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The always interesting Joel Schlosberg, spurred in part by this post of mine, today revealed that Mumia Abu-Jamal is a Georgist!

Now, I’m not a Georgist myself, but Konkin’s Movement of the Libertarian Left always welcomed and included Georgist left libertarians, as does today’s Alliance of the Libertarian Left. I’ve gone round and round in debates with radical geoist BGreen about arcane issues of land property theory on the old LeftLibertarian list and the new LeftLibertarian2 list. Those debates can get heated, but perhaps only because we agree about so much other stuff. Certainly Georgist libertarians and arguably anarchist geoists have a proud libertarian heritage they can point to, such as Frank Chodorov (whose writings are available from the Mises Institute — if for no other reason than it was he who convinced the young Murray Rothbard that taxation is theft). The Georgist influence on Albert Jay Nock — author of, among other things, “Our Enemy the State” — was considerable if not complete. Fellow agorist Wally Conger currently has a blog that borrows its name from one of Chodorov’s works, Out of Step.

So, yeah, Georgists are our folk. Furthermore, I’ve suspected for a long time that radical geoists occupy a key point in what I would call “ideological space” between left-Rothbardians and local government oriented “libertarian municipalist” Bookchinites and council communists. If the left and libertarian re-convergence I’ve been talking about becomes both deeper and wider, geo-libertarians will be in a position to shape much of the character of any emergent libertarian progressivism (i.e. left minarchism). As Schlosberg wrote in an email to me:

“…if you want some ammo about libertarianism’s relevance to race and prison issues, you could hardly do better…”

Here’s what Mumia had to say about his connection to Georgism, found in the sidebar of the Justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal page from the Henry George Institute referenced earlier:

This August Uda Bartholomew, a Philadelphia activist seeking to gather support for the initiative to shift to a land value tax there, wrote to Mumia Abu-Jamal asking for a statement of support. She received this reply:

LLJA! 8/29/01

Dear Ms. Bartholomew,

Thanx for your most recent letter.

Initially, I think it only fair to tell you that my endorsement of your/HGI’s efforts in Phila. may prove counterproductive to your objectives. You should know this and act accordingly. This is not something that I take personally, but an observation. Assuming you find it helpful, I’ll add the following.

1. Brief description of exp.:
For the better part of a decade, I taught dozens of students (most from Africa) the basics of Georgist economics, drawn for the most part from his classic Progress and Poverty. I taught introductory and secondary courses… As George explains, most taxes are fundamentally unfair, yet the least objectionable is the LVT. Taxes are problematic, as they are a burden on production, increasing its costs. George argues that his theory is in accord with the natural law.

After years of teaching students from across the US, from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia and beyond, I had to suspend my correspondence instruction so that I could continue my own studies.

2. Reasons for Supporting LVT:
To lessen the burden of taxation is to unburden production, and by extension, to lessen the costs of products all the way down the line, to the consumer.

Georgist economic theory is particularly opposed to land speculation, where land is held out for the profit it may bring in the future. This is a strategy for holding on to land that is unproductive, and as such, an underlying force in shaping urban ghettoes.

Essentially, George argues that every system of taxation must meet the test of fundamental fairness. LVT amounts to a system that taxes the least, and thus, most approximates fairness….

I hope this is helpful to your project –

w/ alla best
M. A. Jamal

Now, recognition that Mumia is arguably some sort of left-libertarian in his politics shouldn’t, in and of itself, impact your opinion of his guilt or innocence. Let’s even momentarily disregard agorist class theory showing us that killing cops isn’t necessarily such a bad thing. If the revelation prods you to at least look into his case a little more deeply just out of curiousity, though, you could do a lot worse than reading “What Happened That Night: A New Look at the Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal” by Robert Wells. I found it very convincing, and if you agree then perhaps we ought to get an ALL letter of support drafted. Free Mumia!

UPDATE: It would be correct to note that just because Mumia is some variety of Georgist, it does not necessarily (in and of itself) imply that he is some sort of “left libertarian”. In particular, although I myself have very firm ideas of what it means to be a “left libertarian”, my take on things is by no means the result of a widespread consensus. The term is used in different ways by different people. Furthermore, I freely admit that I haven’t investigated his political thought well enough to even apply that label in a general sense rather than the more specific sense that I advocate myself.

I attempted to convey the uncertainty attendant to application of the “left libertarian” label when I wrote:

“…recognition that Mumia is arguably some sort of left-libertarian in his politics…”

If it makes the matter clearer, please read it, instead, as:

“…recognition that Mumia is perhaps arguably some sort of left-libertarian in his politics…”

However, and this is a crucial point, my advocacy of freeing Mumia is not contingent upon his political views, but upon being convinced by the Counterpunch piece that he’s innocent. Let’s suppose, solely for purposes of argument, that he were a Stalinist. I’m pretty confident that he’s not, but let’s suppose so. If he’s a Stalinist innocent of the crime for which he has been convicted, he deserves to go free. The Counterpunch piece convinced me of his innocence. Your opinion may vary.

If you’d like to investigate his political thought in depth, I recommend reading his weekly columns available at mumia.org when they get their site working again (it’s partially down right now). That shouldn’t impact your opinion of the man’s guilt or innocence, though.

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