Depending upon your concept of the world: universalist democratic socialist, or hierarchical tribalist, or utilitarian economist, you might see US policy toward Iran in a different light. One thing is for sure: we are accomplishing for militant islam, on behalf of Iran, precisely what the Persians and the radicals have always desired — a restoration of the empire from the mediterranean to the Sino-Hindu border, and a vehicle for concentrating wealth via oil revenues that will surpass both the classical era’s means of concentrating wealth via agriculture, the renaissance era’s means of concentrating wealth through shipping, or the industrial era’s means of concentrating wealth through institutional capitalism and industrial production. We will have an expansionist, anti-rational, totalitarian civilization, operating on non-market principles, with which much of the developed world cannot compete. We will lose the dollar as a reserve currency, and as a Petro-currency, and finish the cycle of credit expansion, finish the Keyenesian economic era, and eradicate the ability of the west to pursue debt-dependent social programs. We will see europe need to remilitarize just when it cannot afford to. We will see the USA split between a hostile and patient china and a hostile and impatient islam, just when the USA is itself split by political, regional and racial discord. One cannot ‘spread democracy’. One can only spread capitalism and consumerism. Democracy is a unique property of the west, because the west is the only civilization to have broken familial and tribal bonds — having forbidden intermarriage for centuries. Democracy will never succeed except among families, tribes, villages and small cities. It is antithetical to human nature. Even capitalism is ‘democratic’. Nations adopt democratic republicanism when the middle class requires access to politics, and when the antiquarian political systems can no longer accomodate the increased number of people with economic interests. Republican democracy is not ideological, it is simply a necessity born of increases in the numbers of economic interests. For these reasons I did, and do, favor war in the middle east on an entirely humanistic, as well as economic, as well as cultural basis: We have spent five hundred years raising humanity out of agrarian ignorance and poverty, through the spread of rationalism, science, technology and the capitalist institutions that make industrial production possible. We must treat Islam as we did the Soviets and the Chinese communists: a militaristic, expansionist form of anti-market regressiveism. A threat to our existing way of life, by a mystical, tribal and familial empire, its culture and religion. Until the last, most primitive civilization has joined the movement, they are a regressive threat to all of humanity. They are the latest luddite movement — yet another variation on Marxism, and nothing more. An attempt by existing power structures, and existing cultural investments, to hold onto antiquity despite the obvious failure of their culture in the contrast to others. And while my libertarian friends do not like battle drums, they too often ignore the fact, that one must defend one’s market from non-market forces. Markets of the peculiar composition in the west, were made by man, by intent, not by accident. The institution of property itself requires defense of not only the property itself, but the institutions of property, and the market itself. Our libertarianism evolved within that set of institutions. And within that set of Institutions it is viable. That does not mean the same principles apply without. Those broader threats pose to high a risk. Ideology is for children living under the convenience of those institutions. Although I would argue that the attempt to contain Germany actually caused the suicide of the west, our attempts to contain the Russians, Chinese and now islam has not been so.
Form: Mini Essay
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HUMAN ACTION AS A SOLUTION TO PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS OF CAUSATION (Had To Captur
HUMAN ACTION AS A SOLUTION TO PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS OF CAUSATION
(Had To Capture This one – although I belabored the middle part a bit)
RE: “Like “Existence”, “Causation” is, as Gian-Carlo Rota might have said, a folie. There is only direction of entropy as measured by gradients of correlation. It is one of those dirty secrets of philosophy of science.” – A Critic
This is only true in the abstract, special case of relations in the physical universe which exist independently of human action. When instead, we consider that category of relations which are the result of human action, and where such action requires information necessary to plan, and where such information is of necessity a generalization of the complexity of the physical universe, and as such where a loss of information is necessitated by such acts of generalization, and where such a loss of information is necessary in order to compose an action which will alter the course of events through a process of heuristic calculation, and where actions are limited to the possible scope of human actions, then by necessity causation consists of a set of actions that are observable, and categorically definable both individually, and in the aggregate, by observation of those actions, which because of the information loss aforementioned, produce patterns of outcome which are distinguishable from the entropic limitations of the physical universe to which calculation and aggregation are impossible concepts. The universe cannot observe itself, predict it’s own movements, and construct a plan by which it may alter events. It consists of constant categories. The categories used by human beings are limited only by their desired actions, and their desired actions, in collective permutation, are less limited than those of the physical universe.
