Curt Doolittle

Category: Law, Constitution, and Jurisprudence

  • Law’s Perverse Incentives

    [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.

  • LAW’S PERVERSE INCENTIVES Rule of law given a homogenous and therefore universal

    LAW’S PERVERSE INCENTIVES

    Rule of law given a homogenous and therefore universal definition of property rights, constitutes a central authority. Just as mathematical operations constitute a central authority. The question is whether the central authority can be reduced to calculations rather than judgments. Humans must make judgements. If we constitute a sufficient rule of law, they only need determine the truth or falsehood of human testimony.

    Incentives: Restitution plus costs, via truth telling. Triple damages plus costs for deception. Truth telling matters. Right now lying does not increase risk. The law is currently constructed to provide perverse incentives.

    No immunity in the chain of command. All employees personally insured, and personally accountable. Ten times damages for immoral (illegal) directives. No limit of liability.

    We all err. We need not lie.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-09-24 09:47:00 UTC

  • CONTRA JAN LESTER’S THEORY OF LIBERTY? I AM NOT SURE YET. (edited and expanded f

    CONTRA JAN LESTER’S THEORY OF LIBERTY? I AM NOT SURE YET.

    (edited and expanded for clarity)

    The history of the term liberty and corresponding concept of liberty is what it is. The history of property is what it is. The history of law is what it is. The history of cooperation, family and production are what they are. The history of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior are what they are. We define these terms many ways but the common element that they share is the prohibition on free riding (morality) or the prohibition on involuntary transfer (various forms of fraud and indirection), and prohibitions on the imposition of costs (various forms of crimes against life and property).

    The only difference between the criminal, ethical, and moral spectrum, and the historical definition of liberty, is whether the actions are criminal, unethical, and immoral violations precipitated by non-government actors against whom we can retaliate or request resolution of the dispute, OR whether they are precipitated by members of the monopoly we call bureaucracy, government and state, against whom we cannot retaliate.

    We can define liberty as it has been throughout time (freedom from governmental interference in our thoughts, actions, relations and property.) I think attempting to redefine it is merely an attempt at verbalism. Rationalism has nothing to add but justification.

    At this point, I am still stuck with the same problem I have been since Lee Waaks suggested Jan Lester’s work to me: that I see that he has correctly identified the causal property of morality as imposed costs. (But costs imposed against what?) But that I don’t really see that his ‘theory of liberty’ holds any meaning or if it’s an empty verbalism (confusion and conflation). But then again, I am not sure that I understand his point.

    For example, I think this is a nonsensical statement: Lester’s theory of liberty –“is pre-propertarian because we need a theory of liberty *before* we can know how society should be “arranged” to maximize liberty.”–

    That’s like saying we need the head of a coin before we can have a tail of it. It’s not possible. You cannot have a coin with one side anymore than you can have good without evil, morality without property, and liberty without a state.

    We evolved property prior to government and the state – we had to. Otherwise cooperation is not evolutionarily beneficial but parasitic. Which is why our instincts and cognitive biases are so exaggerated in such cases.

    Liberty cannot exist without government – only morality can – unless you are redefining liberty as morality. Which I suggest that he is doing as a word game to avoid addressing that morality and property evolved prior to the state, and as such prior to liberty.

    Liberty is a state in which we experience the the absence of immoral action by state actors, just as a condition of morality is the a state in which we experience the absence of immoral action by non-state actors. Immorality and morality are instinctual biases that evolved along with cooperation. Immorality and Morality can and must refer to in-group actors violating the necessary terms of cooperation: the prohibition on parasitism (imposed costs, free-riding, involuntary transfer).

    In order to state a cost is something to bear, we must state what it is bears the cost. We cannot bear a cost unless we possess property. We may, prior to the state, define property normatively rather than legally, and we may not even produce a name for it (although all languages I know of contain the idea of possession) but legal definitions again exist post-government and post-state, but property exists prior to state, or cooperation is not possible – and it clearly has been.

    I am fairly sure this set of assertions is irrefutable. Which is why I assume that I do not understand Lester’s argument. Otherwise I would outright criticizing him for empty verbalism – word games, if not simply conflation and confusion.

    It is unscientific of me to assume I am correct, and that he errs, rather than to assume I fail to understand. However, logic and evidence are what they are: unless he can answer this objection he is using rationalism for precisely the reasons I am trying to reform the use of rationalism in politics and ethics: because it is too easy to employ rationalism as a means of obscurantist justification of presumed conclusions. Actions (operations) are the only means of avoiding word games. It is still surprising to me that a theory of human action should be expressed in rationalism, the purpose of which, as far as I know, is, and always has been, justification.

    His argument, at least in my current state of ignorance, appears to be a series of errors of verbalism, and my criticism remains: that there is nothing to be had here other than that he has correctly identified morality and is merely confusing morality with liberty, where morality must, as property must, be antecedent to any concept of liberty. I mean must, as in it is impossible otherwise.

    The question is not liberty but morality. How do we get state actors to act morally?Otherwise the properties of individual moral action and the properties of state action are not identical. Since the state consists of individuals this seems illogical, and therefore a mere verbalism.

    Maybe I don’t understand. Maybe there is something I don’t see. I just think it is unlikely. I am pretty sure my arguments are bulletproof (as usual lol).

    Source date (UTC): 2014-09-15 09:57:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://www.quora.com/Where-does-the-American-obsession-with-the-constitution-come-from/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-27 06:07:00 UTC

  • Is It Possible To Reconcile Tort Reform And Libertarian Philosophy?

