Instead of Fighting, Libertarians and Communists Should Be Working Together

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Misconceptions
     I. Markets and Monopolies

     II. The State and Centralism

     III. Economics

     IV. Politics
     V. Environment and Borders

     VI. Self-Regulation of Firms

3. Conclusion

Content

1. Introduction

     Why are libertarians and communists fighting each other instead of working together?

     Karl Marx said that "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". These are not words which you might expect would come out of the mouth of a communist. The quote seems to imply that the collective has a duty to satisfy the individual's needs, and perhaps even his wants. But Marx did say it (in Chapter 2 of The Communist Manifesto).
     It's easy to imagine why individualist anarchist Max Stirner might have agreed with this sentiment. After all, Stirner said "If it is said socialistically, society gives me what I require - then the egoist says, I take what I require."
     Despite Stirner's association with the mostly left-wing Young Hegelians, he has become somewhat of a hero to anarcho-capitalists (possibly owing somewhat to his financially disastrous ownership of a milk shop).
     Marx's pro-individualist statement, and Stirner's popularity among right-libertarians, should cause us to wonder whether libertarians and communists can get along after all, and whether their relationship can be salvaged, and their differences resolved.
     I believe that they can. But first, students of these schools of thought must continue their education, increase their level of discourse with rival schools, and resolve and clarify long-standing misconceptions about the supposed irreconcilability of libertarian and communist thinking on economic and political matters.

2. Misconceptions

     Among those misconceptions are the following.

I. Markets and Monopolies

     Communists shouldn't worry about truly free markets.

     Free markets don't have to result in super-profits or monopolies. The rewards of competition are only permanent when there is a monopoly on the recognition of legitimate property claims (i.e., a state). When the state registers property claims, it promises the legitimate use of force against people who contest other people's property claims. Otherwise, the rewards for competition are permanent and markets are free, all resources would be capable of being competed for, and contested.

     Unnatural monopolies cannot be sustained without willingness to use violence. Without the use of the state as a violent tool of repression, the private sector would have to protect itself, and work to support itself and maintain its own properties. Instead, the private sector colludes with the state to subtly deprive and impoverish people into being "willing" to perform that labor for reduced wages.

     But this "will" is not truly voluntary; it is acceding and begrudging acceptance, when enthusiastic consent should be the standard. Make no mistake, libertarians: wage-theft and wage-slavery are real, and the augmentation of the economic pressure felt by the poor is undeniably coercive - and therefore in violation of the Non-Aggression Principle - because it is being done with the help of the state.

     But not all private-sector entities reap profits. The non-profit sector, and workers' cooperatives, do not reap profits, are largely outside the realms of both the public state sector and the for-profit private sector. Non-profits and workers' cooperatives are thus "private" in the sense that they are not state actors, but they could also be described as not private, but only to the extent that "private" implies being in business for profit (which it does not necessarily imply).



II. The State and Centralism

     Lenin clarified in The State and Revolution that Engels was more consistent than Marx about wanting community control rather than state control. Marxists do oppose the state, at least as we now know it (i.e., the bourgeois-controlled ultra-nationalist state). The "state" which the Marxists and Leninists support - and want to replace the current state, and then gradually wither away after revolution - is arguably not a state at all, since it would be comprised of the masses of people acting in voluntary cooperation with one another. This "proletarian state" - a state of affairs in which the people have the power and proliferate freely without fear that their children will become slaves - could hardly be described as either a state, or as any sort of monopoly.

     So communists and libertarians both oppose the state, and centralization, and fascism. Moreover, Lenin also let people trade in markets temporarily during economic crises (i.e., Lenin's New Economic Policy of 1922). Libertarians and communists both support decentralization, as well as geographical political autonomy. The voluntary building of intentional communities, and their secession from larger units of government, therefore furthers both libertarian and communist goals.

III. Economics

     Redistribution doesn't have to be done by the state, and it doesn't have to harm workers or the poor. Redistribution can and should be done through the community, whether it expresses itself as a public sector entity or market entity. But only the ill-gotten wealth of government contractors and artificial monopolies - and what has been legally or illegally stolen from the public or the commons - should be redistributed back to the people.

     Both the communist and libertarian schools of thought are equally tolerant of libertarian Marxism, Murray Bookchin's libertarian communalism, Georgism, geo-libertarianism, Mutualism, voluntary syndicalism, physiocracy, left-wing market-anarchism, platformist anarchism, free-market anti-capitalism, and post-scarcity economics. The Alliance of the Libertarian Left, must take shape, but also heed criticism coming from the libertarian right; while the right heeds the criticism of the Left.

IV. Politics

     Austrian economics and Austromarxism should be taught side by side, because total freedom of choice includes political and economic freedom. Also, market-anarchists like Molinari and Marxist Otto Bauer both promoted panarchism, the freedom to choose your political association without changing your location.

     Libertarians and far-leftists should talk about how the Constitution can be amended. If that doesn't happen, then leftists will scream demands to vote away everyone's right to have guns and private health insurance, without caring whether it's even legal to "force the vote" on a given topic in the first place. Until leftists receive constitutional education from the libertarian right, permanent national reform on health, retirement, education, environment, land management, housing, and energy will be all but impossible.

V. Environment and Borders

     Once libertarians and communists educate one another, they should support the abolition of states and the U.S. Senate, and their replacement with bioregionalist states (such as Cascadia). This will reduce competition over water resources and water regulation, and reduce the need for (and expense involved in maintaining) artificial borders.

     This will in turn reduce interruptions in the flow of commerce, making goods less expensive. A Georgist or Mutualist economy will also drastically reduce taxes on income and sales, decreasing prices even further. Automation, overproduction, and cessation of government hoarding of land and resources, will accelerate this process. Carl Menger’s writing on how abundance results in low prices, makes him essential reading for both left-libertarians and students of Austrian economics.

VI. Self-Regulation of Firms

     “Free market” does not have to mean “not regulated at all”. Consumers are not being allowed to do their part to help keep the markets free, because consumers are not fully free to boycott without government permission.
     Markets regulated through consumers' freedom to refuse to buy a product, would regulate monopolies out of existence, especially in the absence of a state. We currently don't have the freedom to refuse to buy some products, though (namely, identification, and everything that the government bails out and subsidizes, like health insurance).
     This means that our right to boycott is being inhibited unfairly, through the threat of violent enforcement of the law (i.e., of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947), and through the process of taxation and subsidization (i.e., extorting working people for money, and handing their income over to companies they might wish to withhold their money from).
     This must end; Taft-Hartley must be repealed, and subsidies to all for-profit agencies (and possibly some non-profit agencies as well) should cease as soon as possible.
     Self-regulation exists as well; for example, in the form of voluntary recalls.

     The libertarians want society and the economy to be self-regulated, and they want firms to be self-regulating too, if possible. Is that so absurd, communists? When you believe workers' cooperatives can manage themselves just the same?

     Socializing workplaces without the help of the state, and organizing large numbers of individuals to unionize together into a union of private contractors - while demanding the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, and insisting on the irrelevance of the National Labor Relations Board in permitting or denying strikes - would drastically increase union participation, and recognize the right to boycott again, but without empowering the state. Additionally, it would achieve mass ownership of the means of production which would be held by collectives and cooperatives, while at the same time, that ownership could also be described as "private" (in the sense that those means would not be state-owned).




3. Conclusion

     Without the state, markets would be free from monopolies, and the commons would not be eroded by the public sector inviting-in statism, monopoly, and hoarding of natural resources by "public" politicians and bureaucrats secretly serving private interests which are a mix of their own and their cronies and beneficiaries. Less state interference in society, the market, and the environment will result in a clearer separation of the public and private sectors, and in the growth of additional sectors of which most people are scarcely aware (i.e., the commons, the club sector, and the voluntary / charity / third sector).

     While the Georgists say "Tax land, not man" and "Tax bads, not goods", Lenin's advice is to regulate goods but not people. Although this may seem like the opposite of Georgism, it at least fulfills the libertarians' desire that society go unregulated by external means. And despite these little differences, at least now, we can all agree that something must be taxed and regulated less, but that the centralized state shouldn't do it. We just can't exactly agree on which things should be taxed and regulated less.

     Once society and economic production become uncontrolled by violent state monopolies, "external political governance" (as Lenin put it) will become unnecessary.

     This "withering away of the state" should be our long-term goal, after an era of political upheaval which can either be described as revolutionary, or at least drastic and radical in its degree of reform. Such reform must wholly abolish the monopolistic, territorial, and violent nature of the governing bodies, however, in order to be said to have truly achieved the abolition of the state (inasmuch as it is a local monopoly on the legitimate use of force).

     Disarming and demilitarizing the police (or at least empowering the people to defend themselves and police their own communities in some manner) - in addition to decentralizing political organization, ending unnatural and artificial borders, and ending or reforming illegitimate state governments - will do wonders to start us on the path of abolishing the most egregious abuses which are characteristic of the modern bourgeois nation-state.

     But all of this is only possible - according to the beliefs of both libertarians and communists - once the people become educated enough to regulate themselves and make wiser decisions. We need political, economic, social, and productive technical education. Free development of the individual and the community - and the free development and exchange of libertarian and communist thought - are impossible without them.

Written on April 27th, 2021

Originally posted to the Facebook group
"Communists vs. Libertarians Debate Group"
on April 27th, 2021

Edited and Expanded on April 28th and 30th, 2021

Solidarity Between Libertarians and Socialists: Achieving Freedom and Equality Through Bottom Unity

     We can distribute resources equitably, without resorting to hierarchy or violence, as long as people know how much they're entitled to, as a share of the Earth's resources.
     Each one of us is entitled to our share of Earth's resources - as a fraction of the human population - as property; plus whatever we can produce, through using and developing that share, plus our use and development of our own talent, skills, and intellects.


     In order to distribute resources equitably, and to understand "whose is what", we need to stop thinking in terms of "private or public" and realize that there are more sectors of the economy, and more types of property ownership, than just these two categories.
     Club goods are being neglected. So is the voluntary third sector, the sector of charity and social purpose enterprises. So is the commons; which comprises nearly the entire category of the factor of production which we call "land" (the others being labor and capital).
     Private-public partnerships exist as well, as do N.G.O.s (non-governmental organizations), and Q.U.A.N.G.O.s (quasi-nongovernmental organizations).
     We must expand our knowledge about rivalry and excludability of resources, economic sectors, types of ownership, and forms of mixed economies and economic systems aside from capitalism and socialism, if we want to achieve anything resembling economic mobility in the future.

     The United Kingdom has depoliticized its environmental affairs through having quasi-non-governmental agencies decide on environmental regulation instead of voting. It has also depoliticized other scientific, financial, and juridical duties.
     As long as depoliticization can be done without succumbing to the evils of privatization, we can have science-based policies that establish health and safety standards which cannot be voted away. These policies should be added to the Constitution via amendments, so that they can be permanent rather than temporary, and cannot be tampered with without the overwhelming agreement of the supermajority.

     I support depoliticization of land and environment and resource related issues - basically having panels of scientists determine scientific and environmental policy through consensus-building - and bioregionalism, as ways to achieve more balanced distribution of natural resources.

     Private property does not exist at the mercy of the community; nor should the community be viewed as merely a private club made up of, and serving only, those who own property. Instead, the community and private owners recognize one another's legitimacy when they come to mutually beneficial agreements about whose is what.

     As such, anything that is unfairly monopolized, or owned and leveraged to the detriment of the community, should be occupied by the people who can rightfully claim that they are harmed by the continued ownership of any firms which may be unfairly exploiting labor, land, and natural resources. This occupation should always be done through the use of non-violent resistance.

     The notion that the Earth is common to all men, and can be shared equitably, can be realized and revived, as long as the spirit of giving and sharing does not die in the hearts of private owners.

     World land area divided by human population comes out to 4.8 acres per person. Which means that a four-person family can own 19.2 acres. But room must be left over for animals and plants, and future human population (which will increase, so the number of acres per person will decrease accordingly).
     This 4.8 acre per person rule tells us that any one person with 20 acres should allow at least three people to live on his property. Until then, he should either have a family, give up some of his land, let people forage and glean on his property, or compensate the community for monopolizing more resources than he needs.

     Libertarianism and socialism - or private property and community, or production and environmentalism - are not antithetical to one another. Furthermore, the mere fact that people associate with one another, does not make them "socialists".

     Libertarian socialists - and non-socialistic libertarians, too - want the same thing. We all want voluntary association and voluntary cooperation. We want cooperation to occur solely on totally voluntary terms. And those terms must be mutually beneficial to all parties involved.

     This is why Mutualist economics will guide libertarians and socialists to the right economic ethics. Mutualist economics do not reject private property, nor do they reject markets. But Mutualists still realize that not all property which exists, and is claimed, was rightfully earned. When a market is rigged, Mutualists will criticize this fact, and note that freedom and fairness of markets (and money) lie in their transparency and accessibility.

     Libertarian free-marketers and libertarian socialists have a reason to work together, because of people like Barry Goldwater and his speechwriter Karl Hess, who agreed that voluntarism is the prerequisite for cooperation. They agreed that no barriers should be raised against the freedom not to associate (libertarianism), and also that no barriers should be raised against the freedom to associate (voluntary cooperation / voluntary "socialism").

     We must oppose redistribution by the state, but that does not mean we must oppose all activity by all cooperatives and communes and collectives. The individual and collective drive for self-improvement results in a distribution, but not a redistribution. The economic system of distributism calls for everyone to be capitalists; this is what libertarians must want, for everyone to share in the American dream of owning property outright, and being wealthy enough to create jobs, if they wish to do so.

     Autonomous communes maximize decentralization, which brings governance closer to the individual. Collective enterprises reduce risk and reinvest profits, thus reducing the need for taxation, making it easier for the collective enterprise to self-govern. There is no reason why collectivists and libertarians should be arguing about the ability of an enterprise to govern itself; some forms of communism are based on the idea that a collective can be partially self-governing (as long as it coordinates with other collectives). If this coordination is done voluntarily, and markets are not prohibited, then markets and communism would exist side by side with little conflict.

     Through decentralizing property, and decentralizing governance, we can maximize productivity, and minimize the punishments and fees and fines which are levied in exchange for the privilege to produce.

     For libertarians to oppose redistribution, means that we oppose the legalized theft from the taxpayers, to give to either the wealthy or the poor. But at the same time, we must consider that much more taxpayer money has been wasted propping-up the military and large corporations, in comparison to how much has been spent on lifting the poor out of poverty.

     That is why the Libertarian Party must agree with Rand Paul that not a dime should be cut from the social safety net until all corporate welfare is eliminated. Or else the party must doom itself to being labeled "to the right of the Republican Party".

