Showing posts with label Milton Friedman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milton Friedman. Show all posts

Monday, April 16, 2018

Appreciating Your Possessions: Extending Faith Through Extending Credit


     Another moonth is upon us, just as the Jungian shadow of the Moon is upon the Earth every forthwith and forthwhence. If time is money, then it's money for another lesson. But first, what have we learned thus far?
     That, though your cracked subconscious be flawed, it and its master are of the utmost value, almost as if they were holey. That you must choose your possessions wisely, and possess them as would a ghost, or else they shall possess you. That spiritual appreciation is the source of financial appreciation; of appreciation in value. That the source of value is the meaning of your name: it is like Hanson Enhancing the Value of the Ensign.
     To be not fooled by claims that “witchcraft” is itself a “source” of value; it is but an intermediary, a midwife and witness to the Birth of Value. The Cherishing TechniqueTM is as a divining rod, pointing us in the direction of The Source. Full ownership of yourself requires that you exploit the scarcity of your Unique, and redeem yourself – and the very sweat of your brow - for cash!
     To invest and extend credit is to invest and extend faith, that to put stock in your beliefs is how to take maximum advantage of your leverage. By choosing a living currency – one backed by time, and which is pierced, can be tethered, and keeps as current as the waters – we may procure a currency that works for us, instead of the other way around. Only then may we find a currency suitable for assisting us to work for one another, and for a wage other than death.
     To numismance the stone is to get through the Eye of the Rai. We mustn't fuck holes in ourselves by worshiping Mammon; instead, we must fuck those holes in order to sacrifice the hole for the whole of the donut. To do this is to see the Spiritual Light through the lens of the Eternal Bagel, to prevent the Moon from growing/glowing/growling/glowering red with blood mooney. It is to use the Moon as our spectacles, not as a spectacle, nor as a spectre.
     Only through the Cherishing TechniqueTM may we save ourselves from losing sight of the (w)hole in the Donut. For the donut is the pierced blood cell which is at the root of all existence, and thus the root of all living value. To see the Black Hole Son, the Day Religion and the Night Religion, and the Cosmic Clock Theory (and its corresponding time=money system) verily, we must Fuck With a Sigil.
     Also, double your value by killing your doppelgänger.
     This much we know for sure.
     And that is why we must blow a hole in the Moon.

     We cannot fit into the hands of God unless you put a hole in there first. Similarly, if we, our money, our god, and our Moon do not have holes in them, then they cannot be tethered down, and the Heavens can Spirit them away. The Moon is the last of these four to remain whole; thus, it must become hole for the cosmic coin-counter to be complete. This is how you keep your value Earth-bound. For if the Moon has a hole, then it can be tied to the Earth.
     Oh, also, we're gonna blow a hole in the Earth.
     The Discordians evidently believe that all value derives from 2 and 3. It has apparently escaped their notice that 0 is the source of 1, and thus, the source of all value and values. Their numerology is like a god that someone forgot to properly tie down at the hitching post. We must teach the Discordians how to return the favor which 0 gave to 1; by annihilating the 1, by adding a negative 1. It is in this way that by adding a hole to a barrel, we decrease its weight, though we add something to it. Again, think negative space, think Mustard Seed.
     I'm sure you think you need a hole in the Moon and the Earth like you need a hole in your hand, but have ye not heard it said that “Cleanliness is next to godliness”? As this is true, we must be wary, for our “money” is unclean in so many ways, as has been elaborynthmiated previously. And also, that “portability is next to trackability”?
     Though itchy money be a wolf's bane, rejoice! For, fortunately for you, portability, durability, divisibility, fungibility, induplicability, rarity, stability, and trackability are also next to godliness! Though a cloned Christ, or a cloned you, be duplicable, take heart! For this exempts you - saves you - from being used like a currency!
     Just as well, redeemability in real assets; effort involved in creation; high purchasing power, and service as a unit of accounting, medium exchange, and real store of value, are next to godliness. All of these are like theology; they are Like a Prayer.

