Curt Doolittle

Form: Critique

  • MORE ON BOETTKE’S HYPOTHESIS (AND CAPLAN’S CRITICISM OF HOROWITZ) : WHY AUSTRIAN

    MORE ON BOETTKE’S HYPOTHESIS (AND CAPLAN’S CRITICISM OF HOROWITZ) : WHY AUSTRIANS ARE’T MAINSTREAM

    Caplan has it correct in his own odd way, as usual. Then he proceeds, as he does with ‘Why I’m not an Austrian’ to contradict himself with the same kind of logical problem he accuses others of making. (In the most famous case, that incentives are more important than calculation. And failing to realize that such a statement is meaningless, since incentives require calculation – the terms are mutually dependent.)

    BARRIER TO ENTRY

    The barrier to entry for quantitative macro economics is higher than the barrier to entry for subjective MORAL politics. Because of this, of course there will be more ridiculous ‘austrian’ advocates than there are ridiculous amoral quantitative macro economists like Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong. And its easier to criticize abuse of an ISLM vs ISMP curves because there isn’t any subjective loading possible. They aren’t’ dependent upon norms. Whereas it’s very easy to criticize abuse of involuntary transfers according to whatever set of norms we have learned over our lifetimes.

    PRAXEOLOGY

    I’ve consistently criticized Praxeology – which is a narrower discipline than austrian economics, because it does not treat opportunity costs as real costs, and as such, both Mises’ and rothbard’s deductions from it are mistaken – because they do not account for the cost of norms, and as such, they assume that the market is sufficient for the constraint of norms – or at least sufficient to constrain norms to the point where private property is possible because of high trust. And Mises and Rothbard are wrong on this. And because they are wrong, the entire libertarian movement has tried to base the justification for private property on natural law, argumentation, and abstract morality rather than something scientific and explanatory of all moral codes – as I have done.

    NORMS, TRADITIONS AND TRUST AS CAPITAL

    I don’t put a lot of stock in Austrian ‘Economics’ because it’s frankly all been assimilated by the profession. It’s that the long term consequences to norms and institutions have NOT been incorporated into the mainstream profession, and are treated as irrelevant. While in Austrian terms, norms are not – particularly if we include Hayek.

    It turns out that norms are VERY important. They are the most expensive kind of capital a nation can build. Norms are a living monument. Thats’ why younger civilizations with less scientific maturity have trouble creating them.

    So I tend not to make Austrian versus the Mainstream a question of empirical science, but a distinction in WHAT MUST BE MEASURED in order to make sure that we are in fact creating rather than consuming or destroying capital. This is not an argument over method per se. The progress in the empirical method, do more to the contribution of Experimental Psychology than to economics in my opinion.

    I criticize the mainstream for not measuring changes to normative (informal capital) because it is convenient to ignore it, and by ignoring it they justify both the progressive and statist agenda.

    The problem is that it is very difficult to measure such changes to norms, traditions, and other factors that we tend to bundle into the abstract but somewhat measurable distinction between TRUST and CORRUPTION. Or, what is more accurately described as the extension of the familial (kinship) trust, to others (non-kin) by the suppression of all involuntary transfers except market competition, and the systemic enforcement of warranty to prevent fraud by omission.

    GENES AS CAPITAL

    As a member of the ‘Dark Enlightenment’, I consider a gene pool a form of capital. I also think that Austrianism, like Aristocracy (and what we call Conservatism) implicitly favors beneficial market-based eugenics, while progressivism implicitly favors destructive dysgenics by not allowing families to concentrate capital behind productive genes, and transferring reproductive ability from better genes to worse genes.

    SUMMARY

    So Austrianism is flawed because it has a low barrier to entry, because praxeology as articulated is false, and has led libertarianism into catastrophic errors even Hoppe has only marginally been able to rescue it from.

    But Austrianism is useful in that it a) allows us to test the rationality of actions and incentives, b) makes visible involuntary transfers c) tries to account for increases or decreases in informal institutional capital d) implicitly represents the conflict between dysgenic and eugenic reproduction that is the natural conflict between male and female reproductive strategies. And as such Austrianism helps us understand why there is political discord, and provides us with clues, that I have made use of, to provide explanatory power in politics, that is not provided by correlative macro mathematics.

    —————–

    (For Reference)

    —————–

    BOETTKE’S HYPOTHESIS WHY AUSTRIANS ARE NOT MAINSTREAM

    “Verbal logic is not adequate to explain economic relationships. In the absence of formal logic, one cannot really test propositions. In other words, syntactic logic matters more than semantic logic.” (Hypothesis H4)

    AND

    “Science is not about absolutes, but about refutation. If AE is about (apodictic) certainty, then it is not a science, but a pastime.” (Hypothesis H5)

    Well I disagree with AE as apodictic unless it’s complete. As I’ve written elsewhere it’s not complete. However, if expressed as complete, then it’s possible to propose means of falsification. And “m not sure it isn’t possible to model. Just very, very difficult, because we need much, much more data than we have today. Tis is where experimental psychology comes in.

    In this sense, AE has a higher bar, because it tries to provide greater explanatory power than mainstream economics.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-24 07:03:00 UTC

  • “Could have been me.” I cant help but suggest that the world would be a better p

    “Could have been me.”

    I cant help but suggest that the world would be a better place if it had been.

    Bad meme. Just encourages the retort.

    Clueless.

    Even worse than Carter.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-20 14:37:00 UTC

  • Notes From Hoppe’s Essay: “What Must Be Done”

    SUMMARY: INCREMENTALLY PRIVATIZE EVERYTHING. [G]reat analysis. Not sure how strong the solution is. (It isn’t strong at all) I don’t like to criticize the master of our movement. He should have had one of us edit it (Roman Saskiw) because there are too many small problems with it. I don’t like mixing analytical rigour and moralistic language. It doesn’t help us. Not when there isn’t any need for it. We can maintain rational rigour in our movement. That aside, I’ll just say that either of my two main solutions is better. My solution is grander. But it’s likely to work. Partly because it’s grander. Because it has worked so many times in history. Because momentum matters. Because the majority adopt the positions of those they trust. I’ve tried to limit the quotes to the necessary argument, and clarify in brackets what required it.

    Hans-Hermann Hoppe. What Must Be Done . Ludwig von Mises Institute. (2013) THE GOAL

    [The] ultimate goal … is the demonopolization of protection and justice. Protection, security, defense, law, order, and arbitration in conflicts can and must be supplied competitively— that is, entry into the field of being a judge must be free. – (Kindle Locations 166-168).

    THE ARGUMENT

    Every monopolist takes advantage of his position. The price of protection will go up, and more importantly, the content of the law, that is the product quality, will be altered to the advantage of the monopolist and at the expense of others. – (Kindle Locations 95-96)

    …once there is no longer free entry into the business of property protection, or any other business for that matter, the price of protection will rise, and the quality of protection will fall. The monopolist will become increasingly less of a protector of our property, and increasingly more a protection racket, or even a systematic exploiter of property owners. He will become an aggressor against and a destroyer of the people and their property that he was initially supposed to protect.” (Kindle Locations 74-77)

    What happens [under democracy, is that] the territorial protection monopoly [is transformed into] public [from] private property. Instead of a prince who regards [the institutions] as his private property, [an elected official, who has the incentives of] a temporary and interchangeable caretaker is put in charge of the protection racket. The caretaker does not own the protection racket. Instead, he is just allowed to use the current resources for his own advantage. He owns [The right to enjoy the use and advantages of another’s property short of the destruction or waste of its substance,] but he does not own the capital value. This does not eliminate the self-interest-driven tendency toward increased exploitation. To the contrary, it only makes exploitation less rational and less calculating, – (Kindle Locations 122-126).

    …because entry into a democratic government is open— everyone can become president— resistance against State property invasions is reduced. This leads to the same result: increasingly under democratic conditions, the worst will rise to the top of the State in free competition. Competition is not always good. Competition in the field of becoming the shrewdest aggressor against private property is nothing to be greeted. – (Kindle Locations 127-130).

    Under highly centralized democracy, … the security of private property has almost completely disappeared. The price of protection is enormous, and the quality of justice dispensed has gone downhill constantly. It has deteriorated to the point where the idea of immutable laws of justice, of natural law, has almost entirely disappeared from public consciousness. Law is considered nothing but State-made law— positive law. Law and justice is whatever the State says it is. There is still private property in name, but in practice private property owners have been almost completely expropriated. Rather than protecting people from invaders and invasions of person and property, the State has increasingly disarmed its own people, and stripped them of their most elementary right to self-defense. – (Kindle Locations 142-146).

    Instead of protecting us, then, the State has delivered us and our property to the mob and mob instincts. Instead of safeguarding us, it impoverishes us, it destroys our families, local organizations, private foundations, clubs and associations, by drawing all of them increasingly into its own orbit. And as a result of all of this, the State has perverted the public sense of justice and of personal responsibility, and bred and attracted an increasing number of moral and economic monsters and monstrosities. – (Kindle Locations 157-160).

    1) First: that the protection of private property and of law, justice, and law enforcement, is essential to any human society. But there is no reason whatsoever why this task must be taken on by one single agency, by a monopolist. [Instead]… it is precisely the case that as soon as you have a monopolist taking on this task, he will [of] necessity destroy justice and render us defenseless against foreign as well as domestic invaders and aggressors. – (Kindle Locations 162-165). 2) …because a monopoly of protection is [a violation of natural, moral, and economic laws, then], any territorial expansion of such a monopoly is [a violation of natural, moral, and economic laws]. … Every [attempt, or suggestion, to increase] political centralization must be on principle grounds rejected [and fought against.]. In turn, every attempt at political decentralization— segregation, separation, secession and so forth— must be supported. – (Kindle Locations 169-170). 3) … [the] democratic protection monopoly … must be rejected as a [violation of natural,] moral and economic [laws]. Majority rule and private property protection are incompatible. The idea of democracy must be ridiculed [,criticized, attacked, and delegitimized as systemic corruption]: it is nothing else but mob rule [ and organized expropriation, justified by majority rule]. – (Kindle Locations 170-172).

    THE STRATEGY

    1) one must attempt to restrict the right to vote on local taxes, in particular on property taxes and regulations, to property and real estate owners. Only property owners must be permitted to vote, and their vote is not equal, but in accordance with the value of the equity owned, and the amount of taxes paid.- (Kindle Locations 346-348). … all public employees— teachers, judges, policemen— and all welfare recipients, must be excluded from voting on local taxes and local regulation matters. These people are being paid out of taxes and should have no say whatsoever how high these taxes are. … The locations have to be small enough and have to have a good number of decent people.- (Kindle Locations 349-353). … Consequently, local taxes and rates as well as local tax revenue will inevitably decrease. Property values and most local incomes would increase whereas the number and payment of public employees would fall. – (Kindle Locations 353-354).

    2) In this government funding crisis which breaks out once the right to vote has been taken away from the mob, as a way out of this crisis, all local government assets must be privatized. An inventory of all public buildings, and on the local level that is not that much— schools, fire, police station, courthouses, roads, and so forth— and then property shares or stock should be distributed to the local private property owners in accordance with the total lifetime amount of taxes— property taxes— that these people have paid. After all, it is theirs, they paid for these things. These shares should be freely tradeable, sold and bought, and with this local government would essentially be abolished. – (Kindle Locations 356-360).

    3) Under the realistic assumption that there continues to be a local demand for education and protection and justice, the schools, police stations, and courthouses will be still used for the very same purposes. And many former teachers, policemen and judges would be rehired or resume their former position on their own account as self-employed individuals, except that they would be operated or employed by local “bigshots” or elites who own these things, all of whom are personally known figures.- (Kindle Locations 366-369). … Accordingly judges must be freely financed, and free entry into judgeship positions must be assured. Judges are not elected by vote, but chosen by the effective demand of justice seekers. – (Kindle Locations 373-374).

