Author: Curt Doolittle

http://www.capitalismv3.com/?p=2467″And it further implies that political freedom is a ‘good’ – when, it’s evident from the record of history that personal freedom is absolutely a good, but political freedom is simply a necessary evil in order to prevent the government from forming a predatory bureaucracy, and treating the population as it’s property.”

(Copied here for documentation purposes.) Over on The World Bank OTAVIANO CANUTO solves for happiness by actively working against it.

We economists tend to see well-being, and poverty in particular, as a matter of finances and income. But fortunately, at least in the Bank, we have come a long way from that simplistic view. Reducing poverty is not only about increasing productivity and income. It is about enabling people to have a broad sense of well-being and opportunities to express and make choices about their lives.

[callout]If you want to be a priest, join a church. If you want to move people run for office. If you want to celebrate, join a club. If you want to be a scientist, and to better mankind, stick with pragmatic improvement of the material well being of individuals by consciously upgrading their cooperative institutions so that they are ‘calculable’ and rational rather than political and sentimental. In other words, don’t make the problem worse by celebrating the ends, rather than the means.[/callout]

But, the road to economic Hades is paved with good intentions:

If you want to be a priest, join a church. If you want to move people run for office. If you want to celebrate, join a club. If you want to be a scientist, and to better mankind, stick with pragmatic improvement of the material well being of individuals by consciously upgrading their cooperative institutions so that they are ‘calculable’ and rational rather than political and sentimental. In other words, don’t make the problem worse by celebrating the ends, rather than the means. The happiness of man has been achieved by increases in the institutional ability for people to break up the world into little objects and apply increasingly fragmentary knowledge to the satisfaction of the wants of others outside of his or her social circle, and independent of his or her cultural memes, by using the information provided by the pricing system, and by the predictability created by institutional protections for his or her risk taking. Sentimental talk in economics and in politics is destructive and always has been. It is evidence of the failure of the political system utilized by the group making the statements. People on the ascent make arguments to productive group action – they ask us to pay opportunity costs for a collective end, for the purpose of increasing potential productive security. By contrast, all moral arguments are by definition false. And that’s the reality of it. Our job is to be the one academic discipline, and the one social science, that isn’t solving for the satisfaction of humanity’s tribal sentiments despite their natural conflict with a division of knowledge and labor and the pricing system, but that solves for the truth of what makes people actually happy by giving them choices. Humans want a discount. Always. So when you’re trying to determine if your arguing for conviction or convenience, make sure you’re not just looking for the discount that comes from embracing convenience. If you want to celebrate. Celebrate both the means – institutions of calculation and cooperation, and their happy ends. (Now that I’ve been a wet blanket I’m going to go celebrate the day with family.)

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/31/japans-nuclear-rescuers-inevitable-die-weeks/”Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: “My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.” – There really are men of honor left in this world.

Regarding Philosophy, Religion, and Government: a) A Philosophy is a set of related ideas for the purpose of allowing humans to take actions that accomplish ends in the face of necessary uncertainty about the future. b) A Religion is a habituated philosophical framework, for political purposes, using pedagogy for indoctrination, and which relies ostensibly upon voluntary participation, but because of habituation by the individual and within the environment, is largely involuntary. c) A Government is an institutionalized philosophical framework using forcible coercion, and therefore relies upon involuntary participation. What separates a philosophy, from a religion, from a government, is the formality of the institutions, where the increasing formality of the institutions eliminate human choice. What starts as a personal conceptual framework, becomes a framework that a group teaches to others, becomes formal institutions that compel others to adhere to the principles of the philosophy. It is an arbitrary Everything, every idea, has to come from somewhere. Humans may have natural sentiments. But ideas are something that they come by. Military, Political, judicial and pedagogical (religious) institutions do not require belief or consent. They compel adherence by the application of force, or, by near universal habituation, deprivation of opportunity for non-conformers. Philosophy alone allows voluntary adherence to Military, Policial, Judicial, Pedagogical as well as Moral, Ethical and Mannerism frameworks. But let’s look at the problem of choosing philosophy a bit… If there is anyone who is willing to debate me on the limitations of Rand, I’ll take the bet. Even if you bring Peikoff to the table. Yet, despite those limitations, I can defend her propositions against all classical arguments. However, the one I cannot defend it against, is the idea that it is in the interest of the common man, to adopt a political philosophy that is not in his or her individual, temporal, interest. We have but one life, and it consists of limited time. And the proletariat therefore, has a shorter term time horizon than the upper classes. So, Marxism is in the poor’s interest. Democratic socialism is in the working and lower middle class interest. Libertarianism is in the upper middle class interest. And classical liberalism is in the upper class interest. To argue that Rand is anything other than a class philosophy, is to argue that men are equal. Since men are not equal in ability, health, age, knowledge, experience, skill, resources, and relationships — then any philosophy that attempts to be universal to man is by definition a religion. That’s the provence of religion: universal application. Even if some adhere to tenets out of mysticism, some out of allegory, and some out of rational moral analysis, the tenets are the same. That’s the elegance of a religion, and the cultural principles of cooperation that religious idea sets contain. Unfortunately religions rely on mysticism in order to capture the attention of the poor and ignorant proletariat. The secular religion does not. It simply attempts to buy their conformity with services, consumer goods and redistribution. It is cheaper to rely upon mysticism. More expensive to rely on redistribution. And it appears to be more economically productive to rely on redistribution. The question is only how to achieve the redistribution, and the limits of it. Rand, like Marx, Trotsky, Mises and Rothbard, (and Simmel) is simply trying to apply Jewish diasporic religious sentiments to political philosophy. An attempt, that despite the obvious evidence that jewish philosophy is the result of either an arrested or failed civilization. A failed civilization wherein the members of the faith are either unwilling or unable to pay the social sacrifices necessary to hold land. And, having held land, created create the institutions of land holding, and then, by consequence, the institutions of property and built capital needed for an advanced society consisting of a division of labor wherein the natural inequality of humans is expressed by their unequal rewards from participating in the market. All humans seek to JUSTIFY their SENTIMENTS. An act which is anything but scientific. And an act which is arguably religious – it seeks justification rather than exposition.

[callout]A political philosophy that requires unanimity of belief, that does not have cooperative institutions, even private institutions as Hoppe recommends, is to argue that men will adopt a philosophy that is in the interest of other men, particularly those in a competing social class, and is against their interests economically, and socially (status being the human political economy), is not scientific. It is not scientific Because it is COUNTER TO OBSERVATION AND COUNTER TO REASON. [/callout]

A political philosophy that requires unanimity of belief, that does not have cooperative institutions, even private institutions as Hoppe recommends, is to argue that men will adopt a philosophy that is in the interest of other men, particularly those in a competing social class, and is against their interests economically, and socially (status being the human political economy), is not scientific. It is not scientific Because it is COUNTER TO OBSERVATION AND COUNTER TO REASON. Social status is the native human accounting system. We need no devices to sense it. We must rely upon social status so that human animals can know who to imitate, and learn from and associate with in order to best achieve their potential, and the group’s potential. People form groups: Race, Religion, Language, Nation, Class, Generation and Skill Set or career, then hierarchy within that career, are the broadest and most common. Social cues intra-group are lower cost than social cues extra-group. Therefore people specialize in intra-group social cues. This is why individuals in small homogenous single-city-state societies are more egalitarian than in empires. Empires may be able to dictate terms of commerce and issue inflationary currency, but why they are socially tumultuous if the groups can use the political system rather than the market to compete with other groups. As Randianism (and Galmbosianism) is counter to reason, because it requires unanimity of belief, despite not being the interest of the working or judicial classes, then it is unscientific. If it requires unanimity of belief then it is by definition a religion. Because it is the belief in the impossible and irrational. It has replaced superstitious belief in god, with a superstitious belief in the behavior of man. The market economy is superior because the pricing system is the most effective way of informing people as to the behavior that they must exhibit in order to create a low cost high production society where even the poor have more than our ancestors ever dreamed of. However, the market requires institutions and a minimal private government, which we consider a network of contractual agreements. And if individuals simply REFRAIN from theft, fraud, and violence, then they are in effect, shareholders in that society and due profits on their contributions to it. As such, some minimal distribution from the results of the market are due those minority shareholders. The argument that they pay no costs, and make no contribution to the market is false. Since inaction, even the inaction of refraining from theft, fraud, and violence, is a form of action. To say otherwise is to say only money is action.

