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If you haven’t noticed yet, the Rational Review weekly symposium (or, actually, post dedicated to comments & discussion on a topic) for this week is Party on/Party off — an examination of Rothbard’s response to Konkin’s New Libertarian Manifesto. Konkin, in NLM, put forth a revolutionary strategy for the promotion of the libertarian goal of an anarchistic society. Rothbard responds in the linked piece to Konkin’s scorn for voting and political parties (among other things). As a point of clarification, Konkin’s “anti-political” approach might be best understood as analogous to the extraparliamentary politics typical of revolutionary Marxists and other far left groups, in that it’s actually intensely political in some senses of the word. Discuss there in the comments.

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Just minutes ago, Wally Conger, Roderick Long and myself were interviewed by phone on Angela Keaton’s The Liberated Space (show - web site) regarding the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and related left libertarian topics. Shawn Wilbur was invited but was apparently unable to call in for some reason.

Listen here.

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It seems that two never before widely available Samuel Edward Konkin III works on agorism are in coming months to be published by KoPubCo. Both were previously rumored to have never been completed: his short introductory volume for the average person, “An Agorist Primer“, and his larger and more scholarly “Counter-Economics“.

Apparently, “An Agorist Primer” had such a limited initial distribution on its first print run many years ago that even some major Konkin fans thought it had never been published and was only a rumor. After some followup, it appears possibly the only surviving copy has made its way into Victor Koman’s possession and is set to be republished. “Counter-Economics” was apparently never before published at all, but it is reported that a manuscript survives!

More on this also from Wally Conger.

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One can find both much of potential value and much in the way of utter nonsense in the thought of Ayn Rand. Both Roderick Long and Chris Sciabarra have notably distinguished themselves in the field of sorting Randian wheat from chaff. One is vaguely reminded of the distinction between Marxists and Marxians.

Knappster, however, aptly summarized recently why an open-minded yet skeptical approach is crucial for those who might want to study Rand:

“The big problem with Rand was that over time she made it a point to isolate herself from anyone and everyone who demonstrated the kind of character that might lead them to run up the bullshit flag on her when necessary.

The big problem with post-Rand Objectivism is that her heir and his cronies wheelbarrowed the resulting bullshit to the bank along with everything of real value in her legacy, probably at least partially because they were too goddamn whipped by then to tell the difference. And then Gresham’s Law went into overtime operation.”

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Wally Conger mentioned on his blog the other day that Sunni Maravillosa interviewed him at length on this whole left libertarian thing (and much more) for Sunni’s Salon.

“…it’s fantastic. Sunni and I discuss my definitions of Left and Right, my particular brand of Libertarian Leftism, how to build a vision for revolutionary victory, how California’s gone wrong, antipolitics, TV, science fiction, Edgar Rice Burroughs, WalMart, Ayn Rand, Edward Abbey, and many, many other things…”

Good stuff. Expect more like it soon.

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I got word overnight that the Missouri 18 to Drink ballot initiative is moving forward.

“Got a call from Michael Mikkelsen tonite. He finally got the petition back approved from the Secretary of State (after I believe the second try), meaning that his group can start gathering signatures.”

In addition to their main web site, you can find them on MySpace as well.

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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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I can’t recommend highly enough Francois Tremblay’s first article published on LewRockwell.com this weekend: Disengage!

“The problem is not that we have ‘the wrong people in power,’ but the fact that the power exists in the first place. As long as the State remains in place as it is, war, whether military or social, will continue to be its prime means of expansion, and taxes will continue to be its reason for being and the means to wage these wars.”

Whatever else Tremblay and I might disagree on occasionally, he has recently been on a roll in his championing of the anti-political approach of anarchism. Let’s all give him a little Digg-love.

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UPDATE: Update on the situation here.
—

As detailed on Last Free Voice back on April 26th of this year:

“Ed and Elaine Brown have been holed up in their Plainfield, NH house for months, daring federal law enforcement to bother them. While normally that’s not a problem, since I don’t want federal law enforcement to bother me at home either, Ed and Elaine Brown have been not only convicted of federal crimes, but also sentenced to prison for those crimes. They have also repeatedly referred to the outcome of any attempt to take them into custody as another “Waco”, and have openly stated that they will kill anyone who tries to take them into lawful custody.”

Both the Browns position and that of critics such as the poster at LFV have problems.

While Brown has reached some ethically correct conclusions about non-payment of taxes and refusal to acknowledge the purported authority of government courts, he has done so via gravely flawed reasoning that accepts the authoritarian mythology of statism. This flawed decision-making framework has led him down paths that are strategically unsound, both for himself personally and in terms of consequences for the pro-freedom movement. The news that they are surrounded and that statist forces have, unprovoked, shot at and tasered a friend walking their dog shows matters have been brought to a dangerous precipice.

Rather than denouncing the very concept of taxation for what it is, theft, the Browns have long bought into the specious right-constitutionalist argument that the proper legalistic i’s were never dotted and the t’s not crossed on the federal income tax. While they are indeed ethically justified in witholding taxes and non-cooperation with collection, their arguments for doing so only serve to marginalize them. As Sheldon Richman explained:

Ed and Elaine Brown’s constitutional argument against the income tax is balderdash. But the tax violates their — and everyone’s — rights. The government should leave them alone.

The dangerous thing about the right-constitutionalist position is that it accepts the myth that government is a regime of law. That leads to the naive conclusion that government can be openly defied with impunity provided you file the proper paperwork with some government court. One doesn’t stop a mugger by politely pointing out that he is “breaking the law” and one similarly can’t argue the finer points of law with agents of an entity that unjustly reserves to itself a monopoly of law. When that approach fails, this unsophisticated picture leads radical constitutionalists to irrational “blaze of glory” confrontations that revolutionary left-libertarians recognize as premature adventurism — because the constitutionalists, unlike agorists, lack a theory of revolution to inform their strategies.

It would have been a proper libertarian response to help the Browns escape and go more deeply counter-economic as fugitives on the run when that was still possible. That doesn’t appear to be possible at present, however, and the Browns never sought that option to the best of my knowledge — despite ample opportunity the past few months to exercise it. They have wanted to stand their ground. While that is justifiable, it is also foolish in this context. Furthermore, the media-savvy statists are well prepared and eager to provoke violence to exploit for propaganda purposes. As Jack McLamb noted, this is a delicate situation that calls for a controlled non-violent response.

The now trapped Ed Brown has a choice to make. He can live or die. If he chooses to live, he can be out of prison in less than six years. However, there are indications that he is not inclined to choose life. Further complicating matters, the federal death machine quite transparently has an interest in making sure he dies as that will play into their hands and pave the way for greater repression. Thus, at this point, Ed Brown may not really even have the option to surrender. We can’t know because the feds have blocked media access to the location and are themselves notorious liars.

There is one man who can potentially defuse this situation.

I call on Ron Paul to personally attempt to negotiate the surrender of Ed Brown. Paul’s status as a US Congressman would make it more difficult for the federal goons to deny his request to make the attempt. Paul’s respect among right-constitutionalists both makes it more likely that Brown would accept and, more importantly, would act to reduce tensions generally.

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Over at Against the State, Brewrunner describes a situation that, at least in form if not content, both libertarians and anarchists shouldn’t find so unfamiliar.

“I recently forwarded a link containing clips of Ron Paul from the first Republican debate to a friend of mine. He in turn forwarded the same email on to his step father with a bit of his own words in the body. He stated that the ideas that Ron Paul put forth were simple, logical, and made about as much sense as anything that he had heard coming out of a politician’s mouth.

My friends step father responded to the email with one point. The response simply stated that if Ron Paul’s ideas made so much sense, then why do the majority of our fellow Americans not agree?”

Let’s temporarily leave aside, for purposes of discussion, ones differences with Ron Paul and use him as an imprecise proxy for pro-freedom viewpoints generally.

Libertarian ideas are simple, logical, and make more sense than anything else that typically comes out of a politicians mouth. Of course, libertarian ideas are not in the mainstream but it would be wrong to imply that since they are not in the mainstream, they can not be simple, logical and sensible. The makeup of what constitutes “mainstream” ideas is not solely determined by simplicity, logic or sensibility — but also by in-depth exposure and peer affirmation.

While the holders of mainstream opinions may themselves be otherwise logical and sensible people, they form their opinions based on the information they receive. The information that they receive, in turn, has for decades been largely determined by state-allied corporate mass media gatekeepers. Form a synthesis of Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” and Gabriel Kolko’s “The Triumph of Conservatism” and you’ll have a very sophisticated media analysis framework that explains a lot about the popularity of statism. The good news is that the internet is quickly (on a socio-political time scale) allowing more and more circumvention of the mass media — and we see a corresponding rise in the popularity of libertarian and anarchist ideas as more and more people get exposed to them. To answer the step-father imprecisely: “Why do the majority of our fellow Americans not agree? With time, they will.”

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