Author: Curt Doolittle

OSTRUM VS PROPERTARIANISM : THE GRAMMAR OF POLITICS

(I HAVE’T READ OSTROM UNTIL TODAY – SADLY)

(this part paraphrased)

“Ostrom presents a grammar that has five elements:

1) the attributes that qualify someone as a participant in the system;

2) whether actions are permitted, required, or forbidden (may, must, must not);

3) the covered actions;

4) the conditions under which the rules apply; and

5) the consequences of not following the rule.

These components can be used to describe rules, norms and shared strategies. “

(end)

RULES: Rules have all 5 components,

NORMS: Norms specify all but the consequences, and

SHARED STRATEGIES: Shared strategies are statements that only contain the first three components.

(Paraphrased)

“When using this framework, you have to be aware that most rules can be rephrased between prohibitions and compulsions without changing their sense. When comparing two institutions, a little care is usually enough to penetrate this surface distinction. For example “Actor X is forbidden to take action Y” could be written as “X must perform a non-Y action” or “X does not have the option of doing Y”.

(end)

PROPERTY RIGHTS

I suppose it’s only clear to a libertarian, that these five are the criteria for a shareholder’s agreement, and the property rights of shareholders.

At least, that’s the GRAMMAR I am using. And PROPERTARIAN GRAMMAR grammar is more useful since propertarianism is a prohibition against involuntary transfer vie other than virtuous competition.

Ostrom is correct but didn’t take it far enough. Nor did she make the connection between rules, and rights, nor between rights and morality, nor between morality and reproductive strategy.

What we should learn from Rothbard, from Ostrom, from Hayek, from Mises, is that GRAMMARS (languages) are necessary for the development and articulation of commensurability between moral codes.

The problem is, that none of these people was able to produce the entire grammar. None of them took it far enough. I suspect that’s only because it’s taken so long for us to produce enough data to make those connections.

Standing on the shoulders of others makes doing the previously impossible a lot easier. 🙂

PROPERTARIANISM IS A GRAMMAR FOR POLITICS