Introducton
This essay will introduce a speculative model for a geo-mutual panarchist confederation. The purpose of the model is to incorporate various interest groups— economic, political, cultural, etc.— into a revolutionary organization capable of bringing about a geo-mutual panarchy.
Geo-Mutual Panarchism
“Geo-mutualist panarchism? What is that?” Well, geo-mutualist panarchism has those three parts: geo-, mutualist, and panarchism. Let’s dissect our terms, shall we?
Geo in geo-mutualist panarchism comes from the last name of Henry George, the founder of Geoism, or Georgism, and may also be understood to have a connection with the politics of geology or geography. Henry George believed that the Earth was rightfully common property, and that anyone who has an unfair share in the Earth should compensate society for it.
Mutualist in geo-mutualist panarchism comes from the mutualism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who suggested that people have a right to free credit, or interest-free loans. Proudhon suggested that such loans should be provided by democratically-run credit unions, and that the effects of such loans would be the wide dispersal of capital, allowing workers to become self-employed in cooperatives.
Panarchism in geo-mutualist panarchism comes from the philosophy of Paul Emile de Puydt, who suggested that people should be able to choose whatever form of organization they want to operate under, whether it be governmental or voluntary. This would allow people of varying philosophies to express their values, without having to force others into it. This being so, the geo-mutual prefix exists only because land and currency are matters of universal concern.
We can understand geo-mutualist panarchism to be a society where people combine into whatever kinds of groups and form whatever kinds of laws they want to (so long as it does not impede on the other societies’ ability to do the same), compensate one another for taking differing grades of land, and have access to interest-free credit to allow them an entrance into the capital market.
Henocentric Law
Geo-mutualist panarchism incorporates values of the left and right in the large sense, but allows their fullest and separate expression in the smaller sense. That is, geo-mutualist panarchism expresses both individualism and collectivism in its approach, but allows its constituent parts to be altogether individualist or collectivist at their choosing. The geo-mutual bank, the central organization of the geo-mutual panarchist is a consent-based institution that distributes wealth and allows workers to become self-managed, qualifying it as a leftist or socialist approach; but, at the same time, it is a bank, and it does allow people to make unhindered exchanges in the free market (just fairly). For this reason, the approach must also be considered rightist or individualist.
On the large scale, geo-mutualist panarchism incorporates values of both the libertarian left and right. However, at the point of land distribution and credit issue, one is allowed to form or join whatever group one wants to, where either left or right wing values can be expressed exclusively and to the fullest extent. For instance, an individual may combine their interests with others who share their conservative or liberal values, and run the system of their dreams on the land that they have access to, using the credit that is equally available. On the smaller scale, one can be as liberal or conservative or moderate as one likes. This practice is understood to be a form of henocentric law.
Geo-mutual panarchy is a henocentric approach, maintaining pluralism within a distinct higher order; that of the whole. It relies on the free and organic consolidation of interests, a kind of cooperative corporatism. That is, rather than compartmentalizing units completely from the top, downward, they are allowed a great deal of free association. This allows the individual units— be they individual members, cooperatives, communes, or what have you— to combine together according to their own natural and mutual interests. By allowing associations to form organically, disputes are resolved, and social binding may more successfully occur.
Geo-mutualist panarchism concerns itself with many issues, but at the heart there is an effort toward balancing economic interests of differing parties, and finding ways to induce cooperation with minimal coercion. For this reason, geo-mutualist panarchism can be understood to be a form of voluntary, or libertarian, socialism; albeit, if this is so, it is only so to the degree that geo-mutualist panarchism is thoroughly applied.
Because geo-mutualist panarchism is not a purist ideology, it allows for the practices of other ideologies in their more extreme senses (so long as it is on their own leasehold), such as capitalism and communism, and so others may attempt to practice alternative forms of living in a geo-mutualist society. So long as it is at their own costs, this is not a problem. However, geo-mutualism may also be practiced on the smaller scale, in which case the society or territory will, in connection with the large scale application, be thoroughly geo-mutualist.
A geo-mutual panarchy is a society in which one gets to choose their own government or like association, and thereby lease their land and gain access to credit. If one chooses to be a communist, the commune will lease the land and gain access to credit for trading and dispute resolution outside of the commune; if one chooses to be a capitalist, one may opt for a Heathian-style fiefdom or private community; if one chooses to be a thorough-going geo-mutualist, they will opt for a nested system of land trusts and mutual credit clearing banks. The system is meant to be dynamic. The only limit is one’s imagination and its relation to reality. Oh, and the state.
