OK, fair enough, and thanks. I figured that’s about what you meant but wasn’t sure if there was more detail being packed in. My understanding is that real property that law would treat as having those features could in principle be either allodial or fee simple, depending on the breaks (allodial titles are supposed to give more or less absolute discretion to the holder; fee simple is different from non-simple kinds of fiefs in that it is among other things completely alienable and divisible). In practice it is virtually always a fee simple and not an allodial title, because governments usually insist that they, and only they, have allodial title over all the land within their borders.

Of course, all this mumbo-jumbo I guess also emphasizes another important aspect in addition to the obsessive overemphasis on sole, alienable and divisible ownership — all that goes along with a corresponding obsessive overemphasis on highly formalized and legally complex forms of “title,” rather than on messier, fuzzier, more ad-hoc or more conventionally-bounded forms of possession which are mediated more through constantly-negotiated social relationships rather than through charters, contracts or other legal paperwork. States obsessed with legibility love this kind of stuff, perhaps for obvious reasons (their love of it is part of what makes up their obsession with legibility).

Of course these two overemphases, on the most simplistic and atomized forms of ownership claims, and on a legalistic or formalistic picture of title, may have something to do with each other — traditional common ownership may just be necessarily messier and harder to wrap up in precise paper titling than sole ownership is. (To the point that the main form of non-severable shared ownership on offer — corporate ownership — now involves the legal fiction of an invented person, just so you can have some one thing to sit in as the sole owner.) But while they may be related, they need not be the same — legalistic title and arbitrary procedural requirements have certainly been used to fence people off of their commons, but they’ve just as much been used to throw squatters off their honestly-homesteaded freeholds, etc. etc.

is futzing around with PHP 5 Reflection and WordPress custom types. Wee-ha.

Kevin,

I’m a bit confused about what distinction you’re trying to track here. I get the overwhelming stress on individual title, to the exclusion of common title, etc. (Although I’m less sure that that’s a feature that distinctive of mainstream modern libertarians as opposed to classical liberals…) But what do you mean by “allodial, fee simple” property? In real estate, isn’t allodial ownership normally contrasted against fee simple ownership, not a condition that can be conjoined with it? (*) What kind of property rights claims is it that you’re taking to be distinctive here of mainstream modern libertarianism?

(* Such that allodia are often said to be available only to governments and sometimes their jurisdictionally autonomous peers, e.g. the premodern Catholic Church; whereas fee simple is held as a fief from the sovereign and so is supposedly subject to conditions such as taxation, eminent domain, etc.)

Also from Innovator (Sep 1965): “I/t/a — Alphabet of the Future?”, an article by El Ray on “the exciting educational possibilities” of English spelling reform, based on a 44 character phonetic alphabet. Illustrated with a hand written quotation from Bastiat’s “The Law,” transliterated into the new system.

is digging through some old copies of the later issues of Innovator (ca. 1969 at the moment), including a short little article on ecology without/beyond statism, by “Ho Chi Zen” (one of Kerry Thornley’s counterculture alter egos).

is also missing Adrienne Rich today. 1929-2012. R.I.P. Today is a day for sad news, I guess.

“… [T]he very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration … [art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.” – Adrienne Rich, 1997

“… Crossing the bridge I need all my nerve to trust to the man-made cables.

The blades on that machine could cut you to ribbons but its function is humane. Is this all I can say of these delicate books, scythe-curved intentions you and I handle? I’d rather taste blood, yours or mine, flowing from a sudden slash, than cut all day with blunt scissors on dotted lines like the teacher told.” – Adrienne Rich (1968), “On Edges”

So do I. But of course the book is not a defense of "stateless capitalism." Certainly not if those quotation marks are supposed to indicate something that we actually said or wrote something in favor of, anyway.

My own view is that "stateless capitalism" is an incoherent and destructive goal. I'm for stateless markets, not … well, the title of the book is there for a reason. Of course, perhaps the arguments made in the book — that, liberated from state privilege, markets would be anti-capitalistic in their tendency, and tend to undermine rather than promoting the concentration of wealth, economic hierarchy, and social power — could always turn out to be wrong. It could be that stateless markets will produce capitalism, and that capitalism will turn out to be an incubator of asymmetrical power. (Actually I think capitalism just is a form of asymmetrical power.) But in any case, it does seem to me that those arguments should be taken on their own terms — not as arguments about "stateless capitalism," but as arguments about anti-capitalistic markets.
My recent post Shameless Self-promotion Sunday: This Really is the Final Straw

