Q: “CURT, WHY DO YOU WANT TO UNDERMINE PRAXEOLOGY?” A: For a host of reasons. 1)

Q: “CURT, WHY DO YOU WANT TO UNDERMINE PRAXEOLOGY?”

A: For a host of reasons.

1) Because praxeology, pseudoscience that it is, when we use it, harms the cause of liberty, by justifiably furthering the perception of libertarians as tinfoil-hat wearing social incompetents, engaged in justification, hero-worshipping and hermeneutic interpretation, in a secular version of theological analysis of scripture and the blind belief in prophets, differing only in use of platonic obscurantism rather than anthropomorphic supernatural language. (That’s a choice, and quotable paragraph.)

2) Because praxeology’s claims are patently false (which I’ve addressed elsewhere at length). Furthermore it is false to state that economics is an axiomatic rather than theoretic discipline, because demonstrably it has not been, and logically it cannot be. (Although I suppose I will have to continue to work to defeat ideological praxeology for the rest of my lifetime. )

3) Because philosophy is indeed missing a solution to, and logic of, the problem of cooperation that we call ‘ethics’ and ‘politics’, that renders commensurable and intelligible the findings of the physical sciences, economic history, and narrative history. Without this uniform system of descriptive ethics it is not possible to rationally construct institutional solutions to the persistent problem of increasing levels of cooperation among peoples with disparate means and ends.

4) Because it is possible to restate libertarian, anarcho-capitalist arguments by Hoppe in ratio-scientific language such that libertarian arguments can be conducted by rational and empirical means as a viable alternative to public choice theory and social democracy.

5) Because I care about actually winning, and obtaining liberty for myself, my progeny, and my people, rather than just making myself feel morally justified as a purely spiritual and psychological form of self gratification.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev