Curt Doolittle

Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

  • “The absence of a workable integrated theory of economics and politics reflects

    –“The absence of a workable integrated theory of economics and politics reflects the lack of systematic thinking about the central problem of violence in human societies.”– Violence and Social Orders (Preface).

    The fundamental problem of cooperation is the suppression of free riding. Violence is but one of the many tools used by free riders.

    Our emphasis on suppressing violence distracts us from the insufficiency of suppressing violence in creating a polity capable of generating wealth in a division of knowledge and labor.

    Very poor societies manage to prevent violence and theft. What they do not prevent is every other possible means of free riding.

    The smaller the family size the higher the trust in any polity.

    But for small family sizes suppression of free riding must be nearly universal.

    And therefore not only must we possess property rights to allow small families to engage in production, but we must suppress all forms of involuntary transfer to lower the risk enough to do so. (ANF societies are fragile.)

    By eliminating free riding we obtain trust, and the low transaction costs that come with trust. In seeking to obtain trust, non-aggression is not enough.

    The source of any liberty was, is, and will always be, the organized use of violence to suppress free riding in all its forms.

    The reason that democracy, policy and economics are in conflict is the intellectual failure to address the incompatible moral codes of the different demographic groups, and the degree of trust vs demand for intervention, that is expressed by these different groups.

    As such, western high trust, which is an extension of the absolute nuclear family, democracy, rule of law, and the high economic performance of the few high trust societies, are assumed to be the consequence of democracy.

    Whereas democracy is a luxury of the high trust society.

    There is no free lunch. You either accept universal absolute nuclear families and total suppression of free riding in all its forms as a high cost you must bear for prosperity and liberty, or instead, you obtain some variant of every other lower and lowest trust societies on the planet.

    No way out. Period.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-25 21:00:00 UTC

  • “The modern equivalent of communes would be seasteads.”– Arnold Kling

    –“The modern equivalent of communes would be seasteads.”– Arnold Kling.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-25 02:53:00 UTC

  • “LITTLE BIRD” JUST TOLD ME THAT ITALIANS ARE MEETING IN SIENNA FOR MORE ‘SECESSI

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586531/Venice-votes-split-Italy-89-citys-residents-opt-form-new-independent-state.html#ixzz2whVdAdxjA “LITTLE BIRD” JUST TOLD ME THAT ITALIANS ARE MEETING IN SIENNA FOR MORE ‘SECESSION’ TALKS IN MAY. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-22 13:26:00 UTC

  • Venetian people realized that we are a nation (worthy of) self-rule and openly o

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586531/Venice-votes-split-Italy-89-citys-residents-opt-form-new-independent-state.html#ixzz2whVdAdxj—“The Venetian people realized that we are a nation (worthy of) self-rule and openly oppressed, and the entire world is moving towards fragmentation – a positive fragmentation – where local traditions mingle with global exchanges.”…”We are only at the Big Bang of the movement – but revolutions are born of hunger and we are now hungry. Venice can now escape.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-22 10:13:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/03/window-on-eurasia-five-possible-new.html

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 14:41:00 UTC

  • I think you understand the Putin strategy, although you do not seem to have adde

    http://buchanan.org/blog/putin-irrational-one-6292Pat,

    I think you understand the Putin strategy, although you do not seem to have added the obvious problem that Russia has enormous borders and a thin population – which has historically been accosted from all sides. Their only defense is a strong offense.

    Second, if Putin is in fact, an ethno-nationalist, (I agree that he is) then he should just say so. Because a lot of the west would support him in that position for, as you mentioned, the same reasons we support the jews. Conservative support would be overwhelming.

    Third, but the problem he has in convincingly making that argument, is that his government is profoundly corrupt, extractive and predatory on its own people. By contrast, it’s very obvious that membership in the EU is life-alteringly superior for eastern Europe – at high cost to western europeans.

    Fourth, Russia has nothing to offer the world or its orbit other than oil and gas. Russian occupation is a net negative for any economy that it influences. (See the Economists’ report.)

    Fifth, all he had to do was offer all Russian-Crimeans dual citizenship, and then ask for a referendum – one which everyone would support. It was completely unnecessary to use military occupation with a foregone conclusion.

    Russia must reform it’s systemic and pervasive corruption. It is too heavy a burden on the people for the people to compete on the world market. Without reforming corruption, Russia is just a rogue and predatory militaristic state with nothing to offer the world.

    An ethno-nationalist Russia that suppresses corruption offers something wonderful to the world. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 11:24:00 UTC

  • HOW MUCH LONGER WILL YOU TRUST YOUR LIBERTY TO YOUR FELLOW MAN? Your fellow men

    HOW MUCH LONGER WILL YOU TRUST YOUR LIBERTY TO YOUR FELLOW MAN?

    Your fellow men and women do not desire liberty. They desires consumption, status, and ease.

    Liberty requires great expense, revolt against the masses, and constant diligence.

    The source of liberty is the organize application of violence to deny access to others, that which you have labored to obtain by voluntary means.

    The left’s irrational utopian vision is no worse than the rothbardian irrational libertarian utopia.

    Aristocratic egalitarians invented liberty.

    And the manufactured it with organized violence.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 09:33:00 UTC

  • CENTRAL OBJECT OF THE ANARCHIC RESEARCH PROGRAM The central objective of the ana

    http://propertarianism.com/ideas/THE CENTRAL OBJECT OF THE ANARCHIC RESEARCH PROGRAM

    The central objective of the anarcho capitalist research program has been how to eliminate the monopoly bureaucracy and its institutionalize parasitism on the population, yet still produce a prosperous social order.

    In libertarian circles we often refer to this simply as “the problem of social order.”

    THE CENTRAL THEORY

    Like marxism, libertarian philosophy is pretty rigorously thought out. By the time we get to Hoppe, it’s a well articulated theory of politics. So the logical errors in libertarianism tend to be complex, not trivial.

    Most criticisms of libertarianism are naive or irrelevant because libertarian claims are technical, articulated in a formal and technical language, and they are not intuitive or normative claims at all. So without knowledge of the libertarian terminology and it’s arguments, is pretty hard to make a legitimate criticism – and that’s why so many criticisms are not legitimate.

    DEFINITIONS

    “NAP: the non-aggression principle. That one will not aggress against the life and property of others.”

    “Property: (n) Your life, your mind, your body, things you have obtained in trade, and things you have converted to first-use (homesteading).”

    “Violence: (n) Physical aggression against property.”

    “Aggression: (n) hostile or violent behavior or attitudes toward another; readiness to attack or confront.”

    So it’s okay to use violence against aggression. ie: any time you and your property are threatened. And to obtain restitution for your lost property.

    So, no, the NAP is not a prohibition on violence. It’s a prohibition on the violation of property in which you, yourself, are also your property (that which you must have monopoly of control). Or more accurately, private property functions as an extension of your body and life. (true) and as such violations against your ‘things’ are violations against your body.

    WHY PROPERTY THIS SO IMPORTANT

    The general theory upon which anarcho capitalism rests, is that a rigid definition of property, and the common law, are sufficient for the formation of a polity. And that monopoly government and its systematic predation due to lack of competition is not necessary. Because the common law is sufficient ‘government’ for an anarchic polity. (This is the legal framework of a migratory herding people, or disasporic traders.)

    This differs from a high trust agrarian society where the people must organize to prevent others from displacing them from the land. In a landed society, it is necessary for organizations to have leaders, to prevent free riding by those not willing to fight for that land.

    PROSPERITY AS ‘THE COMMON GOOD”

    But since trust is an index of productivity, because lack of trust acts as a friction on seizure of opportunity – and particularly on the concentration of capital by future-oriented people – (a form of transaction cost) then high trust is the the greatest social asset a polity can possess in the production of wealth.

    Property will evolve from trust. Trust evolves from the prevention of free riding. The prevention of free riding evolves from the need to cooperate.

    THE PROBLEM WITH NAP AND PRIVATE PROPERTY: “TRUST”

    Private property and a weak state only evolve in high trust societies. But high trust societies are not dependent upon the NAP. They are dependent upon the suppression of free riding. The absolute nuclear family for example, even prohibits free riding by your children.

    The NAP doesn’t prohibit unethical and immoral actions, so you can’t initiate violence against, say, a blackmailer, or scam artist, or other person who engages in conspiracy. Its a license for predation. Given the high cost of violence and the low cost of unethical and immoral behavior, it’s non-logical to essentially prohibit violence but not prohibit every kind of cheating possible.

    The NAP operates on the assumption that a high trust society already exists, but actually fosters the destruction of the high trust society.

    Because high trust societies do not limit ‘property’ wither private or common to the physical.

    High trust societies prevent free riding, of which private property crime is merely one component.

    That is why it’s non-rational.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 14:52:00 UTC

  • PUTIN ON EXCEPTIONALISM —“They have come to believe in their exceptionalism an

    PUTIN ON EXCEPTIONALISM

    —“They have come to believe in their exceptionalism and their sense of being the chosen ones. That they can decide the destinies of the world, that it is only them who can be right.”—

    Not really. It’s pretty hard to argue against self-determination. Certainly the Tibetans, Mongolians, Ukrainians, South Vietnamese, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs, Georgians… (well you get the idea)… all prefer self determination.

    And the west supports self determination. Because ‘Sovereignty’ is the central value of the western heroic vision of man. Because it leads to the division of labor and prosperity for all.

    It’s pretty hard to argue in favor of military expansion of territory. But its pretty easy to argue for the containment of military expansion of territory.

    Its pretty hard to argue that a government that will exterminate millions of its own people is ‘a good way’.

    But then, I want to collapse the USA because our government has become like theirs. Not because of it’s puruit of self determination. Instead, the west has turned against self determination.

    European and American as well.

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 11:25:00 UTC

  • THREATS ARE SAFER

    http://www.internationalrealist.com/2011/11/why-we-will-soon-miss-cold-war-john.htmlWHY THREATS ARE SAFER

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-16 22:58:00 UTC