Saturday, March 9, 2013

Is Ron Paul Wrong?

Is Ron Paul Wrong?:

Is He a Nationalist, White-Separatist, Neo-Fascist
Exploiter, as His Liberal Detractors Claim,
or is He an Open-Borders, Anti-Racist, Cultural-Marxist
Egalitarian, as His Conservative Detractors Claim?



A problem that many people have with Ron Paul is that he believes that "charity" and "private enterprises" would provide people with health care (and other services) if government didn't.

What many of his critics may not understand is that:
1) by "charity" he doesn't mean "charity as it currently exists", but rather all voluntary giving which would exist after bureaucrats and politicians were to stop raiding the public funds they're supposed to protect, and compulsory taxation were to be abolished;
2) by "private", he doesn't necessarily mean businesses and properties the owners of which expect the government to defend on their behalf;
3) by "enterprises", he does not mean to exclude those firms which organize themselves in egalitarian manners (like syndicates and co-operatives); and
4) he believes that communities would be free to practice socialism in a libertarian society.

Understanding most or all of these things, many of those influenced by Ron Paul began to study paleoconservatism, classical liberalism, Austrian economics, and Objectivism. Some went further, towards Rothbardianism and left-Rothbardianism, Agorism, market anarchism, individualist anarchism, and egoist anarchism.

Many adherents of these ideologies - especially when debating with anarcho-collectivists, anarcho-communalists, libertarian socialists, anarcho-syndicalists, geolibertarians, and Mutualists - frequently make concessions along the lines of the four points enumerated above. Many also believe - as Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin believed - that private property rights are conditional; they are only legitimate if negotiated with the remainder of society.

I contend that all of these groups deserve a seat at the negotiation table, along the lines of Synthesis Anarchism / Anarchism without Adjectives. Effectually, non-hierarchical businesses, mutuals, co-ops, communities, and unions (insofar as they are willing to evolve into syndicates) would compete against existing governments and hierarchical firms - to provide individuals with any and all varieties and combinations of goods and services - unless and until governments give them seats at the table.

Were it to be resolved among anarchists that negotiation with the State were useless and / or inexcusable, we would have to employ non-State-assisted tactics in order to out-compete the State to provide people with the means of subsistence and production; we would use counter-economics, direct action, mutual aid, and (quoting left-Rothbardian Gary Chartier) the "elimination of privilege [,...] freeing the market [,...] acts of solidarity [,...] radical rectification [of State theft, and...] radical homesteading".

Were it to be resolved among anarchists that being conciliatory to the State's way of doing things were imperative for the stability and cohesiveness of society - and that the State may actually be interested in diminishing the power of itself and its beneficiaries - we would have to change things through party politics.

We could:
   1) gradually convert Democrats and Republicans to anarchism,
   2) grow and empower third-party and independent politics,
   3) diminish the role of party dominance in the congressional ideological caucuses (of which there are four in the Democratic Party, and five in the Republican party) with or without turning them into parties in their own right, and / or

   4) build
       (a) a general Labor, Syndicalist, and / or Co-Operativist party, to balance the interests of individual workers, fledgling unions, and egalitarian labor-managed firms against the interests of the National Labor Relations Board, and against government collusion with capital and Big Labor to exploit workers through profit, taxes, and union dues;

       (b) a Communalist and / or collectivist party, to balance the interests of the peoples and economies of neighborhoods, communities, counties, and small regional governments against the interests of large regional governments and centralized governments;
       (c) a Mutualist party, to balance the interests of lending institutions operating on the credit union model - and their customers - against the interests of usurious banks, corrupt treasury departments, fraudulent currency traders, pernicious lenders, stock brokers and speculators who trade with other people's money, and the insurance and securities industries; and
       (d) an Agorist party, to balance the interests of individually-run enterprises and non-hierarchically-managed firms (those which regulate and protect themselves efficiently and effectively) against the interests of those who support a State monopoly on the coercion of business and property owners, and against those who support State-monopoly licensing of the police and "private" security guards employed to protect person and property.

Ron Paul has played a significant role in popularizing the terms "Statism" and "Statist" in the American political lexicon. According to sociologist Max Weber, the State "upholds the claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order." President Obama adopted this definition when speaking about mercenaries while serving in the U.S. Senate.

The components of this definition of Statism are 1) monopoly and oligopoly, 2) territorial integrity, and 3) perceived legitimacy of initiatory force. Panarchy turns Statism on its head by supporting 1) polyopoly (diversity in competition), 2) open "borders", and 3) non-initiation of unwelcome intervention into people's disputes and affairs.

Although Ron Paul has made statements on immigration reform which have been characterized as anti-immigrant, Paul repeatedly voted against measures which would allow the military to assist in the protection of the U.S.-Mexico border, and measures which would provide for increased fencing and other infrastructure at the border. Furthermore, he has said that "[i]n the ideal libertarian world, borders would be blurred and open". These actions have drawn the ire of conservative commentators, some of whom have even gone so far as to characterize Paul as an "open borders politician, and an [']anti-racist['] cultural Marxist egalitarian".

Ron Paul has been influential in popularizing the 10th Amendment (the "states' rights" amendment) to the Constitution. Although often characterized as "racist" due to its having been cited to justify the secession of the southern states in the Civil War, the right of people and states to choose whether to delegate certain powers to the federal government was also invoked in Wisconsin to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act (thus assisting escaped slaves to evade capture). Furthermore - despite what Barack Obama may have claimed to believe about the following issues - the potential assertion of federal power against governors supporting the 10th Amendment is a major threat to the American people gaining the freedom to responsibly use marijuana and to enter into legal marriage with their domestic partners irrespective of their sexual orientation.

The 10th Amendment embodies the principle of decentralized government. So too does the "municipal home rule" of Wisconsin's Robert M. LaFollette. The market-anarchist and panarchist principle of a "free market in governance" contends that the individual should have the ability to choose who resolves his disputes and provides him with security, regardless of where he lives and travels. It supports the geographical decentralization of decision-making to the community (in Marxist and democratic-federalist formulations of the idea); and supports subsidiarism, the notion that decision-making and administration should be carried out at the smallest or lowest level of government capable and competent enough to do so. When these principles are applied, individuals and local governments become the "competitors" of centralized governments, competing with them to provide people with governance and other services.

Being that Ron Paul supports "de-regulation" only of those laws which suspend, prohibit, and nullify self-regulation of markets and regulations by states, communities, and consumers, we see that he would view the Interstate Commerce Clause as justifying federal "regulation" of markets within states only if states cause irregularities, interruptions, distortions, and barriers to trade, i.e.; barriers to the adjustment of individuals and economies to one-another's needs, in a mutually-beneficial, voluntarily-cooperative manner.

When we see that modern governments exercise monopolies over their territories - and can compel people to come to them exclusively to be provided with certain ostensibly essential services - and when we learn that not only does the government give businesses "corporate personhood", but also that the U.S. Code defines the federal government as "a federal corporation", we understand that national and state boundaries (especially when they take the form of physical borders), are intrinsic interruptions to voluntary cooperation and trade; when not de-facto interruptions, they are potential interruptions.

If we are resolved to gradually alter the State, I suggest that we invoke antitrust laws to empower the federal government to abolish not only business monopolies, but also oligopolies (control by the few) and hierarchies within them; as well as government monopolies, oligopolies, and hierarchy within government. This should be done with the intention of keeping the potential for commercial provision of governance (and other services) across state and national lines open and "regular" (i.e., well-"regulated" and uninhibited by aggressive, admittedly violent agencies with totalitarian motives).