Need for a Revolutionary Organization
Geo-mutualism is a libertarian socialist political economy. Like most forms of libertarian socialism, geo-mutualism concerns itself with establishing an equitable society, wherein wealth is distributed according to the utility of labor, and workers manage their own affairs, either as individual artisans or contractors, or cooperatively in democratic units. In order to establish such an industrial democracy, workers must organize into an appropriate confederation, and set immediately into practice the principles of such a society.
Revolutionists have long emphasized the inability of the current system to be reformed. This is true on the left and on the right side of the ideological spectrum. These polarized views, however, fail to see the way things actually are. The left primarily blames the corporations, and the right the state, and none turn an eye to the decision-making process itself. The state and the corporations are part of the same governmental apparatus; corporations are vassals, granted fiefdoms or charters, by the lord of the land (the state), in return for revenue collection services. Politicians, having the money and support to campaign for office, come from the corporate classes, rely on the corporate classes for support, and benefit the corporate classes. They benefit from the decision-making processes as they exist.
Electoral democracy has its limitations. It may or may not be okay for selecting secretaries, treasurers, and other office workers, but the very nature of electing decision-makers, rather than decision-takers, is cause for immediate concern, as such an act expresses the forfeiture of social sovereignty. Elected decision-makers are easily bought out (so much so that, in Ancient Athens, fear of this meant that public positions were chosen by lottery, not by election).
Even if this were not the case, and public officials were solid as rocks, unable to be moved by promises of wealth or power, a rudimentary look at epistemology, or even of physics, would suggest a degree of relativity when it comes to matters of truth. No individual is able to know everything, and this is because they lack the time and ability to. No human is omniscient or omnipresent. Even after being bombarded by public opinion, they are unable to sift through all of the positions in detail. Inevitably, decisions will be made that will not be satisfactory to one party or another.
If the current setup were the only way things could be, so would necessity entail this is how we should continue, but there have been many proposals for new manners of social relation, the most important being from those who suggest they all be put to test under their own expense, to let the guidance of time figure out the most satisfactory. Indeed, this is the approach of geo-mutualist panarchism, and to various degrees, other schools of libertarian and anarchist thought.
Being that workers, tenants, and other renters of land and capital are still disenfranchised, and are still unable to affect political change through the official apparati, we must use other means. These means are many in number, but all center around the notion of direct action. Direct action, as implied, is the opposite of indirect action. Indirect action is depending on other people, such as politicians, or needing their approval, to carry out decisions on one’s behalf. Direct action is relying on oneself and acting on one’s own behalf with one’s own approval.
Direct action can be concerted, or it can be taken on behalf of an individual. If concerted, direct action relies on voluntary association and shared decision-making. If unapproved command or coercion is of any element, the action is indirect. The strongest and most fruitful examples of direct action include those activities that are positive, and that are social, in nature; those that build up, rather than take down (though this is certainly necessary at times). Such activities bring some sort of inherent benefit to their participants.
Returns to the Revolutionary
While altruistic organizations, which give charity and the like, can bring warm feelings to volunteers, this cannot be the limit or goal of our economic incentives. Material economic benefit is the driving force of human behavior, and any organization determined to gain long-term and loyal membership is bound to put the metaphorical wheat on the table first. The economic wheat, of course, can be measured in terms of increased income or savings, or the provision of valuable goods or services, or preserving something considered to be of intrinsic value (like a park). There are four approaches that I find to be fruitful in providing the economic wheat, and which actually assert the necessity of doing so. These are mutualism, syndicalism, communalism, and agorism.
Mutualism promotes the use of mutual credit and cooperative and mutual associations. These provide benefits by putting stakeholders in direct control of their needs. However, the approach is limited legally. Proudhon, mutualism’s founder, did support acting outside of the state’s permission, but this was more strongly the focus of others, such as Rudolf Rocker, the founder of syndicalism, and Samuel Konkin III, the founder of agorism. Syndicalists promote the activity of revolutionary labor unions, while agorists support tax- and law-evasive market activities. The communalism of Gustav Landauer and Peter Kropotkin, and the Christian anarchism of Leo Tolstoy and others, supports the building of organic communities, and evolving past the state through non-aggressive activities.