  • Internecine Warfare as Evidence of Intellectual Failure

    (EXTRA LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY VS INTRA-LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY AND INTERNECINE WARFARE AS EVIDENCE OF INTELLECTUAL FAILURE) (Re-Posted from elsewhere) [T]om DiLorenzo’s generation along with Rothbard, was trying to illustrate contrasts – to create a revisionist history to support libertarian ideology. Ideology changes VALUES, and motivates passions so that people ACT. All I see from this nonsense is both CATO and BHL trying to whine that they don’t get the attention the ideological libertarians do. Of course, that envy displays greater ignorance of the structure of political movements than does any revisionist history, shoddy or not. Ideology obtains participation. Intellectuals only battle other intellectuals. Reason is insufficient for motivation. Empiricism is insufficient for persuasion. That’s why we have ideology – passions. [G]iven the absolute failure of the classical liberals and the left libertarians to provide alternative solutions to the demonstrated failure of the classical liberal model’s means of preserving freedom – a desire that is a minority desire in the first place – it’s understandable that they retreat into intra-libertarian criticism. I can understand Cato’s position. Their funding stream and interaction with the existing state is something that they have to stick with. I can understand the investment that the Mises group has made in Rothbardianism, despite its demonstrated failure to enfranchise the moral values of classical liberals. But I can’t understand attacks by BHL’s on anything given that they haven’t contributed a SINGLE DAMNED IDEA to the discourse other than ‘we aren’t them’. Well, ‘them’ created an effective ideology that enfranchised a generation of zealots. ‘Them’ did more with one sound-bite speaker named Ron Paul than all the work of scribblers have done in sixty years. So ‘them’ understands ideology – so to speak. And this whole argument is a generation out of date. It’s as though we have to abandon the entire postwar liberty and conservative framework, and wait until the past generation of authors die off before we can advance the cause of liberty. Why? [O]UR GENERATION’S FIGHT IS AGAINST POSTMODERNISM. NOT SOCIALISM. NOT RIGHT LIBERTARIANISM. NOT EVEN SECULAR REDISTRIBUTIVE SOCIALISM. The war is being won by a state religion, articulated as if it’s rational, and functioning as an ideology, despite it’s FALSE CONTENT. SO PLEASE STOP WASTING BREATH ON INTERNECINE ATTENTION-GETTING AND DEVELOP INSTITUTIONAL SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF A HETEROGENEOUS SOCIETY UNDER MAJORITY RULE WITHOUT THE EXISTENCE OF POPULAR MONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE TO ACT AS A COMPROMISE BETWEEN COMPETING MALE AND FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES. The criticism of DiLorenzo as poor scholarship in an article written at the sophistication of a grocery store rag is embarrassing to our entire movement. And it certainly doesn’t advance the BHL cause of trying to get attention by actually contributing something to the debate. It’s absolutely ridiculously childish. “Mee-too-ism”. [S]ome of us are out here on the fringe actually working on something other than ‘ideology’ and ‘belief’, as if we need to replace one secular religion with another, instead of replace both ideology and belief with practical institutional solutions. The very fact that you have to argue in favor of belief, rather than institutions, is an admission of failure. Leave hokey religions to the Postmodernists and the Continentals. They’re better at it anyway. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute www.propertarianism.com Kiev

  • LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY VS INTRA-LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY AND INTERNECINE WARFARE AS EV

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/17/the-rancid-abraham-lincoln-haters-of-the-libertarian-right.htmlEXTRA LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY VS INTRA-LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY AND INTERNECINE WARFARE AS EVIDENCE OF INTELLECTUAL FAILURE

    (Re-Posted from elsewhere)

    Tom DiLorenzo’s generation along with Rothbard, was trying to illustrate contrasts – to create a revisionist history to support libertarian ideology. Ideology changes VALUES, and motivates passions so that people ACT.

    All I see from this nonsense is both CATO and BHL trying to whine that they don’t get the attention the ideological libertarians do.

    Of course, that envy displays greater ignorance of the structure of political movements than does any revisionist history, shoddy or not. Ideology obtains participation. Intellectuals only battle other intellectuals. Reason is insufficient for motivation. Empiricism is insufficient for persuasion. That’s why we have ideology – passions.

    Given the absolute failure of the classical liberals and the left libertarians to provide alternative solutions to the demonstrated failure of the classical liberal model’s means of preserving freedom – a desire that is a minority desire in the first place – it’s understandable that they retreat into intra-libertarian criticism.

    I can understand Cato’s position. Their funding stream and interaction with the existing state is something that they have to stick with.

    I can understand the investment that the Mises group has made in Rothbardianism, despite its demonstrated failure to enfranchise the moral values of classical liberals.

    But I can’t understand attacks by BHL’s on anything given that they haven’t contributed a SINGLE DAMNED IDEA to the discourse other than ‘we aren’t them’.

