Author: Curt Doolittle

ON INSPIRATIONS VERSUS SOLUTIONS : THE STRUCTURE OF PROPERTARIAN ARGUMENTS

I guess, one of the things that I am struck by, is the inspirational content – what I view as religious content – in philosophy.

Now, I understand why it’s there.

Essayists. Philosophers. Orators. We all make appeals to restructure the current order of things. The causal relations in our minds. The priority of those relations. The priority of our goals. The institutions formal and informal. The laws that enforce informal institutions.

All oration, all philosophy, is political. It may be internally political like buddhism, or yoga – which avoid the problem of politics entirely, by providing a means of achieving happiness expressly by ignoring it. It may be overtly political like greek rationalism, economic philosophy, or legal philosophy. But all argumentation is political. Because ‘political’ means “the process of discovery or invention, and consensus upon rules of cooperation for the purpose of concentrating capital on mutually desirable ends.”

The Argumentation Ethic tells us this. But argumentation is insufficient on its own.

But, you see, the entire premise of philosophical discourse then, is consent on the use of property.

And, so, what do we do when consent is impossible because of the irresolvable conflict in preferences and priorities? Such as when the reproductive strategy of one group is in conflict with the reproductive strategy of another?

Our political systems were developed for homogenous communities. Homogenous agrarian communities. Extended families. Interrelated tribes. Majority rule is a means of obtaining consent on priorities, not on oppositions. At present they are merely the means by which one group attempts to dominate the other groups.

Conversely, the market is the means by which all of us concentrate capital as we wish toward our desired, but often conflicting ends. We cooperate on means, anonymously and daily, despite our different ends. We help each other achieve our different ends, despite our disagreement upon them.

The majority rule state cannot solve this problem for us. In fact, it is in polar opposition to the state of world affairs – and in particular the mobile work force and the heterogeneous society where both genders, all classes and multiple tribes, cultures and ethics may share the same system of property rights and the same system of laws and credit.

The absurdity is evident in the assumption that if we have a bigger economy, why it must be put to narrower ends? Why should the majority be allowed to concentrate what has become extraordinary plenty of capital? IN fact, it certainly looks like the bigger a state is the more credit it can generate, but the less wisely it can make use of it without creating conflict by doing so.

Why is homogeneity of capital concentration a ‘good’? Why, if this means the assault on one groups preferences by another?

While we libertarians almost universally deplore the concentration of capital in the state, and we see the state only as a means of providing a resolution of conflict, not the provision of services, that does not mean that market is capable of resolving all conflicts. Of concentrating capital behind all desirable ends.

Yet, there are reasons that we must have the ability to develop contracts together using an institution similar to the state – government. This reason is not because of some illusory ‘market failure’ (which by definition can’t exist). It exists because the market and competition are ‘sanctioned cheating’. Despite the fact that competition within a group is universally considered ‘cheating’ by human beings, we have trained one another to sanction this one form of ‘cheating’ because it results in higher productivity and lower prices at the cost of having to constantly innovate in response to others who care constantly innovating.

All humans detest involuntary transfer and will punish it. And unfortunately, the male and female, upper and lower classes require property definitions that are in conflict, if not for preferences, but only for reproductive reasons.

And what government must do, is create contracts where ‘cheating’ – involuntary transfer whether direct or indirect – is not tolerated.

Or conversely, it is to sanction, and even enforce, other forms of cheating in order to create redistribution. And people hate this. They hate it twice as much as they like the goods that come from our ability to cooperate in government where cheating is not a sanctioned or preferential good. Unfortunately, for progressives (females) who see the universe as a common, and males, who see the universe as private property, (at least when it isn’t to their advantage with females or power to consider it otherwise), no matter what the other side does, it ‘feels’ like cheating.

SO our problem is not to determine an optimum means of concentrating capital as the majority prefers – which is always at the conquest of another group. It is to concentrate capital behind the preferences of all, while cooperating upon means if not ends. This is what the market does. It is why the market gives us peace prosperity and cooperation.

I can’t, in propertarianism, advocate a particular preference. The purpose of propertarian reasoning is not to advocate a preference, its to facilitate the pursuit of preferences in order to avoid conflict. And this is the current problem of politics. The current problem of politics is providing for permanently and irreconcilable heterogeneous goals and preferences. That would allow groups to cooperate on means, if not ends, for the purpose of pursuing different and conflicting ends.

So, this is why my arguments are not inspirationally structured like Continental, or religious, or even classical liberal, or progressive arguments. It’s because I’m not advocating for one-ness. I’m advocating for diversity of the concentration of capital in pursuit of the preferences of all.

And Im doing that by offering institutions that would assist us in doing so, rather than a ‘way of thinking’ that I hope will become the dominant means of inspiring people to voluntarily accumulate their effort toward a shared objective.

That’s ideology. What I do is institutional.