All of the above activities provide some kind of benefit to the participant. Mutual credit allows for a more equitable economy in general, unions threaten the low wages of capitalism, gray market activity undermines the sovereignty of the state, and communities provide support. Credit unions and cooperatives, under mutualism, are much more productive, and offer much lower prices. Unions can bring wages up for their members. Gray markets allow people to earn money from home, and offer cheap prices to consumers. Communities bring people together, creating a natural support network. If a behavior does not provide a return, it should probably be avoided; syndicalism, agorism, and the like provide immediate benefits to their participants.
Gradual Revolution
An organization must be built in order to unite the varying but pragmatic approaches of syndicalism and agorism, communalism and economic mutualism, and to facilitate agreements, so that these approaches may reinforce, rather than hinder, one another. In order for this to be done, an umbrella ideology must be supported between them. Geo-mutualist panarchism is such an umbrella ideology, supporting a wide range of cultural, political, and economic expression, and enabling this expression is part of its plan.
Taken on its own, acting without the approval of one’s potential allies can be quite clumsy. Before anything that provides social benefits is removed, something must be built to take its place. Revolution must be gradual, and must follow an agreed upon plan, and have a method of reaching such agreement. If stepped into immediately, revolution will lead to catastrophe, and perhaps worse conditions than existed previously. Instead, an organized but non-confrontational approach of peaceful non-compliance should be adopted. Out of this peaceful non-compliance, a new economy should develop, through the above-mentioned means of mutualism, syndicalism, communalism, and agorism. Disconnected cells, competing tactics, have little potential to effect change. These tactics must be combined under a common organization.
The building of alternatives, in itself, is the most preferable means of challenging the status quo. If associations can be built that provide more value than the institutions provided by state and corporate power, these associations will both provide more draw for the revolutionary movement they are a part of, as well as provide the necessary structure to take the place of the state and corporate power structure once it is challenged. This point is essential. We do not want to remove anything that provides benefits to people until something better is already set into place. This entails a great deal of forethought, social approval, and organization. A decision-making process and plan of action is necessary.
Unity in Difference
There are many ideologies, many ideas, and cultural perspectives about what the best course of action would look like. Many of us are heavily invested in our ideologies, though we may find others with interest in them to be scarce. When taken as a whole, however, us odd few are not so odd or few after all. We are alike in our difference. Everyone outside of the reigning Democratic-Republican spectrum (and many within it), has a vested interest in uniting with others who also fall outside of this range (even the Democrats and Republicans can only serve to gain from geo-mutualist panarchism, so long as they are not members of the ruling class), if not only to gain space for their own ideology to be set into action. Herein lies potential for a sense of unity. Though we may all have varying preferences, we agree that the state of things is not as they should be, and all serve to gain by attaining our own spheres of sovereignty, in which we may express our differences without impeding on others.
A geo-mutualist panacea, which incorporates all other ideologies into itself, and which resolves the problems above, is no small venture to organize, but it must be done. Such an organization must promise a future for its constituents, and one that is agreeable to all to the degree they are affected. In short, the divisions of power must be established in such a manner that every sphere is sovereign unto itself, allowed to practice its own culture and establish its own values, and decisions must be made with regard for subsidiarity. There must also be a general sense of fairness among the constituents. It is toward this end that the geo-mutualist panacea, a confederation of revolutionary potential, is to be established. The need for a revolutionary organization now being known, I would like to put some ideas forward as to what such an organization should look like, and what it would entail.
Documents and Source Values
A geo-mutual panarchy is a society built upon free and voluntary contract. Any confederation established to bring such a society about and to maintain it must operate with this in mind. There are two contracts that stand out as being of crucial importance, and their orientations are of means and of ends. First of these is a General Organizational Platform (as was used by the anarchist, Nestor Makhno, to illustrate, in some ways similar to a manifesto, the ends that was to be worked toward when under the common banner of the Ukrainian anarchists). Such a document loosely, but formally, outlines the ends that are to be attained by an organization, and the reasons for doing so. Secondly, the necessity of a constitution, or a set of Articles of Confederation, should be undisputed. Such a document outlines the specific means of making decisions. It is, as such, a contract of contract-creation, an underlying meta-contract that suggests the method of contracting in the future. Without these two documents, an organization lacks a vision of future development, and a present means of achieving it.
In the General Organizational Platform, and also to be referenced in the Articles of Confederation, should be stated a set of Source Values. Being that the nature of the confederation is to protect the diverse expression of its membership, these values should nurture this outcome. These values include, but should not be limited to, the principle of equal liberty, the non-aggression principle, the principle of fair regard, and the cost-principle.
The principle of equal liberty states that the reaches of personal liberty end at the hindrance of another’s liberty. Murder is strictly forbidden by the principle, as, though the act may be the expression of freedom on behalf of the murderer, the act of murder necessarily exists as the infringement on another’s equality of liberty. The principle of equal liberty is not the same as pure equality (positive liberty), or absolute (negative) liberty, but actually finds the balance between the two extremes. Freedom and equality are best understood as balancing forces to one another, in a way similar to supply and demand.
The non-aggression principle expresses the negative form of liberty, suggesting that no one has a right to infringe on another person’s body or rightfully-gained property. This works well to protect people, but protection is merely a function of preservation. If protection of one gets in the way of the preservation of another, its validity is questionable. If by not protecting oneself, one would inevitably lose without gaining back, protection is valid. However, by saving the life of another person— by allowing them to momentarily infringe on your property, or your persons in a minor way (by demanding physical effort to help them, perhaps disturbing your plans)—, you are enabling them to continue, and thus to pay you back for your costs. Understanding that the preservation of human well-being is the focus of jurisprudence, a caveat must be added to the non-aggression principle; the principle of fair regard. The principle of fair regard states that “help can only be demanded to that degree it can be repaid,” but that it may be demanded thus far, even to the immediate neglect of another person’s body (effort), plans, or possessions, in cases of emergency.
The cost-principle suggests that prices should never rise above (or fall below) the actual human labor cost of creating (or preserving) a good or service. In the area of political economy, it is a statement against the unearned incomes of profit, interest, rent, and taxes. All of these are returns that, unlike wages, salaries, and some contract bids, are not due to labor or effort, but simply from having monopolistic privilege granted by the state. In terms of jurisprudence, we can understand that the granting of monopolistic privileges is an infringement on equal liberty (as it is the giving of some forms of liberty to some, and not to others). The amount of infringement can be determined according to decision-making power, or it can be measured in terms of economic surplus. In this way, the cost-principle is used to measure the infringements on the principles of non-aggression and fair regard.
A good geo-mutualist platform will suggest why the society that we have today is not in line with the Source Values, and what can be done to set it along a more equitable course.[1] It will point to the fundamental inequities of the great monopolies, particularly the monopolies on land and credit, and followed by the others pointed out in Tucker’s Big Four, which has since been expanded upon by others, such as Kevin Carson. The platform will explain the nature of the state, and will point to the feudal functions of corporate power. The platform will also explain the means of dealing with the problem, as introduced by Proudhon, Rocker, Landauer, and Konkin, by way of mutual credit, concerted activity, solidification of communities, and gray market exchanges. It will outline the principles of the geo-mutualist society that is to be established, and will present a general vision of the society.
The General Organizational Platform of the geo-mutualist panarchists should be a formal and synoptic statement of the (perhaps anti-) ideology of the organization, its theory, constituents, and tactics. The Articles of Confederation should be a formal document outlining the method by which decisions are made within the confederation, and by what body those decisions will be made by.
Membership
As far as I can tell— and this should, of course (like every proposal I make for social relations), be amendable by other geo-mutual panarchists throughout time—, the confederation should consist of the following bodies: General Membership, Arbitration, Administration, and Defense, with members divided between Owners, Renters, and Rentiers.
The General Membership will be the sovereign member-body, and will consist of all voting members in good-standing. All other bodies are subsidiary to the General Membership, except for the physical bodies of its individual members, who retain full secession rights, except when they have been convicted of an act of violent aggression. Members retain a reciprocal relationship with the General Membership in this way. The member can secede from the General Membership, and the General Membership may, in drastic cases, remove a member from its registry and restrict the individual from future membership. General Membership is expressed locally, regionally, and worldwide, according to free combination within conditions of scale.
Upon joining the confederation, members will be registered politically and economically. They will register politically according to ideology (communist, nationalist, capitalist, etc.), and economically according to one of three social classes, composing the Consolidation of Renters, Owners, and Rentiers. Renters are those who use the property of others to subsist, Owners are those who neither rent their property to others or from others, and Rentiers are they who rent their property to the Renters. Rentiers will be given membership in order that they may make exchanges using the credit of the panacea (and thus may be debited for their economic rent, interest, or profit), but, due to their exploitive nature, they will not be given voting rights in the General Membership, though they will be given the right to deliberate.
Consolidations of Renters, Owners, and Rentiers contain subsidiary units and their associated staff, each consisting of a General Membership, General Arbitration, and General Administration. These subsidiary units are Owner Alliances, Renter Syndicates, and Rentier Containments. Each Alliance, Syndicate, and Containment consists of the same basic structure and officers (though it may add to it). They have associated departments, following suit in structure and staffing. These include The Departments of Consumption, Production, Tenure, and Trust, each organized according to industry and firm, on all levels of General Membership affiliation.
The Department of Consumption will organize all consumers within each Consolidation; likewise the Department of Production, the producers (including many managers and all employers in the Consolidation of Rentiers); the Department of Trust, beneficiaries of trust agreements (such as students, young people, etc. who are not direct consumer policy-holders); the Department of Tenure, the users of land (everyone). To these departments, various producer, consumer, tenant, and trust organizations will affiliate. All members of subsidiary or chartered bodies, including but not limited to unions, cooperatives, industries, Departments, Alliances, Syndicates, etc., should also be members of their larger categorical grouping. Producer Cooperatives, for instance, should be joined by industry, their industry by its department, and its department by Alliance, Syndicate, or Containment, which, in turn, are organized according to their respective Consolidations, which ultimately combine in the Panacea. Membership on any level carries itself to higher associative categorization.
Eligibility for membership should be open to anyone who agrees with the Mission of The Panacea, and who pledges an oath to a) abide by the Articles, b) follow the course outlined in The General Organizational Platform, and c) respect all other official documents of the panacea; and who is not a) a federal employee, b) a current or potential member of the armed forces, and does not c) have any direct connection to law making, enforcement, presiding over legal proceedings, or any other such legal and governmental activity, under the authority of a sovereign state.
Decisions
Decisions by the General Membership should follow the procedures named in the Articles of Confederation, which should be created and maintained by consensus, but may dictate decision-making by other means (such as super- or simple majority, instant-run-off, proportional voting), or may allocate subsidiary decisions to delegates, branches, departments, committees, subcommittees, etc. (which may or may not be open in membership, but should always be audited, and decisions made by these bodies transparent and entirely disclosed) or even to mandates (who should also be subject to audits), according to the will of the membership. In this way, consensus is used for important and consequential manners, but is also be used to defer to simpler or more instantaneous decision-making processes. This is particularly so when a matter is inconsequential (no one gets hurt or has to pay; it’s a matter of preference), and when extended deliberation is less utilitarian than instantaneous, though less direct or participatory, means of making decisions. Decisions regarding the Articles of Confederation, or that are not deferred to another subsidiary decision-making body, will be made by the General Membership by way of paticipatory spokescouncils operating on consensus, and between these spokescouncils by way of initiative and referendum. Members will have ultimate say in the workings of their organization through the General Spokescouncil and the initiative and referendum process.
The General Membership will have officers directly accountable to them, including a General Announcer, a General Secretary and their Secretariat, a General Treasurer and their Bursars, Process Keepers, Agenda and Itinerary Wardens, and Spokespersons from the Owners and Renters and Commissioners (unable to vote, but allowed to speak) from the Rentiers. The General Announcer will repeat motions made in the assembly, and will declare decisions that have passed. They are the official mouth of the panacea, but only when they are repeating the members. The process keeper will guide agreed upon processes. The secretaries, of course, will be responsible for keeping track of all official business of the panacea, including minutes from meetings. They will be listening to the Announcer especially, for official motions and verdicts. They will also be keeping track of official statements by other officers, in order to document them and report them to currently absent members in good-standing.
Branches
Between official assemblies, the officers of the General Membership will also sit on the General Administration Branch, facilitating decisions from the members by way of initiative and referendum. The General Administration will be in charge of applying the decisions of the General Membership to the panacea. The General Administration will consist of a Grand Constable, the Grand Constable’s Counsel, and a Department Auditing Committee. It will have three departments, including the Registrative Department (the Civil Registry), employing a Chief Registrar and Staff Clerks; the Pecuniary Department (Mutual Bank), employing a Council of Administrators, Credit Brokers, Claims Adjusters, and Collateral Auditors; as well as a Conveyance Department (Community Land Trust), employing Land Value Assessors, Land Value Appraisers, and Auditors.[2] The Grand Constable is in charge of enforcing the internal rules of the General Membership, and deals with matters of violent dispute. The Grand Constable’s Counsel will advise the Constable, and Deputies to the Grand Constable will be selected by lot from the General Membership, if a domestic matter is found to be in need of physical force.
In order to settle disputes between members and member-bodies, and to ensure the accountability of the General Administration to the General Membership, the General Arbitration Branch must be formed. The General Arbitration Branch will enforce the laws of the panacea, as well as resolve matters of tort and contract. It will employ a Supreme Lawspeaker and the Supreme Lawspeaker’s Counsel, whose duties it will be to be familiar with the law, to preside over the courts and guide process, and to declare verdicts. It will also employ a Minster of Equal Liberty, a Minster of Cost, a Minster of Non-Aggression, and a Minister of Fair Regard, who will act as advisors to the Lawspeaker and their Counsel, as well as to the Jurors, who will be selected from the General Membership by lot, on a proportional basis. The duties of the Minsters will be to look at matters from the perspective of their prescribed ministerial role; that is, the Minister of Fair Regard is to look at court proceedings in terms of the Principle of Fair Regard, the Minister of Equal Liberty to look for infringements on equal liberty, etc. The Ministers are to advise the courts and the juries accordingly. Also employed in the Arbitration Branch will be Court Clerks and Court Scribes. Deputies of the Constable will be present at all court functions. The courts of the panacea are to be looked at as a last resort, when mediation and communication has not led to agreeable results. It is not to be used lightly. Much preferable is the use of mutual dispute resolution firms, and other forms of arbitration and mediation units, which should exist freely in a geo-mutual panarchy.
While the Constables and the Courts can resolve problems internal to the organization, there is also then necessity of resolving larger disputes, which may between the panacea and another unrelated body, such as a nation-state. In this case, the Arbitration Branch, under the scrutiny of the General Membership, will interact as diplomatically as possible with any offender. If the offender is violent, this gives need for a General Defense Branch. The General Defense Branch will include a Sub-Commander, the Sub-Commander’s Counsel, and a Council of Fieldmarshals, composed of past Draftees of high esteem. In times of war, a draft will occur. The Sub-Commander, the Counsel, and the Fieldmarshalls will be inferior to their draftees in times of Branch assembly, and their superior in times between.
The General Membership is the sovereign member body, with all other member bodies, including all branches and their departments, considered subsidiary. The consolidations are accountable to the General Membership, as are the Defense, Administration, and Arbitration Branches. The Defense Branch, further, is accountable to the Administrative Branch. The Administrative Branch is also accountable to the Arbitration Branch. The Arbitration Branch is wholly responsible to the General Membership.
Class Consolidation
The geo-mutual panacea is not just a matter of nuts and bolts. This machine serves a purpose, and its purpose is inherent in its design; to establish and maintain a geo-mutualist society. This is done through the absorption of the Renter and Rentier classes into the Owning class, through the means of mutual credit (mutualism), grey markets (agorism), concerted activity (syndicalism), cooperation (cooperativism), and community solidarity (communalism).
The geo-mutual panacea provides the infrastructure necessary to both transition into and maintain a geo-mutualist society, free of renters and rentiers, and plentiful with owner-operators. The reason for organizing the confederation according to Renters, Owners, and Rentiers is to allow for successful social deliberation and consensus-building. By “clustering” members according to their common economic circumstances (but allowing free association among and between clusters), the classes can better communicate within and amongst one another to resolve matters that affect them. Within and between these economic clusters, called Consolidations, voluntary associations of varying types may be built.
Each of the Consolidations are further broken up into departments, according to Production, Consumption, Trust, and Tenure. Because of this, one may find themselves members of multiple Consolidations. That is, one may own their home, but rent their job (that is, be employed by someone else). They may rent their job, but rent out their home to others, making them both a Renter and a Rentier.
In order that the more privileged consolidations will not be able to hinder the revolutionary orientation or activity of the others, decision-making will exclude members of more privileged consolidations from participation in the lesser privileged ones. For instance, in such a case as the latter instance above, where a member “may rent their job, but rent out their home to others, making them both a Renter and a Rentier,” this individual will be allowed to participate in the Renter’s Tenant Syndicate, but will be disallowed from voting in the Consolidation of Renters. They will, however, be allowed full participation in the Consolidation of Rentiers. In the case of the former, wherein a home is owned but a job is rented, the individual will be allowed to participate in the Renter’s Producer Syndicate, but not to vote the Renter’s Consolidation. They will, however, be allowed full participation in the Owner’s Consolidation. In the case a member is both an Owner and a Rentier, the same principles apply; the individual is allowed to vote in the Owner’s Alliance of relevancy, but not in the Consolidation. They may, however, participate fully in the Consolidation of Rentiers.
To put it another way, anyone who has membership in any Rentier Containment is allowed full participation in the Consolidation of Rentiers, but not in any other Consolidation. Anyone who has membership in an Owner Alliance, and not a Rentier Containment, is allowed full participation in the Consolidation of Owners, but not in the Consolidation of Renters. Anyone who has membership in a Renter Syndicate, but not an Owner Alliance or a Rentier Containment, is allowed full participation in the Consolidation of Renters. In this way, the revolutionary persuasion of the organization is written into its function. Renter membership may bleed into the Consolidation of Owners, and Owners into the Consolidation of Rentiers, but not the other way around. The Renters are protected from the Owners and the Rentiers, the Owners from the Rentiers, and the Rentiers are left to face the dictatorship of the proletariat.
While Owners are excluded from the affairs of the Renters, and not vice-versa, this is not to suggest that the organization puts the Owners at a tier below them. Instead, the Owners are held in high esteem. It is simply because the nature of the organization is to create economic virtue that the Owners are restricted (by lack of participation) from hindering the Renters from joining their class. With the Renters as the lower class, the Owners as the middle class, and the Rentiers as the upper class, and with geo-mutualism being a formula for achieving voluntary socialism and abolishing the system of class stratification, the Owners, as middle class standards, stand bright and tall. It is here that the golden mean of virtue can be felt. As Aristotle suggested, virtue is found toward the middle, with vices to be found on each side. As the goal of geo-mutualism is the abolition of the economic class system, this means the absorption of the lower and upper classes, the Renters and Rentiers, into the middle, the Owners. An economy cannot function without the work of the lower class, nor can it exist without the operative role of the upper class. However, a society of owner-operators, found somewhere in the middle, is quite doable, and actually quite desirable, utopian even. Indeed, this is the goal to be achieved by geo-mutual panarchism; but how is it to be done?
“Dictatorship of the Proletariat”
The geo-mutualist panacea properly fuses the approaches of mutualism, syndicalism, cooperativism, agorism, and communalism, providing the means by which the two vicious classes, of Renters and Rentiers, may be subsumed into the Owners, who neither rent their property from others, nor put their property out for rent. Proudhon, Rocker, Landauer, and Konkin all provide pragmatic methods of revolt: Mutual credit, revolutionary unionism, community solidarity, and gray markets.
Renters provide the fundamental class from which unions are to be organized, and, as such, the Renter’s Consolidation is composed of various departments of union activity, including the syndicates of production, consumption, tenure, and trust. Likewise, Owners will naturally be participants in cooperatives and mutual organizations, as well as agorist projects, and will also be divided between production, consumption, tenure, and trust. Rentiers, unlike the others, will be given membership primarily to absorb their wealth, which will be used for cooperative development, strike support, and the like. As the Renting classes subsume the Rentier classes, through expropriation and cooperativization of their property (the unions transform into cooperatives once gaining sovereignty), the Renting classes cease to be renters, and instead become members of the Owning class.