This is how Obamacare was supposed to lower health insurance costs; by legalizing the sale and purchase of health care across state lines, and by providing a "public option" as an alternative to private health insurance. Well, guess what happened instead:

1) Health insurance and care costs are still going up,
2) it's still illegal to buy health insurance across state lines,
3) the public "option" compels us to buy from "private" health insurance agencies,
4) the law is being implemented at the most highly centralized level of government possible, and5) the law gives employers a way to avoid having to insure their employees, the effects of which threaten to establish a 28-hour work-week as the new national standard of the lower working class.



   “Regulations" don't result in production; people produce. "Regulations" don't work; people do.
   The most secure people with the most secure property in our society are not the ones producing security for us; we are the ones who produce security for them, and for their unjustly-acquired possessions.
   While our most cherished possessions – our property, our homes, and our families - are within meters of us, their most cherished possessions – our mortgages; the deeds to our property and homes and everything in and on them – are thousands of miles away behind bank vault doors.
   The idea that a market in the provision of security is untenable is false, as those who have the most to lose will relinquish the most in order to keep the remainder. We must cease performing the charitable act of allowing their privileges to go unchecked, which placates them and only serves to increase the efficiency of their parasitism.

  Every man ought to play a role in choosing who protects and secures him, and who resolves his disputes, and no man ought to intervene in the affairs of others without their consent, unless there exists clear and present danger of direct harm.
  Panarchy is governance by all people. No man is a ruler, but every man is a king.
  Peacefully defy boundaries, respect diversity in the spirit of friendly competition, and be not so callous as to pretend that your aggression is The Law.


For more entries on enterprise, business, business alliance, and markets, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/enlightened-catallaxy-reciprocally.html
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Friday, February 22, 2013

Agorism and Mutualism: Summaries, and Compare and Contrast

   Agorism is a system in which free and voluntary society is pursued through competition with the State and counter-economics.
   Counter-economics is market action which is either forbidden by the State (black market) or unapproved or unintended by the State (gray market); for example, "under the table" interactions, tax-dodging, trading-out, sharing, gifting, bartering, and trading.
   While minarchism expresses the notion that the State should only secure and defend people, protect their property, and provide essential military, police, and justice systems; Agorists view each of these services as a market in which there should be competition.
   Agorism would therefore see the State monopoly on the provision of those goods replaced by multiple syndicates (or companies, agencies, organizations) which compete against one another for customers.
   Additionally, Agorism seeks to specialize services typically provided by the State, causing its functions (such as personal security and defense; detention and arrest; detection and investigation; dispute-resolution / arbitration / adjudication; restitution; and property protection and insurance) to be split-up into separate industries.
   Significant contributors to Agorist thought include Samuel E. Konkin III (basic theory), J. Neil Schulman (counter-economics), Wally Conger (class theory), Robert Murphy (private law and defense, and insurance), Brad Spangler, Gary Chartier, Charles W. Johnson, and Mike Gogulski.

   Mutualism is an ethical philosophy and theory embracing mutuality and reciprocity, as well as an economic theory. It intends to be the “synthesis of community and property”, and is associated with the phrases “anarchy is order without power” and “property is theft”. Mutualists support titles to landed property, as long as it is continually occupied, used, and accessed.
   Proudhon favored possession of land, workplaces, and means of production by individual workers and peasants, or by collectives thereof; and desired that access to land not be arbitrarily withheld from those who desire to labor on it.
   Mutualist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon described himself at various times as an anarchist and a federalist, favoring a federation of voluntarily-associating co-operatives (or workers’ associations). He also favored a national bank which would give loans at a minimal interest rate, its administration costs funded by income tax on capitalists and stockholders, and also by the minimal interest rate.
   Although Mutualists oppose income derived from loans, investments, ground rent, and interest on capital, Proudhon wrote that he would not support legal prohibitions of those practices. Mutualism is based on the labor theory of value, promotes a system in which trade represents labor, and supports workers earning the full product of their labor as property.
   Many Mutualists disagree with the notion that having wealth gives one a right to accumulate more wealth – especially through rent, profit, and interest – viewing such practices as forceful, fraudulent, and / or coercive.
   Significant contributors to Mutualist thought include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (articulation of ethical theory into anarchist theory), Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, and William B. Greene.

   Disputes between Agorists and Mutualists typically revolve around:
- Whether unoccupied, unused landed property should be protected as a right (especially in regards to the Lockean proviso, which gives that homesteading is permissible only when one adds his labor to it, and enough land is left for others)
- Whether value should be thought of as subjective, or objective (such as value and trade based on labor)
- Whether exploitation of labor by capital for profit is coercive (and objectively unethical), or merely hierarchical (and subjectively unethical)
- Whether the Non-Aggression Principle of voluntaryism and the ethical imperativeness of  reciprocity are valid expressions of the Golden Rule and / or an objective ethics (if such a thing exists)
- Whether Agorism and Mutualism are tactics, or philosophical theories
- Whether revolution, insurgency, or reform are feasible or ethical tactics
- Whether internationalism, nationalism, federalism, municipalism, and panarchy are feasible geographical organizational structures

   Agorists and Mutualists generally agree that:
- Monopolies of many or all varieties should be opposed
- The right of contract should be supported
- Voluntary cooperation should be promoted
- Counter-economics / social counter-power / dual power, and gradualism are feasible and ethical tactics
- Anarchy is a form of order (articulated by Austrian economists as catallaxy; spontaneous orders include catallaxy [associated with market-anarchism] and stigmergy [associated with social-anarchism])
- Most varieties of capitalism and socialism are insufficiently supportive of individual rights



 Approximate figures regarding topic of argument,
"Agorist-Mutualist Alliance" group on Facebook






For more entries on banking, the treasury, currency, inflation, and business, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/response-to-campaign-for-liberty.html

For more entries on enterprise, business, business alliance, and markets, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/enlightened-catallaxy-reciprocally.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/agorist-protection-agencies-and.html

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Friday, December 14, 2012

Is it Time to Legalize Murder?

Written in December 2012
Edited in May 2014, and on April 22nd, 2016


In "Utopia", Sir Thomas More wrote that the government should stop focusing on enforcing harsh penalties for theft, and instead focus on eliminating the policies that led to the impoverishment of the tenant farmers (namely, encroaching on and fencing-off their lands, effectively forcing them to compete for labor in the city centers to survive).

Abbie Hoffman wrote that the decades-long prison penalties for violating anti-marijuana laws made it so that young people may feel pressure to commit acts of violence (including, potentially, murder) against witnesses in order to prevent being punished for the original crime.

Why do people turn to theft, drugs, and violence? They perceive that they have few other options. They harm themselves, others, and others' property, often as a way to feel in-control; while society has conditioned the set of legitimate alternative courses of action available to them.

It should make sense, then, that several of the last few famous American mass shooters were on prescription anti-depression and anti-schizophrenia medications. Depression and schizophrenia are over-diagnosed, and the medications prescribed to treat them often have suicidal thoughts as side effects.

We must begin viewing many of these shootings as symptoms of the ills of society, not simply as ills. Saying that a mass shooter was "deranged" is a cop-out. But calling for "free" psychiatric care for all Americans (as a preventive measure) is an expensive proposition that diminishes the value of the labor of the people who perform psychiatric evaluations for a living.

Capital punishment (execution) is not an effective deterrent for murder; like the marijuana example, it only leads to (and, in the criminal mind, excuses) further violence. But prison - with its routine beatings and rapes (corporal punishment, whether sanctioned or overlooked) - is no creative or effective way to humanize the criminal justice system.

In some non-industrialized societies [including the Babemba tribe of Africa], when a person commits a crime, it is seen as a cry for help, and the village comes together to praise the criminal, and tell him about all the good things he has done in the past, in order to convince him that he is a good person (no deterrence necessary). Similarly, Socrates suggested that as "punishment" for corrupting the youth of Athens he should not be sentenced to death but instead given free food for life.