     We must not pretend that the poor don't share an inordinate burden of the sales taxes. The poor bear an inordinate burden of taxes overall, due to their sales tax burden.

     Opposing redistribution also means that we cannot allow companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, to keep the wealth they extracted from the pockets of the poor with the state's help.

     These companies are monopolies, they receive taxpayer subsidies and tons of favors, and the fact that they receive taxpayer money is not constitutional. Wealthy companies "redistribute" wealth upwards, away from the poor. But the fact that it is redistribution, should not lead us to believe that this "socialism for the rich" resembles actual socialism in any way. If the state is performing the redistribution, rather than society, then it is statism, not socialism.

     The point being: If not for public charters, these monopolistic companies would not even formally exist, as far as the government (a private corporation, for financial purposes) is concerned. Americans could easily do away with the problem of military-industrial complex monopolies by prohibiting the Department of Defense from making a contract with any military components producing firm which wields more than 5% of the market share. That would not be a limitation on the market, but rather a limitation upon our monopolistic, violent, corrupt government.

     Communities have every right to require companies to perform some stated, transparent social purpose - or else a fee, or allowing the community to hold stock in the company, setting up mutual funds in the company, or something - in exchange for the public assistance and property protection they receive. This is not communism; it is a user fee based system.

     That's why Land Value Taxation, bolstered by user fees and voluntary contributions, are the way to go. No more tinkering around with income, consumption, or sales taxes. Eliminate investment taxes as soon as the stock markets are no longer rigged.

     The conditions necessary for total equality and total liberty are the same. We must either embrace the law and achieve equal protection under the law, or else we must become so totally free that we are equal in that freedom. The equality of opportunity must be so great that we no longer argue over how to distribute resources because each individual person's productive potential would be so great.

     We must put aside our differences, and oppose fascism, centralization, and monopoly. We will not fight each other after they are defeated; but rather we will build our own communities as we please, whether together or separately, but always in peace.

     Bottom Unity now.

Written as two Facebook posts on February 22nd, 2021

Edited and Expanded on February 22nd, 2021

Published on February 22nd, 2021

Political Spectrum Illustrating Which Economic Systems Are on the Left, the Right, or in the Center

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please visit the following link:

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Created on September 8th, 2020

Published on September 8th, 2020

Message to Progressives and Environmentalists in Lake County, Illinois Regarding My Campaign

     What follows are excerpts from posts which I made to the Facebook Groups “Lake County IL Environmentalists”, “Clean Air Lake County Community Support”, “Northern Illinois Progressive Candidates, Electeds, and Activists”, and “Illinois Against the TPP” on August 29th, 2020.

     Hi everyone. I'm running as a write-in candidate for U.S. Representative from Illinois's 10th district (the northeast corner of the state).

     I support peace, a fair and free economy, taxing destruction and waste instead of harmless productive activity, and balancing budgets through reducing unnecessary military expenditures not necessary to our defense.

     I also support promoting local solutions to environmental problems, to guard against the risk that the E.P.A. could continue to be put up for sale to corporate and pro-pollution interests.

     Furthermore, fixing our economy will make it easier to decrease our national debt. I also support amending the 13th Amendment to get rid of as many forms of involuntary servitude (i.e., slavery) as possible, both within the criminal justice system and outside of it.

     I want to reform taxes so that they focus on environmental issues. I will promote Land Value Taxation, one of the two revenue sourcing systems which Howie Hawkins has proposed for funding the Green New Deal. The other revenue sourcing system, the Negative Income Tax, is also a step in the right direction as far as improving income taxes goes, but I'd eventually like to eliminate all taxes on earned income (unearned income is a different issue though).

     With Land Value Taxation, local governments would be urged to increase natural resource extraction fees, and increase taxes on land degradation and blight (as well as vacant land, abandoned properties, land hoarding), while reducing taxes on income, sales, consumption, and building value).

     Additionally, I support Community Land Trusts (C.L.T.s) as well as community air trusts and community water trusts. C.L.T.s should be created, in each county in America, as voluntary associations which are non-profit and untaxed. They would be untaxed because they would be the entities doing the taxing of land; charging land occupancy fees and land degradation fees. C.L.T.s would help align each community's economic future with its future need for ecological sustainability. 

     I believe in dual federalism, triple federalism, and subsidiarism: the most local authority possible, should handle environmental issues, as long as that authority is competent enough to handle the issue. Not all environmental problems are nationwide issues; some of them are local. Furthermore, no county would willingly allow itself to be polluted. That is why we must ensure that the federal government never has the right to determine which areas may be polluted, or have nuclear materials stored, without that community's consent, and without proper compensation for the adverse health effects. Federal environmental standards can help, but having environmental standards is not SO important, that such standards should OVERRIDE local and state environmental regulations, if those regulations can be better than the nationwide standard. That is why localities must be free to set higher environmental standards than the national standard.