Well there is a reason for that. Here's the third paragraph of the essay. > The threefold structure of my argument draws from the three demands made by the original revolutionary Left in France: *Liberty*, *Equality*, and *Solidarity*. [FOOTNOTE: Of course, the male Left of the day actually demanded fraternité, “brotherhood.” I’ll speak of “solidarity” instead of “brotherhood” for the obvious anti-sexist reasons, and also for its association with the history of the labor movement. There are few causes in America that most 20th century libertarians were less sympathetic to than organized labor, but I have chosen to speak of “the value of solidarity,” in spite of all that, for the same reasons that Ayn Rand chose to speak of “the virtue of selfishness:” in order to prove a point. The common criticisms of organized labor from the 20th century libertarian movement, and the relationship between liberty and organized labor, are one of the topics I will discuss below.] I will argue that, *rightly understood,* these demands are more intertwined than many contemporary libertarians realize: each contributes an essential element to a radical challenge to any form of coercive authority. Taken together, they undermine the legitimacy of *any* form of government authority, *including* the “limited government” imagined by minarchists. Minarchism eventually requires abandoning your commitment to liberty; but the dilemma is obscured when minarchists fracture the revolutionary triad, and seek “liberty” abstracted from equality and solidarity, the intertwined values that give the demand for freedom its life, its meaning, and its radicalism. Liberty, understood in light of equality and solidarity, is a revolutionary doctrine demanding anarchy, with no room for authoritarian mysticism and no excuse for arbitrary dominion, no matter how “limited” or benign. . . . In any case, if you thought that the bits about "Equality" and "Solidarity" were intended to justify ethical collectivism, the welfare state, or the coercive redistribution of wealth, then you're mistaken. The bit about "rightly understood" is italicized because I thought it was important. And I spend a fair amount of time detailing what I mean by each of these terms in the sections of the essay which I entitled "Equality" and "Solidarity." As for "equality under the law," I don't care about that. Liberty calls on us to abolish laws, not equalize the burden of those under them.

Well there is a reason for that. Here's the third paragraph of the essay. > The threefold structure of my argument draws from the three demands made by the original revolutionary Left in France: *Liberty*, *Equality*, and *Solidarity*. [FOOTNOTE: Of course, the male Left of the day actually demanded fraternité, “brotherhood.” I’ll speak of “solidarity” instead of “brotherhood” for the obvious anti-sexist reasons, and also for its association with the history of the labor movement. There are few causes in America that most 20th century libertarians were less sympathetic to than organized labor, but I have chosen to speak of “the value of solidarity,” in spite of all that, for the same reasons that Ayn Rand chose to speak of “the virtue of selfishness:” in order to prove a point. The common criticisms of organized labor from the 20th century libertarian movement, and the relationship between liberty and organized labor, are one of the topics I will discuss below.] I will argue that, *rightly understood,* these demands are more intertwined than many contemporary libertarians realize: each contributes an essential element to a radical challenge to any form of coercive authority. Taken together, they undermine the legitimacy of *any* form of government authority, *including* the “limited government” imagined by minarchists. Minarchism eventually requires abandoning your commitment to liberty; but the dilemma is obscured when minarchists fracture the revolutionary triad, and seek “liberty” abstracted from equality and solidarity, the intertwined values that give the demand for freedom its life, its meaning, and its radicalism. Liberty, understood in light of equality and solidarity, is a revolutionary doctrine demanding anarchy, with no room for authoritarian mysticism and no excuse for arbitrary dominion, no matter how “limited” or benign. . . . In any case, if you thought that the bits about "Equality" and "Solidarity" were intended to justify ethical collectivism, the welfare state, or the coercive redistribution of wealth, then you're mistaken. The bit about "rightly understood" is italicized because I thought it was important. And I spend a fair amount of time detailing what I mean by each of these terms in the sections of the essay which I entitled "Equality" and "Solidarity." As for "equality under the law," I don't care about that. Liberty calls on us to abolish laws, not equalize the burden of those under them.

is flipping through some microfilms of his old campus newspaper, ca. 1961-1962. First impressions: the Plainsman of the early 60s may as well have been called the Auburn University Greek Activities Newsletter; most of the active debates in the editorial pages seem to be over some ongoing obscenity prosecutions against local newsstands and in loco parentis restrictions on Auburn women. And man, they used to run a lot of cigarette ads in college newspapers.