Teasing Karl Smith: The Futility Of Teaching Pigs To Sing http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/04/17/teasing-karl-smith-the-futility-of-teaching-pigs-to-sing/
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-17 17:27:54 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/192303384609566720
Just because Karl Smith is the best progressive economics blogger, and a decent and honest man, doesn’t mean he isn’t a poster child for the errors in progressive thought. It’s precisely WHY hes the best poster child for progressive thought: because he’s a decent and honest and intelligent man, yet he STILL simply bathes himself in the error of progressive sentiments, as if its a serotonin soaking-tub for his neurons. In response to yet another of the Krugman/Smith/Thoma/DeLong fits of exasperation over the systemic failure of federalism, I try to encourage Karl to become enlightened — which I realize is as futile as his fantasy that people will become out-group egalitarians. But I still have hope. đ
Karl, 1) Conservatives have a more accurate view of human nature. They have a more complex view of human nature. That view results in a more skeptical view of human nature. All ‘liberal’ progress has been the result of adding women to the voting pool, the decline in male participation in all facets of society due to legislation, immigration, and migration, and the south’s re-embracing of the republican party causing two-party polarity. It has not been due to a change in preference. And the behavior of new generations is cyclical, not directional. No one is every convinced of anything. We fuss and fume to maintain our constituencies and the undecided moderates determine all the outcomes. We must govern with the humans that we have, not the humans we wish we had.I know you find it antithetical, but the conservative case is playing out. This is why conservatism is anti-ideological: all ideologies are progressive. 2) Conservative forecasts are playing out, not because they win arguments but because their understanding of human nature is true:
- a) Differences in preferences are genetically determined. Differences in strategy have costs to individuals. Individuals resent those that do not pay such costs. Evolution has guaranteed this resentment is necessary and unavoidable. Without it cooperation is not possible, because cheating is more advantageous in the short run.
- b) Group differences in signaling are biological and inescapable. Differences in signal costs mean groups biologically aggregate, and vote in support of aggregate signals. The signaling economy is of higher value to individuals in groups than is the monetary economy. (This is one reason why Islam is poor and Christendom is wealthy, and why christianity is an outlier: the church — the federal government — managed to break familial and tribal bonds. islam could not create a high trust society, and without it, an adaptable bureaucracy, or modern commercial capitalism.)
- c) There is a point of minimum homogeneity, beyond which people will cease pursuing redistributive ends. The only countries that can avoid those issues are ‘privileged’ countries like canada and the north of europe, which are small, homogenous, and surrounded by a lack of competitive pressures. The states can never get there.
3) You can have the world you want in a homogenous nation state. But you cannot have it outside of “Denmark”. Participatory government is for small states. In those states the size also limites the distortive ability of the state, so that civilization-ending, or revolution inducing bubbles are more quickly visible. Your counter argument, which you’ve stated here many times, is that authoritarian governments can achieve these ends. And that is true. And I know that’s what you prefer. But they can also achieve many other ends. And the people in them drop adherence to the high trust society as a way of creating a black market, and a means of rebellion against their ability to enact those ends. You will either have an unequal society because of market meritocracy, or an unequal society because of rebellion against state manipulation of societies’ tendency toward meritocracy. That is, unless you produce societies of people who are homogenous equals in practice. Whether by Harrison-Bergeron dysgenics, or natural and or technical eugenics. Now that’s a comforting thought. :/ You are a wonderful human being. But trying to teach a pig to sing wastes your time and annoys the pig. (I know, I know, it doesn’t stop me either.) Perhaps you were too selective in your reading of Smith, without spending equal time on his Moral Sentiments? đ Or its modern equivalent by Jonathan Haidt? Or its earlier equivalents in Weber, Pareto and Machiavelli? Or Michel’s iron law of oligarchy? I know. I know. I know… The austrians have been silly in their belief in the rational individual. But they’re no sillier than the Keynesian belief in the egalitarian individual. We are attracted to the methods that support our cognitive biases. Cheers
http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/04/17/teasing-karl-smith-the-futility-of-teaching-pigs-to-sing/A Decent Honest Man With Opposing VIews Is Still A Decent Honest Man.
