I argue that anarchic propertarianism is a brilliant and fruitful research program. But it is, as currently envisioned, another luddite fantasy rather than an institutional solution to modernity that can compete with democratic secular humanism and irrational financial probabilism. Until we unite Austrianism with New Institutional Economics with modern technology we will not have a rational pragmatic alternative that preserves freedom.
Source: Original Site Post
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NPR Is The 700 Club For The Church Of Democratic Secular Humanism
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favor of NPR. I’m a listener, albiet not a frequent one. On the other hand, using taxpayer money for purposes that are political in nature, content, or value judgements which other taxpayers find patently offensive is simply intolerable. We will not have a government that we can all support unless it does very little, and what little it does, is acceptable to everyone. NPR appeals to people who are educated but who largely do not participate in the market, or are wealthy enough not to need to participate in the market. It is an 11% demographic, and that 11% is decidedly left of center, because our universities are decidedly left of center. And for that reason, the use of public funds to promote the religion of secular humanism is simply offensive to other people. NPR is The 700 Club for Democratic Secular Humanism. It belongs in the private sector.
NPR Board Member Admits It Serves ‘Liberal, Highly Educated Elite,’ Wonders How to Justify Public Funding http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2011/03/11/npr-board-member-admits-it-serves-liberal-highly-educated-elite-wond
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Constitutional Monarchy And Aristocratic Philosophy Need An Ideology – A Rationally Competitive Economic Ideology
An Ideology: Any reasonably coherent set of social, cultural, moral and political ideas that can be used to obtain and hold political power on the behalf of a part of a population that perceives it has similar interests.

THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES There are three basic western philosophical traditions:
1) Aristocratic and Conservative with the longest time preference.
2) Middle Class and Classical Liberal with medium time preference
3) Proletarian and Socialist with short time preference.
These three philosophies loosely correspond to social class sentiments and perceptions of social order. They also loosely correspond to the Monarchy, the Senate, and House of Commons. The insight of the british model was to give each social class it’s house, and to force the houses to collaborate in order to enact laws. BREAKING THE CLASS BASED MODEL OF GOVERNMENT This class-based model was successful in adapting to changing currents until the thought leaders of the American and French revolutions attempted to break the class model and transfer full power to either the middle (american) or lower (french) classes. And was further exacerbated by the Russian and Chinese revolutions which (regrettably) succeeded in transferring political power to the proletariat – in the greatest destruction of human life in history after the Black Plague. After the world wars, Europe was broken economically and socially and the citizenry rejected the aristocratic model entirely. (( And did so wrongly. Germany’s intellectuals were right: the anglo social order was socially destructive without the empire to support it – as the experience of both Spain and Portugal had demonstrated. German social order is the most economically productive yet discovered because it mobilizes the working class to produce quality exports. Exactly as it’s 300 princes had done during the medieval era prior to unification. )) Instead of the fraternal aristocratic model, which was the unique feature of western culture, governments sought solace in socialist doctrine and universal enfranchisement. Meanwhile western authoritarian and military leadership was absorbed by the Americans along with the British navy and port system. The parliamentary method of government has been moderately successful given the ……. Americans used this period of postwar economic prosperity to assert their inherited global military power to undermine global communism – successfully. But the cost was high, and the US is now largely bankrupt and unable to fund it’s existing military structure as well as it’s redistributionist benefit system. And the west must now combat the primitivism of Islam, which has taken on the proletarian strategy communists at a time when european postwar economies have recovered, but the developing economies are competing with western lower classes for jobs. To fund this military empire to protect the west against proletariat primitivism, Americans export debt, and effectively charge the world an indirect tax, instead of taxing other countries directly and creating a political problem for them. Then americans use that debt to finance the cost of running the world trade and monetary system. Unfortunately, in the process of running the empire, Americans have now become a fractured society, with race, culture and class divisions, as well as somewhere between four and ten different geographic ‘nations’ within the USA, each with different cultures, but operating under the administration of an international imperial government. Many of which, within these sub-countries feel the government is as oppressive to their cultures as do foreign nations. Under this trade empire, the US economy is now so dependent upon the value of the dollar, and the use of military force to determine the means by which trade is administered, that the citizenry will suffer if these obligations are reduced. This series of events shows the danger of empire building to national cohesion — whether it is done on purpose as in the case of Britain defending herself from Spain and France, or by accident, in the case of the USA, trying to maintain stability, and defense from communism during and after the war period. GOVERNMENT’S STRUCTURE MUST REFLECT SOCIETY OR SOCIETY WILL FRACTURE BECAUSE IT DOES NOT The government must reflect the class structure of society in one way or another, so that the classes that do exist can use the government to cooperate rather than regress into class warfare. And if government does not reflect society, then society will either change to reflect the government’s class structure, by the massess aspiring or attempting to become upper middle class, which has some value, or in the opposite case, the aristocracy will abandon the nation as it has in the USA and in Ireland, which is entirely destructive to culture and economy alike. Or the upper and upper middle classes will become a predatory diasporic class like it has with the Jews in the west, and the Chinese in Oceania. While both the aristocratic (natural law) and proletariat (socialist) political philosophies specifically state that society consists of classes, our classical liberal and democratic socialist philosophies promote the false philosophy of egalitarianism: the factual equality of ability, and the couter factual equality of outcomes – rather than the equality of opportunity despite our differences in ability to produce beneficial outcomes. The socialists, in their effort to undermine the aristocratic political system so that their elites may sieze power, supposedly on behalf of the proletariat classes, have taken control of our educational system to reinforce the justification for their seizure of power in the popular consensus, and created enough of a popular mythos to affect voting patterns, reinforcing their political power, while at the same time, reducing the competitiveness of our lower classes against foreign groups, by a process of intentional “Harrison Bergeron-ing” – dumbing down. This is not to say that giving people property rights is necessary a bad thing. In fact, it’s an exceptional thing for everyone in the society. THe question is not whether people should have individual property rights. Its whether people need poliitcal rights if they have property rights. And logic would dicate that no. NOt only do they not need political rights, but that by giving people the opportunity for political power, we distract them from developing more useful activities in the market. We are argue over the absurdity of choosing the best single form of government, when what we mean is ‘which class should rule?’, and “if any class should rule it should be the lower, which is the majority.” When the question itself posits a false dichotomy: the question is, since society consists of different social classes, what institutions should we create to help them cooperate such than none harms the other, and only by mutual benefit can they reach their desired ends. And so we have chosen ‘winner takes all’ government, and because of that choice, we have also, of necessity, chosen perpetual class warfare, and the destruction of the cultural cohesion necessary for the perpetuation of our nations. So, we should reframe the question, from “which class should rule, using their class’ philosophy”, to “which form of government best facilitates the cooperation of the social classes for achieving shared ends?” That answer, logically, is that we can, with some effort, accomodate all three class philosophies into one form of government. In fact, we had that form of government. We foolishly have abandoned it, because of the rapid shift in economic power during the industrial revolution. THE OTHER MISTAKES WE HAVE MADE – AND NEED TO CORRECT The first mistake we made was the transfer of political power from the landed aristocracy to the middle class, rather than replacing landed and inherited aristocracy with a new layer of aristocracy whose position was earned by merit. This allowed a new aristocracy to form, that is excluded from, and invisible to the politcal economy of society. American upper classes have abandoned participation in politics. The second mistake we made was egalitarianism, and structuring our government for rule by a single class. But we have made a series of other mistakes, partly because we lacked the knowledge of other options, lacked technologies, ideas, philosophical frameworks and processes to provide an alternative to the Hellenic and British models. -The Errors Of The Political Process: Scalability of the Debate form of government. Rational Debate rather than Empirical Pragmatism: The problem of Calculation. Taxes rather than loans. Devolution of the defense provided by the senate / House of lords / Upper house Descent From Utilitarianism Into Moralism Failure to Keep Pace WIth Technology – debit cards and direct democracy. -The Errors Of Abstract Ideas: The Corporeal State, and the Corporeal Business The Error Of Free Trade The Error Of Intellectual Property Probabilism From The Physical Sciences Applied To The Social Sciences -The Errors Of Human Nature: The Blank Slate vs Natural Law The Prohibition of Political Wealth Ignoring the Status Economy Devaluing Aristocracy Devaluing Voluntary Charity The Universal Utility of Freedom, Democracy and Capitalism The Impossibility of Agreement upon means, even if possible to agree upon ends. -The Errors Of Credit and Money The Relationship Between Time And Money Breaking The Relationship Between Knowledge And Valuation Among Bankers and Lenders Erroneous Priorities: The Financialization Of The Economy vs The Productivity Of The Economy The Creation of Ponzi Benefits Packages Rather Than Saving and Insured Investments. The Errors Of Incentives The Transformation of Incentives from Negative Punishments, to Positive Rewards. The Inability of governments to ostracize individuals and groups. The Inability of popular government to punish real crime The criminalization of political speech and action. GOVERNMENT IS A SET OF INSTITUTIONS Governments consist of organizations of human beings who follow processes, rituals and rules. These processes and rules may be historical and habitual, or formal and written. The purpose of these rules is to allow people to PLAN: to make plans and to cooperate with one another. So that they may take the risks needed to increase productivity and trade. Even dictators need a bureaucracy: an organization that will execute their will. Democracies more so, because without the hierarchy they must rely upon the established rules to give them authority by which to persuade others to cooperate with them to achieve their goals. And people who wish to cooperate, and combine their capital to produce ends, need some assurance that their risk will allow them to take the profits from that risk. We call these organizations, rituals, processes and rules ‘institutions’. Institutions are the means by which we cooperate and compete politically. REPAIRING THE INSTITUTIONSInstitutions:
Managed Corporate Institutions
Managed Private Institutions: Each institution operates as do the medical, legal and accounting industries, which are largely self regulating, and self-educating. They report to senate committees.
ALSO:THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
THE REGIONAL GOVERNMENTS Money, Insurance, War are global but all trade and culture is local.
NATIONALISM
Monarchs have been superior to elected leaders because they have a longer time preference. And with a longer time preference they can more wisely veto those fashionable changes which will, in the long term, harm the society, or transfer power between social classes. CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY IS A CLASS BASED SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT (undone) MONARCHY HAS ALWAYS BEEN A CLASS BASED SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT (undone) ALL SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT NEED IDEOLOGIES Monarchy needs a sufficient ideological base. The people have abandoned the church. The church has abandoned christendom. Economics has replaced cultural nationalism, and empirical tools have replaced the moral sentiments. For monarchy to prevail in the post-mystical age, we must remake it’s foundations so that they rely upon economic and cultural superiorities, not desire to return to the past. Monarchs have been superior to elected leaders because they have a longer time preference. And with a longer time preference they can more wisely veto those fashionable changes which will, in the long term, harm the society, or transfer power between social classes. Monarchy has a high correlation with Nationalism. Under monarchy multiculturalism is not a problem, because cultures can form communities of interest in as many monarchies as they wish. And there is no threat from them, because they are denied access to political power, and must compete in the market, rather than politics. IN fact, this is the primary virtue of aristocratic society: people compete in the market to serve one another, rather than in politics to enslave one another. And the monarch profits from the fact that this competition, which he or she presides over, serves better to serve the people, than politics ever shall. Politics cannot create wealth. It an only create an an environment where wealth can be created. So, under monarchies, and nationalism, people form nations, or states, which must compete against other states. These competitions then inform their value judgements – benefitting or punishing them for their decisions. MONARCHY AND NATIONALISM Now, why is that circumstance of nationalism a “good”? Because cultures consist of a series of hypothesis and value judgements. Each value judgement in the cultural catalogue asks each member of the community to suffer the cost to himself of forgoing opportunities to fulfill his self interest in order to ‘fund’ the social order. Social orders consist of these rules, and the associated costs in forgone opportunities. In nearly all societies these rules consist of forgoing opportunity to lie, cheat, steal, hurt, and murder. And in most advanced societies, we convert these social words into market language, and call them Fraud, Theft and Violence. But they are effectively synonyms. People can then use this market for behavior to form the society that they wish to. In other words, nationalism, or monarchies, allow people to form and join communities where they have shared values. And to enjoy the benefits of those values, and to bear the costs of those values. People are happiest when they know the rules, when they agree with them, when they can choose which community to belong to, and when it is possible to judge a set of values by their visible outcomes. Furthermore, diversity of communities does not require that we oppress one another. Diversity today is a mask for one group, largely the proletarian, for empowering the state to equally oppress everyone, and to transfer power from the meritocratic-ally endowed classes to those who are not using a false language of morality, that is framed in religious tribal language, but under analytical scrutiny simply is nothing more than exploitation. It is anything other than diversity. It is using the mask of diversity to institute their version of homogeneity.
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Response To Judith Curry On Scientific Storytelling
Copied here from http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/06/climate-story-telling-angst. On Climate ETC: Judith Curry writes:
If climate scientists were to use their past accomplishments to bolster their current claims, there would be less controversy, as it’s more difficult to undermine the credibility of established achievements.
Which is a distracting straw man argument that posits the climate issue as one of communication rather than credibility. I responded with:
[callout]Why do I know that what I say here will not make a difference? Because researchers in the physical sciences have perverse incentives because of the economic structure of labor in academic research. Therefore, scientists will not change their behavior because it would cause them to pay the cost of that change, and that cost is too high in relation to ALL THEIR OTHER COSTS AND BENEFITS. …. In other words: People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.[/callout]
I’m an economist. (A political economist. I’m not an econometrician – the kind of people who in economics make the same mistakes as physical scientists – forecasting.) Whether economists are scientists is still open for debate, but we have a similar problem of credibility in our field, even though economics and politics are more naturally interdependent than are the physical sciences and politics. Regarding Past Achievements. If we study both the history of science, the history of political activism, and the history of marketing we end up with a very different conclusion than you state above, and storytelling wont’ cure it: 1) Science is riddled with as many faulty conclusions as successful achievements – in fact, of necessity, far more faulty conclusions than successful achievements. (Everything from the notorious Phlogiston theory, to the Mathusian error, to the 70’s fascination with ‘global cooling’ and the upcoming ice age. Furthermore, Apocalyptic pronouncements are almost universally false if we look at the history of ideas across all fields. The universe is far more equilibrial than we are. Christendom in particular, is anti-apocalyptic because the apocalyptic vision is attached to ancient sentiments.) 2) Far more than 90% of research papers that achieve public attention contain errors in reasoning that invalidate the premise. (Depends upon whose study you look at — but, it’s bad no matter how you look at it.) A random selection of papers from PhD’s and candidates from any number of fields from any university’s library will contain amateurish exaggerated conclusions from insufficient data, and erroneous interpretation. (Reasons? First, because graduate ‘training’ work is publicized, and second, because the short form peer reviewed process for scientific achievement appears to be far less valuable than the long form book process for scientific achievement.) 3) Nearly all research work that reaches the public contains overreaching editorial content that invalidates the research. This is a combination of the desire for attention by researchers and editorial license that seeks attention on the part of publishers. 4) Good science is meticulous. Bad science is not. (I lost a quarter of a million dollars of my own money backing climate science, and the November 09 scandal was the reason for it. The field must take responsibility for the shoddy science.) 5) It certainly seems that economics as a profession is more skeptical of it’s calculations than are the physical sciences, partly because economic variables are so complex that we are afraid to make pronouncements. We realize we can be descriptive of the past but we cannot be PREDICTIVE of the future in economics. The same applies for highly complex systems of all kinds, even the environment – the heuristics of which is not terribly different in intertemporal terms than are social constructs. And, as an economist I can observe that the physical sciences are reversing the accumulated prestige of the field for a single reason: the perverse incentives of the graduate training process in research universities. 6) Movements need to be skeptical of their acolytes. For example, certain musicians who employ the compositional structure of hymns to rock music, must sometimes specifically eschew association with Christian groups because they know it will impact their credibility with the broader audience. The fact that the international communist movement has effectively co-opted the green movement means that the entire research program is now effectively discounted as a political movement. The global warming movement must associate itself with commerce if it is to succeed. And it is not impossible to do so. Moral arguments are UNIVERSALLY masks for wealth transfers. Without exception. Scientists are notoriously ignorant of economics and politics. Where science succeeds, is where it unifies with the pragmatism of commerce. Not where it aligns with religion and politics. In economic terms, science as a profession is discounted in the marketplace because of a record of exaggerated claims and faulty advertising. It isn’t that scientists need to tell better stories. It’s that science needs to produce better work, and be extremely cautious with public pronouncements. Scientism is a religion if it believes it has a lock on forecasting the future, even of simple physical events. So, it’s about credibility. The degree to which the academic scientific community in the west, since the 1970’s has undermined scientific credibility is not understood in the incestuous circle of academia. To counter this effect: Write books that fully articulate an idea, not micro-papers. Falsify your own work. Seek to justify opposing views. Ruthlessly attack others who undermine scientific credibility in the public debate. Reduce the number of graduate students and hide their work unless it is extremely well argued. (this is a contrary incentive) It’s not about achievements. Because the achievements are currently dwarfed by a ocean of contrary-indicators. In fact, if we look at the data, it is not in academia that the great inventions are coming from. In fact, it’s not from the large commercial capital bureaucracies either – they only refine discoveries. Innovation appears to be coming almost entirely from the efforts of individuals. It’s not about storytelling. It’s about doing good science. And right now, climate science is insufficiently articulated for human beings to justify paying the huge cost associated with the apocalyptic visions. Human beings are rational. They just need a rational argument and to understand the costs and benefits in relation to ALL THEIR OTHER COSTS AND BENEFITS. Why do I know that what I say here will not make a difference? Because researchers in the physical sciences have pervers incentives due to the economic structure of labor in academic research, and the failure to separate research from teaching lines of business and faculty in large universities. Therefore, scientists will not change their behavior because it would cause them to pay the cost of that change, and that cost is too high in relation to ALL THEIR OTHER COSTS AND BENEFITS FOR THEM. In other words: People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
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On Definitions and Moral Arguments
And one more thing that I just see too much of – arguments over definitions. I. A definition is a contract between two or more people on the properties, causal relations and utility of those relations. I.I A term is the name for the set of properties, and causal relations and the utility of those relations. I.II One cannot debate what a term ‘means’ in the abstract. One can only (a) debate the validity of properties, causal relations and utility with others, (b) debate the assumedly normative properties, causal relations and utilities associated with the term and (c) debate what properties, causal relations and utility that someone else attributed to the term. But the properties, causal relations, and utility of an object of consideration are either true or they are not. In general, even most educated people rarely understand such terms that they commonly employ such as ‘true’, ‘freedom’ and ‘law’, or ‘right’, because they cannot express these concepts using non-contradictory, necessary and sufficient properties, causal relations and utility. Instead they rely on either normative, or personally biased usage, as convenient tools for justifying their existing biases. II. There is no other description of the term ‘definition’ that is applicable to the concept of rational debate. Since any non-contractual definition is an appeal to authority that is outside of the contract of debate between the parties. III. One cannot impose a definition. This is a logical fallacy. One can only negotiate it, or describe the properties and causal relations, then debate over the properties and relations, and the utility of those properties and relations. Debating about the ‘meaning’ of a term as normative, is not the same as debating the utility of it’s necessary properties. IV. One cannot QUOTE a definition as a means of appealing to an authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use a definition of a term as a means of clarifying your use of that term as a shorthand for the purpose of conveying properties, causal relations and the utility of those properties and causal relations. V. One cannot rely on a normative usage of the term as an appeal to authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use this as a starting point for debating on the true and false properties, causal relations, and utility of the properties and relations. Once at the starting point, one must then negotiate over the properties, causal relations and utility of the properties and causal relations. VI. One may defend one’s usage of the term by refering to a normative usage, or a quoted definition as justification for your USAGE of the term. But this does not mean that the properties, causal relations, and utilty of the property and causal relations is true, or even normative. (Evolution for example is assumed to be directional by most people, when in fact, it only favors complexity within a niche, which in turn leads to fragility.) VII. MORAL ARGUMENTS ARE UNIVERSALLY FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS AT EXTORTION. PERIOD.
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On Definitions and Moral Arguments
And one more thing that I just see too much of – arguments over definitions. I. A definition is a contract between two or more people on the properties, causal relations and utility of those relations. I.I A term is the name for the set of properties, and causal relations and the utility of those relations. I.II One cannot debate what a term ‘means’ in the abstract. One can only (a) debate the validity of properties, causal relations and utility with others, (b) debate the assumedly normative properties, causal relations and utilities associated with the term and (c) debate what properties, causal relations and utility that someone else attributed to the term. But the properties, causal relations, and utility of an object of consideration are either true or they are not. In general, even most educated people rarely understand such terms that they commonly employ such as ‘true’, ‘freedom’ and ‘law’, or ‘right’, because they cannot express these concepts using non-contradictory, necessary and sufficient properties, causal relations and utility. Instead they rely on either normative, or personally biased usage, as convenient tools for justifying their existing biases. II. There is no other description of the term ‘definition’ that is applicable to the concept of rational debate. Since any non-contractual definition is an appeal to authority that is outside of the contract of debate between the parties. III. One cannot impose a definition. This is a logical fallacy. One can only negotiate it, or describe the properties and causal relations, then debate over the properties and relations, and the utility of those properties and relations. Debating about the ‘meaning’ of a term as normative, is not the same as debating the utility of it’s necessary properties. IV. One cannot QUOTE a definition as a means of appealing to an authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use a definition of a term as a means of clarifying your use of that term as a shorthand for the purpose of conveying properties, causal relations and the utility of those properties and causal relations. V. One cannot rely on a normative usage of the term as an appeal to authority. This is a logical fallacy. You can only use this as a starting point for debating on the true and false properties, causal relations, and utility of the properties and relations. Once at the starting point, one must then negotiate over the properties, causal relations and utility of the properties and causal relations. VI. One may defend one’s usage of the term by refering to a normative usage, or a quoted definition as justification for your USAGE of the term. But this does not mean that the properties, causal relations, and utilty of the property and causal relations is true, or even normative. (Evolution for example is assumed to be directional by most people, when in fact, it only favors complexity within a niche, which in turn leads to fragility.) VII. MORAL ARGUMENTS ARE UNIVERSALLY FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS AT EXTORTION. PERIOD.
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Violence and Virtue vs Morality and Fraud
My rights are protected by my willingess to kill in order to defend them. Legal documents either require that many people are willing to kill to defend them, or that many people are willing to kill to enforce them, or that many people are wiling to kill to change them. Moral arguments by contrast are a form of deceptlon by which the weak attempt to gain advantages without paying the costs for obtaining those advantages. That is the sole purpose of moral argument. By contrast, any right that is possessed by virtue of social contracts, formal or not, is possessed only because of the willingness of people to use violence in order to protect it. The government does not protect my rights. I do. Instead, government is a shareholder system whereby we each obtain the productive efficiency of scale in enforcing our defense of established rights, and therefore obtain them at a discount. But the government has that power only because we relinquish it to them. And we do not pay those costs equally. Some of us have a greater virtue of violence at our disposal than others. We are initially wealthier in violence than other people, so the cost of our privileges is higher. While those who are weaker, obtain a higher benefit than do the stronger. This is looking at the mythology from the opposite perspective. Since in all of history, the minority who has the greatest capacity for violence has established all political orders.
[callout]Moral arguments by contrast are a form of deception by which the weak attempt to gain advantages without paying the costs for obtaining those advantages. That is the sole purpose of moral argument. By contrast, any right that is possessed by virtue of social contracts, formal or not, is possessed only because of the willingness of people to use violence in order to protect it. The government does not protect my rights. I do.[/callout]
The west was built diffrently from the east or middle east, because it was built by a fraternity of warriors. Even with our vast specialization of careers, it is still protected by vi olence. Violence is a virtue. The fact that women are poorer in violence, and that the poor and ignorant are less able to pay the sacrifice nand discipline eeded to use it, is why they rely on moral arguments. THE PROXY FOR VIOLENCE AND SOCIAL CLASS There is no argument among philosophers, and certainly among political economists, that the system of property rights and exchange, regardless of culture, is a proxy for violence. By monopolizing violence, ‘governments’ force people to compete by production rather than violence. This provides people wiht incentives to produce. Production vastly favors discipline. Wealth vastly favors IQ. Productivity has the negative emotional consequence of amplifying the differences between individuals, and rewarding individuals more diversely than under tribal society, and therefore subjects the proletariat to more negative status signals, and making a social class out of the proletariat because of it, that our tribal sentiments and cognitive biases support. THE ECONOMICS OF MORAL ARGUMENTS Moral statements depend on economic circumstances. In pre-agrarian society, murder, plunder and rape are heroic, not prohibited activities. In post-industrial society, some sort of redistribution is at least suggested by human sentiments. “rights” are a MORAL not NECESSARY argument. Rights are POSSIBLE only when there is very limited SCARCITY. Legal RIGHTS are only POSSIBLE when a minority is willing to exercise violence to protect them. We ACKNOWLEDGE the POSSIBILITY of certain rights only because we can AFFORD them at some period in time. There are vast differences between social classes on what ‘rights’ we can afford at one period in time or another. The lower social classes argue for rights. The upper social classes argue for utilities. The lower classes breed. The upper classes don’t. The lower classes envy the productive classes, the upper classes protect their assets. Property, civilization, society, in ALL CASES WITHOUT EXCEPTION were created by the application of violence by a minority Ideas held in ignorance are just evidence of ignorance, and nothing more. Moral arguments are irrational arguments because they do not enumerate their properties. Economic arguments are NECESSARY arguments, not the display of PREFERENCES nor MORAL arguments. The lower classes use resistance movements rather than actions to work against stronger forces. Resistance movements are ‘costs’. They are opportunity costs. They create economic friction. They create cooperative friction. Resistance increases the costs for the middle class, and can overwhelm the ability to export violence by the upper classes. Moral statements on rights made under the threat of the application of either resistance, political violence, or street violence. “MIGHT MAKES RIGHTS” “Might may not make right. But might certainly makes all Rights.”
[callout]”Might may not make right. But might certainly makes all Rights.[/callout]
Hence, my correct statement that my rights consist of my willingness (along with others) to use violence to protect my rights. THE FRAUD OF MORAL ARGUMENTS Violence is a virtue. It is the first virtue. And those who argue otherwise do so out of either ignorance or fraud. Because it is fraud to make a moral argument rather than a necessary and economically necessary argument. Moral arguments are, without exception, arguments made from either ignorance or deception. In most cases they are made from deception, in order to obtain transfer payments in order to accumulate resources at a discount. IN effect most if not all proletariat arguments for transfer payments are threats of organized violence against others. You are welcome to debate this topic with me but I am fairly sure I will prevail. Because unlike you I am not arguing from a network of silly moral deceptions. In moral arguments “follow the money” is a more valuable technique than it is in forensic investigation. Because the world is very clearly separated into people who produce and those who form resistance movements in order to obtain the productive results of others by the reliance on moral arguments the implication of which is violence if their wants for transfer payments are not met. The only good and bad is whether the transfer payments requested by the proletariat threat of violence is Pareto Efficient or not. ie: whether more harm to the economy is done by the transfers (redistribution) than by failing to do so, and over what period of time that harm is created. There is no harm in creating roads because roads increase productivity which is for the good of all. But all redistribution to individuals that is for personal consumption has significant negative consequences. While there is some benefit to Poor Farm’s and Social security, as long as it is a very minimal cost. Creating a dependent class of people by failing to force them to save, is creating an economic hazard. No matter what transfer we talk about the society is exposed to risk by the creation of supposedly risk abating transfer payments. It is very simple really.
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It’s Fraternity, Not Democracy That Separates The West
Humans unconsciously rely upon these social constructs in order to establish priorities in political decision making:
- The Family
- The Cult
- The Tribe
- The Fraternity
In the west, we rely upon the fraternity. The remnants of our military social order. Democracy works for us because we are a fraternal society FIRST. Democracy DEPENDS upon the fraternal society. The competing sentiments of tribe, cult, and family give rise to the different approaches to the solution of political problems. IT’S THAT SIMPLE.
