i go weeks without posting then one right after another. qualitatively and quantitatively my work could be compared to constipation and diarrhea but nevermind.

i was perusing wiki as i do. i find it a really good way of getting a wide overview of ideas you are unfamiliar with and then using the sources as a stepping off point.

so id surfed my way through a few links in various political-philosophy articles on there and arrived at wage slavery. an idea that motivates quite alot of my views. unfortunately alot of the references to anarchism in the article seem to refer to the hard socialist form of anarchism. the one that supports statist coercion in favor of a their own subjectively and arbitrarily defined group (little different to right-libertarians). i dont think there is any such thing as right or left anarchism. and i dont think there is a need for such discrimination either. certainly in an effort to rebuke accusations of being apologists for crony corporatism many anarcho-capitalist theorists have devoted great efforts to explaining how it is the coercion of the state that generates and perpetuates most of the injustices and inequalities that concern these anarcho-socialists. so we can see that absent the state voluntary legal systems are unlikely to uphold anything resembling the current favourable environment the state offers certain clients. limited liability is a pure externalisation of risk. polycentric market law necessarily has to be reciprocal. why would anyone volunteer to carry the risk of a corporation? there probably will be no such entity under anarchy.

that had been my understanding of the argument against 'evil' corporatism under anarchy. however on reading the wiki article about wage slavery another argument caught my eye.

im interested in the Freeman movement. in my days of engaging with statist 'libertarian' bloggers i would frequently defend the Freeman movement because i thought they were on to the same ideas as voluntarist anarchists. the Freemen challenged the concept of the social contract motivated by a desire for freedom from unjust coercion. this philosophical validity of contracts has always been a central issue whether it concerns capital, land or labour.

thus the following excerpt from the wiki article on wage slavery that focuses on some contractual criticisms of the current employer/employee labour/capital relationship is extremely interesting in the context of whether voluntary law would be able to uphold a continued universal application of this relationship.

 

Employment contracts

Some criticize wage slavery on strictly contractual grounds, e.g. David Ellerman and Carole Pateman, arguing that the employment contract is a legal fiction in that it treats human beings juridically as mere tools or inputs by abdicating responsibility and self-determination, which the critics argue are inalienable. As Ellerman points out, "[t]he employee is legally transformed from being a co-responsible partner to being only an input supplier sharing no legal responsibility for either the input liabilities [costs] or the produced outputs [revenue, profits] of the employer’s business."^[104] Such contracts are inherently invalid "since the person remain[s] a de facto fully capacitated adult person with only the contractual role of a non-person . . ." as it is impossible to physically transfer self-determination.^[105] As Pateman argues:

"The contractarian argument is unassailable all the time it is accepted that abilities can ‘acquire’ an external relation to an individual, and can be treated as if they were property. To treat abilities in this manner is also implicitly to accept that the ‘exchange’ between employer and worker is like any other exchange of material property . . . The answer to the question of how property in the person can be contracted out is that no such procedure is possible. Labour power, capacities or services, cannot be separated from the person of the worker like pieces of property."^[106]

Critics of the employment contract advocate consistently applying "the principle behind every trial," i.e., "legal responsibility should be imputed in accordance with de facto responsibility," implying a workplace run jointly by the people who actually work in the firm.^[107] The people who actually work in a firm are de facto responsible for the actions of said firm and thus have a legal claim to its outputs, as the contractarian critics argue. "Responsible human action, net value-adding or net value-subtracting, is not de facto transferable."^[108] Suppliers (including shareholders), on the other hand, having no de facto responsibility, have no legal claim to the outputs.
While a person may still voluntarily decide to contractually rent himself, just as today he may voluntarily decide to contractually sell himself, in a society where "the principle behind every trial" is consistently applied, neither contract would be legally enforceable, and the rented/sold individual would maintain at all times de jure responsibility for her/his actions, including legal claim to the fruits of their labor. In a modern liberal-capitalist society, the employment contract is enforced while the enslavement contract is not; the former being considered valid because of its consensual/non-coercive nature, and the later being considered inherently invalid, consensual or not. The noted economist Paul Samuelson described this discrepancy.

"Since slavery was abolished, human earning power is forbidden by law to be capitalized. A man is not even free to sell himself; he must rent himself at a wage."^[109]

Some advocates of laissez-faire capitalism, among them philosopher Robert Nozick, address this inconsistency in modern societies, arguing that a consistently libertarian society would allow and regard as valid consensual/non-coercive enslavement contracts, rejecting the notion of inalienable rights.

"The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would."^[110]

Others like Murray Rothbard allow for the possibility of debt slavery, asserting that a lifetime labour contract can be broken so long as the slave pays appropriate damages:

"[I]f A has agreed to work for life for B in exchange for 10,000 grams of gold, he will have to return the proportionate amount of property if he terminates the arrangement and ceases to work."^[111]

i should probably have left this blog at the point i reached before my last two posts. i had found the answer that i had been looking for my whole life (most which time i was unaware i even was pursuing a question let alone what it was) and that realisation made any further comment completely redundant. certainly there was little point in my adding to the superior offerings of the anarchist blogosphere. i should have made that my final post and appended it with a complete list of online anarchist sources. no point me regurgitating what you can find first hand. mr. molyneux is hard to beat
after the realisation i catagorised my rss feeds into sub folders within google reader. i separated out from explicit anarchists, the economists and statist libertarians. i stopped reading anything from the last two groups, none of whom could see the undesirability of any amount of statism let alone its complete illegitimacy.
after last week, in a moment of boredom, falling off the wagon and engaging in the fruitless and petty pugilism of commenting on statist blogs i resolved once more to abstain from such self defeat. i deleted the rss feeds of all the economists and statist libertarians i used to follow. the temptation to click through would always have been there.
the instance that drew me in most recently seemed too cut and dried to resist; the question - can taxes be voluntary? a self identified 'libertarian' who designs tax systems for fun claimed his perfect tax was voluntary. this seemed to important and too easy to miss. but i allowed myself to get bogged down in arguments from effect rather than sticking to the argument from ethics. admittedly the whole thing was complicated by the perennial problem of land.  there were one or two georgist commenters who seemed willing to accept that their view of property rights and land distribution could be reconciled with voluntarism even if they werent too bothered about the illegitimacy of coercion. one suggested that anarchist legal entities may well arrive at a philosophy of property rights and payments not dissimilar from georgism and land value 'tax'. another validly questioned why 3rd parties should be involved at all and couldnt anarchists voluntarily and directly reciprocate respect for each other's property. this was a new and illuminating idea to me. a decentralised system of reciprocal 'compensation' for 'exclusion' from land that was theoretically 'common' to all. i imagined decentralised systems of coordination similar to peer to peer file sharing except for legal agreements.

in the same way that i consider the Freeman movement and their challenges to the social contract to point toward voluntarism and share ideological direction with anarchism whilst having separate ideological origins, could, perhaps, georgism and prouhon-ian anarchism share ideological direction?
i must admit my ignorance of both the ideas of George and Proudhon. in my general impression of their views they seem to both posit that land is common to all and both seriously opposed the idea of rent. obviously George believed coercion to be the tool to overcome this inequitable tyranny of property and Proudhon, as an anarchist, more accurately saw the truth that coercion was the root cause of it.
what got my tiny mind grinding was the possibility that the ancap model of private agencies defending property rights may be less economically likely than the geo-anarchist model of property rights. one of the more open minded georgist commenters suggested that, as neighbors, it would be cheaper for me to simply pay him directly not to tresspass etc than it would be to build walls/hire guards/pay for a legal system to establish complex property rights. thus in effect i would not be a 'legal' 'property owner' i would simply be a human on a piece of land paying his neighbour to leave him alone. this would generate a cellular network of outward flow of value from properties.
this seems to answer so many questions and challenges faced by both propertarian anarchists and communalist anarchists. propertarians are challenged as to, absent the state, how would property rights be identified and secured. communalists are challenged as to how resources and value will be distributed more equitably absent coercive redistribution.
from where im sitting the two problems seem to cancel each other out. the georgist model of a tax on the value of my land paying a citizen's dividend to all others whom i exclude from that land is pretty clever.
its so clever it may happen to be the most economically attractive option to land owners in an anarchist society.
the most convincing predictions regarding the question of existing disparities in land distribution post transition into anarchy are those positing that land lords would face un-externalise-able costs such as security, sewerage, power connection and access (roads) and above all establishing a legal system that favoured this situation. without their current abilities to externalise these costs onto either their tenants or the public at large they would probably chose to sell their land. thus the market would redistribute this inequity without the need for any coercion.
now in light of my recent spat with georgism it seems that another economic model for voluntary property rights would have a similar redistributionary effect. if physically securing the extensive boundaries of his property proved prohibitively expensive the landlord may instead choose to pay his neighbours directly not to aggress against his property. this paymentt would have exactly the same effect as the georgist lvt/citizen's dividend seeks to achieve by 'compensating' the public for being excluded from what 'should' be common land.
the domino effect from neighbour to neighbour across a geometric cellular network of properties would be like ripples spreading across the land. polycentric and voluntary ripples at that. thus in one single mechanism we may be able to solve the problems of property rights, security, welfare, land, equitable redistribution etc.
tantalising eh?
perhaps this may also solve the provision of roads vs permission of access  issues.

now i dont suggest this as a perfect template and we should all hail the new adjectival-anarchism. the whole point is that if i or anyone else were capable of devising such perfect, one size fits all systems then that would be a perfect argument for benevolent technocratic dictatorship. there may be areas of geo-anarchism alongside areas of anarcho-capitalism alongside areas of primitivist-syndicalism or whatever. a universally favoured system may become the most popular amongst voluntary individuals - noone can know.

i just think that attempting to reconcile issues such as those raised by George and Proudhon in respect to land with voluntarism is a worthwhile endeavor whilst we continue to field demands for futurological predictions to satisfy the fears of statist slaves.

there is little point in sticking with coercion because those involved cannot imagine how something could be achieved without the state. ive read the guesswork of rothbard, block, friedman and molyneux. its pretty convincing and seems likely, however, there is no limit to human ingenuity and if people demand some factor that seems impossible without the state then some genius somewhere will be incentivised to provide it. georgists may have stumbled upon a mechanism that could address many problems. even if i am wrong and exclusive property rights secured by voluntary compensatory dividends to the community are a rubbish idea then one of the other 7 billion people around here or a lost innovator from among the billions that preceded us will come up with something better.

response to 'Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (104)'

this is in response to a blog-post discussing voluntarism vs 'justified' 'legitimate' coercive taxation. there's no way i could fit my rambling response into a comment so i post it here in the hope someone may give it some thought.

Let me just begin by saying that I consider anyone not in favour of anarchism to be a faux-libertarian. Im no friend of pro-state samizdata Pearce thats for sure and find it stunning that he should be arguing against taxation and in favour of voluntarism. I can only assume he's happy to compromise his pro-state ideals by pretending to be a voluntarist for the sake of petty internet points scoring.

my problem with lvt is not particularly due to its merits vs other forms of taxation but with it being necessarily coercive. there is no way any form of taxation can ever be described as voluntary. im not anti lvt - im anti tax full stop.

i just searched for a reference to Rothbard's comments on the in-necessity of a monopoly on property registration and found Rothbard's critique of georgism. there is also a pro-georgist counter argument critiquing Rothbard's critique. the comments are worth scanning, in particular the one from Jock Coates.

anyways onto my responses to the arguments raised in Wadsworth's post:

5. “Would CE get away with increasing their monthly rents to £1,400? Of course - the next person who comes along looking for office space will be indifferent between paying £1,400 rent BR-free on one side, or £1,000 rent + £400 BR on the other side.”

doesn't this completely ignore the profit motive? Why would the un-taxed landlord not lower his rates by even 1 pound to increase his market share? By focusing on justifying tax as voluntary you seem to be ignoring any possibility for competition. With profit driven competition between the two landlords driving down prices rents would probably discover and reach the natural market value except the untaxed landlord would always have a 400 pound advantage. So the 'next person who comes along looking for office space' wont face a choice between two identical rents and therefore perhaps 'voluntarily' chose to be taxed 400pounds. No-one would voluntarily chose to pay 400 pounds above market rates. In a competitive environment the rates would not be identical and therefore the argument for the 'voluntary' acceptance of the 400 pound tax margin would not stand up.

