“The principle that the end justifies the means, which in individualist ethics is regarded as the denial of all morals, in collectivist ethics becomes necessarily the supreme rule.” – F. A. Hayek
(Thanks to Monica Fackelmayer)
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 06:09:00 UTC
RIGHT TO A JOB? VS RIGHT TO WORK?
Is having a job a right? Are jobs something that a society is obliged to provide to each individual?
SOME OK ANSWERS BY OTHERS, BUT I WILL GIVE A BETTER ONE
A right is something provided by a contract. We can in theory create a contract that states that every person has a right be as attractive as a victoria’s secret model. The problem is, that the provision isn’t enforceable because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequence of even trying would probably be really bad (somehow… although I can’t think of any at the moment.)
NEGATIVE RIGHTS, are things do by avoiding doing something: killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud, are all things we can avoid doing. And since it means avoiding something, we can, every single one of us, avoid killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud and all such damage to life and property.
Jobs are called POSITIVE RIGHTS. They require resources, and resources that no one has to provide.
One can have a right to a job in the sense that no one can be prohibited from working, who is willing, by a government. That is a negative right. It is a right to engage in work. It says no one may restrain another from engaging in the voluntary trade of his effort in exchange for something that he wants (money.) But one cannot have the right to have a job provided, because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequences of even trying would be really bad.
The international declaration of human rights contains a number of provisions (22-26) are positive rights, which were included in order to satisfy the then-powerful communist governments, the same way the north was required to allow for slavery in the constitution inorder to gain the compliance of the south.
The question is whether positive rights are possible to provide. Or whether it is only possible to provide insurance against destitution (which appears possible). This important question isn’t yet answered because we haven’t been doing it long enough to be sure. It certainly appears that both Europe and the USA are having significant economic, cultural and demographic problems because of these policies – which can only be satisfied with the use of ponzi schemes.
(And yes, I am happy to argue with anyone on this point including our favorite left wing Nobel Prize winner.)
Cheers
Curt
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 05:49:00 UTC
THE LOGICAL CONTRADICTION IN THE POSTMODERN RELIGION
The modern histories of religion and socialism exhibit striking parallels in development.
1) Both religion and socialism started with a comprehensive vision that they believed to be true but not based on reason (various prophets; Rousseau)
2) Both visions were then challenged by visions based on rational epistemologies (early naturalist critics of religion; early liberal critics of socialism).
3) Both religion and socialism responded by saying that they could satisfy the criteria of reason (natural theology; scientific socialism).
4) Both religion and socialism then ran into serious problems of logic and evidence (Hume’s attacks on natural theology; Mises’s and Hayek’s attacks on socialist calculation).
5) Both then responded in turn by attacking reality and reason (Kant and Kierkegaard; postmodernists).
6) The prevailing skeptical and irrationalist epistemologies in academic philosophy thus provided the Left with a new strategy for responding to its crisis. Any attack on socialism in any form could be brushed aside, and the desire to believe in it reaffirmed.
7) [P]ostmodernism is a symptom of the far Left’s crisis of faith. Postmodernism is a result of using skeptical epistemology to justify the personal leap of faith necessary to continue believing in socialism.
If one is interested in truth, then one’s rational response to a failing theory is as follows:
1) One breaks the theory down to its constituent premises.
2) One questions its premises vigorously and checks the logic that integrates them.
3) One seeks out alternatives to the most questionable premises.
4) One accepts moral responsibility for any bad consequences of putting the false theory into practice.
This is not what we find in postmodern reflections on contemporary politics. Truth and rationality are subjected to attack, and the prevailing attitude about moral responsibility is again best stated by Rorty: “I think that a good Left is a party that always thinks about the future and doesn’t care much about our past sins.”
One could, after doing some philosophy, come to be a true believer in subjectivism and relativism. Accordingly, one could come to believe that reason is derivative, that will and desire rule, that society is a battle of competing wills, that words are merely tools in the power struggle for dominance, and that all is fair in love and war. That is the position the Sophists argued 2400 years ago.
The only difference, then, between the Sophists and the postmodernists is whose side they are on. [The Sophists, marshalled] subjectivist and relativistic arguments in support of the political claim that justice is the interest of the stronger. The postmodernists—coming after two millennia of Christianity and two centuries of socialist theory—simply reverse that claim: Subjectivism and relativism are true, except that the postmodernists are on the side of the weaker and historically-oppressed groups. Justice – is the interest of the weaker.
– Hicks, Stephen R. C. (2010-10-19). Explaining Postmodernism
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 03:44:00 UTC
THE POSTMODERN RELIGION, AND ITS POLITICAL WING: LIBERALISM
The left is a kleptocracy, and its religion is postmodernism.
“In postmodern discourse, truth is rejected explicitly and consistency can be a rare phenomenon. Consider the following pairs of claims.
1) On the one hand, all truth is relative; on the other hand, postmodernism tells it like it really is.
2) On the one hand, all cultures are equally deserving of respect; on the other, Western culture is uniquely destructive and bad.
3) Values are subjective—but sexism and racism are really evil.
4) Technology is bad and destructive—and it is unfair that some people have more technology than others.
5) Tolerance is good and dominance is bad—but when postmodernists come to power, political correctness follows.
There is a common pattern here: Subjectivism and relativism in one breath, dogmatic absolutism in the next. Postmodernists are well aware of the contradictions—especially since their opponents relish pointing them out at every opportunity.
Consider three more examples, this time of clashes between postmodernist theory and historical fact.
1) Postmodernists say that the West is deeply racist, but they know very well that the West ended slavery for the first time ever, and that it is only in places where Western ideas have made inroads that racist ideas are on the defensive.
2) They say that the West is deeply sexist, but they know very well that Western women were the first to get the vote, contractual rights, and the opportunities that most women in the world are still without.
3) They say that Western capitalist countries are cruel to their poorer members, subjugating them and getting rich off them, but they know very well that the poor in the West are far richer than the poor anywhere else, both in terms of material assets and the opportunities to improve their condition.
In the modern world, Left-wing thought has been one of the major breeding grounds for destruction and nihilism. From the Reign of Terror to Lenin and Stalin, to Mao and Pol Pot, to the up-surge of terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s, the far Left has exhibited repeatedly a willingness to use violence to achieve political ends and exhibited extreme frustration and rage when it has failed.”
– Excerpted from Hicks, Stephen R. C. Explaining Postmodernism, chapter six.
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 03:10:00 UTC
PHYSICS IS THE SCIENCE OF THE MATERIAL WORLD.
PROPERTY IS THE SCIENCE OF THE COOPERATIVE WORLD.
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 02:49:00 UTC
ON RELIGION
I don’t attack religions for being religions, or being predicated on whatever causal relations, for whatever reason. This is because I understand that ARATIONAL thinking is useful as a defense against reason that we disagree with. It allows us to exit the rational conversation and continue to pursue our preferences, albiet with arational, rather than rational thought.
What I care about are the consequences of any line of thought. And in particular, that any line of thought produces negative economic consequences, because negative economic consequences reduce ALL choices for ALL people and positive economic consequences improve ALL choices for ALL people.
If I argue in favor of the morality of PROPERTY, this allows people to adopt whatever religion that they want to, and to form in to whatever groups they want to. I have no greater concern if people gather into groups based upon religion, historical reference, or preference for a particular artist’s music, or any other reason that they want to group together.
That is the whole point of market and property. Market and property allow us to compete on means in the market, even if we have completely opposite ends.
The reason that we can’t all live peacefully together is that governments are monopolies, which define a monopoly of property rights, and as such we compete to gain power over government so that we can implement our version of property rights, rather than, government is a set of institutions administers the market, using PRIVATE property rights, so that groups may create whatever COMMON Property Rights among themselves that they prefer to.
Capitalism is the only form of tolerance. The market doesn’t care about your color, or creed. Everyone is the color ‘gold’.
Postmodernism is a religion that promote socialism, and socialism is harmful, and removes choices, and destroys the market. As such, I object to the argument that postmodernism, and its political wing ‘liberalism’, do not claim to be a religion that seeks power. I object to the argument that Islam is a religion of peace rather than a religion of tyranny and poverty. And I object to the fact that both Postmodernism and Islam will of necessity destroy economic productivity, and freedom.
And In both cases, most likely, my race.
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 02:47:00 UTC
Why is it that women in this country never refuse a request to dance, no matter how drunk or unattractive the man is?
I mean if you tossed women around the dance floor like a rag doll in the states, if the bouncer let you live the patrons wouldn’t.
Wth.
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-06 18:08:00 UTC
WAR
War is the means by which one set of property rights and allocations within a geography is replaced by the application of violence with another set of property rights and allocations.
I don’t write much about war because it’s emotionally loaded, and I don’t see it as any different from any other form of human activity – it’s just a really expensive activity, a really risky activity, and unfortunately, a necessary and pervasive activity.
I don’t view war as good or bad. It is either necessary to obtain, restore, or implement, property rights of one set or another. My only concern is whether those rights are higher trust, more individualist or lower trust tyrannical rights.
(Thanks to Brian Anderson for the reminder.)
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-06 16:25:00 UTC
ARGUMENTATIVE SCIENCE
I just construct arguments. It’s just like science. You compose an experiment. You run a test. You observe the results. You ask others to corroborate or refute your findings. You are never sure that your argument is ever right. You can only struggle to eliminate every known possibility that it is wrong. The only way to get better is to run a lot of experiments, and create a lot of arguments. And I create a lot of arguments. And get a little better with each one.
Curt Doolittle
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-06 10:59:00 UTC
CIVILIZATION vs DE-CIVILIZATION
CIVILIZATION
Is the long historical process of escaping the equalitarian tyranny of the feminine, matrilineal order by gradual implementation of individual property rights, thereby forcing all involuntary transfers into the market for goods and services, and returning males to reproductive freedom.
DE-CIVILIZATION
is the rapid process of returning to the equalitarian tyranny of the feminine matrilineal order of communitarian property, and the subjugation of male reproductive freedom.
OMG. Did I just say that?
Yes. Yes I did. Even with my outside voice. lol.
Source date (UTC): 2013-04-06 09:46:00 UTC