(He’s just wrong.) đ
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-17 13:27:00 UTC
http://blog.american.com/2012/04/obamas-inequality-argument-just-utterly-collapsed/I KNEW THAT DATA WAS WRONG. I KNEW IT.
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-17 04:39:00 UTC
http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/04/16/an-argument-in-support-of-faith-as-a-limit-on-the-state/Political Advocates Are Most Often Beggars In The Fine Robes Of Reason.
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-16 12:33:00 UTC
I criticize Rothbard all the time, but always for the same single reason: he did not solve the problem of formal institutions and effectively, he tried to advocate freedom be achieved through informal institutions alone — effectively via a religion. That’s what Confucius did as well. He could not invent politics so he directed the entire civilization to operate as a hierarchical family. But religions are means of rebelling against formal institutions largely by the lower classes, and those rebellions are limited to use by the lower classes. For the middle and upper classes to rebel, they need something to advocate that assists them in cooperation through formal institutions, even if those formal institutions are very limited in scope. And in our terms, limited in scope to the resolution of conflicts. Hoppe solved that problem. He solved the problem of formal institutions. That’s his genius. Hoppe’s weakness is that his English words are structured in turgid German thought, and his writing is not as accessible or organized as are Rothbard’s and Mises’ – nor structured as a social appeal as is Hayek’s work. But Hoppe has found the answer to government that we have been looking for — for two and a half millennia: how to create those cooperative instituions, without at the same time creating bureaucracy. Or, how to create instituions within the market, and subject to the market rather than insulated from it. When we try to advocate Hoppe’s work, we tend to advocate his line of reasoning, rather than the utility of his ideas. I think we do that because we’re paying too much attention to Rothbard’s approach to libertarianism as an informal institution — which again, I’m arguing is counter-factual: the majority do not want freedom, but increased ability to consume. So, both of these argumentative strategies are difficult, because those we wish to convert find fist, that the arguments themselves are ant-social, rather than just thought experiments to help us understand the difference between truth and norm. And second that the arguments are too complex and unnecessary given that the Hoppeian social order is actually quite simple. And any discussion of that social order serves to undermine the presumption behind government: that bureaucracy is a necessary component of achieving social order.
Curt, … I don’t follow you. what is the problem of “formal institutions,” and how did Rothbard “fail” to solve it, and why is this … something to criticize him about? No one can do evertyhing. What exactly is the probem of “formal instituitons” and what IS the “solution”, in your view? And what has this to do with libertarianism anyway? — SK
1) Three categories of institutions: a)Technologies: history, numbers, arithmetic, accounting, objective truth, contracts, interest. b) Formal institutions: laws, courts, banking, armies, formal organizations for capital concentration. c) Informal institutions: manners, ethics, morals, norms, traditions, narratives, myths, rituals, public rituals, and religions. 2) Criticize is a bad word I guess, you’re right. a) I think I dont really comprehend how someone can argue for a normative system that is against the expressed political desires of the many, even if only for status reasons, despite the fact that it would serve their economic interests, if not their status seeking interests — or their will to power. So I tend to view rothbard and mises, as did Hayek, as artificially narrowing the scope of the problem for cultural reasons — because of their sentiments. b) The entire argument from Crusoe on down is a useful thought experiment, but one can’t draw conclusions from it without also trying the opposite thought experiment: an island populated with men in which one desires property rights. THe island after all, creates property by definition if one man is on it.. So, the many-man experiment is more insightful. And the Crusoe argument becomes subject to the reductio fallacy. That’s the thought experiment that’s equally as informative. And from that one comparison of thought experiments, we would have to answer the problem of institutions. And I’m pretty sure we run up against the nasty problem of redistribution (or better said: dividends) if we explore that experiment as well. So you’re entirely right. It isn’t up to one man to solve anything. It is however a material problem, if we have created an ideology, rather than a solution. Ideologies are useful for obtaining the power to establish a form of government, even if that form is anarchic. But institutional solutions are necessary: both technical, formal and informal. So I’m criticizing perhaps the abuse of rothbard. He succeeds in creating the INFORMAL institutions. And hoppe the FORMAL institutions. Rothbard created the simple rules that are necessary for infinite application. He just didn’t solve the rest of it. So I’m not so much criticizing him, as much as criticizing a reliance upon the rothbardian rather than hoppeian solution set. 3) What does this have to do with libertarianism? I see libertarian (commercialism), conservative (manorialism), and progressive (socialism) sentiments as cognitive biases that are largely a reflection of mating strategies. (Too deep for this post). And within libertarian sentiments, ‘libertarianism’ is a rothbardian invention. Libertarianism is a rigid concept, as you’ve stated many times. Libertarian sentiments are much wider. And many political solutions can be classified as libertarian in the sense that they serve the sentiment if not adhere to the hard definitions of rothbardian ethics. (— Eds: added text follows –) Further, as I stated in the first posting, hoppe solved the problem of institutions without bureaucracy. (From a FB conversation)
I criticize Rothbard all the time, but always for the same single reason: he did not solve the problem of formal institutions and effectively, he tried to advocate freedom be achieved through informal institutions alone — effectively via a religion. That’s what Confucius did as well. He could not invent politics so he directed the entire civilization to operate as a hierarchical family. But religions are means of rebelling against formal institutions largely by the lower classes, and those rebellions are limited to use by the lower classes. For the middle and upper classes to rebel, they need something to advocate that assists them in cooperation through formal institutions, even if those formal institutions are very limited in scope. And in our terms, limited in scope to the resolution of conflicts. Hoppe solved that problem. He solved the problem of formal institutions. That’s his genius. Hoppe’s weakness is that his English words are structured in turgid German thought, and his writing is not as accessible or organized as are Rothbard’s and Mises’ – nor structured as a social appeal as is Hayek’s work. But Hoppe has found the answer to government that we have been looking for — for two and a half millennia: how to create those cooperative instituions, without at the same time creating bureaucracy. Or, how to create instituions within the market, and subject to the market rather than insulated from it. When we try to advocate Hoppe’s work, we tend to advocate his line of reasoning, rather than the utility of his ideas. I think we do that because we’re paying too much attention to Rothbard’s approach to libertarianism as an informal institution — which again, I’m arguing is counter-factual: the majority do not want freedom, but increased ability to consume. So, both of these argumentative strategies are difficult, because those we wish to convert find fist, that the arguments themselves are ant-social, rather than just thought experiments to help us understand the difference between truth and norm. And second that the arguments are too complex and unnecessary given that the Hoppeian social order is actually quite simple. And any discussion of that social order serves to undermine the presumption behind government: that bureaucracy is a necessary component of achieving social order.
