Curt Doolittle

Form: Mini Essay

  • Ethnocentrism Is Superior to Humanitarianism at Suppressing Free Riders

    —“Ethnocentrism beats humanitarianism because ethnocentrics do a better job at suppressing selfish free riders. If an ethnocentric group comes across a group riddled with selfish individuals, they’ll refuse to cooperate. Over time, thanks to the ethnos’ mutual cooperation and the selfish group’s total refusal to even help themselves out, ethnos will reproduce faster than the non-cooperators and thus expand at the selfish group’s expense.

    Meanwhile those nice humanitarian fellows blissfully waste their precious reproductive potential helping out free riders, who are all to happy to receive their favor, giving nothing in return. We call this idea, that ethnocentrism beats humanitarianism because it is better at suppressing free-riders, the “mediation hypothesis,” and it is the mechanism favored by Hammond and Axelrod in their original paper. Another possibility is that ethnocentrism beats humanitarianism outright. Imagine an ethno group next to a humanitarian group. Individuals on the group boundary benefit from the cooperation of their own group-mates behind them. But the ethnocentrics at the front doubly benefit from the cooperation of those hapless humanitarians. Might this give the ethnos the edge they need? We call this the “direct hypothesis”.—-

  • Why Do We Need a Monopoly Form of Commons?  We don’t.

    [A]ll we need is monopoly Rule. Defense (military), Rule (rule of law), Government (market production of commons), Market (market production of goods and services). Why, instead of debating over whether to institute a universal socialist(consumptive), libertarian(productive), or conservative(accumulative), social(normative), economic(productive), and political(commons) order, do we not institute universal rule of law affirming property-en-toto, and let people choose the social, economic, and political order that they will ‘join’, and then use houses of government to conduct contractual trades between those classes? Why can’t socialists redistribute to one another, libertarians invest in production, and conservatives accumulate capital, and we conduct trades with one another in order to achieve our common ends? Why is monopoly necessary? We have technology today that can enforce these contracts. Why? Because we have electronic money, and the ability to issue multiple currencies for multiple purposes. In essence, creating trade policy internally between classes as well as trade policy externally between polities. Good government isn’t a problem. We can do it. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Why Do We Need a Monopoly Form of Commons?  We don’t.

    [A]ll we need is monopoly Rule. Defense (military), Rule (rule of law), Government (market production of commons), Market (market production of goods and services). Why, instead of debating over whether to institute a universal socialist(consumptive), libertarian(productive), or conservative(accumulative), social(normative), economic(productive), and political(commons) order, do we not institute universal rule of law affirming property-en-toto, and let people choose the social, economic, and political order that they will ‘join’, and then use houses of government to conduct contractual trades between those classes? Why can’t socialists redistribute to one another, libertarians invest in production, and conservatives accumulate capital, and we conduct trades with one another in order to achieve our common ends? Why is monopoly necessary? We have technology today that can enforce these contracts. Why? Because we have electronic money, and the ability to issue multiple currencies for multiple purposes. In essence, creating trade policy internally between classes as well as trade policy externally between polities. Good government isn’t a problem. We can do it. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Our Mistaken Emphasis on Government Rather than Juridical Defense From It.

    [W]e are always ruled. We are often governed. The law is the minimum rule. We can never escape law and commons and hold territory. We spend far too much ink on how to insure good rule, government, rulers, and governors. And we cannot make a good ruler or governor. We spend too little ink on universal standing and juridical defense from rulers and governors. This is because we not only seek advocacy of political orders in order to rally allies with whom me seek advantage from both rule and government – but would be constrained ourselves by rule of law if our preferred leaders obtained it. All political advocacy in favor of one form of rule, or one form of government, and another, is an attempt to circumvent the cost of exchange. But if I am correct – and the science increasingly suggests so – then we libertarians are partly morally blind, progressives are almost entirely morally blind (libertarians and progressives) and conservatives not only see clearly but are over-sensitive. And all attempts at political power are merely attempts to circumvent voluntary exchanges of cooperation that occur in the family, tribe and market. Rule that prohibits parasitism in the tribe, market and government forces us to conduct voluntary exchanges (compromises) none of which are optimum for the long term capital accumulators (conservatives), medium time frame producers (libertarians) and short time frame consumers(progressives). Just as we use voluntary exchange in the market to organize production, distribution, trade, and consumption, we organize the production of commons via government. But if government is not a vehicle for the facilitation of trade between the long(conservative), medium(libertarian), and short(progressive) factions, it is no different from not possessing a free market for the production goods and services, an not possessing money to signal demand. When free market advocates call for infinitely open markets this imposes costs on the other factions. When socialists call for redistribution this imposes costs on the other factions. When Conservatives call for the payment of normative costs, this imposes a cost on the other factions. But if we instead of imposing costs upon one another, conduct trades, then those costs are the expenses that we pay to cooperate on means despite our cognitively biased different ends. Cooperation lets a species specialize. Cooperation by voluntary exchange lets us specialized without dying off and producing a new generation. Cooperation by voluntary exchange collects information from the specialists in intertemporal reproduction: short consumption progressives, medium productive libertarians, and long term, conservative capital accumulators. By satisfying the wants of all through voluntary exchange, together we ‘calculate’ the optimum possible reproduction for all, the same way that the market calculates the optimum possible production for all. If I have not converted you to market production of commons (a market government) consisting of at least four if not five houses, each of which splits by gender, then hopefully at least I will help you understand mankind’s long struggle to increase the scope and rewards of cooperation by the use of market and voluntary exchange to produce the information necessary for us to act in our collective interests. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

  • Our Mistaken Emphasis on Government Rather than Juridical Defense From It.

    [W]e are always ruled. We are often governed. The law is the minimum rule. We can never escape law and commons and hold territory. We spend far too much ink on how to insure good rule, government, rulers, and governors. And we cannot make a good ruler or governor. We spend too little ink on universal standing and juridical defense from rulers and governors. This is because we not only seek advocacy of political orders in order to rally allies with whom me seek advantage from both rule and government – but would be constrained ourselves by rule of law if our preferred leaders obtained it. All political advocacy in favor of one form of rule, or one form of government, and another, is an attempt to circumvent the cost of exchange. But if I am correct – and the science increasingly suggests so – then we libertarians are partly morally blind, progressives are almost entirely morally blind (libertarians and progressives) and conservatives not only see clearly but are over-sensitive. And all attempts at political power are merely attempts to circumvent voluntary exchanges of cooperation that occur in the family, tribe and market. Rule that prohibits parasitism in the tribe, market and government forces us to conduct voluntary exchanges (compromises) none of which are optimum for the long term capital accumulators (conservatives), medium time frame producers (libertarians) and short time frame consumers(progressives). Just as we use voluntary exchange in the market to organize production, distribution, trade, and consumption, we organize the production of commons via government. But if government is not a vehicle for the facilitation of trade between the long(conservative), medium(libertarian), and short(progressive) factions, it is no different from not possessing a free market for the production goods and services, an not possessing money to signal demand. When free market advocates call for infinitely open markets this imposes costs on the other factions. When socialists call for redistribution this imposes costs on the other factions. When Conservatives call for the payment of normative costs, this imposes a cost on the other factions. But if we instead of imposing costs upon one another, conduct trades, then those costs are the expenses that we pay to cooperate on means despite our cognitively biased different ends. Cooperation lets a species specialize. Cooperation by voluntary exchange lets us specialized without dying off and producing a new generation. Cooperation by voluntary exchange collects information from the specialists in intertemporal reproduction: short consumption progressives, medium productive libertarians, and long term, conservative capital accumulators. By satisfying the wants of all through voluntary exchange, together we ‘calculate’ the optimum possible reproduction for all, the same way that the market calculates the optimum possible production for all. If I have not converted you to market production of commons (a market government) consisting of at least four if not five houses, each of which splits by gender, then hopefully at least I will help you understand mankind’s long struggle to increase the scope and rewards of cooperation by the use of market and voluntary exchange to produce the information necessary for us to act in our collective interests. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia)

  • Axelrod’s Model of Ethno Centrism

    [A] friend sent this update on Axelrod’s work on the competitive value of ethnocentrism, and how entho-centrism always wins. I had assumed this was fairly obvious, but while axelrod also focuses on cooperation, I want to convert this into propertarian language and therefore make it more compatible with ethics and political economy. So over the next few months I’ll try to write a few posts that make use of this argument. (Thanks)

    THE ERROR OF ANGLO UNIVERSALISM – CONVERSATION WITH NICHOLAS CARDACI ON EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGIES

    DAVID Were you aware of this series of experiments that were carried out on evolutionary strategies competing with one another? I found them very useful: https://egtheory.wordpress.com/…/06/30/how-ethnocentrics-r…/ CURT Yes. Axelrod and followers have been working on this model for many years. I include him in my reading list. This particular set of studies is interesting in that it addresses the value of ethnocentrism. While economic utility CAN be expressed as reproduction, it is not always the case as Sweden shows today. But I should probably comment on the study so that I draw the connection with propertarianism. DAVID Were you surprised that the mechanism of ethnocentric ascension was straight up robbery of humanitarians, rather than limitation of free riding? I think there’s definitely both going on, but the weakness of the mediation (?) hypothesis surprised me. CURT No, it’s obvious. One of the values of modeling that Axelrod (and other life-models) brought to the debate (with the aid of computer science) was equilibrial modeling rather than linear projection. It’s great stuff. I think I read him first … I dunno. It seems like the 80’s or maybe early 90’s. My wife and I were travelling in the UK at the time and I read it in the wee hours of the morning. It was one of the most influential pieces that I read. Actually, maybe i’ll write a post about the relationship between axelrod in cooperation and mandelbrot in stock markets, and taleb in risk, and equilibrium in prices. These behaviors are all the same: before we had data and computers we could not conduct these measurements and we could not see them. This means that unless one can describe an idea as a supply and demand curve, that one is engaging in idealism. DAVID I’ve been pondering this topic recently, mulling over the conflict between the moral universalism and ethnocentrism. One thing that’s readily obvious to me, especially being around alot of southern europeans, is that this ethnocentrism though isn’t always great. As it seems to me that it’s always accompanied with high family nepotism. Italy, is extremely regionalist and nepotistic within the family, and seriously limits how big their commons can be I think. The country is way too big as it is, with that level of heterogeneity. Some of it seems to be the greater levels of inbreeding that’s gone on historically. The bolded text in this post by hbd chick pretty much nails the kinship/family nepotism that goes on down there. https://www.reddit.com/…/the_reality_of_deep_southern_euro…/ Even in the anglo countries, I still see it going on, with italians from the same region letting eachother off parking fines It makes them more impervious to outside infiltration, but they can never reach the same commons as their northern neighbors. CURT Nepotism (family corporialism) is not the same as corruption or deceit. if one biases opportunities toward the family in maters not in the commons then that is not an imposition of costs upon others. If one exercises corruption in the production of commons, then that is another thing altogether. So you’d distinguish those then? CURT Yes. Favoring market opportunity is different from imposing costs upon the commons. Even the innocent nepotism, seems to be harmful to an extent. Like you mentioned on the Shoah, it limits a society’s ability to put the best person in the job. There was a good article recently outlining how in Romance Europe, family owned corporations are far more dominant than in the Anglo markets, where there’s ‘market-based management’, meritocracy essentially. So just as anglo model works under great opportunity (and as the model shows) the family model (and aristocracy which is also a family model) defeats the anglo over time. that’s what Axelrod’s model shows. DAVID This is true. As they cooperate with people defecting against them. Yes. It seems to me to be both a gift and a curse. That’s cliched, but its the only way I can think do describe attitudes in southern europe. CURT It’s just that no principle of measurement is infinitely extensible. A rule acts as a means of measurement (decidability). There are not infinitely true rules. There are limits to every rule. (Which is a very complex bit of philosophy, but the reason why apriorism can’t be true.) The tactics you use in one circumstance and those in another are different. It is probably short term better to use universal ethics until your competitors catch up, and then return to familial ethics in order to prevent defectors from becoming parasites. (this is a very good discussion we should probably post for others to follow) DAVID Yes. That’s what it seems to me. Southern europeans are capped in what they can do, but what they have is far more robust and secure than what the anglos and co have achieved. Should we post it on the Subreddit? CURT Yes. It’s a pretty good conversation that we can probably use to educate others. We are touching on a set of very big ideas here that are not obvious: the limits to any evolutaionary strategy, the advantage of familialism over universalism in the long term, the conceptual problem of training people to models and demand curves instead of ideal types and linear progressions. What we are saying is that we must increase the complexity of the basis of moral argument. DAVID Yes, we cant simply pretend to have moral arguments among ourselves (as europeans) in isolation any longer. It’s eating away at us. I went through my finance textbook and found the study about family ownership I mentioned. Faccio & Lang, “The Ultimate Ownership of Western European Corporations” (1997) A bit older than I thought Also, there’s a study indicating their outperformance over more anglo style firms, strangely enough. Anderson & Reeb, “Founding Family Ownership and Firm Performance from the S&P500” (2003) Going to head off. CURT Cheers

  • Axelrod’s Model of Ethno Centrism

    [A] friend sent this update on Axelrod’s work on the competitive value of ethnocentrism, and how entho-centrism always wins. I had assumed this was fairly obvious, but while axelrod also focuses on cooperation, I want to convert this into propertarian language and therefore make it more compatible with ethics and political economy. So over the next few months I’ll try to write a few posts that make use of this argument. (Thanks)

    THE ERROR OF ANGLO UNIVERSALISM – CONVERSATION WITH NICHOLAS CARDACI ON EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGIES

    DAVID Were you aware of this series of experiments that were carried out on evolutionary strategies competing with one another? I found them very useful: https://egtheory.wordpress.com/…/06/30/how-ethnocentrics-r…/ CURT Yes. Axelrod and followers have been working on this model for many years. I include him in my reading list. This particular set of studies is interesting in that it addresses the value of ethnocentrism. While economic utility CAN be expressed as reproduction, it is not always the case as Sweden shows today. But I should probably comment on the study so that I draw the connection with propertarianism. DAVID Were you surprised that the mechanism of ethnocentric ascension was straight up robbery of humanitarians, rather than limitation of free riding? I think there’s definitely both going on, but the weakness of the mediation (?) hypothesis surprised me. CURT No, it’s obvious. One of the values of modeling that Axelrod (and other life-models) brought to the debate (with the aid of computer science) was equilibrial modeling rather than linear projection. It’s great stuff. I think I read him first … I dunno. It seems like the 80’s or maybe early 90’s. My wife and I were travelling in the UK at the time and I read it in the wee hours of the morning. It was one of the most influential pieces that I read. Actually, maybe i’ll write a post about the relationship between axelrod in cooperation and mandelbrot in stock markets, and taleb in risk, and equilibrium in prices. These behaviors are all the same: before we had data and computers we could not conduct these measurements and we could not see them. This means that unless one can describe an idea as a supply and demand curve, that one is engaging in idealism. DAVID I’ve been pondering this topic recently, mulling over the conflict between the moral universalism and ethnocentrism. One thing that’s readily obvious to me, especially being around alot of southern europeans, is that this ethnocentrism though isn’t always great. As it seems to me that it’s always accompanied with high family nepotism. Italy, is extremely regionalist and nepotistic within the family, and seriously limits how big their commons can be I think. The country is way too big as it is, with that level of heterogeneity. Some of it seems to be the greater levels of inbreeding that’s gone on historically. The bolded text in this post by hbd chick pretty much nails the kinship/family nepotism that goes on down there. https://www.reddit.com/…/the_reality_of_deep_southern_euro…/ Even in the anglo countries, I still see it going on, with italians from the same region letting eachother off parking fines It makes them more impervious to outside infiltration, but they can never reach the same commons as their northern neighbors. CURT Nepotism (family corporialism) is not the same as corruption or deceit. if one biases opportunities toward the family in maters not in the commons then that is not an imposition of costs upon others. If one exercises corruption in the production of commons, then that is another thing altogether. So you’d distinguish those then? CURT Yes. Favoring market opportunity is different from imposing costs upon the commons. Even the innocent nepotism, seems to be harmful to an extent. Like you mentioned on the Shoah, it limits a society’s ability to put the best person in the job. There was a good article recently outlining how in Romance Europe, family owned corporations are far more dominant than in the Anglo markets, where there’s ‘market-based management’, meritocracy essentially. So just as anglo model works under great opportunity (and as the model shows) the family model (and aristocracy which is also a family model) defeats the anglo over time. that’s what Axelrod’s model shows. DAVID This is true. As they cooperate with people defecting against them. Yes. It seems to me to be both a gift and a curse. That’s cliched, but its the only way I can think do describe attitudes in southern europe. CURT It’s just that no principle of measurement is infinitely extensible. A rule acts as a means of measurement (decidability). There are not infinitely true rules. There are limits to every rule. (Which is a very complex bit of philosophy, but the reason why apriorism can’t be true.) The tactics you use in one circumstance and those in another are different. It is probably short term better to use universal ethics until your competitors catch up, and then return to familial ethics in order to prevent defectors from becoming parasites. (this is a very good discussion we should probably post for others to follow) DAVID Yes. That’s what it seems to me. Southern europeans are capped in what they can do, but what they have is far more robust and secure than what the anglos and co have achieved. Should we post it on the Subreddit? CURT Yes. It’s a pretty good conversation that we can probably use to educate others. We are touching on a set of very big ideas here that are not obvious: the limits to any evolutaionary strategy, the advantage of familialism over universalism in the long term, the conceptual problem of training people to models and demand curves instead of ideal types and linear progressions. What we are saying is that we must increase the complexity of the basis of moral argument. DAVID Yes, we cant simply pretend to have moral arguments among ourselves (as europeans) in isolation any longer. It’s eating away at us. I went through my finance textbook and found the study about family ownership I mentioned. Faccio & Lang, “The Ultimate Ownership of Western European Corporations” (1997) A bit older than I thought Also, there’s a study indicating their outperformance over more anglo style firms, strangely enough. Anderson & Reeb, “Founding Family Ownership and Firm Performance from the S&P500” (2003) Going to head off. CURT Cheers

  • Aristocratic vs Cosmopolitan Ancapism.

    ARISTOCRATIC ANARCHO CAPITALISM VS COSMOPOLITAN ANARCHO CAPITALISM (from elsewhere) [B]oth Aristocratic (British, Critical, and Legal), and Cosmopolitan (Ashkenazi, Justificationary, and Moral) Anarchism, advance the open market. They are opposite methods of expressing the same argument:scientific prohibition and justificationary advocacy. Both evolved as ethno-centric evolutionary strategies: agrarian islanders evolving into seafaring traders, and diasporic pastoralists into diasporic traders. Both groups, in the Enlightenment, (the Anglo first, French second, Germans third, and Cosmopolitans last) attempted to universalize and evangelize their group evolutionary strategy as a universal ethic – just as groups attempt to universalize their myth and religion. Given freedom from the church and landed aristocracy, the middle class sought to justify their ascent into political power by expanding their middle class ethics as a universal, just as the nobility had justified its ethics as a universal. But aside from differences in method of argument, Aristocratic and Cosmopolitan ethics vary considerably in the causality their arguments depend upon, and in the scope of their ethical prohibitions, and in their means of enforcement of those prohibitions. As well as their unstated assertion of the behavioral nature of, and rational interests of, man. Upon the outcome of models. And lastly upon the empirical evidence. Causality and Scope Aristocratic ethics depend upon the causal property of non-retaliation – prohibiting conflict that destroys capital and impedes cooperation – in order to preserve the disproportionate returns on cooperation. In aristocratic ethics, only productive, fully informed, and warrantied voluntary exchange, free of externality by the same criteria is ethical. Cosmopolitan ethics depend upon the presumption of the sufficiency of satisfaction, and justify non-retaliation with the excuse of volition, thereby justifying outwitting or fooling or taking advantage of the asymmetry of knowledge of the parties. While outright ‘fraud’ misrepresentation is available contractually, it is not mandated by the ethics. In Aristocratic ethics, the person who fails to fully inform is the party at fault – increasing trust, economic velocity, and capital. In Cosmopolitan, Desert and Steppe ethics, the person who errs is the party at fault – thereby decreasing trust, economic velocity and capital. In Aristocratic ethics exchanges must be productive. In Cosmopolitan ethics they need not be. Aristocracy prohibits blackmail which undermines cooperation and Cosmopolitan ethics justify blackmail as voluntary. Again, aristocracy seeks to preserve cooperation, trust, economic velocity, and Cosmopolitanism seeks to preserve profiting regardless of consequences. Why? Because in Aristocratic society, the army consists of a universal militia and a heavily armored and equipped professional warrior class. Aristocracy preserves the high trust ethic of warriors across all classes, as a means of preserving cohesion in defense of the territory and commons. For diasporic raiders and traders who engage in various levels of parasitism, they need not defend a commons, nor refrain from parasitism on hosts or opponent’s commons, nor preserve cooperation with hosts, because there are other hosts to move to, and no value in constructing fixed capital or commons, and no value in preserving the reciprocal insurance of the militia in defense of land and capital. Land holding is terribly expensive. Land holding and truth telling are terribly expensive. But they eliminate the need for a central state. If a group demonstrates in-group bias, parasitically consumes a host’s commons, does not build its own commons, and does not pay the high normative, material, and personal risks to life and limb to defend territory, then it is much easier to accumulate that wealth internally than it is for hosts who must pay all those costs. Enforcement Aristocracy enforces high trust ethics by economic ostracization(boycott), productive ostracization(prevention of holding land), restitution, punishment and culling (usually hanging). The west culled .5%-1% of malcontents every year from about 1100 through about 1800 (the industrial revolution absorbed more labor and lowered demand for criminality). Cosmopolitanism instead, enforces ethics by disenfranchising those who cannot pass the tests of adulthood. By economic ostracization (boycotting), by reproductive boycotting (ostracization), or what we call ‘shunning’. And given that groups who demonstrate and advocate low trust and parasitic relations with non members, and that this behavior generates hostility by non-members, ostracization traditionally amounted to a virtual death sentence. That illustrates the difference between land holding (punishing) and non-landholding (ostracizing) means of maintaining control. Prohibition vs Advocacy Aristocratic Pessimistic Prohibition(law) vs Cosmopolitan Optimistic Advocacy(morality). So law which prohibits violations of the incentive to cooperate in the production of land-holding, commons, capital formation, and reproduction is very different from the moral advocacy which advocates the concentration of capital and preserves parasitism. This is why Law is the means of constructing a negative philosophy under aristocracy, and why Moral argument is the means of constructing a positive advocacy of preferred behavior (musts) dictated by gods. Evolutionary Strategies Aristocratic ethics are an evolutionary strategy for land-holding, farmers, craftsmen and warriors mutually dependent upon one another for defense of the land in the absence of a standing army. Cosmopolitan ethics are an evolutionary strategy for a minority of migratory traders (who can move on without paying the cost of retaliation), and who favor exchange and cunning rather than honesty and production. The even less ethically constrained version of cosmopolitan ethics is that of gypsies, that practice theft, charlatanry, prostitution and suppress internal attempts to engage in production and trade instead of the group strategy of parasitism. The even less ethically constrained version is that of desert and steppe raiders (bandits) that engage in pastoralism for subsistence, and raiding for wealth. So the question is, how is it POSSIBLE to construct an anarcho-capitalist (stateless) social order without Aristocratic ethics, embodied in rule of law, using a common organic law, under strict construction, under universal standing, and a universal militia? It isn’t. That’s why it hasn’t been. Truth. Trust. Commons. Law. Science. Welcome to Aristocracy. The only Anarcho Capitalism Possible. The only liberty possible. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia) PS: See why western libertarians are morally blind: Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/n4qL7 Libertarian Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/AE9oE

  • Aristocratic vs Cosmopolitan Ancapism.

    ARISTOCRATIC ANARCHO CAPITALISM VS COSMOPOLITAN ANARCHO CAPITALISM (from elsewhere) [B]oth Aristocratic (British, Critical, and Legal), and Cosmopolitan (Ashkenazi, Justificationary, and Moral) Anarchism, advance the open market. They are opposite methods of expressing the same argument:scientific prohibition and justificationary advocacy. Both evolved as ethno-centric evolutionary strategies: agrarian islanders evolving into seafaring traders, and diasporic pastoralists into diasporic traders. Both groups, in the Enlightenment, (the Anglo first, French second, Germans third, and Cosmopolitans last) attempted to universalize and evangelize their group evolutionary strategy as a universal ethic – just as groups attempt to universalize their myth and religion. Given freedom from the church and landed aristocracy, the middle class sought to justify their ascent into political power by expanding their middle class ethics as a universal, just as the nobility had justified its ethics as a universal. But aside from differences in method of argument, Aristocratic and Cosmopolitan ethics vary considerably in the causality their arguments depend upon, and in the scope of their ethical prohibitions, and in their means of enforcement of those prohibitions. As well as their unstated assertion of the behavioral nature of, and rational interests of, man. Upon the outcome of models. And lastly upon the empirical evidence. Causality and Scope Aristocratic ethics depend upon the causal property of non-retaliation – prohibiting conflict that destroys capital and impedes cooperation – in order to preserve the disproportionate returns on cooperation. In aristocratic ethics, only productive, fully informed, and warrantied voluntary exchange, free of externality by the same criteria is ethical. Cosmopolitan ethics depend upon the presumption of the sufficiency of satisfaction, and justify non-retaliation with the excuse of volition, thereby justifying outwitting or fooling or taking advantage of the asymmetry of knowledge of the parties. While outright ‘fraud’ misrepresentation is available contractually, it is not mandated by the ethics. In Aristocratic ethics, the person who fails to fully inform is the party at fault – increasing trust, economic velocity, and capital. In Cosmopolitan, Desert and Steppe ethics, the person who errs is the party at fault – thereby decreasing trust, economic velocity and capital. In Aristocratic ethics exchanges must be productive. In Cosmopolitan ethics they need not be. Aristocracy prohibits blackmail which undermines cooperation and Cosmopolitan ethics justify blackmail as voluntary. Again, aristocracy seeks to preserve cooperation, trust, economic velocity, and Cosmopolitanism seeks to preserve profiting regardless of consequences. Why? Because in Aristocratic society, the army consists of a universal militia and a heavily armored and equipped professional warrior class. Aristocracy preserves the high trust ethic of warriors across all classes, as a means of preserving cohesion in defense of the territory and commons. For diasporic raiders and traders who engage in various levels of parasitism, they need not defend a commons, nor refrain from parasitism on hosts or opponent’s commons, nor preserve cooperation with hosts, because there are other hosts to move to, and no value in constructing fixed capital or commons, and no value in preserving the reciprocal insurance of the militia in defense of land and capital. Land holding is terribly expensive. Land holding and truth telling are terribly expensive. But they eliminate the need for a central state. If a group demonstrates in-group bias, parasitically consumes a host’s commons, does not build its own commons, and does not pay the high normative, material, and personal risks to life and limb to defend territory, then it is much easier to accumulate that wealth internally than it is for hosts who must pay all those costs. Enforcement Aristocracy enforces high trust ethics by economic ostracization(boycott), productive ostracization(prevention of holding