This paragraph, should you care to wade through it, answers the question of causation, and most likely imposes sufficient constraints upon the metaphysical nature of existence, and limits the problem of determinism and free will enough to reduce all problems to solvable problems. Humans must act.
Science is more simplistic than human cooperation. That is why we solved it first.
🙂
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-06 16:24:00 UTC
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AN HOMAGE: THE END OF LOVE OF THE EXPERIENCING OF DRIVING? Most people buy exoti
AN HOMAGE: THE END OF LOVE OF THE EXPERIENCING OF DRIVING?
Most people buy exotics entirely for signaling purposes. They certainly do not buy them for utilitarian transportation. But for some minority of owners, the pleasure of driving something terribly powerful, elegant to look at, visceral to command, and mechanically uncompromising is a pleasure in itself.
In an era of commuting, where we often seek to replicate our living rooms in order to reduce the tedium of repetitive driving, or where we augment that utilitarian purpose with consumer status signaling, the pure pleasure of the experience of driving the sports car or the experience of adventure from driving the grand touring car is often forgotten.
We have few places where we can experiment with our sports cars without fear of prosecution, and the world has shrunk so much and become so densely populated, and our roadways so utilitarian, that the grand touring experience has become one of selecting from a set of fixe drives through aging natural amusement parks rather than a means of exploring the world around us, and loving the experience of it.
For many, the signaling that comes from driving a Ferrari is a net benefit. THey attract attention. For some of us, they attract too much attention. It’s painful to come back to your car after ten minutes and find a dent in the hood and fresh droplets of pistachio ice cream on it, because someone who does not know better sat on the car as a photo opportunity.
For that reason, the Porsche truly is the best brand with which to experience the world. They are uncompromising machines. They are durable machines. They’re beautiful machines. And they’re thrilling to drive. And you don’t have to leave them with a hotel valet. You can leave them in a parking lot without worrying that they’ll attract the attention of the impulsive if you want to have an espresso while sitting in the sunshine, people-watching at a cafe.
Much of the world that was explorable with postwar British sports cars is gone. The developed world is too highly populated, and human culture no longer functions in open air of markets and city streets. That postwar exploratory experience today is better found with a Jeep or Land Rover in the developing world. Outside of Los Angeles, the postwar baby boom car culture – cruising – as a means of socializing, is not only impossible but open to prosecution, because it is indistinguishable from criminal surveillance by gangs, or inebriated risk taking by the young. To some degree urban foot traffic in europe is the only way to have that social experience. Online socialization hardly suffices. But the thrill of driving is reserved tot hose people who participate in celebratory rallies like the Gold Rush or Gumball rallies. Rare events that are expensive and orchestrated, not recreational exploratory opportunities to gain insights into and compassion for, your fellow man.
Driving is an expresson of freedom. A gift of modernity: our ability to move outside of our twenty mile radius of possible life experience with ease. A way of touching more humanity that we could without it. It was a privilege. A reflection of a time of rapid change. And what little is left for us, is best experienced not with an exotic which is the focus of your attention, but by a little sports car, where humanity, despite it’s materialistic homogeneity. is the focus of your attention.
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-06 13:07:00 UTC
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Do We Have Occasion To Verbally Criticize The Feckless?
Murray states:
we must change the language that we use whenever the topic of feckless men comes up. Don’t call them “demoralized.” Call them whatever derogatory word you prefer. Equally important: Start treating the men who aren’t feckless with respect. Recognize that the guy who works on your lawn every week is morally superior in this regard to your neighbor’s college-educated son who won’t take a “demeaning” job. Be willing to say so.
This shouldn’t be such a hard thing to do. Most of us already believe that one of life’s central moral obligations is to be a productive adult. The cultural shift that I advocate doesn’t demand that we change our minds about anything; we just need to drop our nonjudgmentalism.
It is condescending to treat people who have less education or money as less morally accountable than we are. We should stop making excuses for them that we wouldn’t make for ourselves. Respect those who deserve respect, and look down on those who deserve looking down on.
via Why economics can’t explain our cultural divide – Society and Culture – AEI.
I understand that we can use this approach in the various media. But as a people who have also become spatially independent and therefore socially isolationist, and who converse with little more than our televisions while watching shows that reinforce our sentiments, in an society where politics rewards polarity, in an economy that must desperately seek the favor of consumers and can brook no negative feedback, where the few people with whom we share no sentimental differences, then there remains an interesting question: In what circumstance may we provide this feedback? Really.
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WHY ARE CONSERVATIVES MISSING THE POINT? Because they, like liberals, operate un
WHY ARE CONSERVATIVES MISSING THE POINT?
Because they, like liberals, operate under the assumptions that:
a) A unanimity of agreement on means and ends is possible – when it’s questionable if it’s even remotely desirable.
b) Our legislative process is an absolute ‘good’ instead of an demonstrably destructive bad.
The evidence of the failure of our legislative process was visible as early as 1812, most notably in 1863, certainly in 1911, pervasively in 1933, and persistently since then.
THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOURCE OF OUR PROSPERITY
Americans rationalize this tragedy as producing positive ends, when that logic is absurd: Americans have been prosperous because of a conquered continent, the sale of land and household consumption to immigrants during the hight of the industrial revolution, the founding of fossil fuel technologies, and the suicide of europe in the great european civil war.
THE GOVERNMENT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR PROBLEMS
Our government has prevented what we might have achieved were it less of an obstacle, and vehicle for class warfare, rather than the source of the prosperity we claim that came from it. Any despot can sell off a continent and raise taxes by filling new households with consumer goods. It doesn’t take democracy to do that. Any despot can inherit the British Empire and gain a market for selling a new currency. Any despot could financialize an economy and lay the false promise of an upper middle class lifestyle as the logical consequence of an expensive education, instead of investing in the international competitiveness of its working classes.
Hasn’t the legislature been used to grant nearly infinite powers to the state through nothing more than a hole in the commerce clause? Hasn’t the constitution and property rights been undermined to the point that it is irrrelevant? Thereby eliminating the rule of law.
CONSERVATIVES ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CORRECT VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE, A CORRECT VIEW OF INTER-TEMPORAL SCARCITY, AND A CORRECT VIEW OF ECONOMICS. SO WHY DO WE HAVE TO HAVE AN ERRONEOUS AND COUNTERFACTUAL VIEW OF OUR REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT’S LEGISLATIVE RECORD?
That’s why Conservative debate concerns me. It seeks first to defend our system of government, rather than the rule of law, and it seeks converts rather than superior institutions that do not require converts, only those who naturally disagree with us. The institutions of classical liberal government are the problem.
The most severe aspect of that problem is the very existence of our legislative institutions and the very concept that men can make laws, rather than agree to contracts. Laws are made, and broken by the next law that is passed. It is impossible in this context to create a durable contract of exchange between groups — effectively there is no means of holding each side responsible. Taxes pool and thereby unaccountably launder causality and responsibility from financial information.
We’re conservatives. We’re libertarians. We’re classical liberals. We’re supposed to be the smart people. Leave the irrational concepts of human nature, the absurd concept of infinite plenty, and the incomprehension of economic necessity to the left. But do not defend against the left by thinking our form of government is effective or that it has produced positive ends. Those positive ends are the product of cheap land, labor and consumption.
The good that is in our government is not from its legislative institutions, but was created by our very distant anglo saxon ancestors, and as the byproduct of the self-interest of the Church in accidentally creating the Rule of Law, and the breaking of tribal and family bonds by the prohibition of intermarriage out to as many as six generations.
