UM. THE NATURAL STATE OF MAN IS JUST ‘RATIONAL’ —“The natural state of man is

UM. THE NATURAL STATE OF MAN IS JUST ‘RATIONAL’

—“The natural state of man is not one of war, but rather of mutual interdependence.”—

Nice assertion but is it true? Or is it wishful thinking?

Why is it that over the long run 2% average is the rate of death by violence? And in many societies it approaches 40% death by violence?

The natural state of man is RATIONAL.

He chooses cheating, parasitism, predation, boycott, avoidance, vacillating cooperation/competition/war, serial cooperation, sustained cooperation, and kin-cooperation as is rational.

The reason we require so many institutions is to limit his choices to the productive and voluntary, despite the utility of violence, theft, fraud, conspiracy, and conquest.

Man is a rational actor. He is moral when it suits him and immoral when it suits him. And that is all we can say.

One of the great benefits of modernity is that wealth is not portable and several, but consists largely of recorded interests in some degree of commons, diminishing the utility of violence and theft.

The strong prey, the strong-enough trade, and the weak gossip, rally, and shame.

Politics is just an organization for the production and defense of commons.