     For each community to have a C.L.T. (a non-profit, untaxed voluntary association which help guard against the risk of the E.P.A. continuing to be bought and sold by pro-pollution interests. I would align myself with environmental conservationists, and also the decentralists within the Green Party, but I would also promote C.L.T.s as a quasi-"private", somewhat property-rights-oriented solution to environmental problems (because they would be non-profit and untaxed, and therefore unaffiliated with the state and federal governments).

     I also support bioregionalism, the idea behind the Cascadia independence project. I believe that bioregionalism will help prevent unnecessary federal intrusion into local environmental problems, and restore local rights without allowing states to use states' rights as a justification to dismantle environmental protections.

     If I am elected to Congress, I will spread awareness of Land Value Taxation, Community Land Trusts, and bioregionalism on a national level. This will help the current generation of environmental law students, and other voters, get a free education about these little-known ideas, and start a conversation about what needs to become an important topic in American political discourse: ENVIRONMENTAL TAXATION.

     These ideas are important because they could reduce unemployment, reduce waste of land, decrease economic inequality, and reduce environmental degradation, all at the same time.

     I want to help create a free and fair economy by building a Mutualist Party, while offering new and unique alternatives to traditional neo-liberal policies like those of my opponent Brad Schneider, like re-orienting taxation to focus on environmental issues (such as the need to tax blight and land degradation).

     On trade issues, I support "alter-globalization", in which we would have 1) localized social safety nets, alongside 2) open and fair trade, not unregulated free trade, and 3) free movement of people. We would also have 4) cultural and economic globalization, but not global government; and 5 & 6) the consumer would have the right to fully boycott (and unionize) and refuse to purchase all products (repeal Taft-Hartley).

      Please consider writing-me in against Democrat Brad Schneider and Republican Valerie Ramirez-Mukherjee. Read sections 13 and 14 of my platform to learn more about my views on the environment and Land Value Taxation (which is also part of my plan to balance budgets, lower prices on goods, and increase the purchasing power of the dollar).

     Read my platform at the link below: http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/expanded-platform-for-us-house-of.html

     See this link to learn more: http://www.facebook.com/groups/586988188625917/

Written as separate posts on August 29th, 2020

Edited together and published on August 31st, 2020

Response to the Green Party Youth Caucus's Candidate Survey

Q1: Name?

A1: Joseph W. Kopsick.







Q2: Email?

A2: jwkopsick@gmail.com





Q3: Phone?

A3: 608-417-9395

Q4: Position Sought?

A4: U.S. Representative (10^th District).

Q5: State?

A5: Illinois.






Q6: Are you running as a Green? If not, why not?

A6: No, I'm running as a write-in candidate, and trying to form a Mutualist Party in Illinois. The Green Party declined to nominate me by one vote.






Q7: Have you sought and have you been endorsed by your local party and your state party? If not, why not?

A7: I tried to get nominated by the Green Party but approval failed by one vote. I tried to get nominated by the Libertarian Party before that, and David Rych was nominated instead. I was the only person whom the state Libertarian Party ran somebody against, although I was told that it was in error and I would have been nominated if I had contacted the right person in time. But the way I lost the nomination at the state convention makes me doubt that; electronic voting failed, and then in the paper ballot round I was handed a ballot filled out with the name of my opponent instead of a blank ballot. Ideologically I am right between the Libertarian and Green parties, so I probably failed both parties' tests because I am not strongly aligned enough with one party or the other. But I believe that candidates in the middle will get more votes, while still promoting a large number of Green Party interests, because I believe that the radical middle is closer to where the average undecided and independent voter is. I want radical, swift change, but I also want lasting, constitutional reform, so I tend to mention the Constitution and the need for balanced budgets more than the average Green seems to appreciate. But the need to protect the environment, anti-war issues, and small parties' need for election reform, are progressive values that will always be important to me.





Q8: What other groups have endorsed your campaign?

A8: None so far, although I am in contact with Black Lives Matter, Stepping Stones (a sexual abuse recovery organization), and the local Green and Libertarian party chapters, concerning legislative matters related to issues they care about. My campaign manager and I are working on reaching out to more groups, including on social media.





Q9: How does your campaign help build the Green Party?

A9: Growing the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and the number of independents in elected office are major goals of mine. I like to remind Libertarians that the party's co-founder David Nolan was a "Geo-Libertarian". This means that in terms of economics and tax policy, Nolan believed that Land Value Taxation is the most efficient, and least harmful, form of taxation. Milton Friedman praised L.V.T. as well. This means that Greens and Libertarians are much more compatible on environmental and tax issues than they think they are. I will promote things Greens and Libertarians agree on: decentralization, anti-war issues, civil liberties and police brutality reforms, and re-orienting tax policies across the nation in a manner which focuses on preserving the environment and the quality of land. I will advocate replacing all or most current forms of taxation - except for mineral resource exploration fees - with a tax on the unimproved value of land, and on the disuse and abuse of land in a way which makes it unusable by other potential human owners and by native species.





Q10: How does your campaign help empower youth?

A10: One of my top three issues is protecting children, together with reforming education. My proposed constitutional amendment, SKA (the Safe Kids Amendment), would reform education and child trafficking laws in a manner which protects children from kidnapping while also providing them with the skills and education they need to have middle class careers. I support bringing wood and auto shops, and other trade skills courses, back to high schools, but only for upperclassmen, and only with waiver systems, and on campuses separate from freshmen and sophomores. Additionally, as part of SKA, all states should be prohibited from allowing people under 17 to get married. I will also push for a full congressional investigation into the crimes of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein.









Q11: How do you foresee your campaign advancing liberation for frontline communities?

[Author's Note: “Frontline communities” refers to communities on the front line of potential ocean level rise due to sea ice melting which results from less and less ice melting each year due to harsher summers between those melting seasons.]


A11: Tax policy should be re-oriented so as to focus on using punitive taxation to disincentivize the degradation of land, water, and air. Sourcing all of government's taxes from the misuse and abuse of land, will help prevent environmental degradation, while improving our economy. It will help production occur with the minimum amount of pollution necessary, and for each community to set up Community Land Trusts would help ensure that no pollution and mineral extraction occur without fully compensating the community (through paying taxes and compensating the community's health costs). Refocusing a huge portion of our political economy on environmental issues and land use, will help ensure that the land is responsibly developed, without either sacrificing the environment, or sacrificing too many jobs too quickly. I additionally support a tax on land hoarding, and I support ending all subsidies to all forms of energy, to end the rigging of the energy markets.





Q12: How do your foresee you campaign advancing anticapitalism and ecosocialism?

A12: If the question is "How do you foresee your campaign advancing ecosocialism?", then my answer is that I hope to promote Georgist (land-oriented), Mutualist, and socialist values and policy proposals, by discouraging the collection of rent, interest, and profit, but without prohibiting them. I will make it clear that these things are symptoms of the problems of monopoly; government grants the monopoly right to collect rent, interest, and/or profit to a given bank or business or certified lender. This rigs the economy; therefore rent, interest, and profit should decrease. They will only go away completely, when monopolies are broken up and defunded. I support removing all taxpayer supports of monopolies and oligopolies, to give socialists (and people wishing to build voluntary communes) the opportunity to participate in the economy with everybody else.





Q13: How many doors do you think your campaign can knock on? How many calls can it make?

A13: My campaign currently has only a small number of volunteers, but we are in the process of finding more volunteers. We will be spreading awareness about mail-in voting, as well as the push to make mail-in voting more difficult.



Q14: What kind of events and community involvement will your campaign have?

A14: My campaign will attempt to hold meet-and-greets, including candidate question-and-answer sessions, at local libraries, and possibly private events. We have held one meet-and-greet so far; in March in Lake Bluff.





Q15: How much money does your campaign anticipate fundraising? And how?

A15: We are not actively fundraising. My campaign manager has donated some gifts to the campaign, in the form of paying for campaign literature and signs and advertisements to be printed. But I want to set a good example for other congressional campaigns, by not accepting corporate contributions, and having my campaign be funded (thus far) by myself and my campaign manager. I hope that other candidates follow my example, and I hope that this helps get money out of politics.



Q16: What other groups will you seek support from?

A16: I will seek support from any and all parties, clubs, interest groups, and organizations that support civil liberties, peace, environmental justice, racial justice, equal protection of minorities, individual rights, increased ballot access for third parties and independents, decentralization of powers not specifically delegated to the federal government, and serious fiscal reform.






Q17: What parts of the district do you think you are strongest in and why?

A17: I'm not sure. Due to my message of promoting economic reforms that would make the markets more free and more fair, I suspect that I will do the best in areas with large numbers of young people, low-income voters, and people who do not identify strongly with either the Democratic Party or Republican Party. I also believe that making environmental issues a top priority will help appeal to people across my district, because many people in Lake County live near places where industrial pollution has recently taken place.





Q18: What forms of support would you ideally like from the Youth Caucus?

A18: I would like your endorsement, but what really matters to me are the individual write-in votes on Election Day (as well as your members' trust in me as an independent citizen-legislator). And if your members and supporters could share links about my campaign, I would appreciate it.






Q19: What is your current online and social media presence?

A19: I am active on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other sites.





Q20: Website?

A20: www.joekopsick.com (under construction).




Q21: Facebook?

A21:
- Personal: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012735515034
- Campaign Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/586988188625917/
- Mutualist Party of IL page: http://www.facebook.com/MutualistPartyIL/?modal=admin_todo_tour





Q22: Twitter?

A22: http://twitter.com/JoeKopsick





Q23: Other?

A23:
- My blog: www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/

- My platform: http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/expanded-platform-for-us-house-of.html
- YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/JoeKopsick4Congress





Q24: What is your media plan for your campaign?

A24: I believe that it will not be necessary to attempt to garner media coverage during the second half of August, because I suspect that the fact that I have made it into the League of Women Voters' debates throughout the month of September, will gain me some media coverage, without any effort on my own behalf. But I am interested in reaching out to independent media, freelance journalists, and reporters who are used to covering independent and third party runs.

