Rothbardian ethics are just an excuse to suppress the strong’s ability to use violence while maintaining the cunning’s ability to entrap, lie, cheat and steal. Liberty was created at the point of a sharp metal object, by heroic males, as a means of suppressing all forms of cheating on the backs of others. Rothbard’s pretense is simply a means of justifying parasitism on that hard won liberty. There is nothing libertarian about Rothbardian ethics. Its just a complex philosophical lie to justify immoral and unethical theft.
Source: Original Site Post
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Rothbard’s Ethical Ghetto
Rothbardian ethics are just an excuse to suppress the strong’s ability to use violence while maintaining the cunning’s ability to entrap, lie, cheat and steal. Liberty was created at the point of a sharp metal object, by heroic males, as a means of suppressing all forms of cheating on the backs of others. Rothbard’s pretense is simply a means of justifying parasitism on that hard won liberty. There is nothing libertarian about Rothbardian ethics. Its just a complex philosophical lie to justify immoral and unethical theft.
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Rothbard's Ethical Ghetto
Rothbardian ethics are just an excuse to suppress the strong’s ability to use violence while maintaining the cunning’s ability to entrap, lie, cheat and steal. Liberty was created at the point of a sharp metal object, by heroic males, as a means of suppressing all forms of cheating on the backs of others. Rothbard’s pretense is simply a means of justifying parasitism on that hard won liberty. There is nothing libertarian about Rothbardian ethics. Its just a complex philosophical lie to justify immoral and unethical theft.
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Knowledge: Knowlege of Construction vs Knowledge of Use
[J]oel Mokyr did a wonderful job in Gifts of Athena, but he has the strange Jewish predilection for conflating verbalisms with existence. He refers to “Knowledge of how” and “knowledge of what”. But these are verbal categories only. They aren’t causal categories. I use the terms “Knowledge of Construction” and “Knowledge of Use” (how). While “Use” and “How” share similar properties, “Construction and What” are sufficiently different in properties to mean considerably different things. “Construction” requires action in time. I have no idea what “What” should mean other than an empty verbal category. It’s a purely self-centered, experiential statement. I am fairly sure that if someone says they understand something, it means a knowledge of construction. Whether they can use it or not is only a small portion of the possible domain. (Properties: a)Construction, b)Use, c)Intended Consequence, d)Unintended Consequence.)
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Knowledge: Knowlege of Construction vs Knowledge of Use
[J]oel Mokyr did a wonderful job in Gifts of Athena, but he has the strange Jewish predilection for conflating verbalisms with existence. He refers to “Knowledge of how” and “knowledge of what”. But these are verbal categories only. They aren’t causal categories. I use the terms “Knowledge of Construction” and “Knowledge of Use” (how). While “Use” and “How” share similar properties, “Construction and What” are sufficiently different in properties to mean considerably different things. “Construction” requires action in time. I have no idea what “What” should mean other than an empty verbal category. It’s a purely self-centered, experiential statement. I am fairly sure that if someone says they understand something, it means a knowledge of construction. Whether they can use it or not is only a small portion of the possible domain. (Properties: a)Construction, b)Use, c)Intended Consequence, d)Unintended Consequence.)
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The Ethical Spectrum: Criminal, Unethical, Immoral, Conspiritorial
The spectrum describes means by which we act parasitically rather than productively. In a perfect world we only act productively with all parasitism eliminated. (No perfect world is possible I suppose, but it helps illustrate the point.) Human history from from our consanguineous communal (Bonobo-like) pre-history to our current state as individualist, single-parent, autonomous producers insured through a corporation we call the state, required, first and foremost, the continuous expansion of prohibition on free riding (parasitism) in all its forms, thereby pressing each individual human into the market. At some point our productivity increased sufficiently that a few people could specialize in thinking. But today, less than half of the population is actually engaged in productive labor and it’s heading toward a third. So soon, 2/3 of people extant live independent of productive labor. Given that malthusian limits controlled our population for most of history, it’s pretty impressive that so many people can be sustained by the combination of so few, plus fossil fuels of course. Or stated otherwise, 2/3 of the people life a life of luxury. I am not sure, but I cannot find anyone else who has described this system in detail. Very Weberian. SPECIFIC TERMS: By Conquest I mean organized (war) and unorganized conquest (immigration, religious invasion, political invasion). By Conspiratorial I mean organized conspiracies of extraction such as protection rackets including the government. By moral I mean those extractions (parasitic and non productive) actions we take on third parties. By ethical I mean those extractions (parasitic and non productive) we take directly on others who are involved with us by non physical action such as lying, cheating, obscuring, fraud, etc. By criminal I mean those extractions that we take against persons and their property by physical action (violence and theft).
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The Ethical Spectrum: Criminal, Unethical, Immoral, Conspiritorial
The spectrum describes means by which we act parasitically rather than productively. In a perfect world we only act productively with all parasitism eliminated. (No perfect world is possible I suppose, but it helps illustrate the point.) Human history from from our consanguineous communal (Bonobo-like) pre-history to our current state as individualist, single-parent, autonomous producers insured through a corporation we call the state, required, first and foremost, the continuous expansion of prohibition on free riding (parasitism) in all its forms, thereby pressing each individual human into the market. At some point our productivity increased sufficiently that a few people could specialize in thinking. But today, less than half of the population is actually engaged in productive labor and it’s heading toward a third. So soon, 2/3 of people extant live independent of productive labor. Given that malthusian limits controlled our population for most of history, it’s pretty impressive that so many people can be sustained by the combination of so few, plus fossil fuels of course. Or stated otherwise, 2/3 of the people life a life of luxury. I am not sure, but I cannot find anyone else who has described this system in detail. Very Weberian. SPECIFIC TERMS: By Conquest I mean organized (war) and unorganized conquest (immigration, religious invasion, political invasion). By Conspiratorial I mean organized conspiracies of extraction such as protection rackets including the government. By moral I mean those extractions (parasitic and non productive) actions we take on third parties. By ethical I mean those extractions (parasitic and non productive) we take directly on others who are involved with us by non physical action such as lying, cheating, obscuring, fraud, etc. By criminal I mean those extractions that we take against persons and their property by physical action (violence and theft).
