Curt Doolittle

Form: Critique

  • TOM WOODS AND CHRIS CANTWELL ON AGGRESSION (Note: I love the pejorative term ’em

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDGrYXqjpWACONTRA TOM WOODS AND CHRIS CANTWELL ON AGGRESSION

    (Note: I love the pejorative term ’emotional hypochondriac’. I’ll have to use that.)

    CRITICISM 1

    To say that aggression is precise is not the same as saying it’s sufficient. (It’s not). To say that harm is imprecise is not the same as saying it’s false. All these two statements mean as that we have not yet solved the problem of the necessary AND sufficient criteria for liberty.

    I’m a hard-right libertarian. More right than Hans Hoppe. In that I am certain, given the evidence, both of history, of reason, and in addition, the recent evidence produced by science, that the only means of obtaining liberty is for the minority of those of us who desire it, to impose it by the threat, promise, and execution of organized violence. Their is no contrary evidence. And Rothbardians have no counter to this argument except ‘faith’ that others will somehow adopt their arguments. Which is also counter to the evidence.

    Left libertarians are trying to reconstruct the church – just as the progressive left is. Rothbardians are advocating the ethics and politics of diasporic jewish merchants and bankers, as well as american Puritans. And right libertarians advocating for the return to the monarchy, independent judiciary, common law and the militia.

    We are all advocating our moral specializations, like good ants specializing in one form of activity or other. The question is which institutional model will result in a condition of liberty in the absence of a state?

    Will people choose a rothbardian anarchy that only prohibits physical aggression against property? Or, will they choose an anarchy that also prohibits immoral and unethical violations of property? Is it possible to peacefully obtain a state of anarchy for the minority of humans who are liberty seekers? Or is necessary to obtain that state of anarchy by the organized threat of violence to obtain that liberty whether others wish to permit it or not?

    CRITICISM 2

    Tom, in good rothbardian form, states that harm is a fuzzy criteria. But aggression is also fuzzy – unless we define property as IVP. Harm may be ‘fuzzy’ but only because one does not define property subject to harm. Harm against defined property is not fuzzy. The involuntary transfer of property, when property is defined, is not fuzzy. So, the argumentative logic here is a fallacy. As Hoppe has stated repeatedly, it’s the definition of property that determines whether one has committed a violation of the rules of cooperation, not the means of violation of that property. Any means of violating the property one has defined is a transgression.

    It is easier to emotionally envision and empathize with aggression, than it is to enumerate the forms of property that allow for peaceful, moral, ethical cooperation, and as such eliminate demand for the state as a suppressor of violence, immorality, and unethical actions, as well as the violence that results from the failure to suppress criminal immoral and unethical actions.

    In a consanguineous band of hunter gatherers, very little is allocated as private property and almost everything remains communal in ownership. As we break into families, that which can be inherited is allocated into private property. As we develop into a division of knowledge and labor, under traditional families nearly everything is allocated into private property at the family level, but remains relatively communal within the family since free riding in the family is a form of insurance, but non-family is prohibited from free riding. As we suppress free riding in the family and adopt the absolute nuclear family, property becomes a universally individualistic allocation, and all collective rights of any kind must be allocated via some sort of shareholder agreement. (And that’s what we have seen evolve.) Property reflects the relationship between reproductive structures (family) and the structure of production in which the family exists.

    Private property and the absolute nuclear family are highly meritocratic levels of property definition.

    Meanwhile, as complexity of human relationships increase with the division of knowledge and labor, so does the opportunity for unethical and immoral activity due to increases int he asymmetry of knowledge. In other words, morality increases with the complexity of the society as moral constraints narrow along with the definition of private property. Law, Morality (ethics), and Property evolve as a set of parallel rules as the division of knowledge and labor increases in complexity.

    No society can anchor a definition of property, law, or morality, unless it also anchors its economic progress. If the division of knowledge and labor increases, but property law and morality do not, then unethical and immoral and criminal behavior will fill the new vacuum, and people will demand ‘order’ in the form of the state to suppress that behavior. This is the virtue of the common law and the organic development of property rights.

    So, not only are rothbardians wrong to use the NAP without specifically stating that it’s not the NAP that matters, but the definition of property under IVP. But even so, the IVP is static and unevolving. And the combination of NAP/IVP embodied as the basis of the law, effectively licenses immoral and unethical behavior. And by consequence, rothbardianism drives, incontrovertibly, to demand for, and construction of, the oppressor state.

