Curt Doolittle

Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

  • I’m going to correct Hans a bit here by saying that human cooperation is the res

    I’m going to correct Hans a bit here by saying that human cooperation is the result of these properties:

    1) the differences in abilities among men.

    2) the geographical distribution of nature-given factors of production.

    3) the local structure of production: the division of knowledge and labor.

    4) the local structure of the family and inheritance rights.

    5) the distribution of property rights between the individual, family, group and the commons.

    6) the degree of suppression of, and intolerance for, free riding both in and out of family.

    7) calculative, cooperative technology available for economic signaling and coordination. (objective truth, numbers, money, prices, interest, writing, contract, and accounting).

    8) The use of formal institutions to perpetuate these constraints.

    9) The competition from groups with alternate structures of production, family, inheritance, property rights, free riding, cooperative technologies, and formal institutions.

    10) The recognition of these facts. (I question whether this last one is true.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-15 11:40:00 UTC

  • The Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Calculability, The Solution To Direct Redistribution (Part 1)

    Positioning Libertarian Ethics By Philosophical School 1) CLASSICAL “PSYCHOLOGICAL” (Smith,Hume,Locke,Burke)(BHL’s) 2) GHETTO COSMOPOLITAN (Rothbard), 3) CONTINENTAL RATIONAL (Hoppe), 4) ANGLO ANALYTIC (Doolitte), I keep intuitively wanting to classify the Bleeding Heart Libertarians led by Matt Zwolinski as right-continental rationals, but it’s pretty clear if you go through the past two years of articles on BHL, that their arguments are consistent with the classical psychological while borrowing arguments from everyone else where helpful. I pretty much agree with the BHL’s sentiments. But formal institutions that depend on psychological (and normative) moral intuition and belief, cannot possibly survive postmodern, obscurant, and pseudoscientific propaganda. Worse, they cannot survive the dissolution of the nuclear family. And it’s the nuclear family, or the Absolute Nuclear Family of the anglo tradition that is the primary source of our anglo american moral code. And in a world where immigrants no longer practice that family structure, where single mothers produce 40% of the population, and where ‘alternative marriages’ and ready divorce undermine the institution of the nuclear family, the moral intuitions upon which the Psychological School depends are statistically irrelevant. The family structure is the constructor of moral intuitions which merely direct and modify genetic and gender driven differences in moral sensitivity. Period. Conservatives were correct about the family and norms and we were not. In a democratic polity, where the majority can implement policy, the family structure of the majority will determine morality. And since morality determines property rights, no such property rights can exist within a democracy. We are in our current crisis because the American founders did not grasp the necessity and utility of the principle of calculability (no did any one until Weber). Had they for example, required original intent, and strict construction, and placed explicit authority in the common law, our world might be a very different place. At that time, given the state of science, and the prevalence of religious and poetic phrasing, it was impossible for them to grasp the concept of operational language as a necessary structure of all calculable statements. The BHL’s are not able to innovate per se, because they have no calculable and rational argumentative structure to rely upon. And so their arguments are victim to the moral predisposition their audience. But instead they are positioning libertarian arguments through sympathetic psychological contrasts and advocacy. Which is excellent marketing. And given the damage done by Rothbard’s morally reprehensible parasitic Ghetto Ethics to the cause of liberty, we certainly need good marketing. Propertarianism is not morally loaded. It’s analytic and calculable. In propertarian ethics I’ve placed the formal requirement for operational language. For that reason it isn’t morally aspirational – like most scientific argument it’s a little unsatisfying to reduce all human behavior to it’s physical properties – but it’s factually moral and defensible by science and reason. Whereas the Psychological model may advocate the correct ideas but they are not argumentatively powerful unless one is predisposed to agree with them. As such they are not arguments, but statements of confirmation bias. I have tried to provide the BHL’s with a Propertarian argument for redistribution. My argument requires full calculability from start to finish. And it fully warrants, justifies, explains in causal terms, why direct redistribution to consumers is necessary compensation mandated by respect for property rights. My criticism of the BHL’s to date has been limited (as my autistic arguments often are) to the fact that they are not contributing to innovation in libertarian theory, only to libertarian propaganda. Because I don’t disagree with their sentiments. I disagree with their Psychological School arguments. My hope is that at some point they will grasp that the formal logic of property is sufficient to justify their psychologically argued, and morally intuited ends. And they can back their good marketing with good science, reason, and institutional solutions that are calculable and therefore impervious to the multitudinous forms of fraud that are used by the obscurantist left both socialist, Postmodern, Feminist and whatever else they manage to invent. Property under Propertarianism is a scientifically moral, not rationally moral, or psychologically moral construct. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev

  • The Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Calculability, The Solution To Direct Redistribution (Part 1)

    Positioning Libertarian Ethics By Philosophical School 1) CLASSICAL “PSYCHOLOGICAL” (Smith,Hume,Locke,Burke)(BHL’s) 2) GHETTO COSMOPOLITAN (Rothbard), 3) CONTINENTAL RATIONAL (Hoppe), 4) ANGLO ANALYTIC (Doolitte), I keep intuitively wanting to classify the Bleeding Heart Libertarians led by Matt Zwolinski as right-continental rationals, but it’s pretty clear if you go through the past two years of articles on BHL, that their arguments are consistent with the classical psychological while borrowing arguments from everyone else where helpful. I pretty much agree with the BHL’s sentiments. But formal institutions that depend on psychological (and normative) moral intuition and belief, cannot possibly survive postmodern, obscurant, and pseudoscientific propaganda. Worse, they cannot survive the dissolution of the nuclear family. And it’s the nuclear family, or the Absolute Nuclear Family of the anglo tradition that is the primary source of our anglo american moral code. And in a world where immigrants no longer practice that family structure, where single mothers produce 40% of the population, and where ‘alternative marriages’ and ready divorce undermine the institution of the nuclear family, the moral intuitions upon which the Psychological School depends are statistically irrelevant. The family structure is the constructor of moral intuitions which merely direct and modify genetic and gender driven differences in moral sensitivity. Period. Conservatives were correct about the family and norms and we were not. In a democratic polity, where the majority can implement policy, the family structure of the majority will determine morality. And since morality determines property rights, no such property rights can exist within a democracy. We are in our current crisis because the American founders did not grasp the necessity and utility of the principle of calculability (no did any one until Weber). Had they for example, required original intent, and strict construction, and placed explicit authority in the common law, our world might be a very different place. At that time, given the state of science, and the prevalence of religious and poetic phrasing, it was impossible for them to grasp the concept of operational language as a necessary structure of all calculable statements. The BHL’s are not able to innovate per se, because they have no calculable and rational argumentative structure to rely upon. And so their arguments are victim to the moral predisposition their audience. But instead they are positioning libertarian arguments through sympathetic psychological contrasts and advocacy. Which is excellent marketing. And given the damage done by Rothbard’s morally reprehensible parasitic Ghetto Ethics to the cause of liberty, we certainly need good marketing. Propertarianism is not morally loaded. It’s analytic and calculable. In propertarian ethics I’ve placed the formal requirement for operational language. For that reason it isn’t morally aspirational – like most scientific argument it’s a little unsatisfying to reduce all human behavior to it’s physical properties – but it’s factually moral and defensible by science and reason. Whereas the Psychological model may advocate the correct ideas but they are not argumentatively powerful unless one is predisposed to agree with them. As such they are not arguments, but statements of confirmation bias. I have tried to provide the BHL’s with a Propertarian argument for redistribution. My argument requires full calculability from start to finish. And it fully warrants, justifies, explains in causal terms, why direct redistribution to consumers is necessary compensation mandated by respect for property rights. My criticism of the BHL’s to date has been limited (as my autistic arguments often are) to the fact that they are not contributing to innovation in libertarian theory, only to libertarian propaganda. Because I don’t disagree with their sentiments. I disagree with their Psychological School arguments. My hope is that at some point they will grasp that the formal logic of property is sufficient to justify their psychologically argued, and morally intuited ends. And they can back their good marketing with good science, reason, and institutional solutions that are calculable and therefore impervious to the multitudinous forms of fraud that are used by the obscurantist left both socialist, Postmodern, Feminist and whatever else they manage to invent. Property under Propertarianism is a scientifically moral, not rationally moral, or psychologically moral construct. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev

  • Choice Words Against Socialism

    In the context of intellectual history, the argument against socialism was framed as the viability of the “socialist mode of production”. The central argument against socialism is the impossibility of that mode of production on two points: calculation and incentives – with the debate only over the relative importance of each. Second, it is non-logical to disconnect the notion of production from economy. Because that is the function of an economy: production, distribution and exchange, in patterns of sustainable specialization and trade. An economy is a means of production. Otherwise the term has no rational meaning. Third -and this is important – socialist, postmodern and totalitarian humanist dogma is constructed in obscurant language by intent for the purpose of deception. So by stating economic concepts in operational language, as is required by the canons of science, we illustrate the difference between belief and action, and between the irrational and the rational, and between the impossible and the possible. The socialist method or mode of production is impossible both logically and demonstrably. The vague term ‘economic system’ is a form of deception. The capitalist means of production is possible because both the incentives to do what we do not wish to do, and the means of calculating how to do so, are available to us; such that by doing what we may not wish to do, we do what we are capable of doing, and by doing so satisfy the wants of others, such that we may finally satisfy our own wants. The socialist means of production is not possible. It is impossible because neither the means of calculation, nor the incentive to do what we do not desire to, exists in that method of production. Marxism is the biggest organized systemic set of lies since the invention of scriptural monotheism. It is the most murderous religion ever created by man – by replacing mystical allegory with verbal obscurantism and pseudoscience. If you cannot explain an economic argument in operational language you are either engaged in ignorance or deception or perpetuating deception out of ignorance.

  • Choice Words Against Socialism

    In the context of intellectual history, the argument against socialism was framed as the viability of the “socialist mode of production”. The central argument against socialism is the impossibility of that mode of production on two points: calculation and incentives – with the debate only over the relative importance of each. Second, it is non-logical to disconnect the notion of production from economy. Because that is the function of an economy: production, distribution and exchange, in patterns of sustainable specialization and trade. An economy is a means of production. Otherwise the term has no rational meaning. Third -and this is important – socialist, postmodern and totalitarian humanist dogma is constructed in obscurant language by intent for the purpose of deception. So by stating economic concepts in operational language, as is required by the canons of science, we illustrate the difference between belief and action, and between the irrational and the rational, and between the impossible and the possible. The socialist method or mode of production is impossible both logically and demonstrably. The vague term ‘economic system’ is a form of deception. The capitalist means of production is possible because both the incentives to do what we do not wish to do, and the means of calculating how to do so, are available to us; such that by doing what we may not wish to do, we do what we are capable of doing, and by doing so satisfy the wants of others, such that we may finally satisfy our own wants. The socialist means of production is not possible. It is impossible because neither the means of calculation, nor the incentive to do what we do not desire to, exists in that method of production. Marxism is the biggest organized systemic set of lies since the invention of scriptural monotheism. It is the most murderous religion ever created by man – by replacing mystical allegory with verbal obscurantism and pseudoscience. If you cannot explain an economic argument in operational language you are either engaged in ignorance or deception or perpetuating deception out of ignorance.

  • NAP Fails on Transaction Costs Alone

    –“Yes…transaction costs exist. But that simply means that a market can potentially give sub-optimal outcomes. It does nothing to undermine the internal coherence of NAP.”–

    [I]t does everything to undermine the willingness of individuals to reduce their demand for the state.

    Science requires external correspondence not internal consistency. Internal consistency is a property of our logic not of reality. It is not materially useful if something is internally consistent if it fails the test of external correspondence.

    So if you feel that the NAP is sufficient for the rational reduction of demand for the state, you can make all the internally consistent statements that you wish, but unless you can empirically demonstrate that people will do so, your internally consistent argument is false.

    NAP is not false, but insufficient. It is insufficient because people attribute greater resistance to risk and therefore transaction costs, then they to do third party intervention.

    For example: Does the NAP forbid blackmail? Rothbard doesn’t forbid blackmail in his books. Walter block doesn’t either.

    Each marginal improvement in the trust necessary for marginal reduction in demand for the state, requires disproportionate suppression of additional means of cheating (involuntary transfer). The progression is not linear. We can measure it. We have.
    Comments:
    ——————-

    >Osku

    How could slavery reduce transaction costs? Couldn’t voluntary organizations do it instead?

    >Curt Doolittle

    (Sorry, Osku. Not sure the logic you’re using to get to slavery. NAP is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. People DEMONSTRATE that it is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. So what is absent in the NAP as a test of property rights theory, that maintains demand for the state? Slavery isn’t the test, because slavery is satisfied by the NAP. NAP is sufficient to suppress slavery, violence and theft. It is not sufficient to suppress even the low standard of ethics set by blackmail. How can a voluntary society, a free society use the NAP as its critieria for the test of property rights?)

    >Osku

    So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs? I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished. This would not be against NAP, because, it’s voluntarily agreed sanction, like some communities could punish from alcohol consumption, or some other vice.

    If we define society as a co-operative organization, the first principle has to be NAP. Coercion is the opposition of co-operation, so they would be mutually exclusive. The property right to things outside your body, would be next obvious way to co-operate. It’s a way to co-operate more efficiently. Bad manners, like black mailing would be either restricted by social sanctions, or agreed voluntary legal sanctions.

    There is no universal ethics, like in christian theology (except for Christians). Ethics is a concept we use to behave as a social animal in society. NAP and property rights are so elementary for social animal, it’s in our genes to understand them. We also have genes to be altruistic, that helps to lower the transaction cost, when living in closely related tribes. Then there is of course genes, that try to use the free riding strategy.

    If people are free to leave legal orders and societies, and free to form their own, they are living in voluntary societies. If people are forbidden to leave, they are slaves. There is the problem of free riders and they have high demand for public and private slavery. This slavery is supported by violence and propaganda. A slavery can’t fix problem of transaction costs, because it would destroy the benefits of co-operation. People could still want to be or to have slaves, but if enough seceding communities would emerge and compete with each other, most people would have to follow the price signal.

    >Curt Doolittle

    “So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs?”

    The pejorative term ‘afraid’ is an attempt to introduce a fallacy. Instead, praxeologically, it is simply a rational choice that we reduce the burden of many independent interactions with a few major and invisible transactions.

    “I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished.”

    Agreed. However, I don’t dispute that. I’m arguing that without prior promise of constraint of blackmail, we cannot reduce demand for the state. Private Property only developed where unethical and immoral conduct was suppressed at every possible level.

    The EVIDENCE is that the demand for private property only exists in the suppression of immoral and unethical conduct. Criminality is insufficient. So it’s not RATIONAL to argue that the NAP is sufficient. The trust necessary for private property must exist PRIOR to the demand for private property, and the reduction of demand for the state. Further, it’s not evident (it’s contrary to the evidence) that the market suppresses unethical and immoral behavior. Just the opposite. The expansion of the market INCREASES opportunity for immoral and unethical behavior. Immoral and unethical behavior is cheaper than honest ethical and moral behavior, which imposes costs on the participants. Property rights are a cost. Every time they are respected. Forgoing those opportunities requires trust. The result of forgoing opportunities and TRUST creates property rights. Not the other way around. Private property does not create trust. Once you suppress criminal, unethical and immoral behavior, the only POSSIBLE means of interaction is via private property.

    We cannot confuse cause and consequence.

    TRUST FIRST. PROPERTY SECOND. STATE LAST.

    So, again, trust (willingness to take risks / low transaction cost exchange) requires the suppression of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior. And the trust that appears to be sufficient for demand for private property requires near total suppression of unethical behavior.

    We must suppress even MORE unethical and rent seeking and corrupt behavior in order to reduce demand for the state. If we are to define property rights as the basis of a moral and peaceful society, then what is the definition of property rights that prohibits not only criminal behavior (the NAP) but also unethical, immoral, as well as free riding, rent seeking, and corruption?

    I think that it looks like the state would be the natural means of transforming criminal, unethical, immoral behavior into free riding, rent seeking and corruption in an effort to decrease transaction costs. Now, how do we FURTHER suppress free riding, rent seeking and corruption without the state? Privatization. But for privatization we must have a set of property rights that increase suppression of free riding, rent seeking and corruption, without sacrificing the reason for the state: suppression of unethical and immoral behavior.

    It’s non logical to ask people to yet bear again that which they have rid themselves of, by clear and demonstrated preference, almost universally. People have already demonstrated that they are willing to trade unethical and immoral behavior, for corrupt and rent seeking behavior. And they were rational to do so. You cannot tell them that they are gaining something by simply reverting them to a previous state that they have already rejected.

    We can only offer them something BETTER. Which is to ALSO prohibit rent seeking and corruption AS WELL as unethical and immoral behavior.

    So no. The NAP was a terrible mistake for the liberty movement. It was tragic. I understand why they resorted to ghetto ethics, because they didn’t understand where liberty and the high trust society came from.

    But now that we do (or at least I do) we must base any argument that we deem ethically superior on a set of property rights that is a net gain, not a net loss, for the population.

    This is very difficult for Rothbardians to swallow, but pride and personal investment in a failed ideology are less important than the achievement of freedom.

    >Osku

    Doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean, that NAP is incorrect ethical goal, and we should have some anti-NAP goal, that is more achievable? Or are you saying, that the logical reasoning of NAP is not appealing for masses, but could sell them the the private property principle, and NAP would follow by definition from that?

    >Curt Doolittle 

    Close.

    NAP is an INSUFFICIENT ethical test of the violation of property rights needed, (or the ‘goal’ as you say), to COMPENSATE people with the sufficient suppression of immoral and ethical behavior, that they will reduce their DEMAND for government as a means of suppressing that unethical and immoral behavior.

    So, yes, it is an incorrect ethical goal because it is an insufficient goal for rational adoption of anarchy. People will demand a much broader definition of property than ‘criminal’.

    This is not a criticism of Hoppe’s solutions, private government, or minarchy. It is a criticism of the definition of property that is sufficient for people to tolerate private government or minarchy. Any system that is dependent upon property rights as the means of resolving conflicts, would requires a broader definition of property, that accurately reflected the property rights people demand. Nowhere do people demonstrate a preference for property rights as limited as the NAP except in ghettos.

    (There are many ways to approach this argument, but this is the most direct.)

    >Andy

    So if you are defining property rights according to people’s demand wouldn’t you have to define property rights in thousands of ways for thousands of groups of requests for these? (i.e.: ghetto – NAP, as mentioned.)

    And could it not be the case that the NAP be part of this rather that the whole? So maybe it is insufficient but necessary? How do you see this Curt?

    >Curt
    I see the NAP as necessary, but insufficient. The NAP prohibits crime, and we might argue that through the NAP (as Osku suggested) we could prohibit the state, but we cannot prohibit unethical and immoral behavior. And as such we cannot reduce demand for the state to suppress unethical and immoral behavior.

    I think I’ve managed to define the suite of property rights pretty simply actually. However, given that reproductive strategy determines the desirability of some of those rights, and other institutions make some of them more or less necessary, the scope of property rights would need to be specified in a shareholder agreement in private competing governments. (or Constitution that enumerated property rights in minarchic government.)

     

  • NAP Fails on Transaction Costs Alone

    –“Yes…transaction costs exist. But that simply means that a market can potentially give sub-optimal outcomes. It does nothing to undermine the internal coherence of NAP.”–

    [I]t does everything to undermine the willingness of individuals to reduce their demand for the state.

    Science requires external correspondence not internal consistency. Internal consistency is a property of our logic not of reality. It is not materially useful if something is internally consistent if it fails the test of external correspondence.

    So if you feel that the NAP is sufficient for the rational reduction of demand for the state, you can make all the internally consistent statements that you wish, but unless you can empirically demonstrate that people will do so, your internally consistent argument is false.

    NAP is not false, but insufficient. It is insufficient because people attribute greater resistance to risk and therefore transaction costs, then they to do third party intervention.

    For example: Does the NAP forbid blackmail? Rothbard doesn’t forbid blackmail in his books. Walter block doesn’t either.

    Each marginal improvement in the trust necessary for marginal reduction in demand for the state, requires disproportionate suppression of additional means of cheating (involuntary transfer). The progression is not linear. We can measure it. We have.
    Comments:
    ——————-

    >Osku

    How could slavery reduce transaction costs? Couldn’t voluntary organizations do it instead?

    >Curt Doolittle

    (Sorry, Osku. Not sure the logic you’re using to get to slavery. NAP is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. People DEMONSTRATE that it is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. So what is absent in the NAP as a test of property rights theory, that maintains demand for the state? Slavery isn’t the test, because slavery is satisfied by the NAP. NAP is sufficient to suppress slavery, violence and theft. It is not sufficient to suppress even the low standard of ethics set by blackmail. How can a voluntary society, a free society use the NAP as its critieria for the test of property rights?)

    >Osku

    So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs? I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished. This would not be against NAP, because, it’s voluntarily agreed sanction, like some communities could punish from alcohol consumption, or some other vice.

    If we define society as a co-operative organization, the first principle has to be NAP. Coercion is the opposition of co-operation, so they would be mutually exclusive. The property right to things outside your body, would be next obvious way to co-operate. It’s a way to co-operate more efficiently. Bad manners, like black mailing would be either restricted by social sanctions, or agreed voluntary legal sanctions.

    There is no universal ethics, like in christian theology (except for Christians). Ethics is a concept we use to behave as a social animal in society. NAP and property rights are so elementary for social animal, it’s in our genes to understand them. We also have genes to be altruistic, that helps to lower the transaction cost, when living in closely related tribes. Then there is of course genes, that try to use the free riding strategy.

    If people are free to leave legal orders and societies, and free to form their own, they are living in voluntary societies. If people are forbidden to leave, they are slaves. There is the problem of free riders and they have high demand for public and private slavery. This slavery is supported by violence and propaganda. A slavery can’t fix problem of transaction costs, because it would destroy the benefits of co-operation. People could still want to be or to have slaves, but if enough seceding communities would emerge and compete with each other, most people would have to follow the price signal.

    >Curt Doolittle

    “So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs?”

    The pejorative term ‘afraid’ is an attempt to introduce a fallacy. Instead, praxeologically, it is simply a rational choice that we reduce the burden of many independent interactions with a few major and invisible transactions.

    “I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished.”

    Agreed. However, I don’t dispute that. I’m arguing that without prior promise of constraint of blackmail, we cannot reduce demand for the state. Private Property only developed where unethical and immoral conduct was suppressed at every possible level.

    The EVIDENCE is that the demand for private property only exists in the suppression of immoral and unethical conduct. Criminality is insufficient. So it’s not RATIONAL to argue that the NAP is sufficient. The trust necessary for private property must exist PRIOR to the demand for private property, and the reduction of demand for the state. Further, it’s not evident (it’s contrary to the evidence) that the market suppresses unethical and immoral behavior. Just the opposite. The expansion of the market INCREASES opportunity for immoral and unethical behavior. Immoral and unethical behavior is cheaper than honest ethical and moral behavior, which imposes costs on the participants. Property rights are a cost. Every time they are respected. Forgoing those opportunities requires trust. The result of forgoing opportunities and TRUST creates property rights. Not the other way around. Private property does not create trust. Once you suppress criminal, unethical and immoral behavior, the only POSSIBLE means of interaction is via private property.

    We cannot confuse cause and consequence.

    TRUST FIRST. PROPERTY SECOND. STATE LAST.

    So, again, trust (willingness to take risks / low transaction cost exchange) requires the suppression of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior. And the trust that appears to be sufficient for demand for private property requires near total suppression of unethical behavior.

    We must suppress even MORE unethical and rent seeking and corrupt behavior in order to reduce demand for the state. If we are to define property rights as the basis of a moral and peaceful society, then what is the definition of property rights that prohibits not only criminal behavior (the NAP) but also unethical, immoral, as well as free riding, rent seeking, and corruption?

    I think that it looks like the state would be the natural means of transforming criminal, unethical, immoral behavior into free riding, rent seeking and corruption in an effort to decrease transaction costs. Now, how do we FURTHER suppress free riding, rent seeking and corruption without the state? Privatization. But for privatization we must have a set of property rights that increase suppression of free riding, rent seeking and corruption, without sacrificing the reason for the state: suppression of unethical and immoral behavior.

    It’s non logical to ask people to yet bear again that which they have rid themselves of, by clear and demonstrated preference, almost universally. People have already demonstrated that they are willing to trade unethical and immoral behavior, for corrupt and rent seeking behavior. And they were rational to do so. You cannot tell them that they are gaining something by simply reverting them to a previous state that they have already rejected.

    We can only offer them something BETTER. Which is to ALSO prohibit rent seeking and corruption AS WELL as unethical and immoral behavior.

    So no. The NAP was a terrible mistake for the liberty movement. It was tragic. I understand why they resorted to ghetto ethics, because they didn’t understand where liberty and the high trust society came from.

    But now that we do (or at least I do) we must base any argument that we deem ethically superior on a set of property rights that is a net gain, not a net loss, for the population.

    This is very difficult for Rothbardians to swallow, but pride and personal investment in a failed ideology are less important than the achievement of freedom.

    >Osku

    Doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean, that NAP is incorrect ethical goal, and we should have some anti-NAP goal, that is more achievable? Or are you saying, that the logical reasoning of NAP is not appealing for masses, but could sell them the the private property principle, and NAP would follow by definition from that?

    >Curt Doolittle 

    Close.

    NAP is an INSUFFICIENT ethical test of the violation of property rights needed, (or the ‘goal’ as you say), to COMPENSATE people with the sufficient suppression of immoral and ethical behavior, that they will reduce their DEMAND for government as a means of suppressing that unethical and immoral behavior.

    So, yes, it is an incorrect ethical goal because it is an insufficient goal for rational adoption of anarchy. People will demand a much broader definition of property than ‘criminal’.

    This is not a criticism of Hoppe’s solutions, private government, or minarchy. It is a criticism of the definition of property that is sufficient for people to tolerate private government or minarchy. Any system that is dependent upon property rights as the means of resolving conflicts, would requires a broader definition of property, that accurately reflected the property rights people demand. Nowhere do people demonstrate a preference for property rights as limited as the NAP except in ghettos.

    (There are many ways to approach this argument, but this is the most direct.)

    >Andy

    So if you are defining property rights according to people’s demand wouldn’t you have to define property rights in thousands of ways for thousands of groups of requests for these? (i.e.: ghetto – NAP, as mentioned.)

    And could it not be the case that the NAP be part of this rather that the whole? So maybe it is insufficient but necessary? How do you see this Curt?

    >Curt
    I see the NAP as necessary, but insufficient. The NAP prohibits crime, and we might argue that through the NAP (as Osku suggested) we could prohibit the state, but we cannot prohibit unethical and immoral behavior. And as such we cannot reduce demand for the state to suppress unethical and immoral behavior.

    I think I’ve managed to define the suite of property rights pretty simply actually. However, given that reproductive strategy determines the desirability of some of those rights, and other institutions make some of them more or less necessary, the scope of property rights would need to be specified in a shareholder agreement in private competing governments. (or Constitution that enumerated property rights in minarchic government.)

     

  • Labor Is Meaningless – Consumers Are Not

      Obvious but interesting, is that marxist labor theory of value, and even their supposed social value of ‘labor’ are both in fact valueless and non-logical. But the presence of a ‘consumer’ is not. It’s not that business value labor. It’s that business and capitalists need CUSTOMERS in order to organize production. The challenge in expanding any economy, and in the satisfaction of consumer wants, is not production – it is voluntarily organization production for the satisfaction of demonstrated consumer wants. Money supplies us with information that represents the accumulated savings of time, created by the division of knowledge and labor. I know this is pretty obvious (and incomplete as an argument) but I still am amazed at how the marxist zombie simply continues to walk the face of the earth.

  • Labor Is Meaningless – Consumers Are Not

      Obvious but interesting, is that marxist labor theory of value, and even their supposed social value of ‘labor’ are both in fact valueless and non-logical. But the presence of a ‘consumer’ is not. It’s not that business value labor. It’s that business and capitalists need CUSTOMERS in order to organize production. The challenge in expanding any economy, and in the satisfaction of consumer wants, is not production – it is voluntarily organization production for the satisfaction of demonstrated consumer wants. Money supplies us with information that represents the accumulated savings of time, created by the division of knowledge and labor. I know this is pretty obvious (and incomplete as an argument) but I still am amazed at how the marxist zombie simply continues to walk the face of the earth.

  • Is Philosophy A Vehicle For Theft?

    Is nearly all of philosophy then, outside of logic, an artful construct for the purpose of justifying theft? One can justify suppression of, prevention of, and restitution for, the taking of discounts. (thefts) One can justify the selection of one priority of investment over another. But one cannot argue for the necessity of a monopoly of investments. Nor the mandatory enforcement of participation in investments, other than the suppression of free riding. One can argue the necessity for a homogeneity – monopoly – of property rights for the purpose of logically resolving disputes over property and contract – albeit, private property solves that problem, and articulated shareholder rights, retains that ability even under complexity. But once a monopoly of property rights exists, one cannot argue the necessity for a monopoly of law making. In fact, logic and evidence suggest precisely the opposite is true: that laws evolve and evolve best under the common law, since they must be interpreted by ordinary citizens, and are open to constant revision without external approval as the world evolves. The failure of the common law was (a) its usurpation by the state, and (b) failure to define property rights sufficiently in the face of industrialization. (c) its use by the middle class to dispossess the aristocracy, and consequential use by the proletarians and feminists to dispossess the middle classes. Philosophy is quite simple really. It’s only complicated if you’re trying to lie. And theft requires lying. And lying is best covered by obscurity. Cheers.