    Well, ‘them’ created an effective ideology that enfranchised a generation of zealots. ‘Them’ did more with one sound-bite speaker named Ron Paul than all the work of scribblers have done in sixty years.

    So ‘them’ understands ideology – so to speak.

    And this whole argument is a generation out of date. It’s as though we have to abandon the entire postwar liberty and conservative framework, and wait until the past generation of authors die off before we can advance the cause of liberty. Why?

    OUR GENERATION’S FIGHT IS AGAINST POSTMODERNISM. NOT SOCIALISM. NOT RIGHT LIBERTARIANISM. NOT EVEN SECULAR REDISTRIBUTIVE SOCIALISM.

    The war is being won by a state religion, articulated as if it’s rational, and functioning as an ideology, despite it’s FALSE CONTENT.

    SO PLEASE STOP WASTING BREATH ON INTERNECINE ATTENTION-GETTING AND DEVELOP INSTITUTIONAL SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF A HETEROGENEOUS SOCIETY UNDER MAJORITY RULE WITHOUT THE EXISTENCE OF POPULAR MONOGAMOUS MARRIAGE TO ACT AS A COMPROMISE BETWEEN COMPETING MALE AND FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGIES.

    The criticism of DiLorenzo as poor scholarship in an article written at the sophistication of a grocery store rag is embarrassing to our entire movement. And it certainly doesn’t advance the BHL cause of trying to get attention by actually contributing something to the debate.

    It’s absolutely ridiculously childish. “Mee-too-ism”.

    Some of us are out here on the fringe actually working on something other than ‘ideology’ and ‘belief’, as if we need to replace one secular religion with another, instead of replace both ideology and belief with practical institutional solutions. The very fact that you have to argue in favor of belief, rather than institutions, is an admission of failure.

    Leave hokey religions to the Postmodernists and the Continentals. They’re better at it anyway.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    www.propertarianism.com

    Kiev

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-12 04:39:00 UTC

  • THE EUROPEAN NEW RIGHT IS AN INTELLECTUAL CATASTROPHE I complain the the America

    THE EUROPEAN NEW RIGHT IS AN INTELLECTUAL CATASTROPHE

    I complain the the American right doesn’t do anything at all to innovate. They even resist adopting right-libertarian ideas, in their quest for cultural homogeneity.

    But the European New Right, isn’t any more rational than the Continental philosophers, and those philosophers are even worse than the Anglo Postmodernists.

    WE DONT NEED A NEW RELIGION. The monotheistic religions are a form of tyrannical government. And the christianization of Europe was one of the greatest tragedies in human history.

    We don’t need a new religion. We have one. It’s western history. HIstory is polytheistic. It’s full of role models. We can even accommodate the christians in that pantheon. History is us. It’s rational. History is humanity laid bare for our use and understanding.

    But we can’t teach western history as the superior cultural values that it represents. Diversity fears superiority.

    Libertarians are lost in their silly sidetrack in the judaic ghetto rebellion.

    So, we get our lunch eaten by the religion that IS succeeding: Postmodernism.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-10 12:42:00 UTC

  • HIGGS’ MORALIZING – PULL OUT OF EUROPE I think the answer to this problem for bo

    http://blog.independent.org/2013/06/30/why-fight-for-king-and-country/CONTRA HIGGS’ MORALIZING – PULL OUT OF EUROPE

    I think the answer to this problem for both sides is to pull the US military, state and intelligence organizations from Europe entirely so that European defense, international relations, and the stabilization of commodity prices is left to the management of Europeans. It’s not really necessary for Americans to stabilize the price of oil, or any other commodity, now that we’re close to being energy independent. And our dollar will remain the currency of last resort even more durably if we drop our international intrigues.

    That would stop the American cultural necessity for jingoism in order to preserve the cultural will to pay for the necessity that we police the world for largely European convenience. And it would allow us to save three quarters of our military expenditures, and focus our efforts on domestic reality rather than ideological propagation as a means of further discounting the cost of our policing. I’d be nice to have a domestic government rather than an internationally focused one actually.

    Conversely, it would force holier-than-thou Europeans to do all the nonsense that Americans now do and also to pay for it. Which would require the re-nationalization of european propagandism in order to motivate the already heavily taxed population to pay for.

    I’m sorry that you don’t like being a client state of Rome dear Athens-after-the-overreach, but without us you’ll be a client state of ether German political and economic power and cultural discipline, or Russian resource and military power.

