Sixty-Three Questions That Every Thinking Libertarian Should Be Able to Answer

Table of Contents

1. Foundational Questions
2. Questions About Self-Ownership and Property
3. Questions Related to Borders, Nationalism, and Defense
4. Questions About Taxes and Economic Issues
5. Questions About Partisan Politics and Authoritarian Ideologies
6. Questions About Social, Domestic, and Moral Issues

Content

1. Foundational Questions

Question #1. Would you describe your libertarian strain of thought as capitalist? Why or why not? Should libertarianism be associated with any particular economic system; for example, free markets, capitalism, or perhaps something else?

Question #2. How would your libertarian ideology deal with the need to preserve the rights of majorities and minorities alike? Is libertarian individualism compatible with democracy, multiculturalism, and collectivism, or not?

Question #3. Is socialism compatible with a free-market libertarian society? Can socialism be voluntary, and if so, how, or under what conditions?

Question #4. Is the Non-Aggression Principle (N.A.P.) sound? Libertarians tend to be against banning most things; is it enough to ban aggression, or is it necessary to ban things like domination, hierarchy, and exploitation as well?



2. Questions About Self-Ownership and Property

Question #5. Would it be accurate to say that “an individual human being owns oneself”? Would it be accurate to say that “an individual human being owns oneself as property?” Is it important to make such a distinction, and why or why not?

Question #6. Does the right to own property derive from the right to own yourself? If not, then where does the right to own property come from?

Question #7. How would you define private property? Is “private property” distinct from “personal possessions”, or not?

Question #8. Can private property be claimed without the assistance of some state or government? If so, then how? 

Question #9. What is your view on “landmine homesteading”, the process by which a person claims a plot of land by planting landmines around its perimeter? Is willingness to defend a property all it takes to justify claiming it as your own?

Question #10. What actions are necessary in order to justify owning property privately? Is the Lockean Proviso sound, or do you support Occupancy and Use Norms, or some other arrangement?

Question #11. Would it be desirable for private property to exist, even if it can exist without government? (Specifically, with respect to land, and the ownership of workplaces)

Question #12. Is "privatize everything" a helpful or hurtful slogan, in your opinion? Is there any resource which you feel should not be privatized (and if so what are they)?

Question #13. Should workers expect to be compensated with 100% of the value of the effort they contributed?

Question #14. Is work voluntary? And can employment for the benefit of another person be voluntary?

Question #15. Are hierarchy and exploitation inherently wrong, or inherently coercive in a way that violates the Non-Aggression Principle?

Question #16. What is your libertarian ideology's stance on labor unions and cooperative enterprises?

Question #17. Is rent voluntary, or is rent theft? Do all forms of renting violate the N.A.P., or do only economic rents violate the N.A.P. (or neither)?

Question #18. If you own a business, should you be in any sense obligated to serve whomever comes in? Why or why not? Would it be desirable to require businesses to serve all potential customers, if the state didn't exist, and why or why not?

Question #19. Can intellectual property be protected without government? Should it be protected? If so, how?



3. Questions Related to Borders, Nationalism, and Defense

Question #20. Are borders desirable? If so, does the right to have borders derive from our right to own private property, and if so, how?

Question #21. Would borders exist without government, and should they?

Question #22. Can nationalism exist without the state, and should it? Can fascism exist without the state?

Question #23. Is law enforcement good, natural, and necessary? Are the police necessary? Can you think of any circumstances under which ordinary civilians ought to have the right to arrest others?

Question #24. Should jails and prisons exist? Would they exist without the state, and if so, how would your strain of libertarianism propose to address the risk that applying the profit incentive to the issue of detention of criminal suspects and convicts, could result in increased arrests in order to justify building and filling more for-profit prisons?

Question #25. Can militaries exist without a government, and should they exist in a stateless society?

Question #26. Without the state, would people voluntarily band together to defend themselves, or would some form of “voluntary social contract” be necessary to ensure equal contribution to defense efforts?

Question #27. Are there any circumstances under which you would support gun confiscations? Mandatory military service (the draft) or draft registration? What about mandatory public service?

Question #28. Would private military contractors exist without the state, and should they?

Question #29. Would war exist without the state? Is war ever necessary, and if so, when and why?

Question #30. Can a “minimal government” exist? Is it possible to have government, but at the same time, not have statism?

Question #31. Would justice systems exist without government, and should they? Could there exist such thing as a “stateless legal order”, and if so, what would it look like, and how can it be achieved?

Question #32. Does anarchy mean a lack of rules, a lack of rulers, or something else? Would rules, laws, legislation, and regulations exist without government, and should they?

Question #33. Would contracts exist without government, and what qualifications make a person competent enough to enter into an enforceable contractual agreement? Can contracts be successful without guarantees of enforcement, and if so, how?




