We dont need another way of thinking. We cant convince anyone to adopt it. We dont need a new religion or belief. What we need is to understand why our beliefs, ways of thinking, and institutions failed to survive the extension of the franchise, and what to do about it now that they have failed. We cannot turn back the clock. Nor is the absurdity of the progressive fantasy either possible or survivable. It appears possible to reform our institutions by impending systemic collapse, or by outright insurrection. But it is clear that the majority favors feudal equality over entrepreneurial freedom. Numbers tell us that they do. So if we are to have freedom and they equality without one side conquering the other then we must sever our relations into multiple states or develop an alternative to majority monopoly rule. Given the value of scale in an insurer of last resort, and the virtue of a multiplicity of city states. And given the economic opportunity and cultural freedom that secession creates for each state, it may be possible to design a compromise solution which serves the moral differences and financial commonalities if each given modern technology. It would take a few years to implement but that time would permit demographic adjustment as well as the dismantlement of the federal monopoly, and the possibility if the solution would give vent to what is now leading to civil war.
Form: Mini Essay
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"Way's Of Thinking" Are Premodern Solutions. We Need Understanding of Our Failures and Institutions That Correct Them.
We dont need another way of thinking. We cant convince anyone to adopt it. We dont need a new religion or belief. What we need is to understand why our beliefs, ways of thinking, and institutions failed to survive the extension of the franchise, and what to do about it now that they have failed. We cannot turn back the clock. Nor is the absurdity of the progressive fantasy either possible or survivable. It appears possible to reform our institutions by impending systemic collapse, or by outright insurrection. But it is clear that the majority favors feudal equality over entrepreneurial freedom. Numbers tell us that they do. So if we are to have freedom and they equality without one side conquering the other then we must sever our relations into multiple states or develop an alternative to majority monopoly rule. Given the value of scale in an insurer of last resort, and the virtue of a multiplicity of city states. And given the economic opportunity and cultural freedom that secession creates for each state, it may be possible to design a compromise solution which serves the moral differences and financial commonalities if each given modern technology. It would take a few years to implement but that time would permit demographic adjustment as well as the dismantlement of the federal monopoly, and the possibility if the solution would give vent to what is now leading to civil war.
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The Contributions Of Computer Scientists To The Reformation In Libertarian And Conservative Political Thought.
When I went to Mises for the Austrian Scholars Conference the first time, I was struck dumb; first, by the incredible genius of the economic calculation argument, second by hoppe’s solution to the problem of institutions… But then equally by the failure to see that that BOTH Hayek and Mises were very close but wrong; the failure to grasp the importance of Popper’s contribution; the failure to grasp that no, the calculation issue was not ‘complete’. I realized something was wrong with Rothbard fairly quickly. It took me a few years to understand what Mises had done wrong with Praxeology, and only recently how to solve it completely. Hoppe was right about just about everything, but still had both Rothbard’s and Mises’ errors. But even so, he’d managed to get it all right anyway. Which, to me, is an even greater statement of his brilliance. Although, I’m still frustrated by his fascination with Argumentation. But it is this emphasis on experience and morality and preference instead of calculation that is everyone’s distraction. ( A topic that needs some reflection and exposition. And so I’ll return to it.) COMPUTER SCIENTISTS AND REFORMATION So strange. You know, there is this strange anti-computer-science bias in academia. But since the majority of intellectual revolution has come out of Mencius’ application of Austrian thought to conservatism, and my application of Austrian thought to libertarianism, while political science is fascinated by democracy, philosophy still squandering in the artifice of metaphysical pseudo-rationality, and mainstream economics is fascinated by growth and efficiency, and the left (literature) with obscurantism, pseudo-science, equality, diversity, and central control. And since, computer science is the only discipline that intersects between theoretical constructs and human interaction directly, I kind of think that, empirically speaking, computer science has more right than math, and certainly more right than economics. And political science and social science don’t even register signal above noise. Economics is a process of deduction from aggregation. Computer science is atomistic by its nature. It’s not deduction. It’s calculation. And therein lies an amazing difference in perception. We do not HAVE the economic data to tell us about human behavior at the level of atomicity we do with computers that interact with people on a daily basis. This teaches you about the hubris we must avoid when interacting with human beings. Math is platonic. Economics is idealistic. Computer science understands ‘ignorance, bias, incentives, and the limits of calculation’. Which is probably why we solved the political problem and the other groups didn’t.
