Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • LETTER TO MATT B (quite intelligent and literate fellow) Matt… Found you by acci

    LETTER TO MATT B

    (quite intelligent and literate fellow)

    Matt…

    Found you by accident. I was searching for comments on Veblen using google’s filter by advanced language. I suppose that is a compliment from Google on your writing.

    I love your poetic language. I appreciate it. I appreciate it for its associations if not its imprecision. I have too scientific an understanding of man to agree with the actuality or possibility of what you write, but it does not mean that if it were possible I would not rather live in such a world. I would. But advocating for the impossible is not within my character or aspirations.

    We have feelings for reasons. Most of them are positive toward plenty, cautious toward cooperation, negative toward scarcity, and vividly against involuntary transfers, by cheating, fraud or theft. In this sense, humans are rational creatures in so far as their abilities and cognitive biases permit them to be – and prospect theory seems to best describe our behavior.

    But while nature guaranteed our progeny and perpetuation with oxytocin that provides us with good feelings from care-taking, that hormonal response is an insufficient method by which to provide people with incentives – in no small part because the distribution of sensitivity to these hormones varies considerably between individuals, groups and genders. The math is just against it.

    That is the virtue of commercial consumption. In tribal society one set of stimuli evolved, and that is the one we naturally accomodate to. In early urban society, religions allows us to form uniform normative codes of action, across familial boundaries by relying on a non existent but allegorical family structure. In legal societies, these norms evolved into rules, where even some counter-intuitive rules can be enforced by threat of punishment. But neither care-taking, tribal, religious, or legal incentives provide us with sufficient incentive to act on risky ventures, and moreover, sufficient incentive to act in competition, and in the service of one another, in anticipation of long term benefit, as do credit and consumption. Further, consumption makes it possible for us to avoid the hard work of compromise that comes from the necessity of living in communal groups. This is why people choose spatial sovereignty – living independently with the ability to consume, instead of with others where compromise is necessary. In fact, we could argue that people demonstrate this preference at all times wherever it is economically possible – because they see the majority of human cooperation as rent-seeking, or free-riding not cooperation.

    So I work in the world of *is* and *must* trying to solve political problems within those limitations. But that does not mean I wouldn’t rather live in your *ought* world if it were possible. I would.

    Affections.

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-23 13:46:00 UTC

  • FEELINGS We all have feelings about norms. Often feelings about habits. Possibly

    FEELINGS

    We all have feelings about norms. Often feelings about habits. Possibly about processes. But can you have feelings about formula or calculations? Why?

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-23 12:14:00 UTC

  • Property Rights are Themselves Property which Must be Acquired.

    [P]roperty rights are a means of cooperation between peers. Every means of acquiring them, other than organized violence, is an insipid appeal, an act of fraud, an involuntary transfer, from those who pay the cost of property rights by the preparation for, and threat of violence, by those who would obtain property rights at a discount. Enfranchisement was always how one earned property rights. Thats because they can’t be earned any other way. The weak, the lazy, the deceitful, all want property rights at a discount. Now, one could argue, that it is possible to PAY people in some way, to extend to you property rights. To HIRE your property rights. And we might argue that, that is, in part, what we use taxes for – but only if I get property rights in return. If I don’t get them, then I’ve given up my violence – meaning my opportunity to use violence for self interest instead of property rights for self interest – for free. It’s theft. Humor: Rothbard was a scam artist. 🙂

  • The Virtue Of Organized Violence

    We can use organized violence to create government. We can use organized violence to create property rights. We can use organized violence to enforce property rights. We can use organized violence to destroy property rights. But you can have neither government nor property rights without violence. The source of freedom is violence. Violence is a virtue.

  • On Cultures as Competing Portfolios Of Property Rights

    CULTURE noun ˈkəl-chər KUHL-churEtymology Middle English (denoting a cultivated piece of land): the noun from French culture or directly from Latin cultura ‘growing, cultivation’; the verb from obsolete French culturer or medieval Latin culturare, both based on Latin colere ‘tend, cultivate’ (see cultivate). In late Middle English the sense was ‘cultivation of the soil’ and from this (early 16th century), arose ‘cultivation (of the mind, faculties, or manners’); culture (sense 1 of the noun) dates from the early 19th century. AlsoCULT (n.) (1) 1610s, “worship,” also “a particular form of worship,” from French culte (17c.), from Latin cultus “care, labor; cultivation, culture; worship, reverence,” originally “tended, cultivated,” pp. of colere “to till” (see colony). Rare after 17c.; revived mid-19c. with reference to ancient or primitive rituals. Meaning “devotion to a person or thing” is from 1829. (2) Cult. An organized group of people, religious or not, with whom you disagree. [Rawson] CULTURE: DEFINITIONS1) : SYSTEM OF ASSUMPTIONS, GOALS, PROPERTY RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS, RITUALS AND SIGNALS WHICH CAN AND ARE TRANSMITTED BETWEEN GENERATIONS.(a) Webster: “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior learned and transmitted knowledge to succeeding generations.” (b) Propertarianism: “a set of suppositions about the nature of man, and his preferred and necessary relation to others, and to nature. The myths that convey those relations, and attach positive and negative values to them. The property rights that codify and enforce those relations in daily life. The Gender Biases, Mating Rituals, Childrearing Rituals, Feast Rituals, Celebratory Rituals, Group Identity Signals such as dress, and learned food choice and preparation preferences. All of which can and must be learned and transmitted to succeeding generations, and which can and do survive transmission to succeeding generations. 2) : CULTURED Knowledge of or Mastery of, the cannon of the most well-crafted examples of History, Letters, and Arts, produced by members of that culture, which celebrate that culture, and demonstrating, and therefore, signaling, the Morals, ethics and manners, of those most well crafted examples. 3) SUBCULTURE (By Analogy), shortened to CULTURE by abbreviation, loading and analogy: A set of STATUS SIGNALS – the competing suppositions, myths, values, property rights, rituals and signals, of a racial (Genetic inter-temporal relations), religious (normative inter-temporal relations), or social group (generational, class, geographic, or occupational relations); 4) BY ANALOGY: POPULAR CULTURE (by analogy): A cyclical preference for a) inexpensive status signals used to illustrate coming of age, b) inexpensive status signals used to demonstrate group membership in order to create opportunities for entertainment, association, occupation or mating created by the set of goods and services marketed to people who are coming of age, participating in mating and child-rearing as well as early career development.

    CULTURES CONSIST OF A PORTFOLIO OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

    CULTURAL PORTFOLIOS ARE INTERGENERATIONAL DEVICES FOR CONVEYING RULES OF ACTION, AND SIGNALS ABOUT FITNESS OF INDIVIDUALS WITHIN GROUPS MAKING USE OF THOSE RULES, THAT FACILITATE COOPERATION, WHERE COOPERATION TAKES PLACE ACCORDING TO A SET OF ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT MAN AND NATURE. [C]ultures consist of a set of myths and norms that determine the goals and limits of human action within each cultural group.. These myths and norms compose a ‘program’ consisting of a world-view about man’s relation to the universe, a series of myths, rituals and habits that reinforce that world view, and a set of property rights and obligations that by habituation rather than intent, survived generations of use in daily life and evolved to perpetuate that world view. While it is true that much cultural content is fungible, it is also true that much of it is not. That which is not, is what is unstated by the myths and traditions but which is a common assumption or implication throughout. In earlier centuries, there were fewer means of incentive with which to direct people to either cooperate, or to do as some individual or group willed. This is because there are very few means of ‘coercing’ people to cooperate toward a given end:

    • a)
    • b)
    • c)

    Early civilizations were split between the application of force, and the application of mysticism. Eventually, in large part, peoples everywhere in the world created organized means of violence for enforcing some system of property rights, even if they were the most corrupt possible. And religion usually formed a means of opposition to that violence, by determining the limits by which the population would consent to be governed – ie: institutional religion described the boundary of legitimacy, and formed a resistance movement. Wherever successful, the state then adopted that religious limitation and as often as possible took control of the religious institutions as well.

    PORTFOLIOS

    [C]ultures then, are defined by their different “portfolios” of property rights. The composition of, and distribution of those property rights, varies from culture to culture. In each culture, those rights are expressed as norms. Property rights themselves are a norm. Those property rights perpetuated by norms may be more or less beneficial than other portfolios of property rights. But any idiot who thinks that (a) formal institutions don’t matter – such as libertarians or (b) that formal institutions are sufficient – such as progressives, will have history prove him wrong to the chagrin of the people who understand (c) that norms are a form of property – conservatives. Norms are a commons that we all pay for. The tax we pay for them with is forgone opportunity to consume them, and absorbing the risk that no others will absorb them too. Aristocratic Egalitarian Culture (The West) prohibits not just fraud, theft and violence, but the more deceptive versions of fraud: profit from asymmetry of knowledge, and profit from involuntary transfer via externalities. Market competition itself, is an involuntary transfer via externality from people outside of the exchange (competitors). This is why humans naturally object to it, and must be trained to respect and practice competition. But this externality provides instruction and incentive to all in the market, such that we all seek greater variety and lower cost of production. It produces beneficial ends. But it is non-trivial to create the norm of respecting and practicing competition. That’s why so few cultures did it. [R]othbard was wrong. The market isn’t sufficient to maintain the norms against fraud theft and violence, and certainly not against externalities. The marginal impact of reputation in the market is lower than the marginal impact of fraud. That’s why only the west developed the high trust society – by out-breeding such that the entire nation to be an extended family – at least within it’s social classes. Without excessive out-breeding that destroyed the perception of extended family through common physical properties, and common normative behavior. In order to retain the sense of extended family, both physical properties and normative properties must be similiar enough that signaling is consisten within the group, and only class (selection quality) within the extended family differentiates between group members. Trust. The extension of familial trust to all possible exchange partners, by prohibitions on externality and asymmetry, when backed by warranty, is the composition that creates the high – trust society. Only AFTER these informal institutions are enforced by formal institutions, even if only the formal institution of the common law, will trust develop. And with trust, the velocity of trade that makes extraordinary marginal wealth possible for a group, because that group is more competitive than other groups.

  • Competition Is The Only Sanctioned Involuntary Transfer

    The ethics of competition. From another piece I’ve been writing. “[C]ompetition” itself, as we use the term, is the normative sanction of external involuntary transfer by an artificial, counter-intuitive, set of rules we call the market, consisting of voluntary transfer of goods and services, by fully informed consensual exchange, and insured as fully informed and consensual by warranty, at the cost of opportunity and investment to other producers of similar goods, in an effort to coerce producers to innovate in their use of resources, to produce goods for all at lower price, or higher quality, in an effort to produce goods and services at the lowest cost and highest quality for all consumers participating in that set of normative rules that comprise that market, and which we in turn call ‘a society’.

  • Competition Is The Only Sanctioned Involuntary Transfer

    The ethics of competition. From another piece I’ve been writing. “[C]ompetition” itself, as we use the term, is the normative sanction of external involuntary transfer by an artificial, counter-intuitive, set of rules we call the market, consisting of voluntary transfer of goods and services, by fully informed consensual exchange, and insured as fully informed and consensual by warranty, at the cost of opportunity and investment to other producers of similar goods, in an effort to coerce producers to innovate in their use of resources, to produce goods for all at lower price, or higher quality, in an effort to produce goods and services at the lowest cost and highest quality for all consumers participating in that set of normative rules that comprise that market, and which we in turn call ‘a society’.

  • Voluntary Transfer Is The Only Testable Ethical Principle

    THE ONLY TEST OF ETHICAL STATEMENTS [T]he only test of any ethical statement is whether all transfers caused by any act, are voluntary transfers – including involuntary transfers of goods, actions and opportunity, and including both direct involuntary transfers by externality, asymmetry of knowledge, fraud, theft or violence (in that order), and including reverse involuntary transfers caused by impediment, free-riding, rent seeking, or privatization (in that order). There is no other test of any ethical statement. There isn’t. Period. – Curt

  • The Honesty Of Violence

    PROPERTY RIGHTS ARE ONLY HONESTLY ACQUIRED BY ORGANIZED VIOLENCE [A]ny attempt to state that rights are acquired other than by organized violence is an attempt to acquire them at a discount. In other words, it is an act of fraud. Any attempt at utilitarian justification then opens us to the utilitarianism of involuntary transfer, and undermines the entire libertarian argument that property rights are absolute. – Curt Doolittle : “Taking liberty out of the ghetto, and back to the aristocracy, one day at a time.” 😉

  • PROPERTARIANISM (FOR WIKI) Propertarianism is an ethical discipline within liber

    PROPERTARIANISM (FOR WIKI)

    Propertarianism is an ethical discipline within libertarian philosophy that is used to advocate and justify anarchic, private, and contractual models of government as replacements for monopolistic bureaucracies organized as states.

    It is used more loosely to categorize all libertarian philosophy that gives ethical precedence to the voluntary transfer of property. The term propertarian refers both to practitioners of these ethical systems, and their arguments. Those opposed to private property may be referred to as non-propertarian or anti-propertarian.

    The term “propertarian” was used originally by critics, to refer to the nearly exclusive reliance upon property rights and private property demonstrated by anarcho-capitalist libertarians in their ethical and political arguments, in order to distinguish them from the classical liberal disposition toward liberty in the American constitutional tradition.

    In recent years the term has been used within the libertarian movement as a self-identifying label by those libertarians who rely on propertarian ethical arguments, but try to define practical political institutions in order to separate themselves from sentimental libertarians who rely on classical liberalism’s moral, allegorical, and historical arguments, as well as from members of the ideological anarcho-capitalist movement.

    The propertarian ideologies can vary from those based upon the Propertarian canon consisting of Misesian Praxeology, Rothbardian Ethics, and Hoppian Private Government, to Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, to a variety of minor thinkers.

    Libertarian philosophy, like Marxist philosophy that it was created to compete with, is a complex dogma dependent upon economic and philosophically analytical arguments that assert that voluntary transfer of private property is the only means of testing ethical arguments.

    When libertarians apply this ethical technique to political philosophy, they express it as the principle that all human rights can be reduced to property rights. And further, that the only rights it is logically possible to possess are property rights. This principle rests in turn on the proposition that respecting property is the only right that people can equally grant to one another, since property rights only require that people refrain from doing something. And while people cannot all contribute actions equally because of their differences, they all can all refrain from acting regardless of their differences.

    This line of argument is often difficult to master, and so many of the people with libertarian bias, simply resort to treating private property as sanctified, which allows them to rely upon more intuitive, emotionally loaded, and less complex moral arguments. The rise of “internet libertarianism” may reflect this simplification.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-21 16:46:00 UTC