4. Questions About Taxes and Economic Issues

Question #34. Can taxation be voluntary, or is taxation always theft? Explain your answer.

Question #35. If civil order couldn't be sustained without some sort of involuntary taxation, then would you choose to ignore the need for civil order and not impose a taxation system, or would you choose some sort of so-called “least bad” or “semi-voluntary” taxation system? If you would, then 

which system would you choose, and why?

Question #36. Is it enough to assume that all exchanges which take place, are voluntary? If not, then is it enough to require all exchanges to be voluntary? Should we have higher standards in addition to voluntaryism in economic transactions?

Question #37. Where do corporations' privileges come from; the state, or some other source? Can corporations exist without the assistance of the state? If so, how? Would it be desirable that they exist, in the absence of the state?

Question #38. Are currency and money the same thing? Are currency and money good, natural, and necessary? Would they exist without government, and should they? What can and can't be used as a currency?

Question #39. Is the use of currency voluntary, or is inflation theft? Are all forms of money and currency intrinsically subjective in value, and is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are money and currency intrinsically control tools?

Question #40. Are rent, interest, and profit good, natural, and necessary? Would they exist without government, and should they? Why or why not?

Question #41. Which is a more valuable mode of organization in an economy; cooperation or competition? Why? Are there other ways to organize the economy? Is organizing the economy desirable in the first place, and can it be done without the government?

Question #42. Are there any resources which are abundant? Are markets, competition, and trade still necessary to help distribute and allocate goods which are abundant?

Question #43. Is overpopulation real? How might your libertarian strain of thought propose we deal with the problems typically associated with “overpopulation”?



5. Questions About Partisan Politics and Authoritarian Ideologies

Question #44. Which of the two major political parties have done the most damage to economic and social freedom? If you had to choose, which party would be the easiest for your strain of libertarianism to get along with, and why?

Question #45. Which governmental departments, welfare programs, or functions do you think are the most important to abolish? Which are the most urgent to abolish?

Question #46. What are the proper roles of federal, state, and local governments, as you understand it? Do you believe it is possible to reconcile anarchism with federalism – or achieve anarchism within a federalist system like the American system - and if so, then how?

Question #47. Are there any programs or functions of government which you think it is important to delay abolishing until we are sure we can live without them (and if so, what are they?)

Question #48. Does socialism always devolve into authoritarianism? Was the Nazi regime the result of collapsed socialism, or were the Nazis capitalists (or perhaps something else)?

Question #49. How do you feel about America's decision to align with the Soviet Union during World War II? Who did more damage to economic and social freedom – and who killed more - Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin? If your strain of libertarian ideology had to align with either the Nazis or the Bolsheviks, which would you choose, and why?

Question #50. Considering your answer to the previous question, what assurances can you make to other libertarians about your strain of libertarianism's dedication to embracing freedom and liberty, and to opposing authoritarianism and states?




6. Questions About Social, Domestic, and Moral Issues

Question #51. What is your stance on positive and negative rights? What are your thoughts on the relationship between freedom, responsibility, and privilege?

Question #52. Can marriage exist without government recognition? If so, how? Has the problem of undue restrictions upon the rights of same-sex couples been solved yet, or not?

Question #53. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of abortion?

Question #54. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of public health?

Question #55. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of drug addiction?

Question #56. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address the issue of mental illness and mass shootings?

Question #57. How would you, or your strain of libertarianism, propose to address environmental and ecological issues?

Question #58. How would your strain of libertarianism propose to provide people with resources which we typically perceive as public utilities (such as energy, transportation, plumbing, roads, and infrastructure)?

Question #59. What are your thoughts about the role of religion and spirituality in an anarchist, stateless, or voluntary society? Should the practice of religion be allowed in an anarchist society, or should society find a way to get rid of it as just another form of indoctrination like government?

Question #60. Where does morality come from: the state or government, religion or spirituality, or some other source?

Question #61. Does non-aggression imply pacifism, and should people who subscribe to the N.A.P. have to be pacifists? What does pacifism mean to you? If we place peace too high among our values, does it put freedom and liberty at risk? Are force, aggression, violence, and coercion ever necessary, and if so, when?

Question #62. How would your libertarian ideology deal with problems like racism, ultra-nationalism, and hate groups? When, if ever, should “hate speech” be prohibited? Should Antifa be considered a domestic terrorist group?

Question #63. In the infamous "Trolley Problem", would you pull the lever to kill one person in order to save five others; or would you do nothing and leave the lever where it is, resulting in the death of five people? Explain your answer.

Written on October 4th, 7th, and 8th, 2019

Published on October 8th, 2019

Edited on October 24th, 2019

Originally Published as

"Sixty-Two Questions Every Thinking Libertarian Should Be Able to Answer

What Liberals and Conservatives Both Get Wrong About Socialism and Communism

     On July 24^th, 2018, on ABC's The View, co-hosts Joy Behar and Meghan McCain had a heated exchange about socialism, in which McCain criticized the “normalization” of socialism which she felt is coming from supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York U.S. House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, often described as “democratic socialists”.

      McCain, the daughter of late senator John McCain, claimed that socialism has never worked, asserted that Venezuela's problems stem from socialism, and said that Democrats will lose if they continue to run “radicals” like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. McCain also echoed late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's line that “the problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money”.

     When McCain challenged Joy Behar to name a country in which socialism has worked, Behar surmised that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez admires the “socialism” attempted in Scandinavian countries, rather than the Chavista variety in Venezuela (which Nicolas Maduro is trying to carry on). As examples of such European “socialist” countries, Behar named Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland. After that, the two debated tax rates and the Trump tax cuts.

     Although Behar is correct to point out that those five countries are doing better than Venezuela, the countries Behar named are not socialist. They merely administer some socialist-inspired social programs. In reality, no European country is fully “socialist”. Until Catalonia becomes independent, it will be difficult to argue that there is a true socialist state in Europe.

     However, you could argue that the "communism" of the Soviet Union still exists, and never went away. The tiny nation of Transnistria never shed all of the Soviet symbols on its flag, passport, nor many of its buildings. Transnistria, also called Pridnestrovie, straddles the Dniester River between Moldova and Ukraine. Transnistria declared independence as a "communist" Soviet socialist republic in 1990, but the following year, it became an ordinary republic. It is now governed by a liberal-conservative (or center-right) regime, and is not officially communist, nor Soviet. However, it is not a state, because it is not recognized as a state by the United Nations. Transnistria is only recognized by three nations which, themselves, also lack U.N. recognition. Moldova considers Transnistria part of its territory, despite the language differences between the two regions. Although Transnistria is arguably occupied by Russian "peacekeeping" forces, it is considered wholly self-governing.
     Many opponents of the welfare state criticize the British N.H.S. (National Health Service) for being "socialized medicine", while also describing the same program as a case of "nationalized health care". The United Kingdom, and the various European political and economic and trade alliances, are commonwealths (at least in name). However, British and European commonwealth feature much more free trade, and nationalization (that is, centralized administration of social programs) than they feature socialization or communization. But on the other hand, it would be difficult to argue that the so-called “Euro-socialist” nations are any different from that model (mostly because the majority of them are in those economic unions). To be clear, the purpose of mentioning commonwealths and Bolshevik "communism" in the same breath, is not to describe each of them as communist, and therefore the same or similar; but rather the point is to distinguish them.

     Norway, on the other hand, practices what is called the “Nordic model”. "Sovereign wealth funds", as they are sometimes called, are funds maintained for the people, collected through the taxation of profits from the sale of oil (or revenues from the sale of energy exploration permits). A similar system is in place in the so-called "owner state" of Alaska (the Alaska Permanent Fund). It could be argued that similar programs were attempted in Venezuela and Libya, in that those states attempted to nationalize their oil reserves and energy sectors. Why is it that the nationalization of energy sources by non-white countries gets described as "socialism" which merits American bombs being dropped, but when an American state and one of our northern European ally do the same thing, it's "public ownership" that's deemed perfectly compatible with capitalist private property norms and the conservative conception of republicanism?

     Denmark and Iceland score much higher on economic equality indices than the United States does, but they also score significantly higher on economic freedom, so their high level of economic freedom make them difficult to describe as socialist. The term “Euro-socialism” does not adequately describe even the farthest-left European nations. The terms “neoliberalism”, “social market economy”, “tripartism”, “Rhine capitalism”, and “Ordoliberalism” (German for “new liberalism”), are all better descriptors.

     It is important not to mistake the mere presence of a social safety net, however large or robust it is, for socialism. As an internet meme explains, the definition of socialism is not “when the government does things, and the more things it does, the socialister it is”. Socialism is the management of the means of production by the whole of society. You don't get socialism just by adding social services to a government that protects private property and maintains a capitalist economic system. Similarly, you don't get a socialist firm, just by taking a capitalist management model, and gradually integrating procedures and practices which were merely inspired by cooperative organizations and horizontal associations. That's because the firm will inevitably use those practices to reinforce pro-capitalist views, and to promote the continuation of the hierarchy which remains in the company.

     That is not to say, however, that a capitalist regime cannot integrate leftist-inspired reforms, and even have it work to some degree of success; it can. Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, drew inspiration for his socialist-inspired policies from an actual socialist named Norman Thomas. Thomas was a student of Henry George, an economist who died during a Democratic run for Mayor of New York in the 1890s, at a time when the Democratic platform focused more on classically liberal concerns like monetary reform and antitrust. Nearly everyone who has drawn influence from F.D.R. or Norman Thomas, is, at least in some small way, a proponent of socialist or socialist-influenced policies.

     Meghan McCain seems concerned that growing the social safety net, and electing people like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, could be a slippery slope to 90% taxes and a socialist American regime.

     However, you would be hard pressed to find a socialist who believes in taxing everyone's income at 90%. It would, however, be easy to find a socialist who believes in taxing the wealthiest people only at 90%. In fact, during the F.D.R. and Eisenhower administrations, that was the top marginal tax rate (although the effective rate was much lower). So it's not as though a 90% top marginal tax rate is completely unprecedented in American history.

     Additionally, growing the social safety net is an attempt to avoid socialism, by compromising with capitalism instead of replacing it, abolishing it, finding alternatives to it, or finding other ways to render it obsolete. Attempts at “state socialism”, such as the one that existed under Otto von Bismarck, tried to create a robust welfare state to moderate the excesses of capitalism; not a socialist program to replace capitalism.

     Moreover, socialists – at least Marxists, and other socialists who want socialism to result in stateless communism – do not want taxes or money in the first place. A pure communist society would be classless, as well as moneyless and stateless. Socialists would have a difficult time trying to tax people if neither money nor the state existed.

     Additionally, some socialists – libertarian socialists, and social anarchists, for example – do not even want to utilize state power. Marx and Lenin both criticized the political social democrats of their times as “gradualists” and “reformists”, and even as “social chauvinists” and “revisionists” of Marxism, due to their rejection of revolution, in favor of reform. People like Rosa Luxemburg and Karl and Wilhelm Liebknecht were open to both, but that's another discussion.

     All of this should help show that democratic socialists, and progressives, like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, are not socialists, nor are the “Euro-socialist” countries. To call them socialists is to give them too much credit for being revolutionary and radical, and also makes us think that a truly revolutionary regime could simply be voted into power overnight, through the same mechanisms of electoral legitimacy which previously kept them in chains. As Emma Goldman said, “If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”

     Contrary to Meghan McCain's claim, Venezuela is not socialist. Venezuela is collapsing not because of socialism, but because of the effects of oil prices collapsing (after nationalizing oil profits). The existence of the nation, the profits, and the taxation of those profits in the first place, all indicate that Venezuela is a capitalist country, not a socialist one.

     The Venezuelan government is doing little to fight organized crime; this is a problem that is no indicator of either socialism or capitalism. Another reason that Venezuela's problems are not the fault of socialism, is that one major reason for the country's food shortages is that international food and toilet paper monopolies have thus far refused to lower their prices to something that Venezuelans can afford. One more reason that Venezuela is not socialist is that it has not yet abolished private property in the means of production.

     Similarly, Cuba is not socialist; because it is bringing private ownership of the means of production back. Neither Cuba nor Venezuela are socialist, additionally, because Raul Castro and Nicolas Maduro both seem to have autocratic ambitions. No socialist society can last as long as they put too much trust in, or give too much power to, an autocrat; not Venezuelan nor Cuban society, not Russian society, not American society.

     Yet oddly, President Trump is enabling and buddying-up to autocratic strongmen around the world, while trying to stare them down (as if to consume their power). I predict that the more people notice this autocratic behavior from the president, and the more people come to see measures like farm aid to fix ill effects of tariffs, the more people we will see describing Trump as a socialist. I am not saying, however, that Trump actually is a socialist for supporting farm aid; I'm only saying that most Americans view farm aid as a better example of a “socialist” social service than the tariffs (but in reality, both of those measures are simply bailouts for different industries.

     Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos are often referred to as “the last remaining communist countries”, but in reality they have not achieved full communism, because the state remains, and because they have not undertaken any real steps to abolish money or currency. Additionally, North Korea has distanced itself from Marxism-Leninism, and North Korea and China clearly have no intention of allowing their state apparati to wither away (in the fashion of Engels).

     Both that insistence on retaining state power, and the insistence on socialist reform through legitimate electoral victory, are revisionist distortions of each Marxism and most radically anti-statist socialist schools of thought.

     Many conservatives, capitalists, and anti-socialists in general, would like you to believe that these five “communist nations” are the best examples of communism or socialism. Additionally, that you should be very afraid, if the United States ever becomes socialist; because similar outcomes will be the inevitable result. However, that is not the case.

     The Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) is not the best example of communism, nor of socialism. Nor is it the only example of either of those systems; far from it. Many reforms inspired by Marxism or socialism have been tried, to varying degrees of success. But the Soviet “communism” of the Bolsheviks was not full anarcho-communism. because they did not attempt to abolish money, nor the state. They only attempted to abolish private ownership of the means of production, and the only thing they fully collectivized was the farms.

     Early on, the U.S.S.R. made great achievements in the fields of agriculture; industrialization; aeronautics; and the rights of women, gays, and working people. However, critics of the U.S.S.R. called Stalin's regime “state monopoly capitalism”, believing that the autocracy and the state-directed economic planning of the regime, merely replaced the feudalism and the tsardom of old Russia with a new tsar (in Stalin) and an authoritarian government, bent on economic control every bit as much as the capitalistic, feudalist, and monarchist regime which preceded it. In fact, that autocracy took hold of the U.S.S.R. less than two years after the Bolsheviks took power.

     Better examples of socialism than the Soviet Union, China, Venezuela and Cuba – that is, examples of libertarian socialism, not authoritarian socialism - include the Paris Commune of 1871. The Paris Commune lasted two months, succumbing to defeat due to collaboration between French and Prussian governments which had previously been fighting one another. More recent examples of libertarian socialism working out for some period of time, include the regions of Catalonia and Aragon in Spain in the 1930s; the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Mondragon, Spain, since the 1950s; and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Turkey over the last decade, where a women's military column seeks to establish Bookchinist libertarian communalism.

     It is ironic that some supporters of Israel criticize socialism from a conservative standpoint, while simultaneously extolling the virtues of the current regime governing the State of Israel (now under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and the right-wing Likud party). I say that because the modern Israeli nation arguably began as a decentralized network of autonomous, libertarian, anarchist communes (that is, the kibbutzim). To the extent to which they were self-governing, and independent from Arab rule, it could even be argued that pre-independence Israel was practically stateless. Additionally, the State of Israel's first prime ministers were Labor Zionists; whereas Benjamin Netanyahu and the rest of the Likud party are the legacy of the rise of the Israeli right wing during the 1970s and 1980s. Some may criticize the kibbutzim as a failure of communism, but they are part of Israeli heritage nonetheless, and to what extent libertarian socialism is to blame for their failings is open for debate.

     As we might expect, many people struggle, through all this, to understand what socialism actually is. In my opinion, the best definition is “the management of the means of production – land and natural resources, farms, factories and plants, productive machines, etc. - by the whole of society”.

     Often, management of the means of production by “workers”, “collectives”, or “cooperatives” is given as the definition of socialism, as opposed to “societal management”. So too are “worker ownership” and "worker control".

     However, I feel that to refer to “workers”, “collectives”, and “cooperatives” - as well as to “ownership” or "control" - is to imply that socialism would involve the same types of exclusion and domination which are characteristic of private property ownership under capitalism. Ownership of resources by some particular group, stands in stark contrast to management by the whole of society. A vision of “socialism” which is not inclusive of all members of “society” is not true socialism; it is workerism, or collectivism, or cooperativism, or a state of ownership or control.
     That is not to say, however, that securing ownership or control of means of production by workers, collectives, or cooperatives, wouldn't make societal management more likely; in some cases, it almost certainly would help make that possible. But it is no guarantee.
     Right-libertarians will sometimes strawman the position of libertarian socialists, by assuming that they believe cooperative ownership to be the same thing as socialism. Right-libertarians say that libertarian socialists should not expect to be able to achieve a socialist society through their own actions, because right-libertarians believe a socialist society necessarily involves socialism everywhere. But additionally, right-libertarians will conveniently "forget" this idea immediately, when they realize that it doesn't fit the narrative of another critique of socialism they make; that libertarian socialists can achieve the society they want, simply by earning property under the onerous conditions of capitalism, and then by pooling what little property they manage to scrape together.
     That is not socialism, nor is it a state of liberty. It is "socialism", but only on the conditions set by capitalists. Right-libertarians, on the other hand, would probably never accept "capitalism" spelled out according to socialists' terms.

     Believe it or not, markets are not incompatible with socialism. Economic systems like Mutualism, Georgism, and left-wing market-anarchism (also called free-market anti-capitalism) - and, most importantly, market socialism - prove this. That's because each of those systems would retain market systems and voluntary exchange, while aiming to increase collective and cooperative ownership until most property is collectively owned. Indeed, that was the idea behind Deng Xiaopeng's reforms which China administered during the 1980s (to much economic success).

     Competition is not as necessary as we think it is. First, because cooperation is always a more equitable method of distributing and allocating resources than competition is, whether the resources are nearly scarce or extremely scarce. But secondly, distribution and allocation are themselves not as necessary as we think they are, because not as many resources that we think are scarce, are actually scarce. Abundant goods do not need to be distributed, nor allocated, in the first place; not by government, not by markets. When economizing is unnecessary, economics is unnecessary. That is, allocation and distribution become unnecessary when people realize that a good is so abundant that there is no logical reason to charge anybody anything for it.

