Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • Philosophers Merely Have To Product – They Don’t Have To Be Perfect, Because They Aren’t Prophets

    (cross posted for archival purposes) [H]oppe got libertarianism “right-er” than anyone else. It is nonsensical to criticize a philosopher for getting tangential ideas wrong. I can list any number of mistakes Hans makes but they are not mistakes that are central to his argument, that democratic government proper cannot function without eventually causing more harm than good, and that the solution to this problem is property. My criticism is that his rothbardian definition of property will not produce rational incentives sufficient for the formation of a voluntary polity, and that definitions of property, like rules of common law, must evolve with the complexity of the society to reflect all possible ethical and moral constraints such that ALTERNATIVE ethical and moral constraints – of which the state is only one form of error – do not evolve to take the place of missing moral and ethical constraints. (that is why societies have strange moral codes, rules and rituals: they have no method of advancing property rights by rational means. But humans will find a way to fill a moral or ethical vacuum.) All philosophers take an idea and expand it to the point of failure. That is what all philosophers have done. Hoppe came closer than anyone else. [I]t is a libertarian failing to treat our idea-people as prophets rather than philosophers. A philosopher produces ideas. It is not necessary for all Ideas produced by a philosopher to be correct unless you simply want to appeal to authority rather than understanding the philosopher’s arguments. It is only necessary that philosophers produce ideas that like science, increase our understanding and capacity for beneficial action. Hoppe has done that. I am working very hard to ‘clean’ libertarianism of stupid ideas by basing it on science rather than on continental and cosmopolitan rationalism. Science is a superior tool to pure reason. All our ‘flaky’ ideas are the product of insufficient science. But we must forgive the previous generations because the science was not available to them. It’s available to us. Even without science Hoppe got liberty almost entirely right. More right than anyone else. So arguing over tangential issues does not discredit his contributions to liberty. Curt Doolittle

    COMMENTS Eric Field Nice. Dialectical libertarianism is what thick libertarians pay lip service to. Hoppe has definitely advanced the refinement of libertarianism.

  • Families as The Unit of Cultural Production In A Civilization.

    While Paternalism (headmanship) has been universal, when insurance and gathering were more important than productivity and warfare, matrilinealism seemed to determine what limited property was important (relations) and what inheritance and therefore ownership. But when productivity became more important than insurance, patrilinealism seemed to develop into the primary social order determining what increasingly complex property was important (livestock, territory, agrarian production, built capital). Now that women can seek rents via the state, we are seeing property return to communalism and men attempt to preserve their control over it. Without families, I do not yet understand how civilization can function any more than I can understand how an economy can function without prices and incentives.

  • Families as The Unit of Cultural Production In A Civilization.

    While Paternalism (headmanship) has been universal, when insurance and gathering were more important than productivity and warfare, matrilinealism seemed to determine what limited property was important (relations) and what inheritance and therefore ownership. But when productivity became more important than insurance, patrilinealism seemed to develop into the primary social order determining what increasingly complex property was important (livestock, territory, agrarian production, built capital). Now that women can seek rents via the state, we are seeing property return to communalism and men attempt to preserve their control over it. Without families, I do not yet understand how civilization can function any more than I can understand how an economy can function without prices and incentives.

  • Which Philosophers Rely On Which Argumentative Method?

    How much longer will we leave ethics to philosophical pseudoscience? ARGUMENTATIVE METHODS

    1. Mythical (Allegorical) (Theological)
    2. Psychological (Moral) (The Anglo Scottish Enlightenment)
    3. Rational (Kantian) (Germanic Libertarians)
    4. Historical (analogical)
    5. Empirical (positivist)
    6. Ratio-empirical ( scientific )
    7. Descriptive (purely descriptive statements free of analogy).

    See Degrees Of Political ArgumentQUESTION: Which philosophers who advocate liberty rely on which argumentative methods? (I can tell you that I rely upon ratio-empirical arguments.)

  • Which Philosophers Rely On Which Argumentative Method?

    How much longer will we leave ethics to philosophical pseudoscience? ARGUMENTATIVE METHODS

    1. Mythical (Allegorical) (Theological)
    2. Psychological (Moral) (The Anglo Scottish Enlightenment)
    3. Rational (Kantian) (Germanic Libertarians)
    4. Historical (analogical)
    5. Empirical (positivist)
    6. Ratio-empirical ( scientific )
    7. Descriptive (purely descriptive statements free of analogy).

    See Degrees Of Political ArgumentQUESTION: Which philosophers who advocate liberty rely on which argumentative methods? (I can tell you that I rely upon ratio-empirical arguments.)

  • Liberty Is Not A Product of Permission, But Of Choice

    [W]ithout states how is liberty enforced? It’s enforced aristocratically: by violence under the ternary logic of cooperation: Null-violence, 0-boycott, 1-cooperation. If another individual desires property rights we grant them to one another in exchange for fighting to preserve those rights from all comers. *We grant that right regardless of state, country, nation, or boundary*. That is the origin and institution of aristocratic egalitarian liberty. Egalitarian meaning: “anyone who is willing to fight for property rights will be given property rights by all others in exchange.” And by contrast, those who do not demand property rights, will not fight for them, shall not be granted them. Everything else is masturbatory begging for permission by slaves. [Y]ou cannot have liberty, and property, if you have it by permission. That statement would be illogical.

    COMMENTS Curt Doolittle (Putting violence back into liberty one paragraph at a time.) Lee C Waaks If by violence, you mean private defense agencies armed with a can of whoop ass, I am all for it. Adrian Nielsen There can still be an institution that engages in violence but not a state. The problem with the state: social contract. Only pacifist libertarians are against violence. Except for them, violence within liberty is not a novel idea. Darcy Neal Donnelly How do you defend you life (property) against a mosquito (parasite) or a pack of wolves (predators)? Do you beg or do you engage to the death? Curt Doolittle How have we done it in history? Militia

  • Liberty Is Not A Product of Permission, But Of Choice

    [W]ithout states how is liberty enforced? It’s enforced aristocratically: by violence under the ternary logic of cooperation: Null-violence, 0-boycott, 1-cooperation. If another individual desires property rights we grant them to one another in exchange for fighting to preserve those rights from all comers. *We grant that right regardless of state, country, nation, or boundary*. That is the origin and institution of aristocratic egalitarian liberty. Egalitarian meaning: “anyone who is willing to fight for property rights will be given property rights by all others in exchange.” And by contrast, those who do not demand property rights, will not fight for them, shall not be granted them. Everything else is masturbatory begging for permission by slaves. [Y]ou cannot have liberty, and property, if you have it by permission. That statement would be illogical.

    COMMENTS Curt Doolittle (Putting violence back into liberty one paragraph at a time.) Lee C Waaks If by violence, you mean private defense agencies armed with a can of whoop ass, I am all for it. Adrian Nielsen There can still be an institution that engages in violence but not a state. The problem with the state: social contract. Only pacifist libertarians are against violence. Except for them, violence within liberty is not a novel idea. Darcy Neal Donnelly How do you defend you life (property) against a mosquito (parasite) or a pack of wolves (predators)? Do you beg or do you engage to the death? Curt Doolittle How have we done it in history? Militia

  • Come Home To Aristocratic Egalitarianism – Leave The Ghetto

    [I]’m an aristocratic egalitarian. I am willing to grant full spectrum Propertarian property rights to all who are equally willing to fight for it in word and deed to the best of their ability. That is the ancient source of liberty: the aristocratic egalitarianism of the indo-europeans. Libertarians from the Rothbardian movement are largely a collection of ‘pussy-tarians’, ‘coward-tarians’, ‘stupid-tarians’, ‘aspie-tarians’, ‘libertines’, and ‘dishonest-cheat-itarians’ who can be divided into two camps: those fooled by obscurantism, and those who are naturally liars, cheats, and dishonest. Ditch ghetto libertarianism as the immoral dishonest scheme that it is. Come home to aristocratic egalitarianism. Take liberty by force, for moral reasons, rather than beg for it for immoral reasons.

  • Come Home To Aristocratic Egalitarianism – Leave The Ghetto

    [I]’m an aristocratic egalitarian. I am willing to grant full spectrum Propertarian property rights to all who are equally willing to fight for it in word and deed to the best of their ability. That is the ancient source of liberty: the aristocratic egalitarianism of the indo-europeans. Libertarians from the Rothbardian movement are largely a collection of ‘pussy-tarians’, ‘coward-tarians’, ‘stupid-tarians’, ‘aspie-tarians’, ‘libertines’, and ‘dishonest-cheat-itarians’ who can be divided into two camps: those fooled by obscurantism, and those who are naturally liars, cheats, and dishonest. Ditch ghetto libertarianism as the immoral dishonest scheme that it is. Come home to aristocratic egalitarianism. Take liberty by force, for moral reasons, rather than beg for it for immoral reasons.

  • Where Libertarians Go Wrong

    [L]ibertarians get lost in introspection. The central problem of creating an anarchic society is fully articulating property rights such that they are possible to rationally adjudicate under the common law. It is this rational ability to adjudicate differences under the common law that makes possible ‘rule of law’. Without such rational articulation, rule by man’s discretion is necessary. The sufficiency of that articulated list of property is what determines if transaction costs are low enough that it’s rational for people to voluntarily join a polity in which plans can be made, and disputes can be resolved, according to that list of property rights. As I have written recently, libertarians (foolishly) discount these transaction costs because they tend to be above, and interact above, the threshold at which moral behavior is dominant. [T]he NAP is either an insufficient test, or private property rights that are intersubjectively verifiable are an insufficient scope. Propertarianism extends property to that which people demonstrate they believe is their just property, and places the burden on the individuals with the greater knowledge. “Seller Beware”.