John Brown Smith (October 30, 1837 – April 4, 1917) was an American doctor, author, mutualist anarchist theorist, tax resister, and developer of shorthand.

Smith wrote of his civil disobedience: I am not a citizen of the United States, and consequently am taxed without representation, which is quite contrary to the genius of republican institutions.

I trust that the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers still have left enough of respect for a man's honest convictions to provide a means of escape, so that he may possess those natural rights which belong to every inhabitant of earth to enjoy, including the liberty to breathe pure air without being taxed for it, especially in a case like mine, where the Collector refused to take the only kind of property I had been engaged in producing while a resident of Belchertown — my text-book on my improved method of shorthand.

This society would be led (or "served," as he puts it) by a class of its most spiritually advanced members, who would in turn be selected by "Soul-Readers" — people with a special clairvoyant talent for tapping into the supermundane.

This utopia also incorporated sex equality, eugenics (only the first class citizens should breed), the adoption of a universal language, pricing according to the labor theory of value, and communal ownership of property.