Curt, … I don’t follow you. what is the problem of “formal institutions,” and how did Rothbard “fail” to solve it, and why is this … something to criticize him about? No one can do evertyhing. What exactly is the probem of “formal instituitons” and what IS the “solution”, in your view? And what has this to do with libertarianism anyway? — SK
1) Three categories of institutions: a)Technologies: history, numbers, arithmetic, accounting, objective truth, contracts, interest. b) Formal institutions: laws, courts, banking, armies, formal organizations for capital concentration. c) Informal institutions: manners, ethics, morals, norms, traditions, narratives, myths, rituals, public rituals, and religions. 2) Criticize is a bad word I guess, you’re right. a) I think I dont really comprehend how someone can argue for a normative system that is against the expressed political desires of the many, even if only for status reasons, despite the fact that it would serve their economic interests, if not their status seeking interests — or their will to power. So I tend to view rothbard and mises, as did Hayek, as artificially narrowing the scope of the problem for cultural reasons — because of their sentiments. b) The entire argument from Crusoe on down is a useful thought experiment, but one can’t draw conclusions from it without also trying the opposite thought experiment: an island populated with men in which one desires property rights. THe island after all, creates property by definition if one man is on it.. So, the many-man experiment is more insightful. And the Crusoe argument becomes subject to the reductio fallacy. That’s the thought experiment that’s equally as informative. And from that one comparison of thought experiments, we would have to answer the problem of institutions. And I’m pretty sure we run up against the nasty problem of redistribution (or better said: dividends) if we explore that experiment as well. So you’re entirely right. It isn’t up to one man to solve anything. It is however a material problem, if we have created an ideology, rather than a solution. Ideologies are useful for obtaining the power to establish a form of government, even if that form is anarchic. But institutional solutions are necessary: both technical, formal and informal. So I’m criticizing perhaps the abuse of rothbard. He succeeds in creating the INFORMAL institutions. And hoppe the FORMAL institutions. Rothbard created the simple rules that are necessary for infinite application. He just didn’t solve the rest of it. So I’m not so much criticizing him, as much as criticizing a reliance upon the rothbardian rather than hoppeian solution set. 3) What does this have to do with libertarianism? I see libertarian (commercialism), conservative (manorialism), and progressive (socialism) sentiments as cognitive biases that are largely a reflection of mating strategies. (Too deep for this post). And within libertarian sentiments, ‘libertarianism’ is a rothbardian invention. Libertarianism is a rigid concept, as you’ve stated many times. Libertarian sentiments are much wider. And many political solutions can be classified as libertarian in the sense that they serve the sentiment if not adhere to the hard definitions of rothbardian ethics. (— Eds: added text follows –) Further, as I stated in the first posting, hoppe solved the problem of institutions without bureaucracy. (From a FB conversation)
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/04/astronauts-condemn-nasa%E2%80%99s-global-warming-endorsement/469366 There is very little that is the product of the human mind that is incomprehensible to an individual who is determined to understand it. I’ve gone through the climate arguments for years now, and the data as presented is tentative if not counterfactual and contradictory. Especially troubling is the fact that the increase in temperatures does not seem to continue. I’ve even invested (and lost money) in the AGW movement. As a participant I’ve been witness to the opportunism of political bureaucracies in finding a new means of taxation and regulation that mean more jobs, more budget and more political power — all justified by popular sentiment, and none motivated by the matter under question. I’m personally acquainted with some of AGW’s leadership early proponents, and the leadership of the supposedly neutral agencies. I’ve witnessed self interest trump public good on the part of nearly every one of these people I’ve come into contact with. It was nothing but a cash grab: a gold rush by everyone I encountered. The demonstrated abuse of the scientific process, and the energetic politicization of the material throws what is potentially informative into question. Especially in light of the more serious environmental concerns, particularly overfishing, developing-world pollution, and human overbreeding — concerns whose solutions would requires states engage in the difficult task of competing with one another rather than against a weaker private sector that cannot refuse their authoritarian violence. Therefore the objective mind is left to choose between a possible risk that cannot be proved, or yet another abuse of institution of science for self serving and political purposes. And the simpler solution prevails: human self interest, hubris and error. However, given that we all want a cleaner world to live in, and that a world that continues to industrialize will only exacerbate the problem. Then the objective mind argues that we should attempt to produce power and create the fewest emissions. That’s a smart policy. Tax games that just reward the academic and political bureaucracies for shoddy science and immoral political behavior are not smart policy. The AGW peak has passed. But we must keep up the struggle against the bureaucracy until we learn how to privatize, and that we must privatize, in order to prevent the abuses that naturally arise from any bureaucracy that is not subject to market pressures.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17681137MADE MY DAY. AND AMAZON IS NEXT.
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-11 13:08:00 UTC
April 05, 2012
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