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Does Voluntary Segregation Answer Parasitism?
To the extent that Rothbard has made statements supporting voluntary segregation, it seems there’s no conflict between the two of you. His city state might be a little more tolerant or bazaar ethics than yours, but beyond that, I don’t get the conflict. Perhaps you’re not here addressing his acceptance of voluntary segregation and are instead addressing the ethics he claimed were universal. Is that it? — Roman,
Partly. 1) Yes, it’s an argument against universalism. But more importantly, it’s argument against whether ANYONE, in practice, would make the rational choice to live in a world of very high transaction costs (unethical and immoral), instead of a world of very low transaction costs but very high costs (prohibition on all parasitism). So, I’m saying that a ghetto can exist as an offshoot of more advanced polities (most surviving hunter gatherers were outcasts from their civilizations for example.) But you cannot build a civilization out of a ghetto. It’s not historically evident that it’s possible. And it’s not praxeologically rational that you could. 2) Yes, we can make a claim that a group’s reproductive strategy, in order to be competitive, requires that they engage in parasitism.(That’s rothbard’s strategy.) We can claim that another group in order to suit its reproductive strategy, would suppress ALL parasitism. We can, as with the extended and inbred family, preserve familial parasitism as a form of insurance, and actively advocate external parasitism. 3) It is extremely hard to demonstrate why anyone would live in the ghetto who had a choice to live in the palace. BUT i am not sure what the difference is between a prison system and a ghetto other than the victorian and progress era illusion of reform. 4) I pair voluntary segregation with the right of ostracization. I think ‘voluntary segregation’ on its own is another attempt to justify rothbardian parasitism (ghetto ethics). NET NET Since any group of people will rationally choose to reduce transaction costs via a monopoly government even if it is high cost to them. The only POSSIBLE outcome of rothbardian ethics is not a voluntary society, it’s a voluntary ghetto. A ghetto that is also the refuge of those we reject through ostracization. And within that ghetto a certain set of skills will develop and certain individuals will benefit from parasitic competition against other parasitic peoples. It should become clear at this point where rothbard got his ethics from. Habituated, adapted, cultural memory of the ghetto. Rothbardian ethics are parasitic.
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Does Voluntary Segregation Answer Parasitism?
To the extent that Rothbard has made statements supporting voluntary segregation, it seems there’s no conflict between the two of you. His city state might be a little more tolerant or bazaar ethics than yours, but beyond that, I don’t get the conflict. Perhaps you’re not here addressing his acceptance of voluntary segregation and are instead addressing the ethics he claimed were universal. Is that it? — Roman,
Partly. 1) Yes, it’s an argument against universalism. But more importantly, it’s argument against whether ANYONE, in practice, would make the rational choice to live in a world of very high transaction costs (unethical and immoral), instead of a world of very low transaction costs but very high costs (prohibition on all parasitism). So, I’m saying that a ghetto can exist as an offshoot of more advanced polities (most surviving hunter gatherers were outcasts from their civilizations for example.) But you cannot build a civilization out of a ghetto. It’s not historically evident that it’s possible. And it’s not praxeologically rational that you could. 2) Yes, we can make a claim that a group’s reproductive strategy, in order to be competitive, requires that they engage in parasitism.(That’s rothbard’s strategy.) We can claim that another group in order to suit its reproductive strategy, would suppress ALL parasitism. We can, as with the extended and inbred family, preserve familial parasitism as a form of insurance, and actively advocate external parasitism. 3) It is extremely hard to demonstrate why anyone would live in the ghetto who had a choice to live in the palace. BUT i am not sure what the difference is between a prison system and a ghetto other than the victorian and progress era illusion of reform. 4) I pair voluntary segregation with the right of ostracization. I think ‘voluntary segregation’ on its own is another attempt to justify rothbardian parasitism (ghetto ethics). NET NET Since any group of people will rationally choose to reduce transaction costs via a monopoly government even if it is high cost to them. The only POSSIBLE outcome of rothbardian ethics is not a voluntary society, it’s a voluntary ghetto. A ghetto that is also the refuge of those we reject through ostracization. And within that ghetto a certain set of skills will develop and certain individuals will benefit from parasitic competition against other parasitic peoples. It should become clear at this point where rothbard got his ethics from. Habituated, adapted, cultural memory of the ghetto. Rothbardian ethics are parasitic.
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Trust: A Definition
“Your confidence that another will act with a necessary degree of reciprocity (mutually beneficial) for the matter at hand, despite the opportunity to act out of an equal degree of self interest.” This definition addresses the spectrum of low trust exchanges to consanguineous interactions to high trust mutual insurance. Most definitions assume an equality of relations that never actually exists and as such those other definitions always seem wanting. It also explains when we are actually trusting someone, versus asking for a donation. Trust is a matter of reciprocity given the relationship you have to someone else.