Critics of Lawrence City Commission candidate Dennis “Boog” Highberger are circulating an anti-capitalist essay they say he wrote as a college student in 1987.

But there are at least two versions of the essay on the Internet, and Highberger said he didn’t write the most inflammatory passages attributed to him. One of the versions online contains the more strident anti-capitalist quotes Highberger says he didn’t write; the other doesn’t.

“I’m on the board of directors for a small business,” Highberger said, referring both to his family’s farm implement dealership in Garnett and the Community Mercantile Co-op. “If that doesn’t make me a capitalist, I don’t know what does. Actions speak for themselves.”

Lawrence developer Lance Johnson said the essay raised concerns about Highberger that went to the heart of economic development issues facing the city.

“My concern is he has not been truthful with the citizens of Lawrence,” Johnson said. “I think there’s a philosophy there that sheds light on what he’s thinking and how he’ll vote.”

Highberger, an attorney for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, acknowledged he wrote the essay “What is Money?” for The Gentle Anarchist student magazine in 1987. An official with Kansas University Archives said Monday the issue was not in the university’s collection, which includes other issues of the magazine.

E-mail inquiries to each Web site about the author were unanswered.

The composition cited philosophies from sources ranging from John Locke to Pink Floyd in calling for changes in the way money is created and used.

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“Money is a paradox,” Highberger wrote. “What money gives on one level it takes away on another. Money frees us to realize our wildest desires — money is pure choice — but at the same time it binds us to a system of wage slavery in which we have to sell our time to survive.”

Highberger said the essay served as the foundation for his part in 2000 to create REAL Dollars — a Lawrence-only currency designed to steer money to Lawrence-owned businesses.

“It obviously wasn’t a great success,” Highberger said of the REAL Dollars effort, “but it obviously wasn’t anti-capitalist either.”

Highberger took second place in the February primary election, part of a Progressive Lawrence Campaign sweep of the top three spots. The top three vote-getters in the April 1 general election will take seats on the City Commission.

“I think my record of public service speaks for itself,” Highberger said. “I think it’s really sad if this campaign comes to the point of circulating things that people said or wrote 15 or 20 years ago. I would like to debate the issues that are before the city right now. I intend to keep it that way, no matter what anybody else does.”