    Um.  This isn’t necessarily a libertarian issue so much as a logical one.  The problem is that jury determination of penalties is arbitrary, and incalculable so that risk is un-measurable, and that penalties of scale are just passed on to consumers.  This means that lawsuits can be pursued as lottery ticket purchases by all but the defendant, and that organizations must seek to escape rather than honestly resolve disputes.

    The libertarian argument would require the elimination of limited liability, the removal of employee indemnification, and of management and board liability. All of these existing protections were provided by the government in order to allow abuses of the law in order to increase employment and tax revenues. So, instead, libertarians would recommend that all employees and all employers carry insurance against malfeasance. And that insurance companies would require a great deal of contractual adherence, training in exchange, in order to cover losses.  Misbehavior would break the contract, pierce any corporate veil, and open every employee, manger, executive, and board member in the causal chain to personal suit.

    If you want a less corrupt america, then remove the government from the process – because the government is the cause.

    This is the best I can do in short form, but it should get the libertarian point across: the common law, civic participation, personal accountability, and insurance companies provide market incentives that bureaucratic monopolies do not.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-reconcile-tort-reform-and-libertarian-philosophy

  • Is It Possible To Reconcile Tort Reform And Libertarian Philosophy?

    Um.  This isn’t necessarily a libertarian issue so much as a logical one.  The problem is that jury determination of penalties is arbitrary, and incalculable so that risk is un-measurable, and that penalties of scale are just passed on to consumers.  This means that lawsuits can be pursued as lottery ticket purchases by all but the defendant, and that organizations must seek to escape rather than honestly resolve disputes.

    The libertarian argument would require the elimination of limited liability, the removal of employee indemnification, and of management and board liability. All of these existing protections were provided by the government in order to allow abuses of the law in order to increase employment and tax revenues. So, instead, libertarians would recommend that all employees and all employers carry insurance against malfeasance. And that insurance companies would require a great deal of contractual adherence, training in exchange, in order to cover losses.  Misbehavior would break the contract, pierce any corporate veil, and open every employee, manger, executive, and board member in the causal chain to personal suit.

    If you want a less corrupt america, then remove the government from the process – because the government is the cause.

    This is the best I can do in short form, but it should get the libertarian point across: the common law, civic participation, personal accountability, and insurance companies provide market incentives that bureaucratic monopolies do not.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-reconcile-tort-reform-and-libertarian-philosophy

  • Untitled

    http://www.quora.com/Human-Rights/Why-have-no-western-countries-singed-the-international-convention-on-the-rights-of-migrant-workers-and-their-families-CMW/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=1

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-13 13:16:00 UTC

  • Why Haven’t Western Countries Signed The International Convention On The Protection Of The Rights Of All Migrant Workers & Members Of Their Families?

    All human rights are reducible to property rights, because all rights that can be brought into existence are reducible to property rights.  The International charter of human rights consists, in all but the last three line items, of statements of private property rights.  The last three, are not rights but ‘ambitions’ and were reluctantly admitted to the charter at the time under pressure of the then-communist governments.  These last three are not human rights but political obligations that developed countries use to hold undeveloped political authorities accountable for their acitons.

    This accountability is part of the post-war consensus, enforced by the United States as a world policeman,  that granted all states rights to respect for their borders if they obeyed human rights.  (Which Russia recently violated, destroying the postwar consensus.)

    The proposed charter is a license for the theft of property from high trust western polities by peoples of low trust cultures who are themselves unable to create high trust polities.  As such it cannot be considered a ‘right’ but instead a luxury good, or perhaps a license for limited theft.

    The rapid abandonment of socialism and communism and the worldwide adoption of capitalism have eliminated the privileged status of Western peoples because of the artificial shortage of labor.  Now that this shortage has been eliminated, western cultures no longer have labor advantages, and only have institutional advantages. As such increasing the immigration, power, or privileges of expensive underclasses is no longer affordable.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-havent-western-countries-signed-the-International-Convention-on-the-Protection-of-the-Rights-of-All-Migrant-Workers-Members-of-Their-Families

  • Why Haven’t Western Countries Signed The International Convention On The Protection Of The Rights Of All Migrant Workers & Members Of Their Families?

    All human rights are reducible to property rights, because all rights that can be brought into existence are reducible to property rights.  The International charter of human rights consists, in all but the last three line items, of statements of private property rights.  The last three, are not rights but ‘ambitions’ and were reluctantly admitted to the charter at the time under pressure of the then-communist governments.  These last three are not human rights but political obligations that developed countries use to hold undeveloped political authorities accountable for their acitons.

    This accountability is part of the post-war consensus, enforced by the United States as a world policeman,  that granted all states rights to respect for their borders if they obeyed human rights.  (Which Russia recently violated, destroying the postwar consensus.)

    The proposed charter is a license for the theft of property from high trust western polities by peoples of low trust cultures who are themselves unable to create high trust polities.  As such it cannot be considered a ‘right’ but instead a luxury good, or perhaps a license for limited theft.

    The rapid abandonment of socialism and communism and the worldwide adoption of capitalism have eliminated the privileged status of Western peoples because of the artificial shortage of labor.  Now that this shortage has been eliminated, western cultures no longer have labor advantages, and only have institutional advantages. As such increasing the immigration, power, or privileges of expensive underclasses is no longer affordable.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-havent-western-countries-signed-the-International-Convention-on-the-Protection-of-the-Rights-of-All-Migrant-Workers-Members-of-Their-Families

  • (They are stealing from the commons. If the common law does not provide a means

    (They are stealing from the commons. If the common law does not provide a means of preventing them from stealing from commons, then we have no other alternative but violence. On never has a right to steal from the commons. Ever.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-08-10 10:14:00 UTC