WE SHOULD DEFEND THE RULE OF LAW WITH A GOVERNMENT OF CONTRACTS, NOT LAWS. MEN CANNOT MAKE LAWS. THEY CAN ONLY DISCOVER THEM. LAWS ARE NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE FOR OPPRESSION, CONTRACTS ARE VOLUNTARY. LAW IS THE SOURCE OF TYRANNY. AND LEGISLATURES ARE THE SOURCE OF LAW. AND OUR EXISTING GOVERNMENT CONSISTS OF LEGISLATURES.
THE ANALOGY OF THE PARABLE OF LIES:
The Parable Of LIes says that if you tell a lie, you have to tell seventeen lies to cover it, and seventeen for each of those, and seventeen for each of those, until your world consists of nothing but lies. Likewise, Laws are lies. They are an application of violence. Conversely, Contracts are voluntary. They are an exchange. Chosen representatives should negotiate contracts on our behalf which may not be broken without compensation, and which must adhere to natural, common and constitutional law. All of us should preserve our right of juridical defense, and no man should be free from legal action under the pretense that he create’s an arbitrary codification of violence called a ‘law’.
Rousseau was as evil as Marx, and caused proportionately almost as many deaths. We do not need a social contract. BUT WE NEED A SOCIETY OF CONTRACTS. If we are to have any government at all, we should have one that is not an instrument of tyranny. And legislation is tyranny.
Conservatives and libertarians need to address the root of the problem: our institutions. We should not seek to create ideological converts so that we may have a government we prefer. We should create a government so that ideological preferences can be resolved through consensual agreement rather than a gladiatorial battle of dishonesty between lawyers whose actions simply mask the violence and theft that they levy upon us all.
Because we’re supposed to be the smart people after all.
Source date (UTC): 2012-03-31 15:51:00 UTC
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Why Are Conservatives Missing The Point?
Because they, like liberals, operate under the assumptions that: a) A unanimity of agreement on means and ends is possible – when it’s questionable if it’s even remotely desirable. b) Our legislative process is an absolute ‘good’ instead of an demonstrably destructive bad. The evidence of the failure of our legislative process was visible as early as 1812, most notably in 1863, certainly in 1911, pervasively in 1933, and persistently since then. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOURCE OF OUR PROSPERITY Americans rationalize this tragedy as producing positive ends, when that logic is absurd: Americans have been prosperous because of a conquered continent, the sale of land and household consumption to immigrants during the hight of the industrial revolution, the founding of fossil fuel technologies, and the suicide of europe in the great european civil war. If we must have taxes in order to prevent free riders from living off the contributions of others, why can they not be structured as contracts and litigated as contracts. THE GOVERNMENT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR PROBLEMS Our government has prevented what we might have achieved were it less of an obstacle, and vehicle for class warfare, rather than the source of the prosperity we claim that came from it. Any despot can sell off a continent and raise taxes by filling new households with consumer goods. It doesn’t take democracy to do that. Any despot can inherit the British Empire and gain a market for selling a new currency. Any despot could financialize an economy and lay the false promise of an upper middle class lifestyle as the logical consequence of an expensive education, instead of investing in the international competitiveness of its working classes. Hasn’t the legislature been used to grant nearly infinite powers to the state through nothing more than a hole in the commerce clause? Hasn’t the constitution and property rights been undermined to the point that it is irrrelevant? Thereby eliminating the rule of law. CONSERVATIVES ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CORRECT VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE, A CORRECT VIEW OF INTER-TEMPORAL SCARCITY, AND A CORRECT VIEW OF ECONOMICS. SO WHY DO WE HAVE TO HAVE AN ERRONEOUS AND COUNTERFACTUAL VIEW OF OUR REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT’S LEGISLATIVE RECORD? That’s why Conservative debate concerns me. It seeks first to defend our system of government, rather than the rule of law, and it seeks converts rather than superior institutions that do not require converts, only those who naturally disagree with us. The institutions of classical liberal government are the problem. The most severe aspect of that problem is the very existence of our