Curt Doolittle

Source: Original Site Post

  • What Examples Are There Of Libertarianism In Practice Failing?

    There have been very few ‘libertarian’ societies, and those that we have examples are are actually under the protection of some larger entity (iceland/denmark). 

    Various small seasteading efforts have been started.  But they have all been failures because there is insufficient economic incentive and value to these places.

    Libertarianism in the formal sense, was developed by Rothbard as an ideological resistance movement. As were most of the liberty movements of the postwar and great society periods.  I am not sure it’s arguable that it was not in practice an institutional model but an argument against institutional models.

    Libertarianism, has been an ideological failure because his ethics were intolerable to too much of the population, just as Marxism, libertarianism’s opposite, is intolerable to most of the population.

    The anarcho capitalist research program is attempting to find solutions to the problem of monopoly bureaucracy’s deterministic recreation of the totalitarian state.  As a research program it’s been fruitful. And it is arguable that it’s possible to create a Hoppeian Private government.  Even if not possible to create an anarchic society.

    It may be possible to replace the bureaucratic monopoly state at some future date if we complete this intellectual exercise.

    But at present, prospects are dim, because the intellectual work has not been sufficiently completed that it presents a viable social and economic alternative to the nation-state.

    Curt

    https://www.quora.com/What-examples-are-there-of-libertarianism-in-practice-failing

  • Can Socialism/marxism/communism Work Without The Forced Coercion Of The Productive And The Abrogation Of Private Property?

    You are getting terrible answers here, and your question is a bit confusing. So lets clarify terms a bit first, and see if we can get you a decent response:

    1) Socialism is defined as the state ownership of property, and central management of production and distribution.

    2) Communism is the absence of private property.

    Which is why your question seems odd. Instead I think  you mean ‘socialistic’ which is what we have in westen democracies today:

    3) Democratic redistributive socialism is private control of property with heavy progressive taxation of profits. This is what we do in most countries today. It preserves both the ability of individuals to conduct economic calculation and the incentives necessary for them to act in concert to fulfill the desires of others for purely selfish reasons.  THe general argument is predicated on the idea of Pareto Efficiency: that you can take something from someone and give it to something else, as long as it does not make him worse off.  Which in political terms means that the individual does not lose his incentive to produce at the same level as he does prior to the theft of his property by the government for redistribution to others.   The logic of this is that for businesses to grow and expand, consumers must have money to spend and that more additional money is made when they spend it, and so, at least in the end result, everyone is always getting better over time.  … I will not follow the entire economic cycle here but in theory and practice, to a limited extent, it is not a bad idea even if it feels immoral to many of us.

    WHY THE SOCIALIST NON-ECONOMY DOES NOT WORK

    1) Prices are an information system that tells people what they need to do to satisfy the needs of others.

    2) Without prices it is impossible for humans to plan the production of complex goods.

    3) Without prices people cannot have the information needed to have the incentives to engage in productive activity.

    4) any attempt to use computers and static means of production would be forced in to autarkic production (a need to be totally self sustaining) by relative decrease in productivity, followed by constant impoverishment (See Cuba).

    It does not work outside of the family, and only works within the family, because of parental dictatorship, and our instincts for consanguineous cooperation and care-taking.

    The world has abandoned both communism and socialism, and has assumed highly redistributive consumer capitalism   Which is ‘socialistic’ but not technically socialist.  This maintains prices, and incentives, and the ability to plan complex production while taking as much profit as possible from producers without destroying incentives.

    It appears that outside of the west, most countries have or will, adopt totalitarian consumer capitalism, which in practice, in China for example, is an oligarchy running major state industries and finance, and redistribution in the form of easy credit and public services to ‘everyone else’.   This seems to be the pattern. It is not any different from what we have in the USA,  it’s just more obvious.

    But no, since communism is the abandonment of private property, no it is not possible, ever, under any circumstance, which is why it’s been abandoned.

    Socialism cannot exist either because it is not possible for people to operate an economy without money, prices and property, becasue neigher economic calculation nor incentives can exist.

    But that has not stopped the desire for it.  Any more than people have stopped the desire for the absurdity of divinities and afterlife.  These ideas are a religious need, a spiritual need, in many people.  SO this is why they have turned to the religion of Postmodernism as the newest reformation of socialism.