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Anti-Free Market Straw Men vs Reality
RE: Harmful illusions bedevil ideas about free markets and imprisonment: professor By Sarah Galer In which yet another left wing professor who hasn’t read Hayek, criticizes him (and advocates like myself) while relying upon ‘silly psychology’ to do so. He rails against ‘free markets’. The author (Sarah Galer) is positing a straw man that does not represent these ideas. (and thereby contributing to ignorance). Besides confirming the conservative hypothesis, she’s simply acting immorally by acting in ignorance. I didn’t mention that it’s the jewish wing of libertarianism that invented the silly ideas of anarchism. My response. No free marketer actually suggests ‘unregulated’ market, or the abscence of law. Instead, this is what they say: 1) Free markets spread peaceful coexistence (smith) 2) Government employees cannot know enough to regulate markets (mises/hayek) 3) Insurance companies are better at regulating the market than government (rothbard/hoppe) 4) That bureaucracies become naturally corrupt and seek rents, and harm markets. (veblen, schumpeter, Sorel, michels, burnham) 5) That rule of law (rule of the COMMON LAW) is superior to regulation of markets than is legislative and regulatory law. (Hayek, Bastiat) 6) Economic calculation (dynamic prices and their role in planning), and the natural incentive for self interest, in a division of knowledge and labor (mises, smith) 7) That regulatory law accumulates to the point of causing market failure 8) That all monopolies are CAUSED by state intervention. These are arguments against the PRETENSE OF KNOWLEDGE, and the PRETENSE OF BENEVOLENCE by the political bureaucracy, in contrast to the POSSESSION OF KNOWLEDGE by private actors with market incentives. Therefore, these are not arguments in support of anarchism, they are arguments to privatization in order to avoid the natural tendencies toward corruption in bureaucracies. Curt Doolittle
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The Cult Of Silly People
From FP Magazine:
“How Did Obama Lose Karzai?” … “Karzai now appears mistrusting of the West’s long-term commitment to his country. He considers the Americans to be hopelessly fickle, represented by multiple military and civilian envoys who carry contradictory messages, work at cross-purposes, and wage their Washington turf battles in his drawing room, at his expense, while operating on short fuses and even shorter timetables.”
We have a president, who is part of a philosophical wing, dominated by a left coalition, that believes ‘silly things’. Like jimmy carter, obama is a president who believes ‘silly things’. But what silling things? The left’s feminine assumption is that we can all agree – like women in a tribal cave. They assume that there is a consensus to reach. Or that such a consensus would persist. Or that such a consensus is advantagous.
[callout]Only a fool thinks he can fly. But at least he is dangerous only to himself. It is the fool that thinks people can agree, who is dangerous to all of us.[/callout]
Except that to do anything substantive at all, humans must take risks to cooperate in large numbers. Groups require a hierarchy in order to make decisions. People attach utility and status signals to their positions in those hierarchies. They have many investments, both personal and collective, and those investments are in both means and ends. Having taken those risks, people have ‘interests’. Each person has a set of interests. Each group one or more interests. These interests include both means and ends. Means conflict even if ends do not. Humans cannot agree in large numbers. Interests are always in conflict, because even if ends are not, the means and the organizations of humans needed to achieve those ends are not. THe difference between silly people and sane people is in this simple understanding of the limits of human cooperation. Our president, like all leftists, is a man raised on feminine rather than masculine virutues. He values the famlial model, not the political. Families can agree on ends and means. Political groups cannot agree on means, even if they can agree upon ends. And they rarely agree upon ends, because do to so would be to the advantage of some at the expense of others. Marginalism suggests that if we have sacks of flour in store for the winter, every sack we sell has a different value, whth the first having the least, and the last having the most. It explains why water has much use value but little trade value, and diamonds have little use value but high trade value. But marginalism applies to human sentiments as well: humans recalculate their preferences each step you take toward achieving them. Humans seek opportunity. THey seek ‘relishes’. Only a fool thinks he can fly. But at least he is dangerous only to himself. It is the fool that thinks people can agree, who is dangerous to all of us. Curt