legislative institutions and the very concept that men can make laws, rather than agree to contracts. Laws are made, and broken by the next law that is passed. It is impossible in this context to create a durable contract of exchange between groups — effectively there is no means of holding each side responsible. Taxes pool and thereby unaccountably launder causality and responsibility from financial information. We’re conservatives. We’re libertarians. We’re classical liberals. We’re supposed to be the smart people. Leave the irrational concepts of human nature, the absurd concept of infinite plenty, and the incomprehension of economic necessity to the left. But do not defend against the left by thinking our form of government is effective or that it has produced positive ends. Those positive ends are the product of cheap land, labor and consumption. The good that is in our government is not from its legislative institutions, but was created by our very distant anglo saxon ancestors, and as the byproduct of the self-interest of the Church in accidentally creating the Rule of Law, and the breaking of tribal and family bonds by the prohibition of intermarriage out to as many as six generations. WE SHOULD DEFEND THE RULE OF LAW WITH A GOVERNMENT OF CONTRACTS, NOT LAWS. MEN CANNOT MAKE LAWS. THEY CAN ONLY DISCOVER THEM. LAWS ARE NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE FOR OPPRESSION, CONTRACTS ARE VOLUNTARY. LAW IS THE SOURCE OF TYRANNY. AND LEGISLATURES ARE THE SOURCE OF LAW. AND OUR EXISTING GOVERNMENT CONSISTS OF LEGISLATURES. THE ANALOGY OF THE PARABLE OF LIES: The Parable Of LIes says that if you tell a lie, you have to tell seventeen lies to cover it, and seventeen for each of those, and seventeen for each of those, until your world consists of nothing but lies. Likewise, Laws are lies. They are an application of violence. Conversely, Contracts are voluntary. They are an exchange. Chosen representatives should negotiate contracts on our behalf which may not be broken without compensation, and which must adhere to natural, common and constitutional law. All of us should preserve our right of juridical defense, and no man should be free from legal action under the pretense that he create’s an arbitrary codification of violence called a ‘law’. Rousseau was as evil as Marx, and caused proportionately almost as many deaths. The idea of a social contract is nothing more than an attempt to legitimize the dictatorship of the majority by law. It is simply the divine right of kings, or a prohibition against heresy by the monopolistic Church. No wonder Rousseau caused so many deaths, and was responsible for such bloodshed. We do not need a social contract. BUT WE NEED A SOCIETY OF CONTRACTS. If we are to have any government at all, we should have one that is not an instrument of tyranny. And legislation is tyranny. Conservatives and libertarians need to address the root of the problem: our institutions. We should not seek to create ideological converts so that we may have a government we prefer. We should create a government so that ideological preferences can be resolved through consensual agreement rather than a gladiatorial battle of dishonesty between lawyers whose actions simply mask the violence and theft that they levy upon us all. Because we’re supposed to be the smart people after all.
-
Why Are Conservatives Missing The Point?
Because they, like liberals, operate under the assumptions that: a) A unanimity of agreement on means and ends is possible – when it’s questionable if it’s even remotely desirable. b) Our legislative process is an absolute ‘good’ instead of an demonstrably destructive bad. The evidence of the failure of our legislative process was visible as early as 1812, most notably in 1863, certainly in 1911, pervasively in 1933, and persistently since then. THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOURCE OF OUR PROSPERITY Americans rationalize this tragedy as producing positive ends, when that logic is absurd: Americans have been prosperous because of a conquered continent, the sale of land and household consumption to immigrants during the hight of the industrial revolution, the founding of fossil fuel technologies, and the suicide of europe in the great european civil war. If we must have taxes in order to prevent free riders from living off the contributions of others, why can they not be structured as contracts and litigated as contracts. THE GOVERNMENT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR PROBLEMS Our government has prevented what we might have achieved were it less of an obstacle, and vehicle for class warfare, rather than the source of the prosperity we claim that came from it. Any despot can sell off a continent and raise taxes by