—“I’m a bit ignorant on this. What makes an aristocracy different from a republic. With leaders or rulers representing a population.”—
Great question. Thanks for asking it. Because you gave me the nudge I needed to write a first draft of aristocratic government that circumvents problems in libertarian thought.
I have been working on the series: ‘obverse/revers, justification/criticism, morality/science, propertyright/prohibition, GoldenRule/SilverRule, that is the western innovative alternative to eastern static ying-and-yang. Where they match sides, we only overlap in a venn diagram. Where they have a balance of equality and necessary cooperation, we have a division of labor and voluntary cooperation.
OBVERSE: Positive Government uses Justification and ascent (republic) – the objective is to do good. Concentrate all resources behind single ideas: monopoly provision of commons: the government society. But we cannot know good, or agree on good. Napoleonic law of prior restraint. Scope of Property is limited. Standing is limited. Rule is by Coercive Government (ascent). Judgements are ideological and hypothetical. And this creates opportunity for rent seeking(parasitism). At best, this strategy is useful for transitioning a failed people.
REVERSE: Negative Government uses Criticism and prosecution (aristocracy) – the objective is to do no harm. Distribute all resources according to preferences of the contributors: market provision of commons: the civic society. And we can know harm. Common law of dispute resolution. Scope is Property-en-toto, Standing is universal. Rule is by prohibitionary judgement (veto). Decisions are empirical and operational. And this strategy creates no opportunity for rent seeking (parasitism). At worst, this strategy is useful for maintaining a successful people.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine
(London, July 16, 2015)