.

     Left-leaning libertarians, on the other hand – like those who describe themselves as “Bleeding Heart Libertarians” (the name of a left-libertarian blog) – say Markets Not Capitalism (the name of a collection of libertarian and anarchist essays, edited by Bleeding Heart Libertarians contributors Gary E. Chartier and Charles W. Johnson).

     To these so-called “left-wing market-anarchists” (or “free-market anti-capitalists”, or “market-oriented social-anarchists”), supporting markets while opposing capitalism is about supporting the voluntary exchange of goods and services, but without endorsing a necessarily for-profit system, or any system in which private owners have little to no responsibilities to their communities.

     Capitalism allows people to acquire through “chrematistics”, which Aristotle considered form of wealth acquisition which is less likely to be “natural” than economics. Chrematistics, in Aristotle's conception, can be either “natural” or “artificial”, but compared to economics, it is more likely to result in acquisition purely for the sake of acquisition (which can lead to hoarding, conspicuous consumption, waste, destruction, and to production that aids in achieving these ends).

     Economics, on the other hand – coming from the root oikos, meaning “household” - literally refers to the art, study, and science of household wealth management. Economics thus has a closer association with the earning of income through labor, which, according to Aristotle, is an arguably more “natural” form of wealth acquisition. Economist Henry George coined the term "unearned income" (the opposite of earned income) to describe these more "unnatural" forms of acquisition.

     It could be argued that, as forms of wealth acquisition, socialism focuses on economics, while capitalism focuses on chrematistics. Socialism - in which people fully own the things they need, and can trade them away at will because they fully own them, and thus don't need to ask nor pay anyone for permission to do so - focuses on the earning of face value through labor, for the benefit of the household. On the other hand, capitalism - with its rent, interest, profit, and usury - creates value through the manipulation of value of itself, rather than through earning. This is done through subtly coercing people into depending on employers and landlords for their needs, and into giving up their right to own in exchange for the "convenience" of renting, which deprives them of the full right to use and trade their possessions as they please (because they're mere possessions registered to and owned by someone else, rather than their actual property).

     Although capitalism is a chrematistic form of wealth acquisition, market-based systems of free voluntary exchange do not have to be. As long as they are not rigged, and as long as we actively free the markets (i.e., create "freed markets", instead of just calling the rigged markets we have now "free" for convenience's sake), then voluntary exchange can thrive. That's because only when the markets are not rigged to support capitalism over free markets and socialism, can people have the freedom to exchange things that fully belong to them, and to nobody else who's trying to extort them for the privilege of using or occupying those things.

5. Libertarian Capitalism vs. Libertarian Socialism

     Capitalism makes no demand that the earner play any role in the defense, nor the upkeep, of his property claim, nor that he frequently use it. Nor does capitalism insist that an owner actually acquire a parcel of landed property through his own labor - without stealing or killing or kicking people off their land - and without buying it from gangs of organized criminals who stole and killed in order to get it. Anyone who knows about the enclosure of the commons, the Lockean proviso, the principle “price the limit of cost”, and the ideas of absentee property ownership and usufructory (use-based) property rights, will tell you that.

     The Non-Aggression Principle cannot permit the acquisition, nor the keeping, of property which was stolen, and which rightfully belongs to someone else. Nor can it logically permit the transfer of stolen property, especially not for profit. While left-libertarians routinely cite the enclosure of the English commons, and episodes of mass displacement of people in other societies, as the obvious reason as to why “rent is theft”, capitalists often deliberately ignore the idea that conquest – and buying conquered land from tyrannical, genocidal governments – is neither a fair nor a free way to acquire wealth and property.

     Not only are free market economics and voluntary exchange inconsistent with capitalism; they are also inconsistent with unlimited property rights. Capitalists often make fantastical, unenforceable claims to property, such that they are practically unlimited as to what a private owner can do with the resources on his property (whether it's their possessions, the groundwater and soil and minerals beneath the surface, or even living things dwelling on it).

     The capitalist view has historically been one which has lacked any semblance of a feeling of responsibility to assistance in the maintenance of the ecological quality of its surroundings, on the surface of the planet which sustains all of our lives. It treats living things – plant, animal, and human alike – as if they were dead pieces of property, to be commodified and capitalized-on.

     But not only are unlimited property rights inconsistent with free exchange; unlimited property rights are inconsistent with themselves. The construction of the planned wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is interfering with the already existing private property rights of homeowners living near the border.      This wall, whether completed or not, will obstruct the free flow of travelers, workers, and capital; not only of people who are trying to come into the United States without permission, but also of United States citizens – white and Hispanic alike – who live near the border, but who may soon become enclosed; walled-off from their places of employment and from half of their community.

     Contrary to capitalists' claims that socialism, like statism, enables people to be lazy and irresponsible, and live off of the production of other people, capitalism is just as likely to enable this lifestyle; just for the lucky few, instead of for large numbers of people. Including people who could stand to benefit by working fewer hours, but engaging in more efficient production.

     Capitalism allows lazy people to make money that they didn't earn through their own effort, but by colluding with other property owners to exclude people from their property. It also allows irresponsible entrepreneurs to make malinvestments, and to externalize the costs of those improper investments onto unaware actors.

     Under statism, people are allowed to do this at taxpayer expense; because the people's taxes subsidize their businesses, and pay for their police protection, and for their L.L.C. status (which confers a privilege to be immune from legal responsibility). Additionally, landlords pay their mortgages off with our money, while they maintain their investments without assuming any personal financial risk, and bosses balance their checkbooks through profits which were supposed to be the wages of workers.

     A right-libertarian might argue that what I have just described is merely what capitalism does  under the current system (statism, which we can't avoid). However, there are a few "anarcho-capitalist", right-libertarian, and paleo-libertarian writers who have argued that corporations, liability limitations, and patrolling officers would still exist in the absence of a state (people like Murray Rothbard and Walter Block). This ought to cast some doubt on the capitalists' dedication to statelessness. Any "anarcho-capitalist" who disagrees with those ideas should make those disagreements known, if he wishes to be taken seriously.

6. The Social Safety Net, Basic Income, and Revolution

     A social safety net is just a Band-Aid on capitalism. A social safety net is not socialism, no matter how large, robust, costly, or inclusive it is. More taxes, and more free money from the government, will not lead to socialism; it will only lead to a bigger welfare state. It will also lead to more capitalism, because more and more people will fall victim to the foolish ideas that capitalism (rather than land and labor) is the source of all production, and that the capitalist economy is the only way to produce enough to sustain the government and the large welfare state.

     That is why a universal basic income guarantee (U.B.I., or B.I.G.) will not be successful. First, because U.B.I. programs are destined to fail, due to the inflating effects which are bound to be the result of such a policy. Second, basic income "experiments" are destined to fail, for the simple reason that a universal B.I.G. is supposed to be universal. That is, funds are supposed to be distributed to everyone in society, no matter how rich or how poor they are. So of course the basic income experiment in Canada failed; it only benefited several thousand people, and everyone who was excluded from those benefits had to suffer the negative consequences of not receiving any funds. 

     Third, a U.B.I. will not be successful; not unless and until all businesses – large and small alike – lose every single one of their subsidies, bailouts, patents and trademarks, L.L.C. statuses, trade promotions (through import tariffs), utilities discounts, easy-credit loans, deposit insurance, and police protection. Otherwise, once we have the U.B.I., the only things we'll be able to buy, will be made by companies that are protected from failure, and which keep themselves afloat using our taxpayer money, whether we choose to buy from them in person or not.

     Still, despite what Lysander Spooner has suggested on the matter, the right-libertarians insist that we are free, simply because we get to choose from which of these masters (read: bosses and landlords) we are to toil. Remember, we don't just work for our bosses, we work for our landlords too.

     I suspect that a transition from capitalism to socialism would likely not happen without a revolution; not even if that capitalism system already features a social safety net and an extensive bureaucracy, like the American system does now (which, by the way, could also be adequately described as mercantilistic, or as approaching a state of autarky).