land), restitution, punishment and culling (usually hanging). The west culled .5%-1% of malcontents every year from about 1100 through about 1800 (the industrial revolution absorbed more labor and lowered demand for criminality). Cosmopolitanism instead, enforces ethics by disenfranchising those who cannot pass the tests of adulthood. By economic ostracization (boycotting), by reproductive boycotting (ostracization), or what we call ‘shunning’. And given that groups who demonstrate and advocate low trust and parasitic relations with non members, and that this behavior generates hostility by non-members, ostracization traditionally amounted to a virtual death sentence. That illustrates the difference between land holding (punishing) and non-landholding (ostracizing) means of maintaining control. Prohibition vs Advocacy Aristocratic Pessimistic Prohibition(law) vs Cosmopolitan Optimistic Advocacy(morality). So law which prohibits violations of the incentive to cooperate in the production of land-holding, commons, capital formation, and reproduction is very different from the moral advocacy which advocates the concentration of capital and preserves parasitism. This is why Law is the means of constructing a negative philosophy under aristocracy, and why Moral argument is the means of constructing a positive advocacy of preferred behavior (musts) dictated by gods. Evolutionary Strategies Aristocratic ethics are an evolutionary strategy for land-holding, farmers, craftsmen and warriors mutually dependent upon one another for defense of the land in the absence of a standing army. Cosmopolitan ethics are an evolutionary strategy for a minority of migratory traders (who can move on without paying the cost of retaliation), and who favor exchange and cunning rather than honesty and production. The even less ethically constrained version of cosmopolitan ethics is that of gypsies, that practice theft, charlatanry, prostitution and suppress internal attempts to engage in production and trade instead of the group strategy of parasitism. The even less ethically constrained version is that of desert and steppe raiders (bandits) that engage in pastoralism for subsistence, and raiding for wealth. So the question is, how is it POSSIBLE to construct an anarcho-capitalist (stateless) social order without Aristocratic ethics, embodied in rule of law, using a common organic law, under strict construction, under universal standing, and a universal militia? It isn’t. That’s why it hasn’t been. Truth. Trust. Commons. Law. Science. Welcome to Aristocracy. The only Anarcho Capitalism Possible. The only liberty possible. Curt Doolittle The Philosophy of Aristocracy The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine (Tallinn, Estonia) PS: See why western libertarians are morally blind: Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/n4qL7 Libertarian Moral Blindness: URL:http://www.propertarianism.com/AE9oE

  • Shaming is Only Effective as Long as Men Care.

    [M]en require an incentive to care about women and society. If women fail to provide men with that incentive under relative liberty, men will cease suppressing their desires for the benefit of women and society. If women fail to provide men with that incentive under relative illiberty, then they will force women into submissive roles. These are empirical statements and constant throughout history. There is no free lunch for women. There is no feminist utopia. The compromise between the genders that is the family is the result of the evolutionary game theory: it is the best option available for both genders, even if it is not the best for either gender. So, a few of us may ‘cheat’ the compromise and get away with it. But if enough of us cheat the compromise it will break. If it breaks we end up with either men enforcing it, or conquest by those that do. Civilization may be constructed almost entirely by men, but the INCENTIVE to produce civilization is provided by women. That is because for the alpha males, who are the world’s greatest super-predator’s. War, Raiding, Fighting, Pillaging, Stealing and Raping are preferable and enjoyable activities.