Different schools of free market thought
Over at Independent Country, James Leroy Wilson is also interested in engaging with the left. His post from yesterday, Re-thinking Economics should be of interest to lefties who wish to do just that. The geolibertarian school of thought certainly seems like one that lefties would be much more open to.
On a more radical note, there is Kevin Carson. I've enjoyed reading some of his commentary on other blogs (such as this one) along with his essay "Austrian and Marxist Theories of Monopoly Capital: A Mutualist Synthesis". He has now entered the blogosphere with a blog of his own called Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism. I recommend checking it out.
On a more radical note, there is Kevin Carson. I've enjoyed reading some of his commentary on other blogs (such as this one) along with his essay "Austrian and Marxist Theories of Monopoly Capital: A Mutualist Synthesis". He has now entered the blogosphere with a blog of his own called Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism. I recommend checking it out.
posted by freeman at 1/14/2005 10:23:00 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for the plug!
As for the Geos, I'm amazed at the variety of movements that spring from Henry George's work--especially given the fact that most people have never heard of him, or vaguely remember him as some quaint nineteenth-century crank. George's heirs range from the right-wing Nock and Chodorov, to the somewhat leftish populist Bolton Hall, to hippy-dippy "appropriate technology" decentralists like Ralph Borsodi.
I'm not at all convinced by the arguments for a land value tax on site rents in general--Ingalls and Tucker came up with some pretty good arguments to show that absentee landlord rent is much more important than differential rent. But on purely pragmatic grounds, I'm quite open to the Geolib idea of treating scarce resources like mineral wealth as a "commons" (collective private property of the community), with access regulated the same way commoners regulated access to their pasture land or wood a few centuries ago.
I, too, will like to thank Mr. Freeman, L.C., for the plug. I'm of the Nock/Chodorov variety of Georgism, yet understand the objections. It seems to me that in a Rothbardian market-anarchist society, the landowners would be States unto themselves and would levy "rents" - taxes - along Georgist lines.
I suspect that rents are even more certain than other forms of taxes. We can either work toward a minimal State that favors landowners, or a minimal State that charges rent directly. I believe the Georgist model is the best means to achieve not only liberty for all, but also prosperity for all.
I will add this and the Mutualist links to my own blog.
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