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The Contributions Of Computer Scientists To The Reformation In Libertarian And Conservative Political Thought.
When I went to Mises for the Austrian Scholars Conference the first time, I was struck dumb; first, by the incredible genius of the economic calculation argument, second by hoppe’s solution to the problem of institutions… But then equally by the failure to see that that BOTH Hayek and Mises were very close but wrong; the failure to grasp the importance of Popper’s contribution; the failure to grasp that no, the calculation issue was not ‘complete’. I realized something was wrong with Rothbard fairly quickly. It took me a few years to understand what Mises had done wrong with Praxeology, and only recently how to solve it completely. Hoppe was right about just about everything, but still had both Rothbard’s and Mises’ errors. But even so, he’d managed to get it all right anyway. Which, to me, is an even greater statement of his brilliance. Although, I’m still frustrated by his fascination with Argumentation. But it is this emphasis on experience and morality and preference instead of calculation that is everyone’s distraction. ( A topic that needs some reflection and exposition. And so I’ll return to it.) COMPUTER SCIENTISTS AND REFORMATION So strange. You know, there is this strange anti-computer-science bias in academia. But since the majority of intellectual revolution has come out of Mencius’ application of Austrian thought to conservatism, and my application of Austrian thought to libertarianism, while political science is fascinated by democracy, philosophy still squandering in the artifice of metaphysical pseudo-rationality, and mainstream economics is fascinated by growth and efficiency, and the left (literature) with obscurantism, pseudo-science, equality, diversity, and central control. And since, computer science is the only discipline that intersects between theoretical constructs and human interaction directly, I kind of think that, empirically speaking, computer science has more right than math, and certainly more right than economics. And political science and social science don’t even register signal above noise. Economics is a process of deduction from aggregation. Computer science is atomistic by its nature. It’s not deduction. It’s calculation. And therein lies an amazing difference in perception. We do not HAVE the economic data to tell us about human behavior at the level of atomicity we do with computers that interact with people on a daily basis. This teaches you about the hubris we must avoid when interacting with human beings. Math is platonic. Economics is idealistic. Computer science understands ‘ignorance, bias, incentives, and the limits of calculation’. Which is probably why we solved the political problem and the other groups didn’t.
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1) On The Purpose Of Scriptural Versus Rational And Ratio-scientific Ideologies. 2) On The Source Of Property Rights And Liberty.
(good read) (Quotable) “I don’t like package deals. That’s mainly the reason I don’t identify with a particular political position. If I end up looking like a libertarian, it’s only because they happen to be where I’m going anyway. I reserve the right to do my own thinking.” – Kenneth Allen Hopf COMMENT Ideologies can be as rigid as scripture to which you must adhere (totalitarianism), or mere boundary conditions that describe similar sentiments (freedom). They are both means of obtaining political power. The first is a means of coercion into dogma by threat of ostracization. The second a means of affiliation by promise of opportunity. However, both scriptural threat and sentimental promise, are predicated on the absence of ratio-scientific knowledge. In the face of evidence of what man REALLY DOES with democracy, what he does with his economy, with his social order, with his freedom, with his laws, then we no longer are faced with an era of IDEOLOGY. We are faced with the outcome of the era of ideology. And the outcome of that era is that the SUCCESS of rich democratic countries had nothing to do with their democracy. Democracy is a luxury good that was ALSO made possible wealth. THE SOURCE OF THE WEST’S WEALTH AND PROSPERITY But that wealth had nothing to do with democracy. It had to do with: 1) The aristocratic egalitarian ethics of cattle raiding, land holders, bronze, the horse, the wheel, and chariot, who used inferior numbers, and voluntary, organized, cavalry tactics that required high personal and familial investment, as well as voluntary cooperation in tactics for shared risk and gain. The tendency to adopt disruption in the form of new technology, new members, and new leaders – because enfranchisement meant rights to private property and elected leaders rather than community property and static leaders. 2) Small homogenous countries – first Pagan, but the more protestant and german the better, operating as extended families, with the high trust of extended families. 3) The prohibition on cousin-marriage out to six or ten generations, and the Absolute Nuclear Family (ANF) as the organizational unit of production AND reproduction. 4) Common law, individual property rights, and rule of law. money, accounting, interest, credit and banking. 5) The manorial system that suppressed the fertility of the underclasses, and created the ‘protestant ethic’ in all of society, by requiring conformity to good practice in order to obtain access to rented land, and reproduction. 6) The evolution of credit backed by ‘the extended family’ represented by the state. 7) Plagues that suppressed and reversed the fertility of the underclasses, and which forced the upper classes to spread into the work force. An ’empirical bias’: a preferential bias toward, and continuous development of, technical, scientific, practical solutions. We cannot tell if this bias genetic or not yet but in part, it is beginning to look like a) minority status, b) competitive value of technology to compensate for small numbers, c) balance between verbal and spatial intelligence d) habituation. 9) The discovery and conquest of the New World and the subsequent trade, at a time when a plague had wiped out vast portions of north american indians. 10) The weakness of the Ottoman empire, Indian continent and the Chinese empire, from institutional decay. (In China, the failure to develop institutions of ‘calculation’ at scale and reliance on moral rather than empirical arguments. In Arabia, the persistent problem of ignorance, tribalism, low IQ, and inbreeding.) The weakness of the colonies, and the relative disparity in technological, calculative, and social development of the rest of the world meant the easy imposition of trade. And the re-adoption of ratio-scientism as a competitive advantage in the west while the other states had either fought it off intentionally (Islamic Civilization, Chinese Civilization), or who could not for a variety of reasons make use of it (Hindu civilization). ON CALCULATION The importance of calculation was I think, discovered or at least elucidated by Weber. But calculation is important, because it is NECESSARY. Without means of calculation, as the society becomes increasingly complex, SCALE AND DYNAMISM – ADAPTATION – EVOLUTION The state is often credited with the origin of calculative technologies. But this is to overstate the ‘state’ in its primitive origins in the fertile crescent. However, these small city states had all the properties of western city states, but earlier. THey created their innovation when they were small. They LOST their innovation when they became states and empires. THE STATE CALCIFIES – EVERYTHING. PRIVATE PROPERTY DOES THE OPPOSITE. IT MAKES EVERYTHING DYNAMIC, ITERATIVE, ADAPTIVE.
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(CORE) We Cannot Think Without Metaphysical Biases
Given that Don Finnegan has just hit a nerve by reminding me about Friedman’s perspective on Irish Law, I’m going to throw something out here that may not be as obvious and important as it seems. As usual it might take me a bit to get there. But I think it’s worth the journey. 1) MAN MUST SENSE 2) MAN MUST PERCEIVE 3) MAN MUST REMEMBER 4) MAN MUST CALCULATE (PLAN) 5) MAN MUST CHOOSE. 6) MAN MUST ACT ON HIS CHOICE, AND HAS NOT EMPIRICALLY DEMONSTRATED HIS CHOICE UNTIL HE HAS ACTED. 7) MAN MUST CHOOSE WITH INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION, BECAUSE OUTWITTING NATURE IS HIS ONLY CHANCE FOR PROFIT. It is impossible to make guesses without some basis for decision. And every civilization constructs a set of narratives that contain those metaphysical means of decision making. Those rules or guidelines, or recommendations not only make decisions possible, and rational, in the presence of insufficient informaiton, but the biases contained in those metaphysical assumptions allow us to FUND by micropayments, of all kinds, our norms. We create a reality with them. And we cooperate at the metaphysical level. (We have to.) We couldn’t think otherwise. The truth is that in almost no circumstance can humans make decisions as a group without shared metaphysical assumptions. Sure, without property man cannot form a division of knowledge and labor. But without metaphysical value judgements groups cannot cooperate at all. We have a healthy literature of cultural differences in cognition. Cultural differences in verbal and spatial intelligence, and cultural and genetic differences in the distribution of intelligence. The east and west differ between emphasis on verb and noun, on connectivity versus particularism. On constitution versus Shape. Most importantly, they differ ON BALANCE VERSUS TRANSFORMATION: “The purpose of man is to bend nature to his will, and to leave the world better for having lived in it”. That is the western metaphysics. Almost everything can be reduced to that statement of individual action. “Truth and debate mean the rapid resolution of differences by conflict” (See Donald Kagan); versus deception and delay until matters resolve themselves in the eastern sense (See Kissinger and Huntington.) And for example Jewish civilization and western civilization vary between the rebellious ethics of the bazaar and ghetto (Rothbardian ethics) and the land owning ethics and morality of the aristocratic egalitarians in the high trust society. These are metaphysical group assumptions that constitute the primary means of decision making for each group given it’s evolutionary strategy. LIBERTARIAN ERRORS For example, in the we often talk about Bouridans’ ass. The problem when you must choose between two orange vendors both offering equal oranges at equal prices. How do you choose? The only thing interesting about any exchange is this very question. Why? Because in large, any commodity is chosen not on price, or on consumption value, but on signal value, and the signal we most often pay for is contribution to our commons. ie: price is meaningless, since it is rarely what is purchased. We largely pay for signals and norms, and we pay for our factions and our preferences. And therefore all the Misesian and Rothbardian ordinal arguments to price are meaningless outside of commodities trading, and nothing at all to do with social order AT ALL PERIOD. In, fact, it is quite easy to case Rothbard and Mises as continuing the cultural tradition of intentionally ignoring the normative economy of land holders as a means of rebelling against it. When I first heard this argument from Dr Herbner, I was kind of stupefied that Misesians thought clearing preferences was ordinal predicated on price rather than a network (technically a graph) predicated largely on signals on norms, where price was merely the first marginal criteria. IN fact, the only way to argue for the ordinal versus the graph, was to argue AGAINST payment for norms, which puts Mises, Rothbard and Hayek into perspective. (And is why I criticize Mises and Rothbard. It’s why they failed.) IN OTHER WORDS WE DID NOT KONW OUR METAPHYSICS NOR WRITE IT DOWN. As such we have been largely defenseless against jewish rhetoric, and franco-germanic counter-englightenment figures, desperate to restore the church under the authority of the educational institution. Desperate to wrest control of society back into obscurant language and moral mysticism, and away from the hands of the engineers, scientists, lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs and consumers who create and maintain the society we live in. Conservatives are largely right. But WE HAVE FAILED TO ARTICULATE FREEDOM AND LIBERTY in rational terms with MORAL DEPTH sufficient for they and their numbers to adopt in favor of the west. We can be free amongst a majority of conservatives. But we cannot be free amongst a majority of statists. The state and democracy are just communism and are antithetical to liberty, private property, common law, personal sovereignty. PROGRESSIVE LIBERTARIANISM IS TO LIBERTY WHAT THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL WAS TO CLASSICAL LIBERALISM.
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(CORE) We Cannot Think Without Metaphysical Biases
Given that Don Finnegan has just hit a nerve by reminding me about Friedman’s perspective on Irish Law, I’m going to throw something out here that may not be as obvious and important as it seems. As usual it might take me a bit to get there. But I think it’s worth the journey. 1) MAN MUST SENSE 2) MAN MUST PERCEIVE 3) MAN MUST REMEMBER 4) MAN MUST CALCULATE (PLAN) 5) MAN MUST CHOOSE. 6) MAN MUST ACT ON HIS CHOICE, AND HAS NOT EMPIRICALLY DEMONSTRATED HIS CHOICE UNTIL HE HAS ACTED. 7) MAN MUST CHOOSE WITH INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION, BECAUSE OUTWITTING NATURE IS HIS ONLY CHANCE FOR PROFIT. It is impossible to make guesses without some basis for decision. And every civilization constructs a set of narratives that contain those metaphysical means of decision making. Those rules or guidelines, or recommendations not only make decisions possible, and rational, in the presence of insufficient informaiton, but the biases contained in those metaphysical assumptions allow us to FUND by micropayments, of all kinds, our norms. We create a reality with them. And we cooperate at the metaphysical level. (We have to.) We couldn’t think otherwise. The truth is that in almost no circumstance can humans make decisions as a group without shared metaphysical assumptions. Sure, without property man cannot form a division of knowledge and labor. But without metaphysical value judgements groups cannot cooperate at all. We have a healthy literature of cultural differences in cognition. Cultural differences in verbal and spatial intelligence, and cultural and genetic differences in the distribution of intelligence. The east and west differ between emphasis on verb and noun, on connectivity versus particularism. On constitution versus Shape. Most importantly, they differ ON BALANCE VERSUS TRANSFORMATION: “The purpose of man is to bend nature to his will, and to leave the world better for having lived in it”. That is the western metaphysics. Almost everything can be reduced to that statement of individual action. “Truth and debate mean the rapid resolution of differences by conflict” (See Donald Kagan); versus deception