Mutual credit and agorism (or gray marketeering) allow workers to hire one another, and to beat the prices in simple labor and value-added markets. Let these networks grow, and they will become more complex. Because labor is the source of all value, and because the economy does not function without the free will with which God animates us, it is labor that calls the shots. It is labor that applies jurisprudence, protects land and enforces its monopoly, and it is organized labor that will set things straight. Once control the labor market, including the market for security, and the markets for capital and land will be forced to use the currency of labor. If this is not done willingly, on behalf of the monopolists, it matters not; their contracts are invalid, based in fraud and aggression, and there is no reason jurisprudence, in the hands of labor, should respect those contracts. More than likely, the monopolist classes, the Rentiers, will simply apply to the panacea for the credit in the labor market, and may even use their land and capital as collateral. There is nothing stopping the mutual credit system from debiting these landlords and capitalists for their economic interest and rent at this point. Put this alongside revolutionary syndicalism, and the force hits twice as hard.
The Panacea in Action
The panacea is a confederation designed to set into place and maintain a geo-mutual panarchy. A geo-mutual panarchy is a society wherein everyone has access to credit and land, and maintains the ability to join any governmental or thoroughly voluntary institution that will have them (or declare themselves sovereign). These institutions may be thoroughly geo-mutualist, or they may practice their own forms of economy amongst their friends and members, using their credit collectively to establish a commune on their leasehold, or individually to claim a homestead.
Upon joining the confederation, an individual or group will be allocated membership in one or more Renter Syndicates, Owner Alliances, or Rentier Containments, and full voting rights in one of the Consolidations. Members of Rentier Containments will be full members of the Rentier Consolidation only. Members of Owners Containments will be full members of the Owners Consolidation only (unless they are members of a Rentier Containment, in which case they are members of the Rentier Consolidation instead). Renter Consolidations should contain full members who are not Owners or Renters. Renters and Owners are allowed full participation and voting rights in all general affairs; Rentiers are allowed limited rights of deliberation, and may be condescended a vote, but are not given the right to vote. The goal of the confederation is to absorb the Renter and Rentier classes into the Owning class.
The Renting and Owning classes will be the first to participate in the confederation (the Rentiers will be pressured into membership). The Renting class will participate through the practice of revolutionary syndicalism, and the Owning class will participate through cooperativism and the grey market. In this way, the confederation plays many roles. For instance, the Producer Syndicates and Alliances play roles not that unlike the Industrial Workers of the World and the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives. The Producer Syndicate takes part in concerted activity, in the same way industrial unions (like the IWW) do. The Producer Alliance takes part in business partnerships and establishes federal programs between worker and producer cooperatives. However, there are more syndicates and alliances than that; based around consumption, tenure, and trust. The Tenure Syndicate will engage in rent strikes; the Alliance will associate cooperative housing projects. Etc. Consolidations of Owners and Renters will settle disputes between the various interest groups.
As the confederation grows in power, by way of revolutionary tenant, worker, consumer, and beneficiary unionism, and by agorism and cooperativism in the same fields, it will begin to challenge capitalism. The unions will challenge the legitimacy of the ruling class, winning small victories that gain members and culminate into large victories. The Owners will stand as the models of the new society, and will challenge the legitimacy of the ruling class by undermining them through agorism.
Important to the panacea is the role of the Pecuniary and Conveyance Departments. The Conveyance Department will be responsible for collecting the economic rent (minus hardships imposed by capitalism, if applicable), of the Owners and Rentiers. The Pecuniary Department will pay out dividends and provide credit to members, in order that Owners may exchange in agorist networks, that Renter and Owner officials may be paid without legal tender, and that the Renters may have a means to become Owners, without necessarily relying on general strikes and expropriation. It will debit the Rentiers on behalf of the Renters and Owners, according to the appeals by the Conveyance Department; the debits will be used to pay for functions of the panacea, with any remainders to be paid as dividends to the Renters and Owners. In order for the Rentiers to be put under Containment, the majority of the labor market must be commanded by mutual currency; at this point, the operations of capitalism stop, and Rentiers must bend to the use of said currency, and membership in its issuing bank, which debits them for their economic rent and interest, under voluntary contract without duress imposed by anything but supply and demand. In this way, voluntary socialism will be set into place.
[1] I will not being going into detail here, as I have written extensively on the subject in other articles, such as those found in my book and on this site.
[2] These departments— the Registrative, Pecuniary, and Conveyance Departments— are essential to the operation of geo-mutual panarchism. These are the institutions representing de Puydt’s civil registry, a Georgist community land trust, and Proudhon’s universalized credit.
