Mutualism seems like a good feasible economic theory. Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought that originates in the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market.[1] Integral to the scheme was the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration.[2] Mutualism is based on a labor theory of value that holds that when labor or its product is sold, in exchange, it ought to receive goods or services embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility".[3] Receiving anything less would be considered exploitation, theft of labor, or usury. Some mutualists believe that if the state did not intervene, as a result of increased competition in the marketplace, individuals would receive no more income than that proportional to the amount of labor they exert (this being a desirable effect in the school of Mutualism).[4] Mutualists oppose the idea of individuals receiving an income through loans, investments, and rent, as they believe these individuals are not laboring. Some of them argue that if state intervention ceased, these types of incomes would disappear due to increased competition in capital.[5] Though Proudhon opposed this type of income, he expressed that he had never intended "...to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose."[6] Insofar as they ensure the worker's right to the full product of their labor, mutualists support markets and private property in the product of labor. However, they argue for conditional titles to land, whose private ownership is legitimate only so long as it remains in use or occupation (which Proudhon called "possession.")[7] Proudhon's Mutualism supports labor-owned cooperative firms and associations[8] for "we need not hesitate, for we have no choice. . . it is necessary to form an ASSOCIATION among workers . . . because without that, they would remain related as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two . . . castes of masters and wage-workers, which is repugnant to a free and democratic society" and so "it becomes necessary for the workers to form themselves into democratic societies, with equal conditions for all members, on pain of a relapse into feudalism."[9] As for capital goods (man-made, non-land, "means of production"), mutualist opinions differs on whether these should be commonly managed public assets or private property. Though Proudhon's mutualism is similar to the economic doctrines of the nineteenth century American individualist anarchists, unlike them, the Proudhonists are in favor of association for large industries.[10] Because of this, mutualism has been retrospectively characterized sometimes as being economic individualism,[11] and another times as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism.[12] Proudhon himself described the "liberty" he pursued as "the synthesis of communism and property."[13] Mutualists have distinguished mutualism from state socialism, and don't advocate state control over the means of production. Benjamin Tucker said of Proudhon, that "though opposed to socializing the ownership of capital, [Proudhon] aimed nevertheless to socialize its effects by making its use beneficial to all instead of a means of impoverishing the many to enrich the few...by subjecting capital to the natural law of competition, thus bringing the price of its own use down to cost."[14] The idea of a political theory based on mutualism is not excluive to Anarchist thought or to Proudhon, other authors such as Kropotkin[15] have also written about it. The base concept is a biological analogy, as mutualism is the opposite of parasitism. Thus, anarchists and others contrast the capitalist order as a form of parasitism with forms of mutualism calling for revolutionary action to restore/establish a different (or in some cases no) social order.