and delay until matters resolve themselves in the eastern sense (See Kissinger and Huntington.) And for example Jewish civilization and western civilization vary between the rebellious ethics of the bazaar and ghetto (Rothbardian ethics) and the land owning ethics and morality of the aristocratic egalitarians in the high trust society. These are metaphysical group assumptions that constitute the primary means of decision making for each group given it’s evolutionary strategy. LIBERTARIAN ERRORS For example, in the we often talk about Bouridans’ ass. The problem when you must choose between two orange vendors both offering equal oranges at equal prices. How do you choose? The only thing interesting about any exchange is this very question. Why? Because in large, any commodity is chosen not on price, or on consumption value, but on signal value, and the signal we most often pay for is contribution to our commons. ie: price is meaningless, since it is rarely what is purchased. We largely pay for signals and norms, and we pay for our factions and our preferences. And therefore all the Misesian and Rothbardian ordinal arguments to price are meaningless outside of commodities trading, and nothing at all to do with social order AT ALL PERIOD. In, fact, it is quite easy to case Rothbard and Mises as continuing the cultural tradition of intentionally ignoring the normative economy of land holders as a means of rebelling against it. When I first heard this argument from Dr Herbner, I was kind of stupefied that Misesians thought clearing preferences was ordinal predicated on price rather than a network (technically a graph) predicated largely on signals on norms, where price was merely the first marginal criteria. IN fact, the only way to argue for the ordinal versus the graph, was to argue AGAINST payment for norms, which puts Mises, Rothbard and Hayek into perspective. (And is why I criticize Mises and Rothbard. It’s why they failed.) IN OTHER WORDS WE DID NOT KONW OUR METAPHYSICS NOR WRITE IT DOWN. As such we have been largely defenseless against jewish rhetoric, and franco-germanic counter-englightenment figures, desperate to restore the church under the authority of the educational institution. Desperate to wrest control of society back into obscurant language and moral mysticism, and away from the hands of the engineers, scientists, lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs and consumers who create and maintain the society we live in. Conservatives are largely right. But WE HAVE FAILED TO ARTICULATE FREEDOM AND LIBERTY in rational terms with MORAL DEPTH sufficient for they and their numbers to adopt in favor of the west. We can be free amongst a majority of conservatives. But we cannot be free amongst a majority of statists. The state and democracy are just communism and are antithetical to liberty, private property, common law, personal sovereignty. PROGRESSIVE LIBERTARIANISM IS TO LIBERTY WHAT THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL WAS TO CLASSICAL LIBERALISM.
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Why Progressives Are In Denial
Why progressives are in denial over the immorality of GROWTH via CONSUMPTION and IMMIGRATION, rather than GROWTH via CONSTANT POPULATION and INVENTION. Because if they don’t stay buried in denial, they have to admit that their greatest ‘achievement’ of the 20th century was a catastrophic failure that destroyed the inter-GENERATIONAL system of calculation, cooperation and incentives. You know, there isn’t much difference between the necessity of money and prices for temporal coordination, and for the necessity of credit and interest for short inter-temporal coordination, and for the accumulation of wealth, and borrowing for long term, intergenerational coordination. These means of calculating are necessary, not arbitrary. FACTS The following are true; (a) consumption requires that population increases. (b) growth requires that innovation increases (c) consumption is not growth it is expansion – there is a difference. (d) consumption can finance growth. (e) the limit of consumption to finance growth is determined by the rate of invention produced by the financing of consumption. (There is a tidy graph defined here, but I”m not interested enough to go draw it, so I’ll leave it up to your imagination.) I don’t need to bring up that growth via consumption is dysgenic, and growth via invention is eugenic. We have to think about THE PLANET after all. I also don’t need to bring up that growth via consumption is the (mindless) female reproductive strategy that depends on regulation by nature, and that growth via invention is the (mindful) male reproductive strategy, and that this largely provides the explanation for the differences in voting behavior. NO FREE LUNCH http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-generational-injustice-of-social.html
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Why Progressives Are In Denial
