DECLINE
— ‘The theory of the divine right of kings as it came to prominence in the seventeenth century had no place in medieval thought. Because of the mutuality of the relationship between ruler and people, should the ruler fail in his obligation—and his primary obligation was to rule under the law—then the bargain or compact was broken and the people released from their obligations to obey.’ — Andy Curzon
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-20 09:43:00 UTC
THE LOGIC OF DIVORCE
Data suggests that the no fault divorce was one of the worst legislative failures in history.
Now, my view is that we either relegate marriage to the equivalent of a power of attorney, and eliminate common property entirely, or that we return to fault, for the distribution of common property in the event of failure.
Single motherhood is responsible for the rise in inequality, as much as is third world immigration, and the failure of the education system to create competitive labor, and the university system for selling defective and un-warrantied products.
Propertarianism would recommend that we eliminate common property because it is not in fact a commons: that which is unavailable for consumption. As such marital assets cannot be considered a commons since they are available for consumption. And so this law is a deception.
Conversely, fault based divorce increases the risk of exiting the marriage, and increases the incentives for preserving it.
Likewise alimony and child support are both destructive in that they merely ignore the cost of maintaining two households- especially given that males can no longer trade their productivity, while women can still trade their sex and affection.
My intuition is that marriage with high penalty was an extremely useful institution inseparable from Liberty, capitalism, and the civic society. It forces concentration of wealth and it’s highly eugenic when in nuclear and absolute nuclear form.
We are currently practicing the worst of all possible choices.
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-15 03:04:00 UTC
THE ONLY REASON TO STUDY ECONOMICS IS TO JUSTIFY RULE OF LAW.
(ok, yes, I”m taunting you with that statement)
Humans are capable of four weapons of influence, and human institutions can be discussed using the frame of reference of any one of them – or all of them. I try to objectively address all of them in my work:
1) Morality/Gossip/Ostracization/Cult/Religion : Priests and public intellectuals.
2) Rules/force/punishment/law/Government : Warriors police, judges and politicians.
3) Volition/exchange/reward/trade/Economics : traders, distributors financiers, bankers
4) Production/education/utility/Knowledge : craftsmen, engineers, scientists
Each group specializing in each frame of reference has evolved a language (a set of languages) and a discipline (a set of methods), and institutions (means of propagating, applying, organizing) for the application of their means of influence.
I use the term ‘legal philosophy’ in the sense that the weapon of influence (force) using the institution of law, is different from the weapon of influence (morality) using gossip (public speech), in the institution of religion.
Rothbard constructed a religious (cult) narrative, and hayek a legal narrative. My criticisms of mises is that he simply failed, because he conflated science, logic, and craft, thereby creating praxeology as a pseudoscience (by claiming logic constitutes a science). Just why the cosmopolitans (freud, marx, mises, rothbard, cantor, adorno, etc) created so many pseudosciences is something I have written quite a bit about, but can be boiled down to ‘verbalism’ and platonic truth, from the cultural emphasis on scripture and religion, rather than the western tradition of operationalism and testimonial truth, and the cultural emphasis on craft and martial order. (But again this is a very deep topic.)
So It is not that I fail to grasp that economics must be stated in a particular language. Or that I fail to grasp the missing formal logic of cooperation that mises intuited must exist, but failed to develop. Or that it is possible to articulate economics objectively as a scientific discipline.
***It is that since the means of OBTAINING a free society MUST (as far as we know) depend upon the rule of law (Hayek), then the philosophical framework for CONSTRUCTING rule of law must be articulate as a legal one. In fact, no understanding of economics will meaningfully effect rule of law under property rights, other than to justify it. Or more strongly: it is unnecessary to understand economics except as a means of justifying the law necessary to construct the voluntary organization of production.**** (That should be slightly mind-bending for most people.)
There are reasons why a small internal community like judaism or gypsies or any other cult can rely on the pressure of ostracism. But to possess land, and build fixed capital necessary for organized production, one requires the institution of law.
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-14 01:51:00 UTC
LEGAL INSTITUTIONS VERSUS RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS
A Truth: contracts provide better memory and incentive than do beliefs.
So if you want a behavior: moms teach children beliefs.
Adults teach behaviors by institutions and incentives.
We defend the intent of those institutions by contract.
The first contract is a constitution enumerating the means of constructing those institutions.
Prior to that contract property exists as that which we are able to defend.
Property rights can only be constructed consequent to that contract.
Anyone who speaks of encouraging belief or value instead of contract and institution merely has failed to mature into a political adult from a mere parent or shaman.
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 06:45:00 UTC
PROPERTARIAN INCENTIVES FOR THE POLICE
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 06:23:00 UTC
TOYO TOM: POLICE AND PROPERTARIAN SOLUTIONS.
