This was originally composed as a submission to panarchy.org, and I was told I would be recieving a reply, but that has not been honored, despite new content that has been placed on the website in the meantime. ____________________________________
In “The inter- and supra-jurisdictional aspect of panarchy,” Landquart writes with regard to the problem of inter-jurisdictional conflicts in panarchy as it relates to approaches to land, saying
The only proposal I found regarding this issue is William Schnack's 'geo-mutualist panarchism'. To put it briefly, he seems to suggest applying Georgist and mutualist principles exclusively to the economic domain while leaving panarchy in the social sphere. This means that only Georgist and mutualist principles would apply to land.
My position of geo-mutualist panarchism (which has been developed further into the theory of ambiarchy) is designed to deal with the facts that lead Landquart to conclude that “I do not see any solutions to such inter-jurisdictional conflicts. Perhaps solutions will emerge when the theory of panarchy begins to be developed more broadly.”
Common within not only panarchist, but anarchist and libertarian discourse also, is the acceptance of null answers that are left up to such abstract non-entities as “the market,” “the society”, or what-have-you. Rather than accepting null for a working hypothesis myself, as Landquart does in this conclusion, I am taking a positivistic position. The fact of the matter is that markets and societies, and whatever combinations one prefers, are composed of actually-existing human beings, and in order to become ontologically real require some exact, discrete form. I am not satisfied with null answers, so the exact discrete form that I am in favor of, until I hear something better, is geo-mutualist panarchism, and for good reason.
With regard to the claim (apparently made after a reading of the synopsis he or she linked) that land would be absolutely controlled by geo-mutualist norms, this is not the case. Ambiarchy, or geo-mutualist panarchism, is envisioned as being administered along federalistic lines, with each government or non-government having its own interior administration and having overlapping jurisdictions coterminous with their own just property claims. The federal body would, as per contract, tax the land according to its rental value, but would not hand the bill to individual members, but to member-organizations. This means that the geo-mutualist operation does not function along individual lines, but is applied to their combinations. As such, those combinations, be they governmental or anarchist, can choose the way in which they afford the federal payment. If, after federal economic rent is extracted (as per the treaty), private capitalist freeholds are established within the externally-rent-paying societies, that is perfectly acceptable. It is also perfectly acceptable if people want to have a society of communes. On the interior, member-organizations have full range of policy-control, as with American True Federalism (“Anti-Federalism,” confederalism) and anarchist confederalism.
Landquart goes on, saying that geo-mutualist panarchism “does not solve the problem at all. Firstly, it is a utopia (no matter how much I dislike that word) because Landquart projects his economic views onto this theory and expects everyone to follow these practices, which no one except Georgists and mutualists would agree to.”
This is actually covered in the work the synopsis cited is founded on (including the original "Interest and Premium: A Geo-Mutualist Synthesis," "The Prefigurative Revolution of Geo-Mutualist Panarchism," the video on geo-mutualist panarchism, and more), and works after that, in which I address the fact that geo-mutualist panarchism is a particular, and as such will not be found acceptable except begrudgingly as the only realistic alternative, owing to the facts of Nature. This being so, it represents an agonistic equilibrium resulting from tensions within society.
I'm not a utopian. Or, to say the same, you really wouldn't like my utopia, because it would be designed according to my own whimsical hedonisms. Instead, my “politics” are those of compromise between what I want, what others want, and what the world actually has to offer us collectively. I may want to be King of the World, and to simultaneously not have to expend any effort, but that isn't very realistic, is it? Neither is it realistic for you or anyone else. The fact of the world is that we are all in competition to have our wills applied, insofar as we all wish to be king over whatever it is we care about, to have our wish be command. But this happens upon a very real gameboard, with very real qualities to it, including economic rent, which is undeniable.
Among those who are aware of the complications that economic rent causes, there is a general agreement that a Land Value Tax is the appropriate solution, or, at very least, “the least bad” of them (as Milton Friedman would say) to resolve the issue. Marxists, mutualists, capitalists, and even fascists have all had parties in agreement with the position. Further, the position predates these, as it was a component of early liberalism and afterthought of physiocracy, being an idea promoted or justified by Spinoza, Locke, Smith, Mill, and more. Landquart is in favor of a confederation, which must be funded either by this or through dues that will be more similar to a worse tax, such as a flat tax.
Under the Articles of Confederation of the United States of America, it was understood that each of the states were to expend money proportional to the value of the land held by the participating state with regard to defense. It must be remembered that such things as the Articles of Confederation were not products of glee and the singing of “Kumbaya,” but were in fact treaties that were only begrudgingly signed up to, in order to solve a bigger problem, that of the oppression from monarchy and the threat of uncivilized natives. So the same with geo-mutualist panarchism, as it is pursued in the spirit of what Landquart says is the “least flawed forms we have” with regard to decision-making, and that is “consensus, compromise, and democracy.”
Landquart discusses some of these joint-decision-making ideas, but does so in a short-sighted manner, in my opinion, making the common mistake of conflating consensus with unanimous agreement. Consensus is not unanimity, because it does not require that the participants vote in favor of a position, merely that they accept it as tolerable. Unanimous agreement, often confused for, and certainly satisfying the conditions of consensus, but being even more demanding, requires that everyone have the same priority, and not merely tolerate the majority priority or a fair compromise. With this misperception, Landquart claims that “Consensus is almost never achievable when more than 20-30 people are involved in the discussion. More advanced forms of consensus (like the Quaker model) may be more effective, but not in cases of large assemblies with a thousand or several thousand participants.” If we take a highly-deductive lens, whereby only things demonstrated in the past, and on the scale demonstrated, are possible, then consensus probably can't work on a large scale, but neither can panarchy. I don't, however, subscribe to this sort of empiricism, owing to this very “problem of induction” (identified by Pyrrho).
For me, the question is whether deductions hold that consensus is rationally scalable. Models such as C.T. Butler's Formal Consensus, which do not require unanimous agreement, and which require principled objections to block consensus, are certainly deductively scalable. Further, even CT Butler's model can be improved, such as by incorporating the “decision rule” concept from Sam Kaner. In Butler's method, consensus is achieved when time runs out, it is not extended, and no principled objections stand to block consensus. But Sam Kaner's decision rule method would allow for a screening device such as a vote to be taken, including a vote working along the lines of “consensus voting.” Not to be confused for consensus decision-making, consensus voting is a term that refers to voting methods that work to find the available option that best satisfies the participants as a whole, rather than that satisifies a majority, thereby producing a moderate and largely tolerable result. Among these are the Condorcet, Borda, and Bucklin counts, among other forms of “range voting.” These methods are just as scalable as any other form of voting. And they produce the greatest compromise, outside of property and markets. But we are dealing with matters meta to property and markets, namely their foundations.
Importantly, within a true confederation, the component parts maintain the rights to recall, nullify statutes (not the constitution), and secede. To restate or rephrase the synopsis (which does not contain the full theory, including the theory of transition), geo-mutualist panarchism would be a confederation with a civil registry for governments and non-governments alike, and, maintaining a collective claim to allodial title, a land trust that leases to these entities for the value of the economic rent. These member-organizations maintain interior autonomy, and mutual credit and Georgist land tenure are only compulsory between voluntary members on the federal level. The federal level, however, is governed by consensus, and in directly federal matters nullification does not apply.
This is not intended to be ideal in the sense of satisfying the postmodernist's every subjective whim, but to be an actual solution acceptable to modernists who are still willing to make pragmatic efforts toward something better. As such, the proposition is entitled ambiarchy with full acceptance that neo-anarchists Left and Right will decry this objectively anarchic project as a form of statism on the grounds of subjective criteria. Capitalists will decry the taking of rent, and communists the lack of subsidies for their shortcomings, as subjectively painful for them to give up. Unfortunately for the delusional, Nature is not under their compulsion, but instead sets the conditions for what is an achievable level of freedom as a matter of natural necessity. This means that even panarchy will require defense from the viciousness of the multitude, and that achieving panarchy will be much like statecraft, insofar as it cannot be expected to be celebrated by the ignorant, but will require the wielding of facts of Nature, even in ways disliked by others, that leverage freedom over compulsion, and apply justice with the force of law.
That is, there is nothing in panarchy that promises defense agencies will be accepted unbegrudgingly, as such a requirement would assume a lack of pettiness, hard-headedness, and etc. They will only be begrudgingly accepted so far as they assert themselves even while unliked. That they are accepted voluntarily-- not unbegrudgingly-- establishes them as just associations. This is much the same as acceptance of a dentist's visit, as none subjectively enjoy their teeth scraped and drilled and filled, and only visit because Nature has so compelled it by objective necessity. To be governed, even to associate with others, and even if voluntarily subscribed, is a frictional affair by nature, and one that subjects one to social competitions for status, recognition, and so on, which are natural discomforts.
While de Puydt's vision is one of natural beauty, its actual playings-out will be much more like a dentist's visit, or even a state, than a utopia. The mundane form I have chosen to give my support in this is ambiarchy, or geo-mutualist panarchism, which admits that objective p/anarchy-- lack of an arbitrary ruling class, overlapping jurisdiction-- will feel subjectively the same as statism to those with unworkable ideas, and can even be fairly described from an idealist lens as a variety of good government.
Unlike Landquart, I do not shy away in speaking with modernist certainty, and from out of concrete, rational philosophy. Until such time I can be shown to be wrong with a reasonable and working alternative other than “I do not see any solutions” (in response to my workable solution), this will remain my working hypothesis founded upon the conception of agonistic equilibrium. So far as I can tell, there is no need for further brainstorming or endless discussion on the generalities in favor of abstractions, analysis paralysis, and unworkable ideas (like turning communists into tenants and capitalists into freeholders that do nothing to change the present situation, which is what Landquart offers for a solution). Hypotheses are best when put to the test.