“7. If the government then declares the other side of the street (where all the offices belong to private landlords) to be a BR-free enterprise zone, would they not also increase their rents to £1,400 a month? Yes they would, why wouldn't they? That's the new going rate.”

again – no. why on earth would 1400 pounds be the 'new going rate'? Where is the profit motive and competition in this scenario? Profit driven competition would completely remove the 400 pound artificially added component. No matter how sticky that price may be it would eventually come down.

“the total rent = location rent + how nice the building is.”

this is what I cant understand about the reciprocity demanded by lvt proponents. Unless lvt is going to exist in a world of state provided services what is the justification for the 'location rent' component? If the office building benefits from drainage services and the owners of the building are voluntarily paying the private drainage providers then why should they owe the state or society anything? Any and all direct services will have been voluntarily paid for and any indirect value from location and proximity will be a component of the market price of the building. The chain of people involved in establishing the building in that location have added this value and have been rewarded by receipt of the greater market value. If a nearby sandwich shop can be considered to add indirect value then the sandwich shop will already be receiving reciprocal reward in the form of additional customers. There is no need to coercively redistribute anything when voluntary transactions of the market already distribute value to those who have earned it.

Chefdave - “When we purchase land what we're really buying is a government granted license to collect taxes in a certain location. Given that the number of locations are finite in supply the owners of these licenses hold a monopoly power to extract rents. Yes, this is a "private" exchange but voluntary it is not as non-owners have little alternative.”

land is a finite resource and therefore a scarce commodity. However it is only the existence of the coercive state and its control of land use that gives rise to this monopoly power to extract rents. the view that transactions involving a finite and scarce resource are in some way coercive is perhaps valid but it seems a lot closer to anti-property libertarianism such as Proudhon. If a renowned shoe maker only makes 5 pairs of highly demanded shoes can this be described as coercion?

Chefdave's view only holds if you have already accepted the legitimacy of state ownership of all land. Rothbard and others have already argued away any contention that a state is necessary to register property ownership. There is no need for monopoly in land registry.

"This is where I differ with Georgists. I believe land that is totally unused and physically unclaimed is owned by no one. Therefore the homesteader who fenced off 20 acres that was unused by anyone and begins "working the land", has not aggressed against anyone.

The Georgists believe that original land is owned by everyone. So as soon as one person claims ownership and is not willing to pay a property tax to the world, that person is aggressing against every
other person in the world.

Our conclusion was this: some arbitrary assumption is required, in this case you arbitrarily accept that original land is unowned or owned by everyone. In the first case, laissez faire capitalism proceeds without any further coercion. In the later, state coercion is always present and furthermore the risk of corruption inside the state is extremely high."

He refused to accept that

a) The idea of somebody marching off and 'claiming' spare 20 acres was entirely irrelevant in today's society; or

b) That the concepts of 'land ownership' and 'the state' are synonymous; or even

c) That the rent on the mythical spare 20 acres which nobody else wants would be precisely $zero anyway.

d) And I am a Georgist and I personally do not believe that 'the land is owned by everyone'*, that's far too abstract for my mundane self, what I observe is that the rental value of land has mainly to do with what 'society in general' does in the surrounding area and not the efforts of the owner (slightly different for farmers of course).

* Actually land can't belong to anybody so it can't belong to 'everybody' either, so all land is stolen. But I'm a patriot. For sure, if the British people lay claim to all the land in the UK then they have stolen it from the rest of the world, but as a sovereign country, we owe the rest of the world precisely nothing and it's up to other countries to sort themselves out.

I cant agree more with the sentiments of your correspondent although how he is a FL'er and not simply an anarchist working from objective lockean property rights theory I dont know.

In answer to Wadsworth's point of reply a)

yes such homesteading is perhaps irrelevant as a practical action in today's geography but the principle is the only basis upon which any concept of property and therefore exchange can possibly work. The theoretical first homesteader is the legitimate originator of the property (whether real estate or otherwise) and is justified in any voluntary trades. Upon this base rests the entire theory of property and exchange. the legitimacy of current property rights rests upon a chain traced backed to such a theoretical original homesteader. What is the georgist theory of property if not derived from lockean homesteading?

In answer to Wadsworth's point of reply b)

“the concepts of 'land ownership' and 'the state' are synonymous” this is going to need a massive amount of justification. If you are assuming the necessity of a coercive monopoly for property registration please see rothbard et al for counter arguments.

In answer to wadsworth's point of reply c)

“the rent on the mythical spare 20 acres which nobody else wants would be precisely $zero” how is that relevant? Not all property ownership is dependent upon or designed for rent.

“land can't belong to anybody” what?! why? Who does it belong to?

if the British people lay claim to all the land in the UK then they have stolen it from the rest of the world, (WTF?! no) but as a sovereign country, we owe the rest of the world precisely nothing and it's up to other countries to sort themselves out.

If this we dont owe noone else nothing argument holds true for 'sovereign states' then if the concept of the sovereign individual (im an anarchist not a fmotl'er) is legitimate and the concept of the sovereign state is not legitimate then how can the social obligation of reciprocal recompense inherent in lvt be justified?

If human individuals are recognised as legitimate entities and property rights are recognised as legitimate then it follows that the individuals own themselves and the coercion necessary for a state and any form of taxation is illegitimate.

If you believe in the sovereignty of the uk state in the anarchy of the world as your above statement seems to suggest yet you still believe state taxation and land ownership legitimate then it follows you must believe the state to own every individual in its dominion? If the state does not own the individuals then the coercion required for taxation and land use restrictions is illegitimate.

Youre either an propertarian anarchist or a propertyless slave. Hoping that the coercion you are struggling to justify may limit itself is futile. As your american correspondent says if you argue that original land is owned by that state (whether this is on the behalf of some mystical social contract group or not is irrelevant) “state coercion is always present and furthermore the risk of corruption inside the state is extremely high."

whatever name you label minarchism, be it geogism, libertarianism, laissez faire, there is always the seed of oppression that inevitably grows. Just look to the USA founded explicitly on such principles and designed expressly to limit coercive government – nonetheless in but a few hundred years it has grown into leviathan.

Again to address chefdave's points

1. They're effectively denying the landless's right to themselves, you can only be yourself on land, if you have to pay for that right then you're paying somebody else for your right to live. That is wrong.
   
   2) There's the theft element. If I turned up at your workplace and claimed your wages RL's would be up in arms, yet landlords are able to do this when they charge for access to transport infrastructure or proximity to a school, somebody else has provided the service yet they're taking payment.

1)an individual is not born in mid air. One would assume the parents would not charge their own newborn rent. So even in a world where every single inch of terra firma has been homesteaded and not a single land owner is willing to sell some living space there will be no landless individuals. Noone will be shot for tresspassing upon birth.

2. the view that the illegitimately landlord takes payment for services provided by someone else only holds if the school and the roads of the chef's example are provided free at the point of use. If the road is privately held and the school privately owned then any user whether the landlord himself or the tenant will be paying for access directly. Use of 'free' 'social' resources can only be illegitimately capitalised on by the landlord if the school and the road are not privately owned.
   Here georgist libertarians seem to argue against property rights for some reason. Property rights are objectively justified and derived from the unarguable concept of self ownership.
   Without property rights there can be no self ownership and without self ownership there can be no basis for individual freedom. In this case any form of libertarianism will fall down. Social organisation cannot be based upon subjective whim. No matter how well argued the case for certain forms of taxation or governmental structure are unless they are based upon an objectively justified first principle they are no more valid or legitimate than tyrannical absolutist monarchical slavery or socialism.

In answer to logan

before challenging the homesteading principle as a justification for property ownership first you should at least identify your alternative if not fully justify it. What is stopping a 'second-comer' from declaring himself owner of your property? Is there any philosophical basis for your acceptance of the status quo? Im not saying youre not the legitimate owner of your property but if you argue against homesteading you are arguing against the concept of property itself. The status quo you seek to uphold is built upon a loose assumption of the vlaidity of lockean property rights. Your property is your own because you voluntarily traded with the last owner in a chain that theoretically stretches back to the original homesteader. Unfortunately history means that almost certainly at some point the land was coercively seized but this is beyond the theoretical discussion at hand.

Logan's example of two 'co-homesteaders' does not pose any kind of challenge to the homesteading principle. There is no problem. Logan has just described two individuals who have peaceably homesteaded adjoining triangular patches of land. There is no objective reason why land properties must be delineated in square plots. 'if noone can own the full and perfect square then homesteading fails' is no argument.

Logans second argument that an individual with superior abilities is no more entitled to the justly earned rewards of his superior labour is another georgist argument against property and in favour of 'social justice' and redistribution. If youre a better accountant than me it stands to reason that in a libertarian market of voluntary exchange should you earn more. The same coercion you advocate against the superior bolt earning the farther plot of land would equally support the notion that the earnings of the superior accountant should be shared amongst the inferior accountants who have done nothing to earn it. Individuals have differing abilities and all attempts to ignore or correct this undeniable fact are not only illegitimate in objectivist ethical terms but in empirical terms have historically failed.

The reason why libertarians are prone to people's front of judea syndrome is that they are individualists how fail to grasp the essential concept of self ownership.

The rival factions of libertarian thought outside of anarchism all hold the existence of a coercive state to be legitimate. As long as there is a monopoly of legitimised aggression there will be disagreement amongst those on the receiving end. Every individual wants the power of the state pointed elsewhere. if, as a libertarian, you seek individual freedom then you need to realise that this can never be realised as long as you accept the legitimacy of coercion. Without the assume legitimacy of the state this argument among libertarians over the 'correct' form of taxation would be nonexistent. Likewise all other contentious issues. The beautiful perfection of the market and the voluntary exchange that drives it would answer every question.

Wadsworth's admirable contention that “income tax, and the very concept of state-protected land 'ownership' without compensation,” are “abominations” is as valid as the old maxim of “no taxation without representation”. But both are irrelevant unless you accept the fundamentally illiberal existence of the state. Either you accept the objective truth that the individual is the true unit of social organisation – not the mythical collective – and thus embrace the principle of self ownership and its preclusion of legitimised aggression in the form of the state or you argue in favour of continued oppression.

Chefdave – what are these “systemic human rights abuses” that us rothbardians are guilty of defending? Either we base concepts of social organisation on objective truths or we surrender to subjective fanatasy. Human rights beyond unarguable self ownership and the derrived principles of property, non-aggression and voluntary exchange are not objective. The Un charter of human rights includes random bollocks about holiday entitlements. These are not inalienable universal human rights. If they were they would not vary across history and geography. They are subjective entitlements and are entirely dependent upon your acceptance that the state owns you and can divvy out goodies.

Wadsworth

“IanB. If Player's 6 were now duty free, they would set the price rather lower than the price of other cigarettes to win market share, so maybe £6 instead of £7. In any event, in this case, Player's would have such a favourable position vis a vis other manufacturers that they can clearly be said to be rent seeking.

Or - just take real life. Smugglers buy fags in France for (say) £3 and sell them over here for £5 a packet. They have to undercut the shop price by a bit to get the business.

Ask yourself - would a smuggler be able to buy fags for £3 in France and sell them for £5 in Turkey, where fags only cost £1?

Or - what if tobacco duty and VAT were scrapped on fags? Would all manufacturers continue to charge £7? Certainly not, the price would drop accordingly (as we know from other countries with lower duty - they don't all charge £7).”

does this reply not completely refute your own original assertion that “Would CE get away with increasing their monthly rents to £1,400? Of course ” and “If the government then declares the other side of the street (where all the offices belong to private landlords) to be a BR-free enterprise zone, would they not also increase their rents to £1,400 a month? Yes they would, why wouldn't they? That's the new going rate.”

how come there is no competition and downward movement in the rental market but you are happy to accept that there is in the cigarette market?

Your two examples do not agree and are incompatible with your attempt to justify lvt as a 'voluntary' tax. The following two statements cannot both be true:

“would they not also increase their rents to £1,400 a month? Yes they would,”

“ Would all manufacturers continue to charge £7? Certainly not, the price would drop accordingly”