    Why do I care? Because Rothbardians try to achieve catharsis through verbal repetition: the attempt to construct reality by chanting. And this chanting has undermined the movement for liberty both by delegitimizing libertarians, and distracting us from finding a solution to the problem of property definitions necessary for the resolution of disputes such that no state is necessary.

    CRITICISM 3

    You cannot both appropriate the term ‘libertarian’ that is far older than Mr Rothbard’s use of it, and criticize the left for appropriating ‘liberal’. You cannot both levy a claim against IP, and then claim the term ‘libertarian’ as equal to “rothbardian libertarian’. Rothbard used the term “libertarianism” for his philosophy, he state the criteria for adherence as non-aggression, and defined property only as that which is intersubjectively verifiable. However, in the etymology of the term, and in the survey evidence we possess, and now the cognitive science we possess, those of use who desire ‘liberty’ are still ‘libertarians’ because we attach higher priority to freedom to experience, and freedom from constraint than do members of the other points of the political spectrum. So, squatting on ‘libertarian’ as if it is identical to “Rothbardian Libertarianism under the NAP/IVP” is (a) appropriation of a term (b) an attempt at monopolizing the movement (c) unscientific since anyone who treats liberty as the highest political priority is by definition ‘libertarian’. He may or may not ascribe to Rothbardian Libertarianism and the NAP/IVP but he is a libertarian. And our failure to find a set of principles that unite all people with that highest priority, while preventing the evolution of the state, is yet another indicator that the Rothbardian Libertarian NAP/IVP program is a failure.

    Aggression is the great nonsense distraction of our time. The problem any polity faces is the definition of necessary property rights given their state of advancement, and their family structures. The means of violating that property are irrelevant.

    As far as I know this argument is bulletproof. Although that won’t stop Rothbardians from attempting to create an alternate reality by chanting.

    WELCOME

    Welcome tho the dark enlightenment – the return to particularism, propertarianism – the logic of cooperation, and aristocratic egalitarianism – the ethics of sovereignty. It’s where Rothbarians go when they grow up.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-15 05:03:00 UTC

  • CONTRA KINSELLA ON AGGRESSION (I might as well just beat this horse until it’s r

    CONTRA KINSELLA ON AGGRESSION

    (I might as well just beat this horse until it’s really, really, dead.)

    Aggression that causes violence is determined empirically. The definition of Property that people treat as aggressed against is determined empirically. You don’t get to make stuff up. We are supposed to be the smart people you know?

    [kinsella]—“Libertarianism says that only aggression may be countered with force, that aggression is the only way to violate rights so that a forceful response is justified. Other rightful behavior, even if it is immoral or “bad,” is rightful so long as it is not aggression”— [kinsella]

    Yes, rothbardian libertarianism says that immoral and unethical actions are permissible and that you are forbidden from retaliating against people in court, and that you can be taken to court if you retaliate against immoral and unethical actions.

    Yes, rothbardian libertarianism legally authorizes immoral and unethical conduct. Yes, rothbardian libertarians prohibits retaliation for immoral and unethical conduct. Yes rothbardian libertarianism provides incentives to engage in immoral and unethical conduct. Because immoral and unethical actions allow profiting from unproductive professions that are parasitic to the polity. So yes, rothbardian ethics reflect the ethics of the low trust societies of the world. And in all low trust societies, the state is necessary as a suppressor of violence. That is why all low trust societies have strong central states: to suppress violence created by immoral and unethical actions that are non-productive, and which have no peaceful means of resolution other than violence.

    High trust societies force all profiting into the market where it is mutually beneficial. High trust societies force ALL competition into the market. They force all actions into PRODUCTIVE actions.

    It is ONLY high trust societies that have produced liberty. That is why only the formerly aristocratic nations possess liberty. Because through outbreeding and violence they forced all conflict into the market for goods and services, by prohibiting both criminal, unethical and immoral actions.

    Why have no low trust societies that employ the absence of moral and ethical standards ever formed?

    <sarcasm>

    OF COURSE I’M RIGHT.

    I know. You will get there. Or you will go to your grave whispering “I believe in NAP, I believe in NAP, I Believe in NAP” like any other good cult member.

    Sorry. Just how it is. Get over it. Abandon rothbardiansim as the failed program that it is: a pathetic attempt to pretend that cosmopolitanism was somehow a competitor to aristocratic egalitarianism.

    TIme for big boy shoes.

    You can do it if you try.

    <sarcasm/>

    PROPERTY IS DEFINED BY EMPIRICAL NOT RATIONAL MEANS

    If we define property as people ACT in high trust societies define property then yes it is a trespass. That is what I can’t seem to get across to you.

    Low trust = scarce property rights.

    High trust = lots of property rights.

    People flock TO high trust societies and AWAY from low trust societies.

    High trust = high velocity of trade and low demand for the state.

    Low trust = low velocity of trade and high demand for the state.

    It’s just the evidence. Nothing will change it. No matter how many canticles for rothbard you kneel for. No matter how much hand wringing that you muster.

    Jan lester was almost right. I”m right. This is how it is. Just time to deal with it.

    A voluntary polity is only POSSIBLE under suppression of immoral and unethical behavior via the common law, because people will not abandon or tolerate unethical behavior.

    2 mins · Like

    <sarcasam>

    So. Um. Like usual. I’m right. Yeah. Sorry. It must be painful.

    I kinda wish someone else had this job. You know? But it seems like it’s my civic duty to flush Rothbardian ethics into the toilet of phlogiston theories.

    <sarcasam/>

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-11 16:26:00 UTC

  • LAWRENCE VANCE HAD NUMEROUS TERMINOLOGICAL ERRORS IN HIS RECENT POST ON LRC. – I

    LAWRENCE VANCE HAD NUMEROUS TERMINOLOGICAL ERRORS IN HIS RECENT POST ON LRC. – I FIXED THEM. NOW IT’S ACCURATE 😉

    Apparently Larry doesn’t know his etymology, or his history, and like the progressives appropriated the term ‘liberal’, larry is a rothbardian who wants to appropriate the term “libertarian”. Apparently he thinks ‘libertarian’ isn’t a bias toward liberty. And libertarianism isn’t both the philosophy of liberty AND the name rothbard tried to appropriate for rothbardian anarcho capitalism.

    Because larry seems to think that liberty is somehow about the appropriate use of violence instead of liberty. That makes him a rothbardian. Because the opinions of the rest of the libertarians in the world, and one’s analysis of the history of the use of the term libertarian, lead one to conclude that the term ‘libertarian’ means the primacy of liberty first – and before all other political goods. Not that there are no other political goods.

    ACCORDING TO LARRY:

    —“I am a Rothbardian. I am not Democrat or Republican. I am not liberal or conservative. I am not left or right. I am not moderate or progressive. I am not a fusionist. I am not a constitutionalist.

    I am a Rothbardian. I am both thin and brutalist. I am not holist or solipsist. I am not moralist or consequentialist. I am not open or closed. I am not a modal, cosmopolitan, cultural, regime, sophisticated, or Beltway libertarian. I do not have a bleeding heart. I am not a neo, second wave, or millennial libertarian. I am a plain old Rothbardian – one who needs no labels, issues no caveats, and makes no apologies.

    I am a Rothbardian. Rothbardianism is a political philosophy concerned with the permissible use of force or violence. It is not a political philosophy that says limited government is the best kind of government. It is not a political philosophy that is socially liberal and economically conservative. It is not a political philosophy that says government is less efficient than the private sector. It is not a political philosophy that says freedom can be achieved by promoting some government policies over others. It is not a political philosophy that is low-tax liberalism. Libertarianism is not the absence of racism, sexism, homophobism, xenophobism, nationalism, nativism, classism, authoritarianism, patriarchy, inequality, or hierarchy. Libertarianism is not diversity or activism. Libertarianism is not egalitarianism. Libertarianism is not toleration or respect. Libertarianism is not a social attitude, lifestyle, or aesthetic sensibility.

    I am a Rothbardian. I subscribe to the non-aggression principle that says, in the words of Murray Rothbard: “The only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit except invade the person or property of another.” I am concerned with actions; I am not concerned with thoughts: I am concerned only with the negative consequences of thoughts. I believe that the non-aggression principle extends to government. Libertarians should therefore oppose or otherwise seek to limit the domestic and foreign meddling and intervention of governments, which are the greatest violators of the non-aggression principle.

    I am a Rothbardian. I believe in the golden rule. I believe in live and let live. I believe that a person should be free to do anything he wants, as long as his conduct is peaceful. I believe that vices are not crimes.

    I am a Rothbardian. Our enemy is the state. Our enemy is not religion, corporations, institutions, foundations, or organizations. These only have power to do us harm because of their connection with the state. And since war is the health of the state, the state’s military, wars, and foreign interventions must be opposed root and branch.

    I am a Rothbardian. I believe in laissez faire. Anyone should be free to engage in any economic activity without license, permission, prohibition, or interference from the state. The government should not intervene in the economy in any way. Free trade agreements, educational vouchers, privatizing Social Security, etc., are not the least bit libertarian ideas.

    I am a Rothbardian. The best government is no government. That government that governs least is the next best government. Government, as Voltaire said, at its best state is a necessary evil and at its worst state is an intolerable one. The best thing any government could do would be to simply leave us alone.

    I am a Rothbardian. Taxation is government theft. The government doesn’t have a claim to a certain percentage of one’s income. The tax code doesn’t need to be simplified, shortened, fairer, or less intrusive. The tax rates don’t need to be made lower, flatter, fairer, equal, or less progressive. The income tax doesn’t need more or larger deductions, loopholes, shelters, credits, or exemptions. The whole rotten system needs to be abolished. People have the right to keep what they earn and decide for themselves what to do with their money: spend it, waste it, squander it, donate it, bequeath it, hoard it, invest it, burn it, gamble it.

    I am a Rothbardian. I am a libertine. I am a hedonist. I am a moral relativist outside of the use of violence. I am a devotee of an alternative lifestyle never seen by man.

    I am a revolutionary. I am a social and moral nihilist. I neither wish to associate with nor aggress against those who are. I believe in the absolute freedom of association and discrimination.

    I am a Rothbardian.”—

    YES, LARRY, YOU ARE A ROTHBARDIAN. I AM NOT SURE YOU ARE A LIBERTARIAN.

    We have this big tent kind of thing. So we’ll let you in. No matter how silly your concept of how to obtain liberty is. Because we’re that kind of folk, you know. We’re libertarians.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-10 02:44:00 UTC

  • HOPPE’S EEoPP AS A BRIDGE? NOPE. I thought that maybe if I went through and brie

    HOPPE’S EEoPP AS A BRIDGE? NOPE.

    I thought that maybe if I went through and briefly restated each chapter in Hoppe’s Economics and Ethics of Private Property I could so some good at bridging the gap. But it was a surprising bit of work today.

    Section one, on economics, wouldn’t require any modification. It’s his best work.

    But, I just re-read section two and it’s little more than a set of arguments justifying praxeology and apriorism. Sigh. Which I’ve put an operational bullet it.

    As a nit, I don’t t think hoppe understood WHY operationalism didn’t satisfy all of mathematics only all demonstrable math. I think that it’s understandable, because very few people within the mathematical philosophy discipline understand it. But the reason is very simple: arbitrary precision, and the necessity of general rules. Mathematicians can get away with certain claims because it’s acceptable in all cases to apply their deductions in the absence of precision. But that’s a scary monster of a rat hole. I think i’ve settled this topic so I’m going to ignore it for now.

    Chapter 15 (Rothbardian Ethics) could be restated as the ethics of out-group exchange, or the ethics of nation-states. But I would have to then add propertarianism as the ethics of in-group exchanges necessary to form a polity. One might counter that the rothbardian solution is to view each of us as ethically equal to a sovereign state, but that’s just an empty verbalism. We are still stuck with the reality of needing to get non-kin cooperate as kin up to some limit where interests diverge sufficiently that such cooperation is no longer in one’s interest.

    The evidence that my ‘faction’ of libertarians are so bogged down in the fallacies of a priorism, that its impossible to move them is just piling up. And rothbardians aren’t that unique really. The percentage of mathematicians who subscribe to mathematical platonism is probably only slightly lower than the percentage of libertarians who subscribe to apriorism. Both are wrong, but you know, that doesn’t seem to matter if they can find a nail to hit with the hammer that they have in hand.

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-09 11:52:00 UTC

  • WHY DID WE HAVE TO CREATE YET ANOTHER FORM OF MYSTICISM? Natural rights? Intrins

    WHY DID WE HAVE TO CREATE YET ANOTHER FORM OF MYSTICISM?

    Natural rights? Intrinsic rights?

    OMG. It was the 20th century for goodness sake. What kind of idiot would suggest you “had” (owned, possessed) the equivalent of a soul?