     If mankind is to be redeemed, then it must be redeemed in real assets. But if that's so, then given that cows (also known as beef-apples) were one of the earliest forms of currency – being that their value derives from their mobility, their ability to self-replicate, and, just like the Chinese tea brick, the ability to be eaten as food in an emergency - what is to prevent us from taking them as Sacred Cows? From treating them as Golden Bulls, instead of gold bullion? From crucifying mankind upon a Cross of Beef? I've got no beef with them!
     We all know that the buillon cube is a portable, divided unit of accounting on the beef stock market. But cubes are not the shape for buillon which God hath ordained. Nay, the proper shape is the shape of the Moon. But are the Moon and Earth shaped as we believe?
     We can start with what we know for certain: first, that WeTM LiveTM InsideTM theTM EarthTM. It may take a Moonatic to explain, but we can infer from this that the Earth is a hollow disk. Those who doubt will ask, “Why, though the Earth seem flat from one perspective, from another it appear round as the disk of the Son?” But true believers will know that this is the result of the Earth being shaped like a nickel; and upon this nickel I shall build my Church. And just as the Earth is shaped like a nickel, so too is the Moon.
     The Earth goes 'round the Moon, just as naturally as the Moon goes around the Son. Everything revolves around the Son, just ask one of his followers. We celebrate Eostre, of course, by remembering that the Son hatched like an egg. Why? Because the Moon, just like God, is an egg. And just like the egg, God, and we His children, the Moon shall one day crack.
     Looking into the Eye of the Rai will afford us the Name. And the Name of the Rai is fei; Fay who say “they fill up slots with little things they find in space”. Our little Earth is but a nickel in the slot of a great cosmic slot machine, the plaything of some alien or deity who fashions zimself some sort of pinball wizard. And when the Earth and Moon have holes, they can be threaded with string. And if God can tie a string through his coins, then when God goes to play pinball, He can Get His Money Back.

     Just like the rai, and your god, you too must die while being brought to Shore. Or else, while helping others reach the shore. So the greater becomes the heroic tale of your money-carrying, Christ-carrying journey. And thus, the rai appreciate, while themselves being appreciated. As you are precious, so too are you appreciated. Although this sensing sentience - this touching feeling – is the root of the subject-object confusion, it is also its resolution.
     The only way to intellectually appreciate your possession - “your” god – is to poke a hole in it. It shows inquisitiveness; to poke a hole in it is to challenge it. And God always appreciates a challenge or a bet.
     Ye have heard it said that “He who does not work, neither shall he eat”. But from whom cometh this quote? St. Paul, of blessed memory, yes, and the Jamestown settlers, but also Lenin. What if you do as God commands, and walk around eating like a bird? Isn't it an assault on the freedom of worship to require a license for that?
     What is the purpose of a left-vs.-right divide on economic issues, when the “money” we all use is of no value to begin with? One side values labor and believes the Earth round, while the other values capital and believes the Earth flat. Reconciliation only becomes possible when currency stops being impossible; and that can only be done through alchemy.
     Just as “property is impossible” - since a society can't have property norms without either a state or unanimous agreement – currency is impossible. How can you hold a society's monetary norms together without either a standing army, or else mass psychology? Believe the Oculus, not the ochlocracy.

     As you will recall, Milton Friedman remarked that myth – that is, unquestioned, unverified superstition – is the most important element in a society's monetary system.
     A myth sets up the basis of an economic system, and thus a monetary system. As in the Cahokia Mounds, when a society chooses to spend hundreds of years building something – to help a warlord, or as tribute to a god – then its economy inevitably revolves around that. Just as well, its currency will be based on whichever resource occurs naturally in the area and has the popularity to become a durable form of currency for some amount of time.
     In his analysis of rai, Friedman rightfully avoided value judgments. But had Friedman concluded his research with a shamanic recommendation – like that we rip the cow's heart out before turning it into money, in order to boost the value of our beef-disks; or perhaps that we ought to eat our money to gain its purchasing power – then he could have made his observations that myth matters most in monetary matters more moving. ...By the way, do that.
     Why didn't Friedman ever shake a stick that had shrunken heads dangling from it, so the jaws open and close as the stick shakes up and down? Ludwig von Mises may be to blame. Ludwig von Mises (rhymes with “Jesus”) said, “Economics must not be relegated to classrooms and statistical offices, and must not be left to esoteric circles.”
     And so, the free-marketer flat-Earthist must ask himself, why didn't Friedman ever notice his disagreement with Mises? Surely you can't have a coherent economic theory (and corresponding monetary cosmology) if one of your theorists believes that myth is essential to economics, while another believes that economics “must not be left to esoteric circles”? Blasphemy!
     Esoteric circles ought to determine everything! If indeed the Chaos Theory of Value is the key to overcumming the Power Theory of Value, then it must support a currency which is, like USD, truly a cum-oddity. For as we splurge with it, we splooge upon it. Therefore, only qualified alchemists may do monetary theory.