     Those who believe “free-market capitalism” and “socialism” are incompatible – often because “if you want something, you're supposed to work for it – are wrong in their assessment. Nature gives us all the “free stuff” that we need to survive. Government isn't the only way to get free stuff, despite what conservatives say. There's nothing about “free markets” that says people have to be against free stuff, nor against freely taking what's freely given. A world in which nobody is free to receive something they didn't work for, would be a world in which nobody is free to give gifts to other people.

     Furthermore, if you understand anything about markets and the pricing mechanism, free markets are supposed to result in “free stuff” (that is, if they're allowed to work properly). If speculation were eliminated or punished or deterred, and markets were allowed to clear, then everyone could afford what they need. No good whose supply far outweighs the demand for it – like housing – needs to be economized; because it's abundant, not scarce. Nothing matching this description ought to exist on a for-profit market mode.

     Low-price and zero-cost goods can be achieved through eliminating unnecessary government measures, and letting the market work the way it is supposed to. Specifically, through eliminating corporate subsidies and unnecessary sales taxes, reducing the terms of patent protections, and letting technology take its course. And by technology taking its course, I mean allowing automation to develop; thus unleashing mass production to produce goods more cheaply each day, by reducing both production costs and the demand for manual labor.

     Jeremy Rifkin has written a book called The Zero Marginal Cost Society on the topic of technology improving production, and Kevin Carson's article "Who Owns the Benefit?: The Free Market as Full Communism" touches on similar themes. Additionally, numerous other libertarian authors have weighed-in on the stifling effect of intellectual property laws on technological innovation, including Gary Chartier (who has come to many of the same conclusions as Carson and Rifkin) as well as Stephan Kinsella.

     Competition supposedly offers an “incentive” to do better than others, but in reality it only affords the winner special privileges; including, all too often, the privilege of becoming the only game in town: the oxymoronic “only competitor” and “only choice”.

     As long as workers are somehow compensated for the loss in jobs due to automation (which I hope would occur through ownership of their own tools, part ownership in their workplace, and personal 3-D printer ownership) – and as long as cooperation and competition are free, technology and automation are allowed to flourish, and patent law is either nonexistent or not too restrictive – competition to provide better products at lower costs will not result in harm to workers.

     Additionally, the rise of automation may also result in robotic assistants in the home, which could lead to reduced stresses on the body, as well as other health benefits, and savings of health costs, which would come with that. If our wants can be ordered without invading our privacy, and delivered to us by machines that are designed not to be our rivals for any resources we need to survive, then mass production and automatic distribution working together will significantly reduce the need to travel in order to shop, as well as the need to work hard (or at all) in order to acquire one's needs and wants.

     The result, and lesson, of all this, is that - eventually - free markets lead to free stuff.

     Many conservatives, and even right-libertarians, will claim that “socialists don't respect private property”; or that they don't respect individual rights, nor free markets, nor have any concern for big government coming to tax us. But the opposite is actually the case.

     Socialists care more about private property than capitalists do; because socialists believe that people have the right to the full product of their labor. In an odd sense, the propertyless care more about property than the propertied; for the simple reason that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” (or, more appropriately, absenteeism of private property ownership).

     Additionally, socialists – or, at least, libertarian socialists - care more about individual rights than libertarians do, because socialists believe that people are better than to sell themselves into wage-slavery conditions and long employment contracts. If you believe that you “own” “your” body, and that owning that property is important, then why would you believe that it should be permissible, or even possible, to alienate yourself from your property (by selling or renting your body, or the work of your hands, to another)? Isn't it theft to take the earnings of another through labor, for the same reason it is wrong to take another's earnings through enslavement or taxes? Furthermore, what jury, in a free world, would agree to make a contract binding which compels a person to labor for another for decades or more?

     Socialists care more about free markets than capitalists do, because socialists reject the subsidies, bailouts, corporate privileges, and special favors which distort the free market. And socialists care more than libertarians do about the fact that “taxation is theft”, because of all of those protections, privileges, and favors.

     These special favors and privileges include intellectual property protections, legal and financial L.L.C. protections, police protection, utilities discounts, and professional regulations that unfairly put their competitors at an advantage. These favors would not exist without people begging government to use force on their behalf - force against hard-working taxpayers – and moreover, it would be easy to argue that they are not even constitutional in the first place.

     Libertarians, and libertarian socialists alike, rightfully regard the mechanism which pays for those processes as based on theft. Especially considering that working taxpayers are occasionally obligated to buy the products of some of the firms their taxes help keep afloat (through purchase mandates and taxpayer funded subsidies, while those firms enjoy impunity while discriminating against people who have no ability to fully discriminate against them by withdrawing their tax money.