    The source of any property right is anothers grant of it in exchange for the same, for the duration of your cooperation.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-09 09:24:00 UTC

  • TO THE END OF LIBERTARIAN SUPERSTITION I think he mean’s he’s a Rothbardian. Unl

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/05/laurence-m-vance/i-am-a-libertarian/WELCOME TO THE END OF LIBERTARIAN SUPERSTITION

    I think he mean’s he’s a Rothbardian. Unless there is a Copyright on the term ‘libertarian’ held by the some group of rothbardians.

    Unfortunately, Rothbardian is a little too close to ‘stupid-tarian’ and ‘aspie-tarian’ and ‘immoral-tarian’.

    The NAP/IVP is a dead argument. Not by opinion, not by rationalization, but by evidence in our grubby hands, produced by science. It’s also one of the main reasons that the liberty movement has failed: because Rothbard’s ghetto ethics are objectively immoral.

    Period. End. Of. Story.

    Sorry you invested all your self-rewarding status signals out of a false premise, but that’s the price of the early adopter. You were wrong. You need to pick up your shattered dreams and walk out of rothbard’s ghetto, into the sunshine and learn about the logic of cooperation, the necessity of cooperation, and the relationship between cooperation and moral instincts, intuitions and rules.

    The thick folks aren’t doing too well at keeping up with science (that seems to be a conservative or post-libertarian endeavor.) So they’re still hoping that they can reconstruct the church with some kind of continental , kantian, justificationary form of rationalism. The priests of libertarianism that will through genius introspection save us from the evils of statism. But once again the drudgery of science does what introspective gazing cannot.

    Thin is dead. Thick is incomplete. And conservatives are the only people who act anyway.

    Welcome to the scientific method.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-09 09:04:00 UTC

  • MI/LRC: ABANDON ROTHBARDIANISM AS A FAILED IDEOLOGY OR BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES Dea

    MI/LRC: ABANDON ROTHBARDIANISM AS A FAILED IDEOLOGY OR BEAR THE CONSEQUENCES

    Dear Lou,

    It must be clear to you, after more than thirty years, that the philosophical product you have been selling has been rejected by the market for ideologies as a means of obtaining political power sufficient to enact change. Even if younger generations are turning to some form of libertarianism, they are turning to the moral intuitions of classical liberalism, not to the ethical and political program of rothbardian anarcho capitalism. Despite what you seem to imply and claim credit for – with increasing frequency.

    If you stated “I sold the ideology that was available to sell. Had there been a better ideology then I would have sold that product instead.” That is very different from continuing the sale of your defective product, once it has been demonstrated to fail in the market, and moreover done damage to consumers and the brand. The brand that you damaged in this case is “liberty”. The consumers you damaged were the people who desired liberty and sought public intellectuals and philosophers to help them preserve it and regain it.

    But, while one is blameless in one’s ignorance, once one is made aware that Rothbarianism:

    (a) advocates an immoral and unethical standard upon which to base the the law;

    (b) advocates low trust societies, and that many such low trust societies have existed and continue to exist – and are all poor because of it;

    (c) that high trust societies and the wealth of high trust societies is caused the the low transaction costs, the velocity of innovation, production and trade that higher ethical standards of the high trust wealthy societies make use of;

    (d) that humans traded pervasive violence, theft, unethical and immoral action, for the state’s high cost – willingly and desirably. And they were wise to. They traded high transaction costs, for high costs, and benefitted from that adoption, everywhere that they did so. Albeit is always generated consequential predation they prefer it to the alternative;

    (e) that it is not rational for individuals to prefer to choose to regress into lower trust, higher transaction cost societies such as those recommended by rothbard’s intersubjectively verifiable property (IVP) definition, and non aggression principle (NAP) ensconce;

    (f) that rothbard’s IVP&NAP of necessity, and incontrovertibly, expressly legalize unethical and immoral actions;

    (g) that it is non rational for people to abandon their use of violence to suppress unethical and immoral actions – especially given the human instinctual preference for punishment of ‘cheaters’ even at dramatic personal cost. And the biological necessity of any cooperative organism to demonstrate that punishment of ‘cheaters’ even if at high cost;

    (h) that the elimination of the state, and the near elimination of the state was only accomplished by the opposite means, by northern european peoples, by the near total suppression of all free riding in all forms including within the Absolute Nuclear Family, and between families, in the form of total suppression of criminal, unethical, immoral, conspiratorial behavior, and requiring that that all members of the polity contribute to production, rather than engage in any actions, including any trades and exchanges, that did not contribute to production. Property is the consequence of the prohibition on free-riding in all it’s forms, and the more complex the society the more opportunity for free riding is caused by expanding anonymity and ignorance. And the more opportunity the more suppression of new means of free riding is necessary.