“Sometimes, the words of political leaders requires interpretation beyond face value. In Russia’s case, abstention (from the vote on Libya) was a calculated move to *facilitate* intervention. The subsequent instability could eliminate Libya as an oil & gas alternative, thus giving Moscow greater market share – and greater control – in Europe. Making sense now?” – STRATFOR

http://hayekcenter.org/?p=4608If PK studied the history of economic thought, he would be rapidly confronted by the realization that the abstract methodology that he relies upon, and the ocean of data he has used for his analyses, is the record of, and methodology of, a ‘special circumstance’ of temporary economic conditions, and that his short term methodology is incongruous with the anglo political model that is the source of western political s

Having created, by accident, the empire, and having done so for the purpose of exporting our market system, and its trade routes, we are stuck with the very real consequences of creating power vacuums if we withdraw our military power, and create opportunity for the greater cost of NOT acting as we are acting. We have, after all, made a nice profit out of bringing the Hindu and Sinic cultures into the modern era. We have, and continue, to make a profit bringing the Islamic cultures into the modern era – by exporting debt (that we may questionably have to pay for) rather than by collecting tariffs or taxes for having done so. These efforts have been made under the rubric of political democracy for the purpose of popular opinion, but are actually for the institutional purpose of creating an economically incentivized and politically enfranchised middle class that is invested in perpetuating the world market system. I do not think that there is disagreement among political economists that we would be better off without having to support the empire. But when faced with the very real, and very negative impact that a withdrawal would have on the average (pampered) american, and on the average (schumpeterian) public intellectual, practical heads prevail.

[callout] Property rights are indeed the basis for prosperity. However, property rights are an institution that is created by the application of organized institutional violence. This fact is usually lost of ideological libertarians. [/callout]

As I understand it, the general thinking among the strategic thinkers (those who study military, political, and economic relationships, rather than just political, financial and social relationships) is that if we bear the burden long enough, the world will evolve into a sufficiently middle class economy (a synonym for democratic) that the purpose of the empire will decline at a rate equal to the relative importance of the american economy, allowing us to withdraw without creating shocks to the international system. A failure to understand military history is what separates ideological political economy from practicable political economy. Property rights are indeed the basis for prosperity. However, property rights are an institution that is created by the application of organized institutional violence. This fact is usually lost of ideological libertarians.

http://www.capitalismv3.com/?p=2439Property rights are indeed the basis for prosperity. However, property rights are an institution that is created by the application of organized institutional violence. This fact is usually lost of ideological libertarians.

The term “Structural unemployment” has a technical definition and a colloquial definition. And authors frequently criticize the colloquial as not matching the technical, rather than the premise put forth by the colloquial. However, the colloquial definition is correct. That is, that there are people trained and experienced in skills that will not return to the economy, and that there are few if any sectors of expansion available to absorb them in any potential recovery, and if unemployed long term, they may be permanently ostracized from the work force. As an aside, it is unlikely that the USA will return to a consumer-debt economy. We will not be ABLE to. Not unless we play tariff and protectionist games, and deprive other geographies of their ability to arbitrage prices. The high current level of liquidity is limited to the financial sector, and even there, to a narrow band of the financial sector. There are no savings going on anywhere, and instead there is debt reduction going on everywhere.. The country is operating at higher efficiency out of fear and necessity — a combination which cannot persist indefinitely. So, the colloquial concept of Structural Unemployment is accurate in it’s usage.

From Economist’s View (In reference to Schiller’s argument (in an exceptional recent paper) that economists should be more interdisciplinary.)

Is Adam Smith Partly an Economist, or Wholly a Moral Philosopher?, by Brad DeLong: Tiago at History of Economics Playground reacted very negatively to an AEA Annual Meeting presentation by Robert Shiller and Virginia Shiller:

This is a question that posits a false dichotomy. The correct question is either: a) “Is adam smith … an econometrician, or a moral philosopher?” He is a moral philosopher. b) “Is adam smith … an economist or an econometrician?” He is an economist. c) “Is an econometrician an economist?” The answer is “No.” An econometrician is a statistician that works on economic data. Why? Economics is a branch of moral philosophy, because the all branches of economics SOLVE for a political end – an end, and an input, without which the profession cannot exist as a discipline. (Yes, that’s right.) Therefore one cannot be an economist unless one is a moral philosopher, unless economics is a branch of statistics, in which case, there are no economic facts because there are no facts without theories. A fact is impossible to define without a theory in which to analyze it. Because being an economist in academia has lost it’s philosophical content, it is possible for Brad to ask this silly question. And if more economists spent more time on philosophy before interpreting statistics, they would understand the erroneous and somewhat ridiculous claims made by the profession are not grounded in demonstrable scientific reality. And they are not grounded in demonstrable scientific reality because economics is currently explanatory, but not predictive.