     Fortunately, there's a little more thinking going on about this subject on the Left.
     Labor leader Big Bill Heywood said, “The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!” Heywood alone spies the alchymical marriage which is necessary to spawn a healthy new monetary system.
     While Heywood understands the importance of alchemy in establishing a monetary system the best out of all those considered herein, Karl Marx comes close, and certainly bests Friedman. That's because Marx said, “The less you eat, drink, and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes the treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital.”
     Just as Lenin echoed the Christian settlers at Jamestown and the Christian St. Paul, Marx echoed Christ's exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:19). And we pretend that there is any purpose for the left-vs.-right divide on religious matters, let alone the economic and the monetary! Why divide people according to their values, when you can divide your currency into equally valuable Moon-units!? Only when moonetary matters are settled, may Jamestown, Russia, or the Kingdom of God - or the tab, for that matter - be settled.

     If you read your Bible, you'll know that God always speaks in capital letters. He calls Himself YHWH, and I AM, like a pissed-off internet troll. Why does He do this? To show people the Meaning of His Word, which is the source of all value in the universe.
     Speaking in tongues wouldn't even have occurred to us if not for God! He's the 0ne who taught us to ritualistically induce ecstatic trance, so that we generate new words! Think of how many more words you could capitalize on, if you also trademarked the CAPITALIZED versions of the divine but apparently meaningless utterances that you generate during trance states! Think of the prophets you'll rake in!
     Marx knew this just as well; for his advice shows that he understood the importance of not only capital and myth in creating value, but also of capitalizing on what you say, so that you don't have to capitalize what you say.

     For the Earth, too, shall crack like an egg. But that shouldn't mean that your money has to as well.
     Roll those nickels, God wants to play another round.



Written on April 15th and 16th, 2018
Edited on May 2nd, 4th, and 11th, 2018

Originally Published on April 16th, 2018

Friday, September 15, 2017

Why Yap Island Stone Coins Tanked on Friday


            A billion and a half Chinamen probably couldn’t each have his own Yap Island stone coin. But it’s not like it’s entirely out of the question.

            The Yap Island stone coin (abbreviated YIC, and also known as rai) – most of whose value evidently derives from the similarity of its shape to the ever-popular treat known as the doughnut (or, in the parlance of the hoi-polloi, “donut”) – illustrates an important point about money. Namely, that it has a great big hole in it.
So what would it take to make YIC into the new standard for a viable world reserve currency? Check this out: If you fuck a donut, have you fucked the donut, or have you fucked the donut hole? Most importantly, have you fucked yourself? We must look at the hole issue. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude from these data simply that Our Money is Fucked,TM but let’s make sure we can see the donut for the hole.
For each Chinaman to have his own YIC, although highly impractical, is the sad course of affairs on which we have set about. For the value of the Yap Island stone coin lies in the labor which was undertaken in order to construct it; and additionally, in the labor it takes to distribute it. Each one of us can’t just carry an Easter Island statue in his pocket; they have to be carefully carved, moved according to The Game, and revered in keeping with the ancient sacrificial rites, all that good stuff.
Money creation gives a new meaning to the phrase “you’ve gotta spend money to make money”. But that’s not so; you can’t gain money by spending money, nor gain value by selling. You don’t have to read Menger to know that; yea, for, as Ivan imparted, “we can dance, everybody look at your hands”. The hole in the donut, we shall refer to as debt. So, then, whither lies the donut hole? Audit Fort Knox and you’ll find out. Maybe it’s been right there in your hand the hole time.
As with any other currency, the supposed value of the YIC lies not only in the labor-value thought to be contained within it (as if a produced good somehow traps value), but also in its widespread acceptability and use. If nobody is willing to use them – and do all the strenuous work necessary to move them – then the YIC have little to no value; only to those who recognize, honor, and compensate the hard day’s work that went into donutizing The Rock. Only to those unwilling to wait for The Rock to Come to Them.
How lucky would you be to stumble upon a Yap Island stone coin? You’d be richer than all your friends, you could buy all the seashells you want. You’d certainly have something precious on your hands; something rare and unique. But then again, what if you found a thousand of them, and gave them to all your friends!? They’d all be richer than one another!
But this is all assuming that you can even find someone willing to accept YIC, who’s willing to sell what you want, and believes that YIC are as valuable as you believe they are. But what are the odds of that? Who’d carry it? The only realistic solution is to store your money at home. But then, you say, you can’t bring them to market. Ah, but see, that’s yet another problem. Only a fool wagers his most valuable assets, yet only a fool leaves them at home where they’re of no value to anyone else.
And yet that is what the Yapese did; once the coins arrived on the island, they were deemed too large and heavy to be moved each time they were used, so the islanders decided that the coins should stay put, but change ownership.

It should be as clear as Orgonite by now that we’re grappling with a paradox: that a currency derives its value from its scarcity and uniqueness, yet at the same time, its widespread acceptance and ubiquitous use.
The rarest gem in the world supposedly holds so much value, but what exchange-value does it have? None. It has sentimental value only to its possessor, and use-value only to those who either have the skills necessary to refine the gem, or are interested in purchasing the product after such finishing and refinement processes. If the holder won’t sell, then no use-value can be derived from it.
“To myself, I am everything!”: so proclaimed Saint Max. I echo this sentiment. All my use-value is contained within my body and its powers, its potential. I alone Am a viable currency. I alone Am current, I alone Am present; am presence itself. For I Am everywhere, yet nowhere. I am the voice in the wilderness. I tread not upon the streets of men, yet I Am accessible to all. Who Am I? I Am both a who and a what, a subject and an object. I Am, at least potentially (if I am invited), all of this, yet I am not floating around in men’s pockets.
Just as the lamp is within the genie, and just as the Dead concert can never be taken out of the hippie, is not the time-money-moon-value (not to be confused with Blood Sugar Sex Magik) which is contained within me, fostering high, sustained growth of a real store of value within my Own Holy Vehicle (i.e., corpse-in-waiting)? I mean, repent, for fuck’s sake, for your days are numbered, for your home is built of nails, fire, and blood!
A stable (ahem, excuse me, I’m a little horse) fire insurance company will not – neigh, cannot – survive without local building codes demanding that what shelters us from the elements must be made of easily collapsible, flammable materials. This is a viable long-term bu$ine$$ strategy that will support $ound mØney. They don’t call it re-pent-ance for no reason; you’ll have to build yourself a new penthouse in the sky! So build that house of hay; until you do, you’ll be on pins and needles in that haystack. To sit on a house of stilts is to keep one’s head in the clouds. And that’s how you get to Heaven; the same way an ostrich does, except backwards. You just put your head through the donut hole.
There is no store of value in your home. The only home with a real store of value is when a hermit crab takes up residence inside a human skull. And Feng Shuis the shit out of it. The Chinese tea-brick can be used as medicine or food, even construction material, in an emergency. That’s how you make a currency. Not that skulls and bones don’t make excellent construction materials; have you seen some of those churches They got in the Czech Republic?
So be the king or queen of your castle, and make your home your temple. After all, it’s right there on the side of your head. Just as your permanent home is the flesh-prison from which you’re trying to escape, and, at that, the only viable world-reserve currency. To you, it’s worth everything else. After all, every country has people to wager, as a way to back that currency up, doesn’t it? Back it up! Only problem is, that country doesn’t have you. To ignore that is like trying to take the hole out of the donut, trying to drink the Blood of the Savior from a bottle of wine. You gotta get back. Plato’s Cave is the only residence that’s sheltered from all five elements. I mean, I Am a Rock, right?
Estonia has an e-currency, and you can’t spell Estonia without “stone”. Prisoners use cigarettes as currency (and, as Ronnie pointed out, they’re the most stable currency in North America, resting steadily at 25 cents each for at least the last three decades). So why not have panarcho-prison-e-cigs as the world reserve currency? Using an electronic cig could make it trackable from a remote location, another important value-padding characteristic for moneys to have. Besides, the cigarette (aside from being essentially a wedding ring, made of paper, that you fill with tobacco, which many people are married to, rendering it the perfect family heirloom) is the only currency that will smoke us into death, and into Heaven, where our treasure is.
As Blame asks when he requests a cigarette, “Will you help me die?”. That’s real value; the value of certainty, the value of death.