    (i) that it was only with the immoral use of credit by private sector loans to the state, that the states were able to finance state conquest of the the only free societies ever to exist;

    (j) that suppression of free riding in all its forms is not, as rothbardians advocate, an entreaty to the state, as long as the definition of property as a positive assertion, and the definition of free riding as a negative assertion are sufficiently articulated as the basis of community rights under the common law, adjudicable by an independent judiciary. Quite the contrary, humans demonstrate high demand for the state wherever unethical and immoral rules are not codified in the law, and therefore open to dispute resolution by private means. Instead, the definition of property as a positive assertion and the prohibition of free riding as a negative assertion must sufficiently suppress the means of all conflict to the degree that any group of human beings will voluntarily choose an anarchic polity over that of statist polity.

    … it therefore the begs the question why one would continue to advocate a failed, immoral, irrational, impossible ideology, that has demonstrably failed in the market, has harmed the brand of liberty, has damaged the brand of libertarianism, and has damaged the population by misleading them in an immoral and impossible direction, and failing to resist the expansionary state in the interim. The opportunity cost has been tragic. And if not for conservative obstructionism would would have been even worse.

    So, since it is ONLY rationally, and by the evidence possible, to construct a voluntary anarchic polity by suppression of nearly all free riding in the forms of criminal, unethical, immoral, conspiratorial, actions, and requiring production in all actions open to possible dispute, the question remains why one would advocate an impossible, unethical, immoral, damaging program of ideology that had demonstrably failed in the market for moral social orders.

    That is, unless one is an advocate of unethical, immoral social orders. And that would mean that one was an unethical and immoral man.

    Adapt. Adapt or continue to fail, and bear the consequences of that failure.

    1) Abandon Rothbard’s failed, unethical, immoral, and impossible program.

    2) Adopt Ron Paul’s message of moral classical liberalism.

    3) Adopt Hoppe’s Intellectual program for the construction of institutional alternatives to monopoly bureaucracy.

    4) Adopt Propertarianism’s extensions of Hoppe’s ethics for the basis of the common law and an independent private judiciary.

    If one does not know one’s actions are unethical and immoral he can be forgiven. We all err. But once confronted with one’s unethical and immoral actions, one must either change them or be prosecuted and persecuted as unethical and immoral by all ethical and moral individuals for the unethical and immoral ideology he advocates.

    Humans are not kind to the unethical and immoral.

    Neither are the fates.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-02 14:53:00 UTC

  • HOPPE’S RIGHT – YOU CAN’T SAY ‘LIBERTY’ IN STATE-FUNDED ACADEMIA – YOU HAVE TO W

    HOPPE’S RIGHT – YOU CAN’T SAY ‘LIBERTY’ IN STATE-FUNDED ACADEMIA – YOU HAVE TO WORK OUTSIDE OF ACADEMIA TO DO THE WORK THAT MUST BE DONE.

    I bet I couldn’t find a dissertation committee for my project. I bet if I was in state-funded-academia there is no way I could keep my job and do this work. Sean Gabb lamented a few weeks ago, that we used to have people in academia, media, and government, but we don’t. You have to do your work outside of the state-system. Even our closest allies at GMU never violate the sanctity of the social democratic state, democracy, and equality except in very timid terms: policy preference.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-02 02:31:00 UTC

  • AND CALCULABILITY NOT ARBITRARY MORALITY John. Good piece. Although, I’m critica

    http://www.johnmccaskey.com/joomla/index.php/blog/71-new-libertariansEXCHANGE AND CALCULABILITY NOT ARBITRARY MORALITY

    John.

    Good piece. Although, I’m critical of philosophical pretense in social justice as much as I am in the market.