Why progressives are in denial over the immorality of GROWTH via CONSUMPTION and IMMIGRATION, rather than GROWTH via CONSTANT POPULATION and INVENTION. Because if they don’t stay buried in denial, they have to admit that their greatest ‘achievement’ of the 20th century was a catastrophic failure that destroyed the inter-GENERATIONAL system of calculation, cooperation and incentives. You know, there isn’t much difference between the necessity of money and prices for temporal coordination, and for the necessity of credit and interest for short inter-temporal coordination, and for the accumulation of wealth, and borrowing for long term, intergenerational coordination. These means of calculating are necessary, not arbitrary. FACTS The following are true; (a) consumption requires that population increases. (b) growth requires that innovation increases (c) consumption is not growth it is expansion – there is a difference. (d) consumption can finance growth. (e) the limit of consumption to finance growth is determined by the rate of invention produced by the financing of consumption. (There is a tidy graph defined here, but I”m not interested enough to go draw it, so I’ll leave it up to your imagination.) I don’t need to bring up that growth via consumption is dysgenic, and growth via invention is eugenic. We have to think about THE PLANET after all. I also don’t need to bring up that growth via consumption is the (mindless) female reproductive strategy that depends on regulation by nature, and that growth via invention is the (mindful) male reproductive strategy, and that this largely provides the explanation for the differences in voting behavior. NO FREE LUNCH http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-generational-injustice-of-social.html
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(CORE) On Race And Diversity In Libertarianism
(cross posted for reference) (insights) (important) METHODS Methods of justification for libertarianism (or any other political and moral bias) 1) Sentimental (I like it) 2) Moral (it’s better) 3) Historical (it works) 4) Empirical (direct experimentation) 5) Economic (indirect experimentation) 6) Ratio-scientific (cumulative evidence and theory) TWO SOURCES OF LIBERTARIAN THOUGHT 1) Conservative and Classical Liberal Land holders (christian) 2) Anarchic and religious non-land holders (jewish/gypsies) FOUR SOCIAL STRUCTURES 1) German (Kant/hierarchical/duty/nuclear family) 2) French ( Rousseau/equalitarian/care/traditional family) 3) British (smith-hume+ / aristocratic egalitarian / empirical/ absolute nuclear family) 4) Jewish (ricardo-mises-rothbard/tribalism) FOUR AMBITIONS 1) The british saw free trade as an international means of achieving peace and prosperity for all europeans. 2) The germans were trying to resist british consumerism’s disruption of ‘social order’ implicit in german ‘duty’. 3) The french were trying to extend the family to all of society, and demonstrate their nobility having failed to conquer Europe. (The failures of the world wars and transformation from demonstrated material achievement, to the use of generosity and diversity to maintain status, explain current european behavior.) 4) The jews were and are, trying to justify their participation in a host society without integrating. THE ANSWER There are two basic reasons for ‘tolerance’ in the libertarian movement. 1) Jewish authors justifying right to inclusion but denial of the necessity of payment into the commons. 2) christian authors arguing for payment only into non monopolistic commons, while retaining a homogenous moral commons. 3) feminist and postmodernist influences. DOMINANCE OF JEWISH THOUGHT I think that Rothbard brought his heritage to the table (just as Hayek stated of Mises) and he conflated the two ambitions. This is actually, the reason why rothbard failed to give us a morally tolerable libertarianism. And it is why libertarianism fails to gain traction. Humans are tribal. Immigration is a political problem. And human seek political power. So it is better to have a homogenous, liberty seeking people, for whom no seizure of power is of any group benefit, because the group is already in power. And there is no incentive for status achievement, because in a homogenous society, there is no status value to trying to gain power. HOPPE’S CORRECTION Hoppe, through admittedly interesting logic, has shown that rothbard was wrong. I have I think, with rather scientific rather than purely rational terms, demonstrated that Rothbard was wrong. CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT There is a very great difference between ‘we will not fight despite our differences if we trade’ and ‘we are all equal and can politically cohabitate without conflict’. Politics is a family matter. Trade is a cross-family matter. We can easily trade, but we cannot be politically diverse without replacing conflict over trade with conflict over politics. ROTHBARD WAS WRONG. THE STATUS ECONOMY RULES. We don’t ‘need’ much as human beings, except to hold onto our status, improve our status, and prevent loss of status. Loss aversion is more applicable to status than any other human trait except perhaps life and limb. We accumulate status, and desperately hold onto it.