But let us not confine ourselves to a discussion of mere currencies; money is where it’s at. This is where the Pharaohs come in. Pharaoh says fire is the ultimate money; for fire is elemental, and a tool whose use renders he who wields it a god. This simple fact is hidden from every NomNomNomics 101 class you’ll find, yet it is remarkably easy to demonstrate. You’d be shocked to Discover® how much money you can extract from someone through the simple act of setting fire to all they hold dear. This also demonstrates that the (Fire)Power Theory of Value is immutable; unfalsifiable, immune from dispute, questioning, even logic. How can such an offer be refused?
But most importantly, only fire possesses (that is, takes spiritual control of) all the characteristics that mortals desire in a stable money. It’s portable, it’s trackable, it’s electronic, it’s accepted everywhere, it’s easily divisible into standardized units, it fits in your pocket… It is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; the primordial spark which maieutically birthed each of our thought-babies from the sacred annals of bio-history, and the desolate, deserted lome, the whirling cosmic dervish unto which we are destined to someday return; perhaps as fuel for the fire, perhaps stored neatly as computer data on a sun that’s really some otaku’s self-custom-designed computer tower.
Don’t worry about whether a black hole can store labor-value, nor worry where your thinky-thoughts are going. Keep your mind on your mooney, and your mooney on the Mound. Pyotr had it right; bread-backed currencies (like MannaLoafTM and SalvationCoin®) are the wave of the future. He understood that the buck(skin) stops here. Each one of us, deep within our holes, knows the value of a buck, and that of a dough. To be Frank, you can’t have one without the other.
That will bring us back to doe; the deer, dear source of the preciousness which gives life value, which backs the currency with which we keep current, with which we track the transit of that great celestial orb (our Sky-Mother, the Lesser Light). That’s how you get ahead, you keep up with the Boneses. We are fools if we think that Blockchain can record all transactions; only black holes and blood can do that. Blood and the blood oaths are the genuine Holders of Value, Signifiers of Honor, Keepers of Record, and Ancient Historians. Let’s not kid ourselves; RNA was the original Blockchain.
This is why I propose experimentation with an alternate currency backed by tracking the transit of supermoons, blood moons, and blood supermoons. I mean, when every holiday of the year occurs within the space of a single February, you know it’s time to call your broker. But you don’t need an Al Broker man to know which way the solar wind blows. This represents a call for a currency backed by nature, not nurture.

Just as the hole must be shed from the donut, as the funerary shroud from the moon-mummy, any serious monetary reform can only come about through SacrificeTM of what we value most. The reason that YIC and the Slandered & Whores’ Index lost 15% of their value on Friday is that it was not a Good Friday. YIC-heavy portfolios have revealed themselves to be so heavy with rock, that they don’t rock. It is as it was in the Beginning; as the portability of the coin must be sacrificed to honor the workers who make them and move them, the whole must be sacrificed for the Good of The D0nut, for the virtue of Emptiness (all hail). So let’s move some money.
When it comes to power-backed currencies, portability is next to trackability. That’s why they have to run your fingerprint (your real driver’s license, as the driver of your own body) before you’re allowed to buy Cheetos. That’s why YIC futures aren’t safe bets; rather, they’re investments that are only for the savvy moon-watching investor. But if you’re bearish on mooneys, don’t go loony; instead, hang onto that millstone and take the plunge. Take it all the way to the river bank – which is where you’re gonna be laughing – because that millstone’s gonna be worth a HellTM of a lot of money some day!
We’ve all read Adam and Josiah, and understand Cost the Limit of Price. Labor is the only just compensation for labor. Additionally, the cost of labor is the subjective cost of working; that is, the suffering borne by the laborer. The amount of suffering involved in the work determines the value of the product that the work creates. This is why we are paid in suffering. The wage of sin is not death; the wage of work is death, is suffering.
This is why we must pay our employers back with amounts of suffering equal to the amount they have invested in us. Only then can we restore Blood, Sweat, and TearsTM (BST) to its proper place as the real world reserve currency. This will show that BST is the only genuine form of money in the world (at least on this plane), because it’s the only one with real exchange-value, the only one that’s universally accepted and traded the world over. Most importantly for our masters in government, taxes are payable in BST. If hard work is taxing, then it can be taxed.

Unless and until those who work us, work for us (or at least swear blood oaths not to take our toil as a standard part of our employment contracts), then no compromise short of a sweat-based currency should be made. This must come with no less than full property ownership over our precious bodily fluids, as part of our bodily autonomy, physical integrity, and personal self-ownership. If workers are to be microchipped (because who doesn’t love Revelation), then they at least deserve a package of shares corresponding to the value of their sweet, untainted golden piss on the global market, as determined equitably by everyone involved in piss futures speculation on the Stalk Exchange.
Finally: If we must use a money, then it must be one whose value is backed by the inverse of the quantity of suffering which the reckless pursuit of other currencies cause humanity; never based on a direct correlation. To do otherwise is to destroy the uniqueness of the money, with nothing to make it distinct from its competitors.
The Sacred Unique is the Scarce – the Rare – in which all value originates. And on this Rock I shall build my Church.




Written on September 14th and 15th, 2017

Originally Published on September 15th, 2017

Edited on January 17th and March 20th, 2018

Saturday, January 28, 2017

What is Geolibertarianism? (Abbreviated)

What is Geolibertarianism?

Written on January 25th, 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/

Sunday, January 22, 2017

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):



Written on January 22nd, 2017

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

Edited and Expanded on January 25th 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

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