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-13 04:33:00 UTC
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/america-is-a-judicial-dictatorship/
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-11 01:33:00 UTC
WHY ARE CLASSICAL LIBERALS (LIBERTARIANS) CONCERNED WITH “RIGHTS”? ANSWER: RULE OF LAW.
Our only known method of eliminating authority, is to create rules of behavior under rule of law, where (a) all rights are expressed as property rights, (b) all obligations and prohibitions apply to all, without exception, (c) all rights evolve from property rights by judicial application of the principles of property rights: (i)requirement for production/ prohibition on parasitism / non-conflict, via (ii) homesteading/first-use/abandonment and voluntary-exchange/construction, under (iii) the presumption of reasonable knowledge, and reasonable actor (Propertarianism:sympathetic testing), (iv) truthful testimony, (v) judged by peers – to new circumstances. Propertarianism requires also, (vi) such judgements be expressed as (vi.i) original intentions and (vi.ii) strict construction, and (vi.iii) in operational language.
NOTES
1) Progressives: Moral intuitions are insufficient for judgement in these matters, regressive, and dysgenic for these matters. Reason is insufficient for these matters. Our reason has ALWAYS failed us, in no small part because we are victims of cognitive bias that only disciplined application of science can moderately mitigate.
2) Conservatives: Moral traditions are insufficiently adaptive in real time for these matters. Our traditions evolved when technology was relatively static. and our traditions failed us when technology changed faster than our traditions could adapt.
3) Libertines: amorality is insufficient for the formation of a polity that does not resort to either retaliation or authority to prevent retaliation.
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-08 11:18:00 UTC
DECIDABILITY IN ETHICS AND LAW: DYSGENIC, STATIC OR EUGENIC.
(very dense but very important argument) (edited and reposted)
From David Hamilton:
—“Why not just admit that ethics is ultimately about our being in fundamental states of conflict with each other – that we are all simply trapped in the same metaphorical room preferring either Matisse or Picasso to hang on the common wall, and that ethics is ultimately about our agitating to impose our aesthetic tastes and preferences on everyone else, lest they impose theirs on us?”—
Well written, common frustration, but, No.
Determination of criminal, ethical, immoral, and conspiratorial actions are universal. There exists only one universal law: the prohibition on free riding (imposed costs / lost time and effort).
It’s true that by analogy, we refer to contractual obligations, commands, and regulations as law, to grant them the same standard. Just as we refer to a host of signals as ethical or moral, when they are only analogies thereof. But this analogy conveys import by analogy not truth content.
MORAL THEORY RESULTS IN LAW
So while you are correct that we are, outside of kin, ultimately in conflict on ends and means, we can develop rules – Like monogamy, for Nash equilibria – that allow us to cooperate on means if not ends: to engage in productive conflict rather than unproductive conflict. That is, after all, the function of the market.
And if such rules are sufficiently internally consistent that (a) they can be used as general rules (b) applicable to all, for (c) a multitude of conditions we can then use such rules deductively. If these three (a,b,c) properties exist then such a general rule can be embodied in law, under rule of law. And only under such deductive, universally applicable, general rules can we live under rule of law, rather than arbitrary decision predicated upon the biases of an authority.
So ethics, politics and law constitute reasoning by which we can construct general rules of cooperation (competition:productive conflict) WITHOUT relying on individual bias, given the reality of our conflict.
So the question becomes one of ensuring that such general rules are decideable. Which is the central problem of all general rules in all logical models. The only means of decidability, is either dysgenic (socialism: the female reproductive strategy) or eugenic (libertarian meritocratic) or static (authoritarian).
As far as I know that is a logical box without exit.
Source date (UTC): 2014-10-08 02:26:00 UTC
[R]ule of law, given a homogenous and therefore universal definition of property rights, constitutes a central authority. Just as mathematical operations constitute a central authority. Just as the scientific method constitutes a central authority. Humans must make judgements. A central authority can be reduced to judgements and decidability requires humans to make decisions. If we articulate a sufficiently calculable rule of law, they only need determine the truth or falsehood of human testimony, and all questions are decidable. The problem in constructing rule of law is too often to protect the credibility of the state, so that it does not miscarry justice. Instead, if we focus on the incentive for truth telling. Incentives: 1) Universal standing (ability to sue), universal vulnerability. 2) Warranty of for one’s truth telling. 3) Restitution plus costs, for truth telling. 4) Triple damages plus costs for not truth telling. 5) Ten times damages for immoral (illegal) directives. No limit of liability. No immunity in the chain of command. All employees personally insured, and all personally accountable. Truth telling matters. Right now lying does not increase risk. And so the law is currently constructed to provide perverse incentives. We all err. We need not lie.