Nicolaus Tideman
Liberty and land
Markets, plus rent for the commons.
Heterodox Geo-LibertarianOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Geo-Libertarian hall →- Role
- Economist
- Era
- b. 1943
- Region
- United States
- Social band
- Heterodox
- Placement
- +26 · −74 · +34
§ Where Nicolaus Tideman stands
3 axesTideman leans to the market: he defends free exchange and full ownership of what people produce, and opposes taxes on labour and capital. Where the lean stops is land. He argues that the rental value of land and natural resources belongs equally to everyone and should be collected for common benefit, a view he urged on Soviet reformers in the 1990 open letter to Mikhail Gorbachev.
Tideman's ideal minimises coercion and seeks rules people could agree to. His 1976 paper with Gordon Tullock, A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices, promoted a mechanism that makes people reveal their true valuations of public goods, and his ranked pairs method of 1987 resists manipulation by clone candidates. Legitimate collective power, in his view, rests on equal claims to the earth.
Tideman's progressive tilt comes from egalitarian universalism rather than cultural campaigning. His starting premise is that every person, whatever their birth, holds an equal claim to the earth's natural opportunities, a principle that runs from his land-rent proposals to the 1990 Gorbachev letter. His voting research reflects the same concern that every voter be treated fairly.
How close are you to Nicolaus Tideman?
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§ The story
LivingNicolaus Tideman (b. 1943) is an American economist and a long-time professor at Virginia Tech, which he joined in 1973. After earning his doctorate at the University of Chicago, he served as a senior staff economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers in 1970–71. His research spans public choice, voting theory and the economics of land, and he is a leading academic voice of geo-libertarianism, the fusion of libertarian self-ownership with Henry George's view that land belongs to all.
Tideman's reputation rests on two bodies of work. In social choice, he and Gordon Tullock set out the demand-revealing process for public goods in 1976, and in 1987 he proposed the ranked pairs voting method and the independence of clones criterion. In political economy he argues that people own themselves and their labour fully, but that the rental value of land and natural resources belongs equally to everyone. In 1990 he was among the economists who signed an open letter to Mikhail Gorbachev urging the Soviet Union to collect land rent publicly.
Notable for
- 01Geo-libertarian economics
- 02Work on demand-revealing mechanisms
- 03Land-value sharing
Key works & moments
- 1969Earns his doctorate in economics at the University of Chicago.
- 1970–71Serves as a senior staff economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers.
- 1973Joins the economics faculty of Virginia Tech.
- 1976With Gordon Tullock, publishes A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices.
- 1987Proposes the ranked pairs voting method and the independence of clones criterion.
- 1990Signs an open letter urging Mikhail Gorbachev to keep land rent as public revenue.
§ Minds closest to Nicolaus Tideman
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§ Common questions
4 answersWhat is Nicolaus Tideman's political ideology?
Nicolaus Tideman is a geo-libertarian, combining full self-ownership and free markets with the Georgist principle that land value belongs to everyone: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Heterodox Geo-Libertarian. Economically he sits moderately right of centre (+26), pro-market except where land and natural resources are concerned. On governance he is strongly libertarian (−74), seeking to minimise coercion, and socially he is moderately progressive (+34), grounded in an egalitarian view of everyone's equal claim to the earth.
Is Nicolaus Tideman left-wing or right-wing?
He sits on the libertarian side of the spectrum with one distinctly egalitarian commitment. Tideman's defence of free markets, full ownership of one's labour and opposition to taxes on income and capital place him with market liberals. But his insistence that the rental value of land and natural resources belongs equally to all, and should be collected for common benefit, leans left. That is why geo-libertarianism is sometimes classified as a form of left-libertarianism.
What is geo-libertarianism?
Geo-libertarianism is a political philosophy that joins libertarian principles with the land ideas of Henry George. Individuals own themselves and everything they produce, markets are free, and taxes on labour, trade and capital are abolished. But land and natural resources, which no one made, are treated as a common inheritance: those who hold them pay their rental value to the community, which uses it to fund minimal public functions or returns it as an equal dividend. Tideman is among its leading academic theorists.
Which minds are closest to Nicolaus Tideman?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Nicolaus Tideman are The Single-Tax Commons (archetype) (99% alike), Spencer Heath (98% alike) and Bryan Caplan (geo-adjacent reading) (98% alike). The furthest is Gregor Strasser (11% alike).