filling new households with consumer goods. It doesn’t take democracy to do that. Any despot can inherit the British Empire and gain a market for selling a new currency. Any despot could financialize an economy and lay the false promise of an upper middle class lifestyle as the logical consequence of an expensive education, instead of investing in the international competitiveness of its working classes. Hasn’t the legislature been used to grant nearly infinite powers to the state through nothing more than a hole in the commerce clause? Hasn’t the constitution and property rights been undermined to the point that it is irrrelevant? Thereby eliminating the rule of law. CONSERVATIVES ARE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A CORRECT VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE, A CORRECT VIEW OF INTER-TEMPORAL SCARCITY, AND A CORRECT VIEW OF ECONOMICS. SO WHY DO WE HAVE TO HAVE AN ERRONEOUS AND COUNTERFACTUAL VIEW OF OUR REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT’S LEGISLATIVE RECORD? That’s why Conservative debate concerns me. It seeks first to defend our system of government, rather than the rule of law, and it seeks converts rather than superior institutions that do not require converts, only those who naturally disagree with us. The institutions of classical liberal government are the problem. The most severe aspect of that problem is the very existence of our legislative institutions and the very concept that men can make laws, rather than agree to contracts. Laws are made, and broken by the next law that is passed. It is impossible in this context to create a durable contract of exchange between groups — effectively there is no means of holding each side responsible. Taxes pool and thereby unaccountably launder causality and responsibility from financial information. We’re conservatives. We’re libertarians. We’re classical liberals. We’re supposed to be the smart people. Leave the irrational concepts of human nature, the absurd concept of infinite plenty, and the incomprehension of economic necessity to the left. But do not defend against the left by thinking our form of government is effective or that it has produced positive ends. Those positive ends are the product of cheap land, labor and consumption. The good that is in our government is not from its legislative institutions, but was created by our very distant anglo saxon ancestors, and as the byproduct of the self-interest of the Church in accidentally creating the Rule of Law, and the breaking of tribal and family bonds by the prohibition of intermarriage out to as many as six generations. WE SHOULD DEFEND THE RULE OF LAW WITH A GOVERNMENT OF CONTRACTS, NOT LAWS. MEN CANNOT MAKE LAWS. THEY CAN ONLY DISCOVER THEM. LAWS ARE NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE FOR OPPRESSION, CONTRACTS ARE VOLUNTARY. LAW IS THE SOURCE OF TYRANNY. AND LEGISLATURES ARE THE SOURCE OF LAW. AND OUR EXISTING GOVERNMENT CONSISTS OF LEGISLATURES. THE ANALOGY OF THE PARABLE OF LIES: The Parable Of LIes says that if you tell a lie, you have to tell seventeen lies to cover it, and seventeen for each of those, and seventeen for each of those, until your world consists of nothing but lies. Likewise, Laws are lies. They are an application of violence. Conversely, Contracts are voluntary. They are an exchange. Chosen representatives should negotiate contracts on our behalf which may not be broken without compensation, and which must adhere to natural, common and constitutional law. All of us should preserve our right of juridical defense, and no man should be free from legal action under the pretense that he create’s an arbitrary codification of violence called a ‘law’. Rousseau was as evil as Marx, and caused proportionately almost as many deaths. The idea of a social contract is nothing more than an attempt to legitimize the dictatorship of the majority by law. It is simply the divine right of kings, or a prohibition against heresy by the monopolistic Church. No wonder Rousseau caused so many deaths, and was responsible for such bloodshed. We do not need a social contract. BUT WE NEED A SOCIETY OF CONTRACTS. If we are to have any government at all, we should have one that is not an instrument of tyranny. And legislation is tyranny. Conservatives and libertarians need to address the root of the problem: our institutions. We should not seek to create ideological converts so that we may have a government we prefer. We should create a government so that ideological preferences can be resolved through consensual agreement rather than a gladiatorial battle of dishonesty between lawyers whose actions simply mask the violence and theft that they levy upon us all. Because we’re supposed to be the smart people after all.
