Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

WE MADE A BIG MISTAKE – A FRAUD.

I have learned a lot living in eastern Europe. It has reinforced my conviction that bureaucratic government is an unfortunate byproduct of the process of imposing rule of law on the unwilling, who are free riders, rent seekers, frauds and thieves whenever possible. And that only through rule of law do we force free riders to choose productive activity in the market over their natural human instincts to free ride, and do as little as possible.

Communists, Socialists, Democratic Socialists, Keyesian socialists, Chicago-monetarist socialists are all 1) bureaucratic, 2) advocating decision making based upon the imperceptible and incalculable and therefore engaged in BOTH (a)immoral deceptions and (b) impossible fallacies that (c) produce far worse externalities than direct benefits – they are lies that force the creation of additional lies, until all we live by is lies – including the lie of distorted prices: our information system.

But these are errors and deceptions of means, not ends. So that does not mean that the same ENDS are not achievable by MORAL and CALCULABLE MEANS: as a set of voluntary exchanges. It does not mean that MEANING(reason) cannot be converted to TRUTH (calculation).

One thing that’s clearly obvious, is the value of soaking up manual labor. manual labor abounds in the east, and it means that the infrastructure is produced at human scale: cobblestones and brick buildings. Ten men show up in a truck and take turns digging a hold to adjust a water main, rather than five men most of whom direct traffic impeded by machinery and trucks, and charge us exorbitant pensions in exchange.

And the other that’s clearly obvious to the economist, is that the pricing system distorts the compensation for labor. I have addressed this issue in many forms of late, but let me try to put it into a narrative that makes a little more sense to most people:

When we were all workers of the land, participation in the market was a BONUS form of income that allowed us to buy other market goods using money. If some of us were good enough at ORGANIZING and DISTRIBUTING production, some of us could then live entirely upon the benefits of the market – by profiting entirely by organizing production (capitalists-“can”, priests-“should”, and warriors-“must”) and distributing the fruits of production (investors, bankers, distributors, traders, salesmen, and craftsmen.)

And fluctuations in the economy did not impact the fluctuations (so much) of our means of sustenance (the farm) – the opposite actually. Sure, if the economy declined, then we would just have fewer market luxuries, and people who worked in the market would return to labor on the land, while the few who survived in the market also tightened their belts (or moved to better regions).

In order to participate in the local community, we were forced to respect property rights. In order to participate in the market, we were forced to respect even MORE property rights – more complex property rights than the simple rights of the village. Because we use more forms of property in the market than in the home or village.

But during the 19th, and early 20th century – and in some parts of the world, right up until the present – we converted people from sustenance for necessities, and market participation as a luxury, to near universal market dependence for both necessities and market participation. And we did it ON PURPOSE. As an organized, purposeful objective.

Now, some of us ‘Burkeians” feel that this is was a MORAL ambition to save mankind – the “OBLIGATION OF THE NOBILITY”. This is a western aristocratic sentiment expressed on world scale. (“Noblesse Oblige” – Chivalry – a demonstration of one’s status by Christian Works.) Others, viewed this conversion as merely a means of obtaining POWER and STATUS. Others today (Mr Putin and most of the tribal world) still view it as a means of obtaining power and status rather than Chivalry. The selling of modernity is just the selling of another religion that allows them to obtain status and power. (Not that this is an intrinsic bad really, it’s an incentive and incentives that produce positive outcomes are just selfish incentives and beneficial regardless of selfishness of them.)

So we purposefully changed the world by either Chivalric status incentives or Personal status incentives. And others resisted it as a threat to their status and incentives – and they still do.

So just as we forced property rights on village, property rights on market, and property rights on nations, we have forced property rights on the world.

But in doing so we have also ***eliminated the incentive to respect property rights***.

Yes. You got that right. You wouldn’t have to SELL property rights as a libertarian or conservative, if the incentive was there to RESPECT them without your sale of them. Right? Yes. That’s right. The incentive to respect property rights has been eradicated by FORCING people into the market rather than the tradition of constructing either stated or implied CONTRACTS for their participation in the market.

Why? Because it was useful as a means of obtaining power, to sell them entry into the market at a discount – without obligation. It was this dishonest action that allowed middle and lower classes in government to enfranchise the masses in an attempt to take power from those people who did respect property among themselves in the aristocratic egalitarian tradition as well as in the non-egalitarian aristocratic traditions.

And why was this a serious problem? Well, because as the market has become more efficient at eliminating the need for costly labor, plus we have moved from a shortage of labor in proximity to capital, to a dearth of labor in proximity to capital. So, the demand for labor has fallen. And now two consequences have occurred:

1) Men in particular cannot trade labor for ‘luxury’ income, nor can they return to the land for sustenance. (nor can they trade sex and affection for care-taking).

2) As such there is no positive incentive to respect property rights, only negative punishment for not respecting property rights.

Now, this is because of the original act of fraud: we conflated the COST of producing property rights with the COMPENSATION for respecting property rights. By stating that enfranchisement was a RIGHT rather than something to be purchased with respect for property rights, we OBSCURED the incentives necessary for OPERATIONAL CONSTRUCTION of those rights: the high cost of suppression of free riding in exchange for participation in the market – the extension of kinship to non-kin.

The problem is that for many many people, one no longer gains anything by forgoing opportunity for self interest. They gain nothing from protection of the common property, nor for the protection of norms, nor for the defense of or respect for private property. THEY OBTAIN NO COMPENSATION FOR THEIR COSTS.

And we did this. On purpose. We created this state of affairs. For status. And we sold it by fraudulent means – as a right not an exchange. And without an exchange, no rights can exist. We lied. We sold via fraud. Via verbalism that would have been impossible under the constraints for operationalism: Asking, what was exchanged?

So then, if we correct the problem, and we cannot offer people participation in the market in exchange for respect for property rights, and if property rights and commons are necessary for the voluntary organization of property, then we must find some other form of compensation for them in order to obtain from them the cost of maintaining the physical, normative, commons and private property within that commons.

You see, libertarians prolong the lie: that property rights is something other than a cost we bear in return for access to participation in the market that is the RESULT of trading respect for property rights in exchange for access to the market.

So now that we have made that exchange impossible, what can we do to create something with which to exchange for respect for the commons, and property rights?

OPTIONS

Well, of course, we can pay people for their efforts – all people. And that would be moral – rather than lying and trying to obtain property rights at a discount.

And if we did that we would eliminate immigration problems because each additional person reduces one’s share of the take.

And furthermore we could eliminate wage prices and collective barganing, because the wages would be merely the price of preferences, not necessities.

Now we might have to expunge a lot of people, but then many simple jobs would be available to younger and older people rather than those who require family incomes.

You get the idea.

The incalculable is synonymous with the immoral. The operational exposes the moral and immoral. And by operational articulation we can solve that which seemed before unsolvable.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev Ukraine.