The trial of Socrates undoubtedly led his student Plato (who wrote, "[g]ood people don't need laws to tell them to act responsibly, and bad people will find a way around the laws") to wonder whether justice is truly good or instead simply a necessary evil. It is an appropriate question, especially given that today some homeless commit acts of petty theft so that they will be arrested and taken to jail, thus ensuring them shelter for the night, and possibly also a meal or two.

It should seem obvious by now that once a man has killed, he is willing to eliminate witnesses without blinking an eye. So too police, and whatever non-witness innocent bystanders happen to be between him and his getaway car. Thus, the fear of being confronted with deadly force is not an effective deterrent for these people who have little or nothing to lose.

But what good, exactly, would result from the legalization of murder? In all likelihood, nothing. But what good has resulted from its decriminalization (i.e., reduced penalties, and augmented rights of the accused)? It depends on whether you ask a civil-libertarian or someone who thinks society "coddles" criminals and the disadvantaged.

So why, then, even bring up the idea of legalizing murder (that is, repealing laws against murder, and eliminating sentencing guidelines for it)? We may remember from the First Book of Timothy "...law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels...". Just as "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns", when murder is outlawed, only outlaws will commit murder.

Actions are not immoral because they are illegal, but illegal because they are immoral. Those who believe that murder is wrong will not commit murder, and nothing will stop those who do not care whether murder is wrong from committing it.

Nothing, of course, except threats by individuals (and threatening by the State, called "laws") that such actions will be met with violent retribution. And, naturally, in the absence of Statism, the same set of threats would have the same potential to prevent aggression and enact retribution against its victims.

In addressing the complaints of voters upset by the legalization of gay marriage, stand-up comic Daniel Tosh remarked that the fact that gay marriage is legal doesn't mean that people who participate in homosexual civil unions are not going to go to Hell, saying "Just because the state says it's legal, it's not like God's gonna let 'em into Heaven."

Maybe if legalizing murder doesn't work, we can always replace those "gun-free zone" signs in schools with "murder-free zone" signs.



For more entries on justice, crime, and punishment, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/thrasymachus-support-for-justice-being.html
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Monday, November 26, 2012

New Institutional Economics: Eleven Commandments to Free the Market


The First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics states that any competitive (or Walrasian) equilibrium leads to a Pareto-efficient (or Pareto-optimal) allocation of resources. The following is a list of eleven rules – with added explanations written in the format of the Ten Commandments – regarding how to sustain a competitive equilibrium.
  1. Enlightened Rational Consent. Thou Shalt Not Participate in Markets - Nor Associate with Market Actors - Unless and Until Thou Art Sufficiently Well-Informed and Rational – That is, Self-Interested (and Assumed to Sell Where Marginal Costs Meet Marginal Revenue So As to Maximize the Generation of Profit) and Utilitarian (Although Not Necessarily – and Preferably Not – Selfish or Amoral) – to Legitimately and Verifiably Consent to Agree to Be Subject to the Obligations and Consequences of Doing So, and Unless and Until Thou Shalt Assume That All Consumers and Producers Have Perfect Knowledge of Price, Utility, Quality, and Production Methods of Products.
  2. Relief of Suffering. Thou Shalt Act to Relieve the Causes and Symptoms of Scarcities, Dissatisfaction, and Desire, and to Temper and Moderate One's Own Dissatisfactions and Desires.
  3. Property Rights and Lack of Malice. Thou Shalt Not Cause Intentional Nor Malicious Diminution of the Utility of the Property of Non-Consenting and / or Unaware Third-Party Others Which is Justly Acquired and Protected in a Well-Defined System of Property Rights with Special Attention to Buyers' Rights.
  4. No Information Hoarding. Thou Shalt Not Wield Disproportionately Asymmetric Amounts - Nor Varieties - of Information.
  5. No Values Suppression or Entry or Exit Barriers. Thou Shalt Act to Ensure That Market Participants Are Free to Be Price-Takers Which Are Uninhibited from Ranking Their Preferences and Comparing Values, Thou Shalt Act to Provide for the Freedom of an Infinite Number of Consumers and Producers Willing and Able to Purchase and Supply Products at Certain Prices, and Thou Shalt Act to Ensure That There Are No Barriers to Entry Into Nor Exit From Markets.
  6. No Retardation of Price Adjustment. Thou Shalt Act to Promote the Instantaneity of the Adjustment of Market Prices.
  7. No Concentration of Influence. Thou Shalt Act to Oppose Unnatural Monopolistic and Oligarchical Actors Which Wield Disproportionate Influence on the Share of Trade Volume, Thereby Disproportionately Influencing Prices, Supply, and Demand, and Come to Effectively or Literally Set Prices, or to Influence Prices at All.
  8. No Accidental Harm. Thou Shalt Not Cause Unintentional Nor Negligent Diminution of the Utility of Non-Consenting and / or Unaware Third-Party Others, Nor Shalt Thou Cause Moral-Hazard Nor Social-Cost Problems.
  9. No Accidental Benefit. Thou Shalt Not Cause Unintentional Nor Negligent Increase of the Utility of Non-Consenting and / or Unaware Third-Party Others, Nor Shalt Thou Cause Free-Rider Problems.
  10. No Usury Nor Transaction Costs. Thou Shalt Not Speculate with Less Than Full Assets, Nor Shalt Thou Impose Transaction Costs Which Are Not Negligible, Nor Shalt Thou Calculate Profit Improperly, and Thou Shalt Act to Ensure That Buyers and Sellers Do Not Incur Costs in Making an Exchange of Goods.
  11. Mobility of and Access to Factors of Production. Thou Shalt Act to Ensure That Market Participants Have Equal Access to the Factors of Production, That the Factors of Production Are Perfectly Mobile So As to Wield to Adjusting Market Conditions, and that Qualities and Characteristics of Goods and Services Do Not Vary Between Suppliers.
At a later date, I will add a few points about the Coase Theorem; the Jevons Paradox; the theory of the second best; and the lack of increasing returns to economies of scale.




For more entries on enterprise, business, business alliance, and markets, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/enlightened-catallaxy-reciprocally.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/agorist-protection-agencies-and.html

For more entries on free trade, fair trade, the balance of trade, and protectionism, please visit:
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Friday, November 16, 2012

Joe Kopsick vs. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette: Compare and Contrast



Before unveiling my general platform for the 2014 Wisconsin gubernatorial race - and before delving into the complicated world of secession, nullification, interposition, and expatriation - it will be necessary to succinctly explain the most important similarities and differences between myself and Republican-turned-Progressive Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Senator Robert M. LaFollette, one of the most influential senators - and most successful third-party presidential candidates - in American history.

This is especially appropriate in light of the praise of LaFollette which was recently voiced by self-described progressive Republican Arthur Louis "Art for Gov" Kohl-Riggs, the young man who ran against Governor Scott Walker in the Republican gubernatorial primary earlier this year (2012).



FOREIGN POLICY, DEFENSE, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

I stand with LaFollette in his support of freedom of speech during wartime, his opposition to the prosecution of admitted socialists, and his opposition to needless American military interventionism and involvement in foreign conflicts.

As LaFollette opposed the League of Nations, I view the modern United Nations as a potential threat to the self-determination of the country of the United States of America, and - more importantly - of the nation and the people of Wisconsin. I believe that international legal bodies of any kind pose a risk that human rights standards may deteriorate - and / or become irrational, by imposing unwarranted responsibilities upon others - due to failed leadership and corruption of wealthy and powerful nations, and due to complacency of weaker and poorer nations. This is especially risky given the veto power which the United States currently wields in the U.N. Security Council, which I see as nothing more than a form of tyranny, albeit shared with the governments of four other nations.

As LaFollette opposed the open arming of American merchant vessels during wartime, I would do the same. However, I would take a "laissez-faire" - or (for lack of a better phrase) a "don't-ask-don't-tell" - approach on this issue; that is, I would not support open admission that such ships be armed, nor would I demand that such ships be unarmed. I believe that such a position would prevent needless casualties of crew members, which could seem feasible and excusable in the eyes of our rivals, were it to become known that the crews of such ships would have insufficient means to defend themselves against initiatory aggression.



POLITICAL LIBERALISM, AND GOVERNMENTAL AND ELECTION REFORM

I praise LaFollette's efforts to make government more accessible to citizens and tolerant of alternative political viewpoints. Not only this, but I would call for an augmentation of many of LaFollette's projects.

These projects include - but are not limited to - voting rights for women and minorities (naturally), open and transparent government with a direct role for citizens in proposing and passing legislation, non-partisan elections and a direct and open primary system, and collegiate research on - and development of - public policy.

Additionally, I join LaFollette in his support of the home rule of municipalities, as well as of the state of Wisconsin as a "laboratory for democracy". However - being that I support municipal home rule as part of my wider support of political subsidiarity (the notion that decision-making should take place at the maximally-locally-oriented level which would not risk undermining competence), I would criticize LaFollette's support of the direct election of U.S. Senators, which became federal law in the form of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.

To mix the language of LaFollette and former New Mexico Governor and 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson, if Wisconsin is to become a laboratory for the innovation of democracy and public policy - and if we are to support "home rule" and subsidiarity in general - then we should urge our representatives at the state and federal levels alike to allow the legislatures of the states to re-assert their influence on the country at large, by pursuing a repeal of the 17th Amendment, thereby restoring the principles of republicanism and dual-federalism as envisioned by our Founders.



CORRUPTION, COMMERCE, AND DOMESTIC INDUSTRY

As LaFollette was outspoken in his opposition to political and economic corruption, so too would I oppose the hierarchical decision-making and power structure in the two dominant political parties, the very existence of which undermine political speech, and drown out important voices and viewpoints.

I also share LaFollette’s concerns about corruption, corporate welfare, and the dominance of corporate special interests over the interests of the public, which in LaFollette’s time were known as “patronage” and “vast corporate combinations”.

Like LaFollette, I would resolve to make decisions which are in the interests of consumers and workers. Additionally – as LaFollette was outspoken in his opposition to railroad trusts – I would be vocal in my opposition to trusts in general, and in my support of anti-trust laws, as I would apply them to commerce and governmental structure alike.

However, I differ with LaFollette in his support of a protective tariff on domestic goods, being that I believe they impose an unnecessary and artificial barrier to international trade, and due to the potential that such tariffs could stand to inappropriately benefit domestic industry. I believe that the idea of “the invisible hand” is an assertion that consumers naturally act to protect and favor domestic industry through their economic choices.

They would especially do so in an environment of diminished corporate influence on public affairs, and consumers would have sufficient influence on trade such that attempts by the government to ensure that domestic production persevere would be superfluous, egregious, self-serving, and inclined towards the very sort of business corruption which has been a scourge to political freedom, and to diverse and competitive markets.



SOCIAL PROGRAMS, WELFARE, AND LABOR POLICY

I side with LaFollette in his championing of the workers’ compensation system, the enactment of child labor laws, and social security and old age benefits, although I would take the sustainability of the ratio of revenues to disbursements of the latter program into serious consideration, with an emphasis on means-testing for recipients.

So too would I join LaFollette in his support of progressive taxation; I would support the closing of any loopholes which deviate from a graduated, accelerating (exponential) tax on income and wealth in property, especially on such wealth which is the product of the inappropriate perpetuation of unearned privilege bestowed upon special individual and business interests through means of government coercion.

While I would praise LaFollette for his efforts fighting for an eight-hour work-day and for collective bargaining in general, my support of the labor movement would be based on principles such as freedom and diversity of competition, diversity of ideology and goals within the labor movement, the right of consumers to influence trade and the labor markets, respect for the rights of minorities of all varieties, and rational and humane wage policies towards the poor and disadvantaged.

I believe that Wisconsin and the organized labor movement should not submit to the authority of the National Labor Relations Board to permit nor deny the right to strike; this undermines the freedom of union members to pursue negotiation goals which are more moderate or more radical than the goals of their leadership. There should be no such thing as wildcat strikes; in other words, no strikes should be illegal, being that the future of the labor movement relies on its independence and self-sufficiency in affecting its ends.

Were government favors and privileges for large and multinational business to be removed - and their lasting ill effects to be compensated for – I do not believe that government power would be necessary to uphold the gains of organized labor. If labor standards were to significantly deteriorate, I would call for a general strike, and for workers across the state to adopt similar standards on wages, additional compensation, and safety and health in the workplace, so that companies failing to uphold such standards remain neither fully-staffed nor profitable.

Unlike LaFollette, I would pursue the nullification of federal minimum wage laws, and the repeal of state minimum wage laws. Although laborers and the organizations which represent them will always pursue increased wages, benefits, and conditions, there would be no need for government to uphold these gains (given adequate compensation for the lasting ill effects of corporate welfare and domination of public policy by private interests).

Additionally, I would adopt the position of scholars such as Milton Friedman; that legally-enforced minimum wage laws constitute undue barriers to entry into the labor market, especially for the youth, the elderly, the disabled; and the economically disadvantaged, the under-educated, and the under-skilled; as well as the racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic minorities which are disproportionately affected by the aforementioned deficits in skills, education, and job experience.
I also believe that the endorsement of minimum wage laws by unions – as well as of the politicians who support them (and increases in minimum wage rates), and even, sometimes, the standards themselves – contributes to a lack of solidarity in the labor movement, and to unnecessary animosity between demographic groups of laborers.

While I believe that the right to strike exists independently – and regardless of – government might and fiat, I believe that the power of public employees to engage in collective bargaining undermines political and economic liberty whenever and wherever they attempt to do so in an environment of monopoly government (Statism). As such, I would support the independence and self-sufficiency of organized labor, while opposing monopolistic governmental jurisdiction on anti-trust grounds – and in the interests of diversity of political association and consent of the governed – as well as first examining how fraud and abuse may be eliminated from the state government, and sustainable government finance and balanced budgets may be restored.



CONCLUSION

I wholeheartedly support Robert LaFollette’s dedication to peace, a humble foreign policy, non-interventionism, opposition to belligerence, support of American national sovereignty, civil liberties such as the freedom of speech and ideology, voting rights, election reform, open government with direct citizen involvement, political subsidiarity, opposition to corruption and to the control of public policy by private and business special interests, opposition to trusts in industry, support of consumer’s rights and interests, social programs and individual welfare, and the struggles of organized labor.

However, LaFollette’s views on local governance and progressive economic issues (such as minimum wage laws) leave something to be desired. Luckily, after nearly a hundred years, developments in the economic and political sciences – especially in the fields of free-market economics and market-anarchist political theory – enable us to learn from the history of successes and failures of the progressive and liberal movements how LaFollette’s shortcomings may be corrected, and how his ideas may be supplemented and completed.

In truth, there is little daylight between the progressivism of Bob LaFollette and the left-libertarianism of the Agorists, the market-anarchists, the individualist-anarchists, and the classical liberals. As a candidate for governor, I hope to – as much as possible – unite and reconcile the ideologies subscribed to by the likes of the modern American socialist, Green, Libertarian, Constitution, and other political parties; not just on issues like military interventionism and civil liberties (on which they already - for the most part - agree), but also on issues which seem to be the greatest impediments to a solidified front against the domination of the political ideological landscape by the two-party duopoly, especially the most fundamental principles of such groups’ economic theories, and theories of what makes governance and authority legitimate.

Please support me - former U.S. congressional candidate Joe Kopsick – in my campaign for governor of Wisconsin in 2014. Putting a true political and economic independent – neither affiliated with nor supportive of the Democrats or the Republicans – in the Governor's Mansion will send a strong message to the nation at large that the two-party duopoly’s days are numbered.



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