    It probably doesn’t occur to silly people on the other side of the pond that it’s because Britain was so bad at containing its self interest, rent seeking, politics and policies that Americans ended up with the entire Empire in our lap, and had to militarize our entire country quite against our naturally isolationist inclination and will.

    (…)

    It is profoundly naive to think that nations have the degree of nationalism that they want to rather than the level of nationalism that they need to. People are too practical to waste their energy.

    Glass houses and all that.

    (NOTE: I attack my country all day long. I want it split up. But the arrogance of European criticism sometimes irritates the hell out of me – especially from the Brits. We dont directly charge Europe for providing its military, state, and trade policing services directly. We do it through the petro dollar. But Europe now has it’s Euro, and oil can be bought in Euros. So lets pull the USA out of Europe, save the money, and let europeans do their own dirty work so that they don’t have the privilege of insulting americans for it. Looking a gift-horse in the mouth and all. )

    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-02 21:44:00 UTC

  • This argument does not apply as clearly as you suggest to social phenomenon, bec

    http://ex-army.blogspot.com/2013/06/three-ways-to-go-wrong.html?spref=fb1) This argument does not apply as clearly as you suggest to social phenomenon, because of causal density, and un-testability. That we can argue against induction is of course correct as an analytical statement. But that does not mean that we cannot argue in favor of general principles necessary for consensual action. This is the difference between abstract truth and knowledge necessary for action. The first is irrelevant. The second is how humans make collective decisions in commons.

    2) Data will, within the next twenty years or so, give us evidence that eliminates our need for philosophical argument, and instead, will allow us to make empirical arguments. RIght now, voting data, which is demonstrated preference, provides most of the data useful for our arguments.

    This is the underlying problem with current libertarian popular argument: fighting the last war. We fought the war on socialism on philosophical grounds because a) we lacked the data to do otherwise, and b) central planning results show up faster than self organizing results. So the other side had more better data than we did. That’s changed. The problem today is not central planning, or socialism, or social democracy. It’s Postmodernism, which has replaced ‘scientific socialism’ as the religion of choice of the state. So most libertarians fight the last war, using last war’s rhetoric, rather than data against postmodernism. (Which is what those few of us do on the edge of the ‘reformation’ in libertarianism.)

    3) Non aggression is an epistemological TEST to which we can subject statements. It is not a positive proscription for action. Rothbardian/Hoppiean Libertarianism is philosophically rigid, and an attempt at a complete theory, but that completeness is beyond the use of even the educated classes. As such that complexity has been reduced to the single test, which can be employed without such study and rigor.

    We DO have a necessary and sufficient theory of liberty. We just have an insufficient and necessary explanation of morality. Rothbard did a good job but he was wrong in relying upon the ethics of the ghetto instead of the ethics of the soldiery. Ghetto ethics are why libertarianism remains a minority movement. Mises did a good job, but in failing to incorporate opportunity costs he failed to formulate his Praxeology as a the closed science that he suggested it to be.

    Cheers.

    Curt Doolittle.

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-06-24 13:15:00 UTC

  • False: Krugman Gets It Wrong On Purpose Again. 🙂

    FALSEConservatives and Sewars – The NYT 1) It doesn’t follow that a one time expense, followed by fees for use is the same as redistribution that creates dependencies. the first requires action, the second does not. THe free-rider problem is different from the progressive-fees problem. Free riding is a negative signal that says free riding is a ‘right’, progressive fees illustrate that this is not a ‘right’, but a ‘charity’. This sends ‘truthful’ signals to both parties. And truthful signals are necessary to prohibit involuntary transfers. 2) It doesn’t follow that investment in a commons is the same as state-mandated redistribution. If that was true, there wouldn’t be factories, universities, churches and roads. 3) It doesn’t follow that investment in a universal commons is not conservative. Only that to do so out of charity at a cost, is different than to do so out of opportunity for profit. 4) it doesn’t follow that taxes must be levied other than fees. (They don’t need to be.) 5) It doesn’t follow that taxes should be put into a general pool and open to use OTHER than the purpose levied. (they shouldn’t) 6) It doesn’t follow that the monopolistic state is more efficient than competitive private administration (it’s not) 7) It doesn’t follow that funding the bureaucracy doesn’t produce externalities that are of intolerable cost. (it does – one of which is forcing us to spend time defending ourselves against other people’s political movements, as they seek to control the predatory state) [C]onservatism is a metaphorical language. Conservatives have one ‘curse word’ with multiple meanings: “Socialism” – state control of property and production and b) “Democratic redistributive socialism” – state ownership of the proceeds from limited private control of property. This ‘curse word’ is a catch-all for ‘those people that use the state to destroy aristocratic individualism and the status signals that I get from individualism regardless of my rank. And this is important. Conservatives do not feel victims because they obtain positive status signals from other conservatives regardless of their economic rank. This is obtainable in human societies only through religious conformity and it’s consequences, or economic conformity and its consequences. Conservatives do not object to investment in the commons. Conservatism places higher value on delaying gratification than immediate gratification – the formation of moral capital – which is an inarticulate expression meaning training human beings to enforce a prohibition on involuntary transfers of all kinds. Conservatism is the argument that we should not fund the expansionary bureaucratic state that out of deterministic necessity subverts our property rights and therefore our freedom, and therefore our ‘character’ – a euphemism for the prohibition on involuntary transfers of all kinds – because it is our universal prohibition on involuntary transfers both within our families and tribes and without, that is the source of western exceptionalism: the high trust society. Our high trust society is unique because we CAN trust others to avoid involuntary transfers, because of the pervasive prohibition on involuntary transfer that we developed under Manorailism by demonstrating fitness needed to obtain land to rent. Partly as a rebellion against the Catholic Church, partly because the church forbid cousin marriage and granted women property rights, in order to break up the tribes and large land holding families. Partly as an ancient indo-european tradition of personal sovereignty in the nobility, which became a status signal, and, thankfully remains a status signal in conservatives. Small homogenous polities are redistributive. Large heterogeneous polities are not. This is because trust DECLINES in heterogeneous polities. And trust DECLINES in heterogeneous polities because of the different signals used by different groups, and the fact that signals in-group are ‘cheaper’ (discounted) that signals across groups with differing signals. A strong state in a small homogenous polity that functions as an extended family and therefore with high redistribution, is entirely possible. But by creating a powerful state in a heterogeneous polity, it becomes necessary and useful for people to compete via extra-market means using the state by seeking redistributions and limited monopoly (legal) rights in order to advance their signaling strategy. (Which is what Dr. Krugman does, daily – advance an alternative strategy. A strategy that he does not recognize is from the Ghetto. And would cause a return to the low trust society. And **IS*** right now, causing a return to the low trust society. Because the low trust society is natural to man. Thats why it exists everywhere but the aristocratic west.

  • The Economist Magazine Is Wrong On Oligarchs: Flaunt It. Flaunt It Everywhere. Always.

    The Economist: Don’t Flaunt It*That’s what a Republic is. A Natural Rotation Of Oligarchs.* [E]very country has an oligarchy. Oligarchies are NECESSARY and they are unavoidable. The question is which composition of people do you want to be governed by: (a) soldiers, (b) priests or (c) commerce? Why that list of three? Because there are only three forms of coercion avalable for humans to use in building organizations: (a) violence, (b) ostracization from opportunity and (c) exchange – or, technically, remuneration. If, as we have seen, people DEMONSTRATE that they UNIVERSALLY prefer to live under conditions of wealth, and only ONE of these three coercive sets CREATES wealth, then it is only logical, that china DUPLICATES the rise of the West’s aristocracy – which is the SOURCE of western prosperity – by having government run by people who udnerstaand commerce. And in particular, who understand nationalism as a commercial strategy. THEY DO IT RIGHT. WE DO IT WRONG NOW. Our leaders are priests of egalitarianism – who assume business will succeed and that they can simply plunder business at will. They are Not aristocrats responsible for the economic welfare of their citizens. China is doing it RIGHT. They’re doing it RIGHT by imitating the rise of the WEST. The rise that we were programmed by the left to believe was evil, colonial, oppressive, masculine. When in fact, we dragged all of humanity out of pervasive ignorance and poverty with our aristocratic christian ethics, technology, and culture. FLAUNT IT. FLAUNT IT EVERY DAY. AND CHEER THOSE WHO FLAUNT IT.