    If any judgment is beyond our perception, and any concept of social justice is, then we must, as in all other matters where complexity exceeds our perception, develop some kind of instrumentation and means of calculation such that we can reduce that which we cannot perceive, to some analogy to experience that we can perceive. Moral rules are not sufficient for achieving that kind of instrumentation, or performing that kind of calculation. The problem requires formal institutions and means of calculation. We have the market for cooperating on means even if we disagree on ends. We have the government for forcing cooperation on means and ends by majority rule. We have accounting to assist us in the perception of that which we cannot possibly grasp without it. And we have economics to attempt to measure our success. But we have no such instrumentation and means of calculating social justice – or even defining such a thing as social justice. (Which current psychologists and economists suspect is reducible to status seeking, and insurance against risk, and nothing more.)

    While we might continue in the methods of the past, and attempt to concoct yet another empty incalculable moralism for the purported common good, these are value judgements and nothing more. They are incalculable. Most of the post-enlightenment effort has considered society a monopoly, in contrast to the pre-enlightenment condition of most urban cities, as federations of minorities denied access to political power, and forced to compete outside of politics, in the market. So the idea of social justice is an artifact of monopoly democracy rather than a federation of disparate interests.

    However, libertarians rightly argue that the only moral test is that of voluntary exchange free of violent coercion. I argue that this ‘test’ is incorrect, since no in-group human organizations demonstrate that low a level of trust, And instead all groups demonstrate and require higher standards of trust, tah also forbid free riding, deception, cheating, as well as burdening other group members indirectly. However, whether we accept a low trust society and high demand for external authority that low trust societies demonstrate, or a high trust society and the low demand for external authority that high trust societies demonstrate, the underlying argument that the only test of moral action is voluntary exchange. So the effort that political philosophers left, libertarian and right have expended under the universalist assumption of the enlightenment has been to find some justification for moral decision making even if the knowledge to make such decisions is impossible both in the market, and afterward, using the profits created from the market.

    The question instead, is how to construct institutions with which groups can conduct voluntary exchanges, which are by definition moral. Majority rule does not allow this. Majority rule is sufficient for the selection of priorities in homogenous polities with homogenous interests. The market is the means by which heterogeneous polities cooperate on means despite different interests on ends. But how can we construct an institutional system that allows the construction of commons, and other exchanges between groups and classes, but is not dependent upon a monopoly bureaucracy, majority rule, or representatives open to influence, special interest, and corruption? Because a government of contracts, not laws, would allow the exchange of say, adherence to traditions and norms, or requirements for married families in order to obtain redistribution. This would make government a means of cooperation rather than the source and facilitator of conflict.

    Cheers

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev

    http://www.johnmccaskey.com/joomla/index.php/blog/71-new-libertarians

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 13:48:00 UTC

  • WE DON”T NEED THEORISTS TO BE RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING, JUST BEING RIGHT ABOUT ONE

    WE DON”T NEED THEORISTS TO BE RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING, JUST BEING RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING IS ENOUGH

    (worth repeating)

    Rothbard’s work on banking is some of the best that’s ever been done. His history of economics is some of the best that’s ever been done. He blows it on ethics (which if you follow me is a pretty simple argument) he blows it on praxeology (which a first year philosophy student probably can demonstrate). Hoppe’s the same. If you ignore Argumentation and Praxeology and focus on his theory of socialism and capitalism, his Ethics of Property, his criticism of the incentives of private vs corporate governance, and his solutions to privatizing regulation via competing insurance companies, it’s some of the best and most revolutionary work that’s been done in the past century.

    Philosophers don’t need to be right about everything, they just need to contribute a single novel idea. Hoppe did more than one. And I think his greatest contribution is probably the means of constructing his arguments – which is why I was drawn to him. He has successfully employed economic reasoning to ethics on a scale never done before, in rigorous form.

    If you want to refute Rothbardian ethics, Argumentation Ethics, and Praxeology, then it’s not all that hard (although it took me a long time myself). The thing is, that if you refute those things, it doesn’t change ANYTHING regarding Rothbard’s history or Hoppe’s institutional solutions. In fact, all it does is eliminate a lot of nonsensical justification that isn’t necessary. It’s just a holdover from before the soviet union fell and chia abandoned central planning for state capitalism, and the world understood that socialism was empirically dead, as well as logically. We have evidence now that previous generations didn’t.

    If you pick something you want refuted it’s pretty easy. Search for criticisms of those three topics. I’m probably the best critic of Rothbard’s ethics, but you’ll find Hoppe’s arguments criticized all over the place. But what you won’t find is his solution to the problem of institutions criticized, or Rothbard’s history criticized. Or of you do, I’ll bet its pretty stupid criticism.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy Of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-27 16:47:00 UTC