Geolibertarianism is apolitical andeconomic ideology that integrateslibertarianism withGeorgism. It favors a taxation system based (as in Georgism) on income derived from land and natural resources instead of on labor, coupled with a minimalist model of government, as in libertarianism. The term was coined by the late economistFred Foldvary in 1981.[1]
Geolibertarians recognize the right to private ownership of land, but only if fair recompense is paid to the community for the loss of access to that land. Some geolibertarians broaden out the tax base to include resource depletion, environmental damage, and other ancillaries to land use.
A succinct summary of this philosophy can be found inThomas Paine's 1797 pamphletAgrarian Justice: "Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds".
Geolibertarians maintain that geographical space andrawnatural resources—any assets that qualify asland by economic definition—arerivalrousgoods to be consideredcommon property, or more accuratelyunowned, which all individuals share an equalhuman right to access, notcapital wealth to be privatized fully and absolutely. Therefore, landholders ought to paycompensation according to therental value set by thefree market, absent any improvements, to the community for the civil right ofusufruct (that is, legally recognized exclusive possession with restrictions on property abuse) or otherwisefee simpletitle with no such restrictions. Ideally, the taxing of a site would be administered only after it has been determined that the privately capturedeconomic rent from the land exceeds the title-holder's equal share of total land value in the jurisdiction.[2]
On this proposal, rent is collected not for the mere occupancy or use of land, as neither thecommunity nor thestate rightfully owns the commons, but rather as an objectively assessed indemnity due for thelegal right to exclude others from that land. Some geolibertarians also supportPigovian taxes on pollution andseverance taxes to regulate naturalresource depletion and compensatory fees with ancillarypositive environmental effects on activities which negatively impact land values. They take the standardright-libertarian position that each individual is naturally entitled to the fruits of theirlabor as exclusiveprivate property as opposed to produced goods being owned collectively by society or by the government acting to represent society, and that a person's "labor, wages, and the products of labor" should not be taxed. Along with non-Georgists in the libertarian movement, they also advocate thelaw of equal liberty, supporting "full civil liberties, with no crimes unless there are victims who have been invaded."[3]
Geolibertarians are generally influenced by theGeorgistsingle tax movement of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, but the ideas behind it pre-dateHenry George and can be found in different forms in the political writings ofJohn Locke, the earlyagrarian socialism of EnglishTrue Levellers or Diggers such asGerrard Winstanley, the FrenchPhysiocrats (especiallyQuesnay andTurgot), Britishclassical economistsAdam Smith andDavid Ricardo,French liberal economistsJean-Baptiste Say andFrédéric Bastiat,American Revolutionary writersThomas Jefferson andThomas Paine, EnglishRadical land reformerThomas Spence,American individualist anarchistsLysander Spooner andBenjamin Tucker, as well as Britishclassical liberal philosophersJohn Stuart Mill andHerbert Spencer. Prominent geolibertarians since George have includedOld Right social criticsAlbert Jay Nock andFrank Chodorov. Other libertarians who have expressed support for the land value tax as an incremental reform includeMilton Friedman,Karl Hess,John Hospers andUnited States Libertarian Party co-founderDavid Nolan.[4]
In continuity with theclassical economic andliberal traditions, geolibertarians contend that land is an independentfactor of production, that it is thecommon inheritance of all humanity and that the justice ofprivate property is derived from an individual's right to the fruits of his or her labor. Since land byeconomic definition is not the product of human labor, its ownership cannot be justified by appealing to natural human rights.[6] Geolibertarians recognize the individual civil right to secure exclusivepossession of land only on the condition that if the land has accrued economic rent, its full rental value be paid to the community deprived of equal access. Thisnon-distortionary system of taxation, it is argued, has the effects of returning the value that belongs to all members of society and encouraging landholders to use only as much land as they need, leaving unneeded land for others to occupy, use and develop.[7][8]
A succinct summary of the geolibertarian philosophy isThomas Paine's assertion in his 1797 pamphletAgrarian Justice: "Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds". On the other hand,John Locke wrote thatprivate land ownership should be praised as long as its product was not left to spoil and there was "enough, and as good left in common for others". When thisLockean proviso is violated, the land earns rental value. Some geolibertarians argue that "enough, and as good left" is a practical impossibility in a city setting where location is paramount. This implies that in any urban social environment Locke's proviso requires the collection and equal distribution of ground rent. Geolibertarians sometimes dispute the received interpretation of Locke'shomestead principle outlined in hisSecond Treatise of Government as concerning the justice of initial acquisition of property in land, opting instead for a view ostensibly more compatible with the proviso which considers Locke to be describing the process by which property is created from land through the application of labor.
This strict definition of private property as the fruit of a person's labor leads geolibertarians to advocatefree markets in capital goods, consumer goods, and services, in addition to the protection of workers' rights to their full earnings.
Geolibertarians generally support allocating land rent from private landholders to all community members by way of aland value tax as proposed byHenry George and others before him.[9]
Geolibertarians desire to see the revenue from landvalue capture cover only necessary administrative costs and fund only those public services which are essential for a governing body to secure and enforce rights to life, liberty and estate—civic protections which increase the aggregate land rent within the jurisdiction and thereby serve tofinance themselves—the surplus being equally distributed as an unconditionaldividend to each citizen. Thus, the value of the land is returned to the residents whoproduce it, but who by practical necessity and legal privilege have been deprived of equal access while the poor and disadvantaged benefit from areliablesocial safety net unencumbered by bureaucracy or intrusivemeans-testing. Some geolibertarians claim the reasoning behind taxing land values likewise justifies a complementarypollution tax for degrading the shared value of the natural commons. The common and inelastic character of theradio wave spectrum (which also falls under land as an economic category) is understood to justify the taxation of its exclusive use, as well.[10][11]
American economist and political philosopher Fred Foldvary coined the term geo-libertarianism in a so-titled article appearing inLand&Liberty.[12][13] In the case of what Foldvary terms "geoanarchism", which he describes as the most radicallydecentralized and scrupulouslyvoluntarist form of geolibertarianism, Foldvary theorizes that ground rents would be collected by private agencies and persons would have the opportunity to secede from associated geocommunities—thereby opting out of their protective and legal services—if desired.[14]
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