Responses Written and Published on August 17th, 2020

Why Mutualism?: Building a Party on Freedom and Fairness (Announcing the Foundation of a Mutualist Party)

Graphic created for use by the Mutualist Party of Illinois

Designed by Joe Kopsick

     The Mutualist Party of Illinois was founded in June 2020 by Joseph W. Kopsick, as part of his independent campaign for the United States House of Representatives from Illinois’s 10th congressional district.

     Upon the occasion of the foundation of the party, its founder Mr. Kopsick - also the party's first candidate - had the following to say:

     “American states need mutualist parties because the sharper and deeper the left-vs.-right divide grows, the more there will develop a need to resolve the differences between - and moderate the extremes of - the far-left and far-right.

     Without a party throwing itself between the others, to protect the many factions of American voters from one another, the wealth gap will deepen, and the effects on our society will be profoundly tribalizing and isolating.

     We need a political philosophy based on mutual respect, to govern Illinois and to govern America. Most importantly, respect for each other’s human rights, and for alternative political and economic viewpoints. We must build a political party that values freedom and fairness equally, and sees human rights and natural liberties as one and the same. If we build that party, it will be in a unique position to resolve the social and economic conflicts of the day, and of the future. 

     Americans know all too well why we need a new party; the Democrats and Republicans are no longer trustworthy. But what good will it do to choose a new party, if it represents a biased form of government? After all, handing all control over to either working people in a socialist system, or to property owners in a capitalist system, could present its own biases and prejudices. So why not choose a party that’s fundamentally based on virtues like fairness, equality, compromise, and moderation?

     It’s not that the other political parties don’t have anything valuable to contribute; they do. It’s just that the Green Party, and socialist and communist parties, represent explicitly left-wing economic standpoints; while the Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, the Conservative Party of Illinois, and others, represent explicitly capitalist or right-wing standpoints. Well, not every American is a student of economics! Not every voter knows whether they are economically left-wing or right-wing! So give them a party that is acutely aware of the growing left-vs.-right divide, and aims to do something about it.

     Mutualism has implications in politics, ethics, money and credit, society, and even biology.

     Through direct action and mutual aid - simply put, “helping each other” - we can act directly to solve social and economic problems, without asking the state for permission, or turning the solution to the problem into a hyper-regulated, government-licensed job.

     Most Americans are still unfamiliar with what the Libertarian Party and the libertarian movement want, but many know that they want everything to be voluntary. The libertarians support voluntary exchange, and so does the Mutualist Party. We just want to remind libertarians that exchanges must be not only voluntary, but also mutually beneficial. That is, everyone who is involved must benefit, even third party actors who aren’t aware that they’re affected by a decision.

     The Mutualist Party supports all mutually beneficial voluntary exchanges and transactions in which no third party is harmed. We want to make it known that no person should be expected to sacrifice in any economic or social situation. A person should only sacrifice if they truly and genuinely want to do it, and understand that they may not “sacrifice others” without their permission; someone who sacrifices must take the responsibility and consequences wholly upon oneself. Also, no person may “volunteer others”; that is not true volunteering.

     In addition to mutual aid and mutual exchange, mutual protection and defense must occur. This really just means “protecting and defending each other”. The purpose of the military sector of the government is to provide an avenue through which the government and the people may pledge mutual loyalty to one another. If the police protect the residents, then the residents will want to become citizens, and they will want to become police officers and volunteer for the military. The public trust has been shattered, especially over the last two decades, and it needs to be revived.

The Mutualist Party will be the party to revive the public trust by bringing reciprocity and trust back to the relationship between the people, our political institutions, and those who administer the law. The Mutualist Party will end the legitimization of violent force by this police state, and it will do that by taking the force out of enforcement.

     We will ensure that all police responses to reports and accusations of non-violent crimes, are met with a non-violent administration of law and a de-escalation of force, not a ramping-up of force and escalation of violence in the name of establishing public order. That is not order; that is violence, and the purpose of government is to avoid violence, not use it to solve all of society’s problems.

     Government cannot be a “civilizing force” in people’s lives, by legitimizing violence. We must respect the right of the accused, not to be subjected to violence, unless they are proven guilty of a violent crime with absolute certainty.

     A society in which each person respects the other person’s right to agree to alternative political, social, and economic arrangements, will be a voluntary society with mutual respect for each other’s freedom to live differently (unless and until those freedoms start to interfere with other people’s freedom).

     The Mutualist Party of Illinois wishes to promote the study of Mutualist economics, occupancy and use norms (“O&U norms”, for short), Proviso-Lockeanism, and the works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Josiah Warren, as well as the similar fields of Georgism and market socialism, and the hybrid Geo-Mutualist school of economics. We want Mutualist and Georgist economics to be taught in schools, as alternatives alongside socialism and capitalism.

     Mutualists want the prices of goods to be no higher than the cost of the labor and capital it took to produce them; this is called the “cost principle”. We want free competition and free cooperation at the same time; we want total freedom of opportunity to compete against anyone, even monopolists and the government.

We want to recognize people’s right to keep whatever they produce on top of the land, without having to pay taxes or rent. In a mutualist economy, monopolies, wage theft, housing fraud, predatory lending, excessive taxation and unnecessary fees, congressional insider trading, and fractional-reserve banking (usury) will become things of the past.

     No longer will the public be expected to foot the tax bill to protect the property and wealth of corrupt companies, environmentally harmful resource extraction operations, or unfinished construction projects which serve no purpose to the public.

It will be easier to start a family business, but it will also be easier to start a cooperative enterprise. It will be easier to form a union and strike and boycott, but it will also be easier to become an independent contractor. It will be easier to file a patent, but the patent won’t last so long that people are unable to afford the product, or legally use alternatives to it. It will be easier to produce consumer goods (as long as you do it in a healthy environment), but we will know much more about the products we consume.

     There’s something in Mutualism for everyone! All it takes is getting workers and consumers to talk to each other directly, so they can make decisions that benefit us all.

     The Mutualist Party of Illinois will be the party of free land, free credit, free competition, and free cooperation. We want free and open markets, moderated with the fairness provided through equal protection under the law.

     Mutualists believe that freedom and fairness don’t have to be balanced; society becomes totally free only when each of us treats others fairly, and it becomes totally fair when each and every one of us is afforded freedom over our own affairs.

If those who have no property, also have no realistic way to ever fully own property, then the American dream is no more. If those who have done wrong and served their time, have no chance of ever having meaningful participation in our civic institutions, then the phrase “justice for all” (in the Pledge of Allegiance) means nothing.

     The Mutualist Party will restore the American dream, public trust in government, and worker and consumer faith in our economy.

     Join my campaign for the U.S. House, and this effort to establish a Mutualist Party in the State of Illinois. Together, we can build a unique, grassroots movement that doesn’t fall prey to the biases of so-called “normal politics” where all parties are in it for themselves.

     The Mutualist Party is in it for the people of Illinois. The Mutualist Party is in it for the American people. Mutualism is in it for the people of the world. A world in which everyone has access to opportunities, is a world in which nobody will tolerate being unfree, and nobody will tolerate unfair treatment.

     But we can get there; through building a free society based on mutual respect and trust, genuine volunteering, and reciprocity; delivering on our promises. Not just because we want to make sure that people get compensated for all the work they do (and we do); but because humans are innately social creatures. We care what happens to each other.

     Our ability to protect, defend, and care for one another, is what determines the future of human survival on this planet, and whether we live in harmony with the planet and other species living upon it. A party that protects the environment, will itself receive the mutual protection of the planet.

     That is why we need Mutualist and Georgist economics; one system focused on a fair economy, and the other focused on the land itself.

     Please help the economy, the planet, and each other, by joining the Mutualist Party today. We don’t want your money, we just want to work with you to the extent that you want to work with us.

     That’s how you negotiate, and build coalitions, but it’s also how you know when you’ve found something that is non-negotiable. Until that happens, it’s how you make sure that everyone involved in a transaction is comfortable, and can easily go their separate ways when their interests diverge.

     That is how you foster an economy, and a society, in which both individuals and groups can flourish, and in which nobody goes hungry while others have much more than they need. Hardly any government would be necessary, if it were not “necessary” to protect the immense wealth of the rich against the bodies of the poor.

     A society in which nobody has to consider stealing - whether from a store, or from their employee - will be a society in which openness, respect, and trust will flourish. The Mutualist Party will get the boot of taxation off of the throats of hard working employees as well as small businessmen alike, instead of pillaging from both of them while pitting them against each other.

     It’s time to knock some sense back into our government and our economy.”

     To join the Mutualist Party of Illinois, e-mail Joe Kopsick at jwkopsick@gmail.com, or call him at 608-417-9395, and ask to sign the petition to help establish the party (and also helps Kopsick get on the ballot in 2020).

     Facebook users can like the page Mutualist Party of Illinois by following this address: http://www.facebook.com/MutualistPartyIL/?modal=admin_todo_tour

     Facebook users can also keep up on Mutualist Party of Illinois politics by visiting the Joe Kopsick for Congress (IL-10) / Mutualist Party of Illinois group, which can be found at the following address: http://www.facebook.com/groups/586988188625917/?ref=search

     The online e-petition to help Kopsick get on the ballot, is available at the following links:

     http://app.signnow.com/webapp/document/ea1ff1fceb49415e8e75996303b9c9113cc1dfd1?fieldinvite_id=443b98ffbb9243258a41eb31eb4fa50a83278f18&mobileweb=app_only&route=fieldinvite

     http://app.signnow.com/webapp/document/ea1ff1fceb49415e8e75996303b9c9113cc1dfd1

A Mutualist-Anarchist flag

Image not created by the author of this blog

Written on June 30th, 2020

Edited on July 1st and 3rd, 2020

Originally Published to This Blog on July 3^rd, 2020