     It is true that drastically lowering taxes - or even eliminating them altogether, by eliminating the state's power to tax and spend – could help solve these problems (and make those subsidies disappear in the first place). However, it is also true that workers are exploited, through surplus profit and wage theft, such that the value taken from the worker by bosses and managers, as well as landlords, is much greater than the value extracted by the government through taxes anyway.

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

Edited and Expanded Between September 4th and 6th, 2018
Edited on December 5th, 2018

Markets and Socialism Can Both Lead to Free Housing

     Many voters, with good cause, doubt politicians' ability to deliver on “free housing”. But in my opinion, that's because many voters are largely unaware of the true purpose of a free-market system.

     Decreasing and limiting the size and scope of government, simplifying the tax code, letting people keep more of their own money, and letting technology do its thing, could all help result in cheaper housing, and in more people getting housed. Making low-cost housing possible through voluntary and free-market means, instead of through the government, could help make people more free, while their rent goes down at the same time.

     Promoting multi-use zoning, for example, could help make it easier for people to work from home, or work closer to home. Land Value Taxation, rooftop reclamation, and building upwards, would all help to make land and housing less expensive, while also reducing urban sprawl, diminishing the influence of speculation on the land and housing markets, and leading to fewer unused parcels and fewer abandoned properties.

     Another thing that would help reduce the cost of housing, is to reduce the cost of land, in hopes that that would decrease the costs of building on land. It would also help to get the government out of all the lands out West that it owns or manages without explicit constitutional authority. There is no reason why progressives and conservatives shouldn't unite against large land and energy monopolies, especially considering that conservatism and environmental conservation have a long history of going hand-in-hand.

     I recommend that the single national Environmental Protection Agency be replaced with Community Land Trusts, and community trusts that protect air, water, and other natural resources (these trusts are one of the potential features of implementing Henry George's Land Value Taxation).

     Right now, we're seeing Donald Trump's E.P.A. make the exact same move that George W. Bush's E.P.A. made in the early 2000s; a move against California's ability to determine its vehicle emissions standards. This is an example of how government control of an industry with the purpose of protecting consumers, can easily cause that industry to become victim to regulatory capture, because the people assume that a good or service will be safe simply because there is an agency that exists which is supposed to regulate it (whether it does so or not).

     I strongly believe that it is better for many federal agencies to be abolished, than to continue existing and risk being used for evil. Don't be ashamed to cite California's 10^th Amendment “states' rights” to legislate on vehicle emissions, something that's not mentioned in the Enumerated Powers, and which is thus none of Congress's business. But back to land and housing.

     Housing is not free; but that's not primarily the fault of markets or voluntary exchange. Certainly it's because of capitalism, an also bad government, but not markets.

     It's because of land and mortgage speculation (which is capitalism, but with government protection). It's also because of bad legislation; such as 1) housing codes that favor flammable building materials (i.e., wood, instead of concrete and rock); 2) restrictions on architectural experimentation (look up Mike Reynolds and “Earth ships”); 3) subsidies to live in flood-prone areas, and loads of additional unnecessary measures that only make housing more expensive and more likely to be damaged.

     The best-case scenario of addressing these problems, is that we could we drastically undermine the financial and lobbying power of the “FIRE economy” (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate industries). Simply put – and speaking of fire - a home that isn't made of flammable materials (i.e., wood) doesn't have much use for fire insurance. Building more buildings out of glass, steel, concrete, and rock – including building into the rock naturally – could help reduce house fires, and drastically reduce the need to purchase fire insurance. And that means savings for struggling families.

     Markets aren't even supposed to exist for things which exist in abundance, like housing. Abundant goods exist in greater supply than is necessary to satisfy people's needs. People assume that land existing in a fixed supply, means that not enough of it exists.

     But of course enough of it exists; we're not falling off the planet, and less than 3% of land area is used for housing. So logically – according to free market principles of supply and demand; namely, that an abundant supply should mean not just low prices, but zero cost – housing should be free, because there's so much of it that it's a free gift from nature.

     But like idiots, we fence it off, evict whoever's on it, exclude everyone from it who refuses to pay us for access to it, sell it off piece by piece, and let governments and large companies own huge amounts of it, and even destroy it with no financial or legal repercussions nor compensation to the community.

You can learn more about mass eviction by looking up the enclosure of the English Commons, also known as the enclosure movement. Mass displacements of Native Americans, such as the Trail of Tears, parallel these mass displacements from land, as do similar events in other countries throughout time.

     This is the macroscopic explanation of why rent is theft; because what's being rented and leased is stolen, conquered property, which was not acquired justly. Whether it was acquired according to the letter of the law should matter much, much less than whether it was acquired without violating anyone's right to be free from other people's violence, aggression, and coercion.

     That is why “rent is theft”. While the Libertarian Party believes that “taxation is theft”, we at the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the LP also believe that “rent is theft”.

     Rent is theft for the same reason that eviction is murder; they're both coercive, exploitative practices which are likely to result in the death and deprivation of the borrower or renter, who for all intents and purposes has been legally and logistically precluded from doing anything to make ends meet other than those methods which have been culturally normalized and authoritatively approved (i.e., selling his labor and renting his living space). Homesteading, foraging, mutual aid, charity, and gift/trade/barter/share combined, do not always supplement what we procure for ourselves through legitimized business and political avenues.

     Additionally, we agree with Proudhon that “property is theft”, and that “property is impossible”.

Basically, this is to say that one can't own a huge chunk of land; at least not without the government's recognition and help and police assistance, because otherwise, people would steal it from them. Call it “stealing”, or “seizing”, or even just “challenging” them for it. A person defending a property claim based purely on defense and conquest, cannot logically refuse someone's offer to fight him for his property, if those are the terms upon which he voluntarily chooses to wager that his property claim is valid.

     “Absentee ownership” is a scourge against which Georgists, Mutualists, anarchists, socialists, and communists all fight; it is the ownership is a property by an owner who rarely makes use of or even visits his claimed property (especially one who does little to no work to maintain or defend the property). The Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the L.P. fully supports the right to squat, as long as the squatters do not make the place unlivable or let it fall into further disrepair. Usufructory (use-based) property rights are not a defense when it is conquered land which is being “used better” or “used more productively”.

     The idea that poor people don't pay taxes is ridiculous, for the simple reason that there are sales taxes in 46 states. There's no reason that a homeless person should have to pay sales taxes on everything he eats.

     There's also no reason why people should need to hire a lobbyist to stop their tax money from going to fund police forces, and license private security guards, and protect the six empty residences that exist for every homeless person in America, and prop-up and bail-out businesses that they want to fully boycott but can't. Socialists and free-marketers both believe in boycott, but for all intents and purposes, boycotts are illegal. Not just because our tax money goes to corporate welfare, but also because secondary boycotts are illegal according to federal law (the Taft-Hartley Act), even though they would have no reason to be illegal in a libertarian society because they are perfectly voluntary.

     Aside from taxes and corporate subsidies, and the impossibility of boycott, the idea that poor people don't pay taxes is also laughable because of the “opportunity costs” that people lose; when they are ordered to obey this or that policy, ordered to submit to this or that authority figure or politician, or ordered to buy this or that product. The lives of soldiers are being paid around the world to finance the destruction we are causing; and the value of those lives lost are impossible to measure. Opportunity costs are an unseen tax, and so is inflation, which Ron Paul called a tax on saving money.

     Human beings can't help but take up space and area on the planet. Each of us has the natural right to homestead property to make it livable, and bequeath it to our children, and any government that deprives us of that right should at least compensate us.

     Conservative hero Thomas Paine proposed that each adult be paid a fixed sum of thousands per year; as a share in the land value, and as compensation for those deprivations of rights to freely homestead, inherit, and bequeath. However, some of Paine's own modern-day conservative admirers might call him a Universal Basic Income Guarantee -supporting “socialist” for espousing such a position. The same with John Locke, who said people have to leave enough land for others, so they have a place to live.

     Some say that the poor don't deserve a basic income, nor a citizens' dividend, nor even any food or jobs guarantee. No free identification documents either. Many of them say that the poor shouldn't receive any government services, unless they pay for them, i.e., through user fees. This is predicated upon the idea that only property owners should vote, and that therefore poor people who have no property should not vote, nor receive government services. However, to say this is to admit that even if homeless people have a few possessions, they have no property. Which is to say that there is a distinction; a distinction which anarcho-capitalists insist is not useful, so therefore they do not make it.

     Socialists do not “hate” private property, and they do not want to “steal your toothbrush”. Anyone who is trying to convince you that socialists want your toothbrush because it's private property, does not know what socialists mean when they say private property.

     A personal possession is any ordinary, small, cheap, mass-produced, easily movable thing; anything that isn't an important, rare tool, or something is not essential to the labor process, or wouldn't make sense to be cooperatively managed by a large group of workers, or something that people don't actually need in order to survive or earn a living. The latter are examples of private property.

     “Private property” (as people like Marx and Proudhon used it) does not include personal possessions; only private property in the means of production, like factories and plants, large machine parts, farms, and land. It includes things that are loaned out at interest; and the laborer's wage is taken as profit (and the laborer underpaid) as a form of “rent” on the means of production which the worker is borrowing for eight hours a day in order to avoid starvation. Which he does by paying an additional rent to a landlord who holds a title granted by government, which right-libertarians are foolish enough to fail to describe as anything but another ordinary law.

     Sucks to the law.

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 20th, 2018

Originally Published on August 20th, 2018