Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • CULTURES ARE PORTFOLIOS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS Cultures are portfolios of property r

    CULTURES ARE PORTFOLIOS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS

    Cultures are portfolios of property rights. The composition of, and distribution of those property rights, varies from culture to culture. In each culture, those rights are expressed as norms. Property rights themselves are a norm. Those property rights perpetuated by norms may be more or less beneficial than other portfolios of property rights.

    But any idiot who thinks that (a) formal institutions don’t matter – such as libertarians or (b) that formal institutions are sufficient – such as progressives, will have history prove him wrong to the chagrin of the people who understand (c) that norms are a form of property – conservatives. Norms are a commons that we all pay for. The tax we pay for them with is forgone opportunity to consume them, and absorbing the risk that no others will absorb them too.

    Aristocratic Egalitarian Culture (The West) prohibits not just fraud, theft and violence, but the more deceptive versions of fraud: profit from asymmetry of knowledge, and profit from involuntary transfer via externalities.

    Market competition itself, is an involuntary transfer via externality from people outside of the exchange (competitors). This is why humans naturally object to it, and must be trained to respect and practice competition. But this externality provides instruction and incentive to all in the market, such that we all seek greater variety and lower cost of production. It produces beneficial ends. But it is non-trivial to create the norm of respecting and practicing competition. That’s why so few cultures did it.

    Rothbard was wrong. The market isn’t sufficient to maintain the norms against fraud theft and violence, and certainly not against externalities. The marginal impact of reputation in the market is lower than the marginal impact of fraud. That’s why only the west developed the high trust society – by out-breeding such that the entire nation to be an extended family – at least within it’s social classes. Without excessive out-breeding that destroyed the perception of extended family through common physical properties, and common normative behavior. In order to retain the sense of extended family, both physical properties and normative properties must be similiar enough that signaling is consisten within the group, and only class (selection quality) within the extended family differentiates between group members.

    Trust. The extension of familial trust to all possible exchange partners, by prohibitions on externality and asymmetry, when backed by warranty, is the composition that creates the high – trust society. Only AFTER these informal institutions are enforced by formal institutions, even if only the formal institution of the common law, will trust develop. And with trust, the velocity of trade that makes extraordinary marginal wealth possible for a group, because that group is more competitive than other groups.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-19 01:54:00 UTC

  • ORGANIZED VIOLENCE We can use organized violence to create government. We can us

    ORGANIZED VIOLENCE

    We can use organized violence to create government.

    We can use organized violence to create property rights.

    We can use organized violence to enforce property rights.

    We can use organized violence to destroy property rights.

    But you can have neither government nor property rights without violence.

    The source of freedom is violence.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-18 01:48:00 UTC

  • DEMOCRACY: HELP MAKE IT PAST TENSE

    DEMOCRACY: HELP MAKE IT PAST TENSE.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-17 12:17:00 UTC

  • All Government Is Violence

    All Government Is Violence

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-17 03:43:00 UTC

  • TODAY THERE ARE 45,000 WORDS IN THE PROPERTARIAN GLOSSARY “To converse with me,

    TODAY THERE ARE 45,000 WORDS IN THE PROPERTARIAN GLOSSARY

    “To converse with me, first you must define your terms.” – Voltaire

    I took that statement to heart, and about three years ago, started compiling my glossary. It is still a draft. And I’ve learned quite a bit writing it. Much of it needs a good editing pass. Some of the terms are still marked with ‘Undone’.

    Today, it’s just over 45,000 words, or 180 novel length pages, and perhaps 120 academic lengthy pages. I would expect that when I’m done it is no less than a third larger. Making the definitions of terms as I use them, a 200 Page academic book, or full novel-sized paperback.

    Oh. That’s WORDS not TERMS. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-17 02:53:00 UTC

  • KEEPING PERSONAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ON THE SAME PAGE ‘Curt, Why do you write both

    KEEPING PERSONAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ON THE SAME PAGE

    ‘Curt, Why do you write both personal and philosophical posts on the same facebook account?’

    The answer is that we humans interpret things we dont understand through the lenses available to us, and the first lens we use is to judge the author. Because we seek out his intent, so that we can extrapolate his bias. Rather than spend the effort trying to understand his work.

    I discovered quite early on, that people constructed a vision of me based upon my philosophical and political writing that was the polar opposite of my personality.

    So, first, my work is truly inseparable from my life. And second, I find that the fact that I’m more than a bit silly, ‘humanizes’ the interpretation of my work, and intellectualizes people’s interpretation of me as a person.

    Now, I’m not two months, almost three months late kicking off the Propertarian Institute (the software we’re building is a pretty difficult distraction).

    And when that happens, I’ll separate the two streams of thought and post to my page and site FROM the Propertarian site. When it’s a good thing. But I have to let the editor have control of that. So FB for sketches and Propertarianism and the PI site for more thoughtful work.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-16 05:33:00 UTC

  • I LOVE THAT FACEBOOK KILLED TIMELINE And returned to the previous ledger format.

    I LOVE THAT FACEBOOK KILLED TIMELINE

    And returned to the previous ledger format. It’s much more readable.

    Now if we could just ‘badge’ our home page with our interests, they would have some interesting data to go by, and we could use facebook as advocacy and identity. But no. Sigh. We just have the Cover Image.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-16 05:21:00 UTC

  • 1) It doesn’t follow that a one time expense, followed by fees for use is the sa

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/conservatives-and-sewers/?smid=fb-shareFALSE

    1) It doesn’t follow that a one time expense, followed by fees for use is the same as redistribution that creates dependencies. the first requires action, the second does not. THe free-rider problem is different from the progressive-fees problem. Free riding is a negative signal that says free riding is a ‘right’, progressive fees illustrate that this is not a ‘right’, but a ‘charity’. This sends ‘truthful’ signals to both parties. And truthful signals are necessary to prohibit involuntary transfers.

    2) It doesn’t follow that investment in a commons is the same as state-mandated redistribution. If that was true, there wouldn’t be factories, universities, churches and roads.

    3) It doesn’t follow that investment in a universal commons is not conservative. Only that to do so out of charity at a cost, is different than to do so out of opportunity for profit.

    4) it doesn’t follow that taxes must be levied other than fees. (They don’t need to be.)

    5) It doesn’t follow that taxes should be put into a general pool and open to use OTHER than the purpose levied. (they shouldn’t)

    6) It doesn’t follow that the monopolistic state is more efficient than competitive private administration (it’s not)

    7) It doesn’t follow that funding the bureaucracy doesn’t produce externalities that are of intolerable cost. (it does – one of which is forcing us to spend time defending ourselves against other people’s political movements, as they seek to control the predatory state)

    Conservatism is a metaphorical language. Conservatives have one ‘curse word’ with multiple meanings: “Socialism” – state control of property and production and b) “Democratic redistributive socialism” – state ownership of the proceeds from limited private control of property. This ‘curse word’ is a catch-all for ‘those people that use the state to destroy aristocratic individualism and the status signals that I get from individualism regardless of my rank. And this is important. Conservatives do not feel victims because they obtain positive status signals from other conservatives regardless of their economic rank. This is obtainable in human societies only through religious conformity and it’s consequences, or economic conformity and its consequences.

    Conservatives do not object to investment in the commons. Conservatism places higher value on delaying gratification than immediate gratification – the formation of moral capital – which is an inarticulate expression meaning training human beings to enforce a prohibition on involuntary transfers of all kinds.

    Conservatism is the argument that we should not fund the expansionary bureaucratic state that out of deterministic necessity subverts our property rights and therefore our freedom, and therefore our ‘character’ – a euphemism for the prohibition on involuntary transfers of all kinds – because it is our universal prohibition on involuntary transfers both within our families and tribes and without, that is the source of western exceptionalism: the high trust society.

    Our high trust society is unique because we CAN trust others to avoid involuntary transfers, because of the pervasive prohibition on involuntary transfer that we developed under Manorailism by demonstrating fitness needed to obtain land to rent. Partly as a rebellion against the Catholic Church, partly because the church forbid cousin marriage and granted women property rights, in order to break up the tribes and large land holding families. Partly as an ancient indo-european tradition of personal sovereignty in the nobility, which became a status signal, and, thankfully remains a status signal in conservatives.

    Small homogenous polities are redistributive. Large heterogeneous polities are not. This is because trust DECLINES in heterogeneous polities. And trust DECLINES in heterogeneous polities because of the different signals used by different groups, and the fact that signals in-group are ‘cheaper’ (discounted) that signals across groups with differing signals. A strong state in a small homogenous polity that functions as an extended family and therefore with high redistribution, is entirely possible. But by creating a powerful state in a heterogeneous polity, it becomes necessary and useful for people to compete via extra-market means using the state by seeking redistributions and limited monopoly (legal) rights in order to advance their signaling strategy. (Which is what Dr. Krugman does, daily – advance an alternative strategy. A strategy that he does not recognize is from the Ghetto. And would cause a return to the low trust society. And **IS*** right now, causing a return to the low trust society.

    Because the low trust society is natural to man. Thats why it exists everywhere but the aristocratic west.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-16 01:26:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/08/left_s_big_mistake_about_real_wages_and_the_economy.html?fb_ref=sm_fb_share_chunky_bottom

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-14 02:18:00 UTC

  • CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS : LANGUAGE HUMOR You know, I massacre the Russian language

    CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS : LANGUAGE HUMOR

    You know, I massacre the Russian language daily. It’s a source of laughter for everyone in the company. And of course, the retail staff we’re friendly with in the neighborhood. The people at the bakery just laugh no matter what I say.

    Reminds me of all the silly things small children pronounce as they learn to speak. Christian had a number of them. Avocado as ‘ah-do-DAH-do’ was priceless every time. Partly because he was pretty articulate and these things were rarities. I kept wanting to use his pronunciation myself. It seemed so appropriate for some reason.

    Russian language is still full of animal metaphor. My favorite is the nonsense about crazy squirrels distracting the inebriated, which I’ve written about here on FB before. (and I am accused of all the time, because I’m so silly.)

    And, to make matters worse, whenever Veronika says “squirrel”, or phonetically, “SKWER-el” she pronounces it “SKREW-el”.

    Which, reminds me of ‘screws-loose’, which in turn forces me to recall the crazy squirrel story, besides the obvious sexual references at the same time – a jumble of humorously related symbolism in a martini shaker that I suggests a pattern but I can’t sort it out.

    Makes me laugh every time. Every single time. And it doesn’t get old.

    It’s the little things that make life joyous. That’s the heart of conservatism: joy in present goods over future perfections. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-13 15:11:00 UTC