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Notes on Fukuyama’s Origins Of Political Order
THE CHINESE INVENTED THE STATE FIRST No doubt. As an advocate of the hoppian concept of private governmnet, I don’t actually think that the ‘state’ is a ‘good’. I see it as a ‘bad’. Throughout the book, he assumes that the bureaucratic state is a ‘good’, when his analysis clearly shows that it’s a ‘bad’ thing. He does not tie economics into his argument except as a correlative result. THREE PRINCIPLES OF THE STATE ACCORDING TO FUKUYAMA 1. The Monopoly Of Violence – The Concentration Of Power Over Property 2. The Rule Of Law – Rules That Limit The Actions Of Those With A Monopoly On Violence 3. Accountability – Morally (Ostracization), Legally (threat), or Electorally Accountable (exchange) (Parenthetic comments added to show how this corresponds to the three [glossary:types of coercion] theory.) ORIGINS OF POLITICS IN BIOLOGY Fukuyama states that the origins of our political behavior is biological due to: 1. Kin Selection – Favor the number of genes you share with them 2. Reciprocal Altruism I dont think so, and I think that’s where he makes his mistake. I think that Haidt (relying on the work of… OMG I can’t find it) has undermined the argument for reciprocity or at least split it into two different traits. We limit the ability of purely violent alphas to dominate us, and in doing so develop cooperation. And we promote useful alphas that advance the genes of the group against other groups instead of the genes of just the alpha by that strategy. This then advances our ability to hunt cooperatively and rapidly expand our populations. Haidt separates this ‘liberty’ sentiment from the meritocratic sentiment – which he calls Proportionality as the causal differences in that create what we imprecisely observe as the reciprocity sentiment. And he effectively discounts or eliminates the reciprocity concept as material. As such the correct statements would be: 1 – Kin Selection (genetic preference) 2 – Liberty (defense against tyranny) 3 – Proportionality (meritocratic cooperation) RELIGION PROVIDES MORAL RULES I think that we can create a religion out of the western non-Biblical literary narrative. Which is precisely what the Whig theory of history, and Mortimer Adler and others attempted to do with the Great Works. What the English tried to do with revisiting their pagan mythology in the victorian era, and even what the germans tried to do with romanticism under Nietzsche and Wagner. THese are all means of creating celebratory moral systems not dependent upon Abrahamic or Persian/Hindu mysticism. This is the recommendation of de Botton, and others. EUROPEANS HAD LAW BEFORE ANY MONARCH COULD CREATE A STATE So they had to work within the framework of roman law that was resurrected and promoted by the church. DEMOCRACY ORIGINATED OCCURRED BY ACCIDENT He says that the way that democratic institutions happend in england was unique and because of that, not useful for developing countries: The king had to go to a particular feudal institution consisting of nobles to raise taxes. The struggle between the estates and the monarchy over this balance of powers was constant. The english accident was unique. It won’t be replicated. But it was the beginning of accountable government. Populations constrain the king. WHERE HE MISSES THE CAUSE: MARTIAL TRADITIONS My problem is that he doesn’t see this balance of powers as a unique strategy whose roots were in western martial tactics (as stated by many others.) So Fukuyama troubles me because he sees the democratic polity as being served by a legitimate government, rather than all government are totalitarian and that the only form of regulation is actually the balance of powers, and that democracy is a freak accident and a net negative compared to the balace of power between social classes created by multiple houses of government each of which has different powers and each of which represents the interets of different social classes. REPAIRING CONGRESS Fukuyama suggests that we should have more special committees and then the packages are voted up or down without amendments. He suggests that this would discourage special interests and pork. (I agree, but I’m not sure what it would lead to except more rapid implementation of even more interference. And I”m not sure we really need representative government.