    POSTMODERNISM

    In response to the total failure of the Communist and Socialist agendas, both in theory and in practice, most of the left intellectuals have adopted Postmodernism which is where the idea that

    Forgive the long quote here in exchange for its value:

    “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.

    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.

    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.

    Postmodernism is therefore first a political movement, and a brand of politics that has only lately come to relativism.” – Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism (2004)


    COMMUNISM->SOCIALISM ->POSTMODERNISM ARE RELIGIONS

    “Both religion and socialism started with a comprehensive vision that they believed to be true but not based on reason (various prophets; Rousseau Both visions were then challenged by visions based on rational epistemologies (early naturalist critics of religion; early liberal critics of socialism). Both religion and socialism responded by saying that they could satisfy the criteria of reason (natural theology; scientific socialism). 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). Both then responded in turn by attacking reality and reason (Kant and Kierkegaard; postmodernists).” – Hicks.

    CHOMSKY IS THE ONLY LEFT PHILOSOPHER
    Because he has mastered the art of using untrue language.  That is his contribution to the new religion of Postmodernism. He invented linguistic tricks that could deceive human beings.

    Cheers
    Curt.

    https://www.quora.com/Can-Socialism-Marxism-Communism-work-without-the-forced-coercion-of-the-productive-and-the-abrogation-of-private-property

  • What Examples Are There Of Libertarianism In Practice Failing?

    There have been very few ‘libertarian’ societies, and those that we have examples are are actually under the protection of some larger entity (iceland/denmark). 

    Various small seasteading efforts have been started.  But they have all been failures because there is insufficient economic incentive and value to these places.

    Libertarianism in the formal sense, was developed by Rothbard as an ideological resistance movement. As were most of the liberty movements of the postwar and great society periods.  I am not sure it’s arguable that it was not in practice an institutional model but an argument against institutional models.

    Libertarianism, has been an ideological failure because his ethics were intolerable to too much of the population, just as Marxism, libertarianism’s opposite, is intolerable to most of the population.

    The anarcho capitalist research program is attempting to find solutions to the problem of monopoly bureaucracy’s deterministic recreation of the totalitarian state.  As a research program it’s been fruitful. And it is arguable that it’s possible to create a Hoppeian Private government.  Even if not possible to create an anarchic society.

    It may be possible to replace the bureaucratic monopoly state at some future date if we complete this intellectual exercise.

    But at present, prospects are dim, because the intellectual work has not been sufficiently completed that it presents a viable social and economic alternative to the nation-state.

    Curt

    https://www.quora.com/What-examples-are-there-of-libertarianism-in-practice-failing

  • What Are Some Real Life Examples Of Anarchy On A Large Scale?

    There are none that involve a division of knowledge and labor.  The reason being that human beings are extremely hostile to involuntary transfers, and most humans perceive price competition via the local market – as members of an extended family – as involuntary transfer. They percieve quality variation as acceptable but not price competition.   They are correct in this perception, however. This involuntary transfer creates a virtuous cycle of innovation and price reduction, and greater participation in the market by consumers because of it, so we sanction this involuntary transfer by casting it as a virtue.

    Secondly, increasing the size of a market requires shared investment. People need a means of making this shared investment.  However, people will not make a shared investment if it is open to privatization. Governmnets have the ability to forcibly extract taxes from the market to use to construct infrastructure (largely, city walls and soldiers to defend them) as well as misuse tax money.  But they also have the ability to create legislative directions, which we call laws, to forbid privatization and free riding of these investments. As such these institutions (governments) make it easier to invest in commons (infrastructure) than would be possible without them, due to the pervasive nature of human free-riding, privatization and corruption.

    It is arguable that taxes (fees) of some minimum amount are legitimate fees for preventing free riding on the commons.  However, it has proven very difficult to control the expansion of the commons and the government, and therefore taxes.  As such governments have become instruments of rent-seeking and corruption every time humans have invented them for the purpose of avoiding free-riding and privatization.

    This should be the correct, or at least, most correct answer that we currently know how to provide to the near absence of anarchic social structures: to prevent free riding, which all humans find morally objectionable.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-real-life-examples-of-anarchy-on-a-large-scale

  • Who Are More Likely To Respect Animal Rights: Conservatives Or Liberals?

    Conservative view of man’s relation to nature is heroic:
    That nature is ours to modify for our benefit.
    That nature is capricious and something we must pacify for our safety.
    That the purpose of man’s life is to leave the world better for having lived in it.
    This is an heroic view of man that is as ancient as the indo-european peoples.

    Meaning:
    (a) animals do not have ‘rights’ – this is an absurdity – they are not human. In conservatism (which means “european aristocratic egalitarianism”). Even humans must ‘earn’ rights – which is why we take them away if they misbehave.  Animals can’t earn rights. (perhaps dogs to some minor degree.)
    (b) that we should care for animals because we desire to, because our world is better to live in if we have them. True. This is the logical reasoning, not ‘rights’.
    (c) that disregard for animals that we have normatively chosen to care for, and which are under our control,
    (d) that laziness in caring for animals is likely laziness in caring for people. True.
    (e) that cruelty to animals is likely cruelty to humans – and therefore you are unfit to live among humans. True.

    Unfortunately, this is an argument to NORMS: demonstrating the human character necessary to possess ‘rights’.  Conservatives place extremely high value on norms. Progressives do not.  The progressive movement is largely an attack on conservative (aristocratic egalitarian) norms. And the progressive movement has managed to, at least in education and other major areas of life, discredit norms.  And therefore the progressive movement has lost the ability to market policy that requires adherence to norms.  And therefore has, out of necessity, used the specious argument of ‘rights’, because it is the only means of justifying legal action that they have available to them.

    Of course, what may not be obvious is that:
    (a) it is not possible for animals to possess rights – a right is something that can be reciprocally granted and animals cannot conceive of this (except perhaps for domesticated dogs..)
    (b) that the word “right” is an attempt to load, or frame, animals anthropomorphically. in order to misrepresent the normative utility of protecting animals as a resource, as one open to legal rather than normative control.  In other words, it’s common marketing fraud.
    (c) that caretaking, even anthropomorpized caretaking, provides women with oxcytocin reactions, and that many females are addicted to this reaction. It is not rational. It is drug addiction. It’s just relatively harmless drug addiction. So our political policy is being driven by logically confused drug addicts using a deceptive marketing campaign, not reason.  In which case we would simply sell off the management of wild animals to private firms who would specialize in it and figure out how to make it profitable (the way we have with deer hunting in america).
    (d) that the female psyche evolved, and cooperation evolved, as a means of controlling alphas by gossip, complaint and excitement, to motivate the non-alpha males to organize against, and punish or kill the alphas, so that the females could control their own breeding rather than be the mere victims of alphas.  And that there is a significant correlation between the female members of the animal rights movement and their reproductive status.
    (e) That the anti-fur movement is absurd, and counter to the benefit of animals and man. It is a renewable resource. It encourages the protection of the species. It is inexpensive.  It is excellent protection against the cold, and it’s beautiful.   This same argument applies to hunting. And to wild animals. Because if wild animals were ‘owned’ rather than a ‘commons’ owners would protect them far better than governments do – just like we do with domesticated animals.

    This is a fairly damning critique of REASONING USED by the animal rights movement.  It is not however a critique of the conservative normative proscription. 

    The conservative (aristocratic egalitarian) proscription is that if you do not care for animals as if they are the commons that they are, and a commons that we have assumed responsibilty for from nature, that you have not EARNED the right from other humans to administer that commons on their behalf, and therefore they will withdraw your rights, which they reciprocally grant you, because you are unfit to live with rights, among others, who have them.

    Conservatives are rational but their moral code is ancient and they speak of it in metaphorical terms not suitable for an era where scientific language has all but replaced metaphor.  And this is why I write philosophy – to repair conservatism (aristocratic egalitarianism) by articulating it rationally.

    https://www.quora.com/Who-are-more-likely-to-respect-animal-rights-conservatives-or-liberals

  • Would Creating A World Citizen Help Or Make Sense?

    Who is your insurer of last resort?  THat’s what citizenship is.

    https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Would-creating-a-world-citizen-help-or-make-sense

  • Political Science: What Is A Minimalist State?

    Minimal is a subjective term depending upon the perceived necessity of the person making the judgement.  That said, by using the term ‘state’ not government, it is possible to list what is the minimum requirement.

    1) A means of controlling the ability to define rules of behavior in a territory. Usually stated as a territorial monopoly of violence.  Generally this requires warriors. (always, actually)
    2) Some form of leadership – one to many.
    3) A bureaucracy to enforce decisions and to police resistance.
    4) Technically, writing for the purpose of keeping records and inventories.
    5)  A means of collecting revenue that will pay for the administrators.
    6) A set of norms that people obey under the threat of ostracization from opportunities that keeps the cost of administration down to tolerable levels.
    7) A division of labor.
    8) A population

    Not positive. Need to think a bit.  But I’m pretty sure that’s the minimum for a state.   A state is different from a government.   A state is a bad thing. A government can be a good thing.

    https://www.quora.com/Political-Science-What-is-a-minimalist-state

  • If Democracy Is Forcefully Enforced In A Country By Another, Wouldn’t It Be Called Dictatorship On The Enforcer’s Part?

    It is not dictatorship it is conquest.  Conquest is any alteration of the current allocation of property rights, property allocation  and norms, by force, whether that force be direct (violence and theft) or indirect (the promise of violence or theft in the event of non-compliance.)

    The justifying argument is generally that all other forms of government are even more corrupt that democracy.  This is questionable in practice as democracy seems to be a peculiarity of western civlization, and doesn’t seem to work very well elsewhere.  In india for example, corruption is so pervasive that the country stagnates. Whereas in China where the government is very strong, and now an oligarchy, the government managed to make everyone literate and move the economy much faster than India.

    Consumer capitalism and property rights are meaningful exports. THe tradition of democracy looks as though it has proven to be a failure outside of western Europe – where corruption is simply very naturally low due to ancient cultural reasons.

    https://www.quora.com/If-democracy-is-forcefully-enforced-in-a-country-by-another-wouldnt-it-be-called-dictatorship-on-the-enforcers-part

  • If You Have Multiple Ideas As Solution To A Specific Problem, How Do You Analyse And Evaluate Them To Identify The Best One For Execution?

    The one that is easiest to sell to a market easiest to extract profits from.

    It’s not rocket science.

    DO NOT SPREAD YOURSELF THIN.

    https://www.quora.com/If-you-have-multiple-ideas-as-solution-to-a-specific-problem-how-do-you-analyse-and-evaluate-them-to-identify-the-best-one-for-execution

  • What Are Some Real Life Examples Of Anarchy On A Large Scale?

    There are none that involve a division of knowledge and labor.  The reason being that human beings are extremely hostile to involuntary transfers, and most humans perceive price competition via the local market – as members of an extended family – as involuntary transfer. They percieve quality variation as acceptable but not price competition.   They are correct in this perception, however. This involuntary transfer creates a virtuous cycle of innovation and price reduction, and greater participation in the market by consumers because of it, so we sanction this involuntary transfer by casting it as a virtue.

    Secondly, increasing the size of a market requires shared investment. People need a means of making this shared investment.  However, people will not make a shared investment if it is open to privatization. Governmnets have the ability to forcibly extract taxes from the market to use to construct infrastructure (largely, city walls and soldiers to defend them) as well as misuse tax money.  But they also have the ability to create legislative directions, which we call laws, to forbid privatization and free riding of these investments. As such these institutions (governments) make it easier to invest in commons (infrastructure) than would be possible without them, due to the pervasive nature of human free-riding, privatization and corruption.

    It is arguable that taxes (fees) of some minimum amount are legitimate fees for preventing free riding on the commons.  However, it has proven very difficult to control the expansion of the commons and the government, and therefore taxes.  As such governments have become instruments of rent-seeking and corruption every time humans have invented them for the purpose of avoiding free-riding and privatization.

    This should be the correct, or at least, most correct answer that we currently know how to provide to the near absence of anarchic social structures: to prevent free riding, which all humans find morally objectionable.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-real-life-examples-of-anarchy-on-a-large-scale