     I believe that an orderly, legitimate transition – that is to say, a legal transition - from capitalism to socialism, would only be likely and conceivable in a fully functioning liberal democracy. Therefore, a nation like the United States, – with such strong traditions of republicanism, capitalism, private property rights, and anti-communism – would almost certainly not become socialist without a majority of support among the political ruling class, the wealthiest handful of citizens, and the military and police.

     “State socialism” - a term associated with Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck - aimed to find a compromise between socialism and capitalism, essentially settling on a capitalist state with a social safety net. Fascism, national socialism (Nazism), and other “Third Way” systems, aimed to find a similar compromise (which, of course, resulted in a wave of ultra-nationalism, and the rise of the Axis Powers, leading up to World War II). Nevertheless, “libertarian” capitalists should realize that socialism is compatible with free markets, in addition to capitalism.

6. Restoring the Libertarian Alliance with the Left

     In my opinion, the Libertarian Party should address issues like property and economic systems in its platform. It should do this by making conscious efforts to remove or edit passages which appear to suggest that government is necessary, that the party needs to support capitalism over socialism, or that the party's economic system is anything other than one which focuses on voluntary exchange of property which was justly acquired (rather than stolen and extorted, even if that theft was done "legitimately" according to the letter of the law).

     I hope that the delegates to the next Libertarian National Convention amend the platform so as to even more resolutely declare that the state is unnecessary, that it legalizes its own crime, and that statism is fundamentally built on the same premise as terrorism (that is, the use of violence in order to achieve political goals).

     I hope that this will assist in bringing more radicals and anarchists into the fold of the libertarian movement, more "small-l" libertarians into the L.P., and help restore our alliance with the Bookchinite "libertarian communalists" and other anti-war Leftists, with whom Libertarians were more closely aligned prior to 1980, when, as Agorist Samuel E. Konkin III described it, the "Kochtopus" and the "Partyarchs" took the L.P. over, and nominated wealthy industrialist David Koch for the vice presidency after he donated half a million dollars to the L.P..

     Making the Libertarian Party into a big tent for libertarian socialists, Georgists, Mutualists, and anarchists and radicals of all varieties, will help achieve Karl Hess's dream; uniting American right-libertarians with their natural allies, the vehemently anti-statist, anti-war, anti-imperialist anarchists of the libertarian left. This is not a libertarian-conservative "fusionist" alliance, supporting "right-unity"; but rather a "bottom unity" alliance, supporting "pan-anarchism" (that is, panarchism), and opposing all varieties of statism, imperialism, kyriarchy, and aggression.

     Mutualism and mutualist anarchism seek a balance between socialism and free markets - or between socialism and voluntary exchange – rather than between socialism and capitalism. Mutualism can provide a much more fertile ground for agreement between socialists and free-marketers, than neoliberal capitalism or “Third Way” systems ever could.

     Notions of unity and cooperation among anarchists can also provide a balance between leftist and rightist economic systems. "Anarchy without adjectives" is the idea that all kinds of anarchists should work together, while "syncretic anarchism" is the idea that various schools of anarchist thought can be combined, united, and/or reconciled.

     As this line of thinking goes, if all anarchists agree to "live and let live" in peace, then people would be free to choose to live under any type of economic system they wish, as long as they do not aim to force their views on anyone else, nor to make anyone else foot the bill for their decisions or lifestyle. And if you can choose which type of anarchism you want to live under, it's almost as if that is a free choice you made in a market. And as long as you fully compensate whomever is providing you with physical security and legal defense, etc., for the expenses they incur, then your association with the provider(s) is use-based; and based on a fee-for-service model. There would be nothing "anti-free-market" going on in an anarchist society.

     Simply put, the Alliance of the Libertarian Left should cooperate with "anarcho-capitalists", but only with those who can identify truly voluntary participation in capitalism and socialism when they see it. That is, only those who agree to leave people alone, to assume for themselves the full costs and responsibilities of attempting to survive under revolutionary, experimental, and untested economic systems and conditions.

Thanks to Cook County L.P. Chair Justin Tucker

for the information about the early changes

to the Libertarian Party Statement of Principles

Written and Published on August 7th, 2018

Edited and Expanded on August 8th, 2018
Edited on August 9th and 13th, 2018