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Notes on Fukuyama’s Origins Of Political Order
THE CHINESE INVENTED THE STATE FIRST No doubt. As an advocate of the hoppian concept of private governmnet, I don’t actually think that the ‘state’ is a ‘good’. I see it as a ‘bad’. Throughout the book, he assumes that the bureaucratic state is a ‘good’, when his analysis clearly shows that it’s a ‘bad’ thing. He does not tie economics into his argument except as a correlative result. THREE PRINCIPLES OF THE STATE ACCORDING TO FUKUYAMA 1. The Monopoly Of Violence – The Concentration Of Power Over Property 2. The Rule Of Law – Rules That Limit The Actions Of Those With A Monopoly On Violence 3. Accountability – Morally (Ostracization), Legally (threat), or Electorally Accountable (exchange) (Parenthetic comments added to show how this corresponds to the three [glossary:types of coercion] theory.) ORIGINS OF POLITICS IN BIOLOGY Fukuyama states that the origins of our political behavior is biological due to: 1. Kin Selection – Favor the number of genes you share with them 2. Reciprocal Altruism I dont think so, and I think that’s where he makes his mistake. I think that Haidt (relying on the work of… OMG I can’t find it) has undermined the argument for reciprocity or at least split it into two different traits. We limit the ability of purely violent alphas to dominate us, and in doing so develop cooperation. And we promote useful alphas that advance the genes of the group against other groups instead of the genes of just the alpha by that strategy. This then advances our ability to hunt cooperatively and rapidly expand our populations. Haidt separates this ‘liberty’ sentiment from the meritocratic sentiment – which he calls Proportionality as the causal differences in that create what we imprecisely observe as the reciprocity sentiment. And he effectively discounts or eliminates the reciprocity concept as material. As such the correct statements would be: 1 – Kin Selection (genetic preference) 2 – Liberty (defense against tyranny) 3 – Proportionality (meritocratic cooperation) RELIGION PROVIDES MORAL RULES I think that we can create a religion out of the western non-Biblical literary narrative. Which is precisely what the Whig theory of history, and Mortimer Adler and others attempted to do with the Great Works. What the English tried to do with revisiting their pagan mythology in the victorian era, and even what the germans tried to do with romanticism under Nietzsche and Wagner. THese are all means of creating celebratory moral systems not dependent upon Abrahamic or Persian/Hindu mysticism. This is the recommendation of de Botton, and others. EUROPEANS HAD LAW BEFORE ANY MONARCH COULD CREATE A STATE So they had to work within the framework of roman law that was resurrected and promoted by the church. DEMOCRACY ORIGINATED OCCURRED BY ACCIDENT He says that the way that democratic institutions happend in england was unique and because of that, not useful for developing countries: The king had to go to a particular feudal institution consisting of nobles to raise taxes. The struggle between the estates and the monarchy over this balance of powers was constant. The english accident was unique. It won’t be replicated. But it was the beginning of accountable government. Populations constrain the king. WHERE HE MISSES THE CAUSE: MARTIAL TRADITIONS My problem is that he doesn’t see this balance of powers as a unique strategy whose roots were in western martial tactics (as stated by many others.) So Fukuyama troubles me because he sees the democratic polity as being served by a legitimate government, rather than all government are totalitarian and that the only form of regulation is actually the balance of powers, and that democracy is a freak accident and a net negative compared to the balace of power between social classes created by multiple houses of government each of which has different powers and each of which represents the interets of different social classes. REPAIRING CONGRESS Fukuyama suggests that we should have more special committees and then the packages are voted up or down without amendments. He suggests that this would discourage special interests and pork. (I agree, but I’m not sure what it would lead to except more rapid implementation of even more interference. And I”m not sure we really need representative government.
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Is Political Legitimacy Possible?
Legitimacy would be ‘perfect’ if the actions of a representative (the government) were identical in both priority and content to the preferences of the individual. Legitimacy is neutral if the preferences and priorities are unobjectionable. Legitimacy is lost when the preferences and priorities are actively unwanted, despised or damaging. We can consider tyranny an absolute moral concept. Or a praxeological concept. As a praxeological concept, tyranny is the use of property (resources) to accomplish ends using means that we disagree with. Since there are three economies we operate within: the material, the normative, and the signaling economy, the chance of tyranny increases with the heterogeneity of material economic, normative economic, and signaling economies. As such tyranny is less likely to be expressed in a small homogenous society, and more likely, if not mandatory, in a large heterogenous society. This is one of the reasons that small european states preserved individual liberty, and consequential economic experimentation and innovation, while the competing civilizations, most of which were older and wealthier, were left behind by the competing disorganized european micro-states. As libertarians, it is useful to use praxeological analysis (the study of actions and transfers) rather than to stick with imprecise use of dogmatic first principles. Those first principles are useful because of their generality and wide applicability, but imprecise because of that generality. General principles, rather than causal explanations, may not inform us as to what insights and actions can actually help us achieve our objective: freedom, rather than simply whine about it.