Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

THE FOUR LIBERTARIAN FRAMEWORKS

(in order) (political particularism) (natural aristocracy) (profound)

1) Analytic/Ratio-Empirical (Propertarian/NeoReactionary) – the people of empire – Anglo American Protestantism.

2) Continental/Rational-Historical (Hoppeian) – the landed and encircled people – German Protestantism.

3) Psychological/Religio-Moral (Classical Liberal/BHL) – The homogenous island seafaring traders – Anglo/Scottish Protestantism

4) Cosmopolitan/Pseudo-Scientific (Rothbard and Mises) – The urban ghetto. A state with in a state. Judaism.

BAGGAGE: METHODOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL

We all bring our baggage with us. Part of that baggage is cultural. Part of it is methodological.

One of the virtues of each author’s attempt to solve the problem of political institutions in the anarchic research program, is that while each err’s according to his culture’s biases, it is much easier in retrospect to find the common properties of each author’s arguments, than it is for any one of us, in any culture, to construct those properties ex-nihilo. Science progresses by falsification. The same applies to philosophy.

In each generation, we stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before us. And the only way to construct an answer, appears to be to pursue it for three generations. Which we have now done – each of us in our different cultures; and each with our different intuitional and methodological baggage.

METHOD VS CONTENT

1) All four methods are very different. Ratio-empirical, Rational-historical, Religio-Moral(psychological), and Pseudo-Scientific(hermeneutic). All, including the ratio-empirical, place greater weight on the method of distribution of their arguments than on the internal consistency, external correspondence of their arguments.

2) All four method share common properties: a preference for liberty, organizing society for prosperity, meritocracy, inequality, particularism, anti-statism.

3) All four depend differently on the means of propagation and enforcement of the content: Scientific, rational, moral and pseudoscientific arguments

3) All four demonstrate one very different property: The assumption of the effectiveness of the unity of interests in relation to others. Empire, Island, Land, and Ghetto all treat ‘others’ very differently and as such place different constraints on members.

THE GOAL OF PROPAGATION

Ratio-moral arguments are the most effective means of propagating ideas because they are the most pedagogically available to the entire population. But the Ratio-scientific is the most accurate description of the causes and consequences. As such, converting the Ratio-scientific into the Religio-moral form is the most effective means of distributing a particular moral code. The problem is that it takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of many people to do that.

Pseudo-science, as we have seen both in Marxism and in Austrian and Libertarian arguments, are exceptional means of inspiring action, but these arguments generally fail.

The value of religo-moral arguments is that they also inspire action, but if they are based upon ratio-empirical evidence, the elites can continue to construct arguments for the religio-moral mass evangelists.

ARISTOCRATIC LIBERTARIANISM: RELIGIO-MORAL NARRATIVES + RATIO-SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS.

The problem the west faced, is that while there existed a balance of power between the aristocracy and the church, only the church wrote down their ideas. Aristocracy handed it down by generation. So while the Religio-Moral narratives exist both in our norms and our fairy tales and myths, the underlying, scientific cause and consequences were lost.

Aristocracy depends not on universalism, but voluntary enfranchisement of those who would perpetuate aristocratic property rights against usurpation by a central control. It is not a majoritarian philosophy whatsoever. Majoritarianism was added by the enlightenment as an excuse for the mercantile elite to wrest power from the landed elite.

The origin of aristocracy is to allow a small number to concentrate capital in their families, and too make use of technology to prevent usurpation of that property, or position by others.

Aristocracy is a minority proposition. It is how and why, a small number of families could, by the use of technology, organization and expertise, keep the east and its despotism at bay.

That is the source of aristocracy.It is a minority proposition and always will be. Liberty is the desire of the minority. And it is only useful for a minority. It entirely permissible for the majority to engage in socialism because it is in their interests to do so. They are NOT aristocratic, meritocratic, or superior in ability and skill.

As such the purpose of a an aristocratic minority, as it has been for possibly 7000 years, is to deny socialists and tyrannists access to their property and control of their freedoms.

Liberty cannot be obtained at a discount. It is not ‘good’ for the majority except in their role as consumers. It is good for those that desire it. And the more liberty we create the more desirable it is for those that would join us.

But the others cannot rationally join us unless we first create property by denying it to socialists and tyrannists.

The source of liberty is the organized promise and application of violence to deny others access to our property, and limits to our freedom.

Violence is an art. A high art. It is the highest art that nobility can make. Everything else is just decoration.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev