Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOPPE’S ‘LIBERTY’ PROGRAM AND DOOLITTLE’S ‘SOVEREIGNTY’ PROGRAM.

(important) (useful)

—“What are the sort of civilizations Hoppe is aiming at when he attempts to explain why libertarians must be conservatives in TGTF? He talks of covenants and a “restoration of the exclusivity…” and whatnot. What historical civilizations is he thinking of here?”—

He wants to restore the german manorial (micro) states

Small, nationalistic, homogenous, micro states: the german princedom’s.

—“Seems feasible. Not under his ethics of course but yeah. How do you reply to accusations of your system being feudalist? Hoppe doesn’t really seem to care. He even seems to speak somewhat positively of it.

What he is really trying to do is preserve his existing argument structure and then depend upon contractual law to achieve conservatism.

My position is that his argument structure is jewish not european, and that if we just work with european natural law alone, that we end up with conservatism.

—“Oh yes his argument is justificationary and purely advocacy”—

I am trying to give him an out so to speak, by articulating (clearly) the difference between Sovereignty and Liberty.

He’s trying to merge jewish ethics and european ethics. And jewish ethics are parasitic not sovereign.

You cannot hold territory with jewish ethics.

You can hold territory with european ethics.

You cannot produce liberty with jewish ethics.

You can produce liberty with european ethics.

You can only produce libertinism with jewish ethics.

—“I mean he’s right that his society needs conservatism but the only means by which he can defend it is saying that his society requires it, which is really contextual”—

Well, when you say you need ‘conservatism’ that means you need a religious ideology in ADDITION to law. So by that statement yuo’re admitting that you havent solved the problem of anarchy: rule of law.

When you say “we use the common law’ you need no religious ideology to compensate for the failings of law.

—” His system relies entirely on the incentive to adopt conservatism without constructing a good means to create it. It requires a homogeneity of almost everything to function, which works SOMEWHAT within his own bubble because he advocates for unlimited secession. And becomes completely utopian at large scale.

Hoppe presupposes that those who want to follow his system already hold the beliefs he holds, which really just means his philosophy is an appeal to libertarians (appeal to emotion?) not to the common man. It’s sad.”—

Exactly. it’s not possible.

I wish I could bring him over to Sovereignty instead of liberty so to speak.

—“Like you said, he does not mitigate. Ever.”—

yeah.

—“I do like how he disproves left-libertarians on the sole basis of them not recognizing private property. In his “A realistic libertarisniam” he dismisses them because they don’t recognize private property and he gets shit for it, they say “left libertarians don’t recognize private property” and I’m sitting here like “He knows they do, he also knows liberty necessitates private property, he is just that awesome”

99% of his detractors simply don’t get him”—

Well he is stuck on the private property as a positive requirement for liberty without seeming to grasp that the institution of private property exists to prevent retaliation for imposition of costs – retaliation cycles. Property evolves in parallel with the division of labor. It evolves with the increasing abstract nature of property. It’s only after we produce property as a method of commensurability (cooperation) that we have a vehicle for producing the incentives that we call the division of labor, and the returns on it.

Yet he is essentially a rule-of-law luddite. He states that natural law is limited by intersubjectively verifiable property – a restatement of the Jewish Pilpul excuse that: it takes only two people to make a deal – without regard to externalities that will produce retaliation, and without regard to the disintegration that such incentive to retaliation places on the trust, risk, cooperation, economic velocity, and willingness to invest in commons, of the people.

The purpose of law and morality (rules) is to limit the opportunity for parasitism, in order to limit the incentive for retaliation, in order to limit the incentive for retaliation cycles, in order to facilitate the development of property, property rights, a division of labor, networks of sustainable specialization and trade, and the market for goods, services, and information.

Hoppe starts with argumentation and non contradiction, not the need to suppress parasitism. This is possibly because of the different opinions on the POWER of trade to create the incentive to trade vs engage in violence, theft, fraud, free riding, and conspiracy. But question is no longer a matter of opinion, it’s simply a matter of empirical evidence: the market equilibrates with violence. It isn’t until we suppress violence, theft, fraud, free riding, conspiracy, immigration, conversion, and war, with sufficient violence that there are no choices BUT the market that we obtain sufficient incentive to push the majority of all CLASSES into the market.

From what we see, the bureaucratic classes seek to exit the market by rent seeking. The middle classes seek to exit the market by wealth accumulation. The underclasses seek to exit the market by limiting participation, seeking redistribution, and resorting to petty crime and free riding wherever possible.

So Hoppe’s work is dependent upon (a) the desire for liberty – which demonstrably is a minority desire, and (b) the desire for meritocracy – which is demonstrably a minority desire, and (c) the belief that the market is a sufficient incentive for the formation of a polity – which is demonstrably a minority desire.

Hence his attempt to combine conservative sentiments, rational (religious) arguments, and low trust intersubjective law, and pacifist means of achieving some semblance of liberty instead of relying on the simple anglo saxon natural common law of non-imposition against that which was obtained by homesteading, voluntary exchange, and personal transformation, free of imposition of costs by externality upon the same expenditures of others.

Where a pursuit of Sovereignty instead says that one will reciprocally insure one another by the use violence from all impositions of costs upon that which they have obtained an interest by the expenditure of resources while at the same time not externalizing costs. Once you make that decision, conservatism is the result: markets in everything.

We only need one rule to create western civilization. the one law of non imposition, the reciprocal exchange of property rights to property in toto, and the universal insurance of one another in case of a violation.

That’s it. That’s all we need.

RULE OF LAW: NOMOCRACY. NATUAL LAW: LAW OF COOPERATION.

“NATURAL LAW NOMOCRACY”

When extended from Actions, to Goods, To Services, to Information yields what I call ‘Market Fascism’: it’s actually illegal to attempt to argue for any other basis of cooperation.

I wish we could bring him over but he is a prideful and somewhat stubborn fellow. 🙂 He is also the only person I could learn much from if we had even a little time together.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine