Curt Doolittle

Theme: Coercion

  • PROPERTY, PRAXEOLOGY AND VIOLENCE (Cross posted from FB.Libertarian) Unfortunate

    PROPERTY, PRAXEOLOGY AND VIOLENCE

    (Cross posted from FB.Libertarian)

    Unfortunately, while humans demonstrate a preference for the consumption that is made possible by the combination of private property, the division of knowledge and labor, and the experimental innovation the market drives us to, humans also demonstrate an equal preference for violence, theft, fraud, omission, interference, free riding, privatization of the commons, socialization of losses, rent seeking, corruption, organizing for the purposes of extortion, and organizing for plunder and conquest via war.

    All of these forms of theft from the most direct to the most subtle, in the absence of the threat of violence, are easier means of competition than is the risky and personal act of speculative production we must engage in, if we choose to compete in the market for goods and services.

    Only a minority of us demonstrate a preference for the market, and by consequence, demonstrate a preference for private property: which is to eschew, at high cost to ourselves, the tempting portfolio of thefts – and instead work to consume exclusively via voluntary, informed, exchange that is the product of guesswork, planning, foresight and risk.

    For these reasons – these praxeologically obvious reasons – any portfolio of property rights, from the most collective, to the most individual, to the most totalitarian, and within that portfolio, the scope property ranging from simple personal possessions to complex anonymous contractual commitments; has been and must be imposed on a body of people by the threat of violence.

    The concept and practice of liberty was created by egalitarian aristocrats who granted property rights to those who equally respected property rights of their peers, and who fought to preserve them at great personal cost.

    Moral arguments as to the utility of private property are specious. They are an attempt to obtain the right of private property at a discount – despite the fact that the majority do not favor those rights for either themselves or others.

    That the enlightenment’s emergent middle class philosophers tried to justify taking power from the aristocracy by fabricating moral and utilitarian arguments was a necessary political ruse at the time. But we if we desire to preserve our vestiges of freedom we should not confuse that ruse with the factual reality that all systems of property rights are imposed by the threat of violence.

    It is praxeologically illogical to suggest that those who would compete better in the absence of private property, should suffer lower state in order to yield to the desires of those others who may be more successful under private property. This makes no sense.

    As such, the only defense is the offensive application of organized violence for the purpose of implementing one system of property rights and obligations over another.

    Aristocracy is a functional synonym for private property – and private property a right gained in exchange for reciprocity both in the respect of private property and the obligation to use one’s wealth of violence to ensure the perpetuation of the portfolio of property rights that we call ‘private property’ at the expense and exclusion of all other possible portfolios of property rights.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-06-20 16:31:00 UTC

  • WOZNIAK AGREES “This is not my America” That’s right Steve. That’s why I left. L

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57589534-71/woz-this-is-not-my-america/STEVE WOZNIAK AGREES

    “This is not my America”

    That’s right Steve. That’s why I left.

    Let’s see.

    1) The IRS can take over your entire life by fiat if you make paper profits that you will never see, but you can walk into the country and become a dead weight on the rest of us without penalty.

    2) If you are a white male you are assumed to be a defacto white collar criminal, prone to violence, a nascent sexual predator, and you resist the assumption that the purpose of your life is to be a source of funds for vampire females. 🙂

    3) The government can invade your privacy without limit or recourse – they can storm your house and kill you and your pets at will. They can sieze your home and your bank accounts without juridical defense.

    Anything can be justified as the ‘common good’. Thats why the ‘common good’ is never a reason allow the state to do anything. All rights are property rights, and only property rights can be rights. Therefore without property rights you have no rights. – period.

    The common good is just a license for tyranny.

    There is no common good.

    Because there is no ‘We’ in “Diversity’.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-06-17 04:13:00 UTC

  • THREAD ON STARVING THE BEAST (GOVERNMENT) (Just logging it here.) NOTE: For thos

    http://angrybearblog.com/2013/05/starving-the-beast-aka-drowning-the-people-in-the-bathwater-seattle-bridge-edition.htmlA THREAD ON STARVING THE BEAST (GOVERNMENT)

    (Just logging it here.)

    NOTE: For those who aren’t aware (a) our infrastructure is in dire repair. (b) a bridge fell into the river north of seattle yesterday. (c) the cause was the driver of a truck carrying an oversize load of very heavy equipment running into the bridge and destroying it’s structural integrity.

    My comment here is over the politicization of this incident as a complaint against starving the beast, rather than the fact that it was human error and accident.

    ———–CURT DOOLITTLE

    Starving the beast is cheaper than the alternatives: secession, revolution, and civil war.

    Conservatives simply prefer one set of externalities and progressives another.

    That the difference in these preferences is eugenic vs dysgenic albeit stated in moralistic language is the only topic worth debating.

    And in that debate, i am fairly sure conservatives are correct.

    ———–STEVE ROTH

    @Curt Doolittle: “Starving the beast is cheaper than the alternatives: secession, revolution, and civil war.”

    1. Not sure what you mean by “cheaper.” See SRW on accounting profit vs economic profit: http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/4043.html

    2. An interesting tradeoff you’re suggesting You’re saying that if we increase government revenues (currently the lowest in the developed world, and far below the average) by a couple or few points, the result will be “secession, revolution, and civil war”?

    Really??

    “i am fairly sure conservatives are correct”

    Chicken Little was undoubtedly correct as well.

    ———–CURT DOOLITTLE

    @Steve Roth,

    Explanation: One of my interests is understanding ideological strategies, ideological arguments, the moral sentiments that drive those arguments, and comparing those sentiments to reproductive strategies. Net is that family structure, or rather, reproductive model, increases in diversity as we become economically independent individuals. Our ‘interests’ diverge as the tribe, family, nuclear family dissolve – the distribution of our morality therefore does not remain constant. This change is what we see in voting patterns. (It’s why single women determine the current election cycle – all other things being equal.) Men don’t change, but women increasingly express their natural reproductive strategies in daily life, and their biases in voting patterns. And they vote more often and in greater percentages than males.

    I understand conservative morality, ideology, and reproductive strategy (status signaling, mating, child rearing). And as such I try to explain to the moderate left that wants to understand the other side’s motivations, how the conservatives think, but in rational terms (libertarian terms) rather than the allegorical, historical, and morally loaded terms used by conservatives.

    RE: 1) It’s not a matter of calculating profit, but of born losses. 🙂 From the conservative point of view the cost, to them, of progressive ideas is infinite. Starving (bankrupting) the beast is the cheapest way for them to fight it. Just as incrementalism, undermining the constitution, and most recently, postmodern ideology (liberal philosophy) are inexpensive means of accomplishing political goals of the left.

    To conduct a war over the definition of the distribution of property rights between the individual (the right) and the commons (the left) and the structure and value of signals, one can use ideology, religion, civil resistance and disobedience, immigration and emigration, secession, revolution, and civil war to achieve one’s ends. And in that sequence, ideology is the least expensive strategy and it’s available within a democracy without the need for escalation. Conservatives understood in the 70′s and 80′s that the assault on the family, on morality, and on meritocracy would win, and that is why they developed the think tank network and adopted libertarian economic ideology. The tea party is the middle class equivalent resistance movement, and interestingly makes use of both conservative, classical liberal and libertarian ideas.

    RE: 2) I’m saying that (a) the conservative strategy is to bankrupt and block and therefore delegitimize the state. ‘State’ and ‘government’ being technical terms – the first corporal, the second organizational. (b) That religion is the oldest means of determining the limits of governance, and that the right, especially outside of the coastal immigrant cities, embraces religion and moral argument as a means of opposition to the attack on the family, the status signals, and the ability to use boycotting and ostracization to sustain their expected norms. On the left, the Liberal ideology of postmodernism is expressly contra-logical in an effort to use the strategy of monotheistic religions using false statements about the nature of man instead of false statements about man’s relation to nature. It is an attempt to use religious strategies in an effort to compensate for the failure of socialism in theory and practice. It is just as absurd as the right’s strategy. But both right and left are more influential than we empiricists, because they speak in moral language accessible to the many. Policy is not made by empirical analysis of a supposed common good. Anything but.

    The point is, that both left and right strategies WORK because of the distribution of talents of individuals and the distribution of their interests, and those of us who make intellectual arguments, for the benefit of a population with an assumed homogeneity of interests, fail to understand that at the reproductive level, and therefore the moral level, there is no homogeneity of interest between these groups once the nuclear family is sufficiently weakened and the mores and norms associated with that nuclear family also weakened.

    Data is data. Voting data at the national level (which is what campaign strategy makes use of) is the only empirical data we have to work with and that data is telling us some very uncomfortable things – there is no ‘we’ in the normative sense, only a ‘we’ in the legal sense.

    Cheers

    ——– COBERLY

    @Curt Doolittle

    perhaps you should do less, or say less.

    i have to guess that by eugenic vs dysgenic, and moralistic, you are trying to say that helping people stay alive weakens the gene pool.

    that topic is not worth debating. if for no other reason than your complete failure to understand Darwin, and the history of “eugenic” thinking, including that which inspired the late Adolf Hitler.

    if, that is, it’s okay for me to mention Hitler in this context.

    ———CURT DOOLITTLE

    @Coberly

    You do realize that your comment translates to a postmodernist raspberry?

    Whether you like something or not is not relevant. Whether you want to engage it or not is not relevant. Displaying your disapproval and disengagement is not an argument. It is the very definition of failing to make one.

    I take great pride in never fearing or surrendering an argument. On the other hand your reputation as a troll is well earned, and my time is precious.

    I’ll agree to ignore you if you’ll do the same.

    Cheers. 🙂

    ———–COBERLY

    @Curt

    if you don’t want a raspberry you need to be a little more careful how you say things. your reply to steve roth above merits a little more nuanced answer than the one i gave you.

    i am afraid it will come to the same thing in the end, intellectual pretension notwithstanding.

    i am afraid your definition of troll doesn’t quite meet the situation either. but like you i don’t have time at the moment to “debate.”

    ———–CURT DOOLITTLE

    @Coberly,

    Thanks. Although I suspect that you confuse the rigor of analytical language in expressing causal relations with pretension, and absence of rigor in morally loaded language as something other than the lack of articulated causal relation – and therefore a lack of comprehension. 🙂

    Analytical philosophy: It’s how the discipline is done.

    As to “The same thing”…. that is, I assume, whether there is a transfer of reproductive frequency from the middle to the lower classes, and the requisite impact on normative, political, legal institutions, and consequential economic impact. I’ll leave it to Flynn et al to argue whether the Flynn effect (omnipresent scientific language and measurement) compensates for the drop in mean IQ. So far, it is beginning to look like it doesn’t. But the jury is still out.

    But then, I”m not making moral statements. Just descriptive ones. 🙂

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-25 10:40:00 UTC

  • It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on t

    It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.” – Gandhi

    Violence is a virtue not a vice. Violence and time are the only capital nature grants us at birth. The institution of private property is the product of the organized application of violence. There is no greater return on our use of violence than the creation of the institution of private property. There is no greater loss than the loss of the institution of private property. And the loss of the institution of private property can only occur if we fail to use violence to create and maintain it.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-11 10:24:00 UTC

  • LIBERTARIANS: GIVEN OUR LACK OF SUFFICIENT NUMBERS WITHIN OUR MAJORITY RULE POLI

    LIBERTARIANS: GIVEN OUR LACK OF SUFFICIENT NUMBERS WITHIN OUR MAJORITY RULE POLITICAL SYSTEM:

    Would you rather have a society that accommodated conservative moral codes, but were guaranteed private property rights and a constrained state, or would you rather have a society that accommodated progressive moral codes and were specifically denied property rights by an omnipotent state?

    You get to choose one or the other. There is no third option. Libertarian ethics are intolerable to conservatives because of conservative concern for the ‘commons’ of moral capital, and progressives for because of their concern for the ‘commons’ of physical capital.

    We have failed. We will continue to fail. Mercantile aristocratic egalitarianism (libertarianism) is insufficient in moral breadth to accomodate martial aristocratic egalitarianism (conservatives) OR to accommodate equalitarian socialists (progressives). People vote moral codes. Period.

    There are too few of us. It isn’t a question of ‘understanding’. Or of ‘communication’. It’s a question of morality and immorality. Rothbardian ethics are insufficiently moral to enfranchise enough individuals to obtain the power needed to enact policy that protects property rights. Conservatives and progressives alike consider our moral code immoral. We can’t convert them.

    Period.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-11 07:53:00 UTC

  • WHY SHARIA LAW IS APPRECIATED BY MUSLIMS (harsh statements warning) First, befor

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/many-muslim-world-want-sharia-law-land-survey-160939872.htmlON WHY SHARIA LAW IS APPRECIATED BY MUSLIMS

    (harsh statements warning)

    First, before we start this discussion we must understand that the Islamic civilization, outside of the former Soviet Union, is en large, poor, comparatively ignorant, abysmally ignorant of what we consider ‘scientific thought’ (or even engineering) and has illiteracy rates that range from 20-60%.

    So, when you ask a people if they would prefer a philosophical, political and legal system that they are familiar with, understand, and they consider ‘just’, you’re going to see positive survey responses. But it’s also because they don’t know the alternatives, and certainly can’t compare them.

    In the west, our christian ancestors relied first upon scripture, and then upon ‘natural law’ to help control abuses by the state. It wasn’t until we understood that it was an independent judiciary, the common law and property rights that were the source of freedom, not scripture, and certainly not government, that we abandoned these moral arguments in favor of rational ones. So we too had our episode of desiring the equivalent to Sharia in our past. The only difference is that we have incorporated greek rationalism -reluctantly- since the time of Augustine (and arguably, always.)

    Sharia law is effectively communist. Islamic radicalism has adopted the tactics of world communism for this reason: it’s a revolt by the lowest level civilization, containing the lowest status people outside of sub saharan africa, revolting against the rest of us. Islam grants social status to all equally. This is lost on the rest of us. We live in an aristocratic society where status is EARNED through demonstrated actions. We consistently hear muslims criticizing our interest in heroism. They find our way of life antagonistic – immoral even. Even here in the west, after a century and a half of attack on aristocracy by communism, socialism, feminism and postmodernism (the only politically meaningful being feminism because of the numbers of women who vote against aristocracy) we still retain our heroic culture. (Although, hollywood is having a very hard time producing heroic movies, when they make their money on the international market, without using space aliens.) At least, the majority of white males still practice western aristocratic values. And it is those values that gave us science, reason, and rule of law. (Something which westerners are no longer taught, because it would interfere with state sponsored socialism and the religion of postmodernism practiced by liberals.)

    We must also understand that Islamic society is corrupt, familial, and tribal (because it still inbreeds heavily), as well as mystical and arational. Access to oil revenues via the state grants groups luxuries and idleness that are status enhancing. So just as we have corruption in the west, as special interest and racial groups compete for control of the state, privileges, redistribution and tax revenues, the islamic world, or at least the oil rich regions, compete for access to those revenues.

    Because their society is pervasively corrupt, and tribal, and the western division of the ottoman empire into current states ignored tribal boundaries, these governments are not only terribly corrupt but tribally biased. Just as the USA should break into regions so that the coasts don’t continue to oppress the center and south, the Islamic countries need to be broken into a federation of tribes – something oil revenues make impossible.

    Justice in a corrupt and arbitrary and mystical society is unpredictable if not impossible.

    People rarely reform themselves if they can blame others. So they conveniently blame others – muslims, and Palestinians in particular, almost always choose the bad decision whenever it is presented to them.

    So Sharia is something they understand and trust, it is not arbitrary, not open to much interpretation, and difficult to corrupt. It favors the poor and ignorant. It gives status to people who are at the bottom of the human prestige pyramid, if not the bottom of it’s ethnic pyramid. Muslims are lower class backward outcasts in the rest of the world despite the promise of prestige that their religion promises them.

    It is not irrational for people in these circumstances to prefer Sharia. In fact, given the arbitrary state borders, the level of tribalism, mysticism, ignorance, and corruption in their civilization it is THE CORRECT SOLUTION FOR THEM until they develop rule of law. And they cannot develop the rule of law without a middle class, commercial society. You just can’t. Period. Commercial society disregards familial incentives. WE are all family in the market. This is intolerable to the primitive tribal, familial, and inbred cultures.

    I don’t complain about Muslims wanting Sharia law in their countries. I complaint about our courts excusing behavior because of it, and I complain that muslims do not integrate into western society, and they persist in their inbreeding.

    The only way we can tolerate Muslim culture in the west is to prohibit intermarriage and interbreeding out to six generations (by genetic test, and under threat of deportation) and to shutter all mosques and schools. That islam is practiced as a personal religion at home is one thing. That it is propagated as a political and legal system is another and is a violation of the rest of our rights. The moment that you state that your religion affects law and property, it is no longer a religion. It is politics.

    And in the case of communism and sharia law, It is war on civilization itself.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-01 10:28:00 UTC

  • LIBERTARIANISM, FREE MARKETS AND GOVERNMENT? In response to a criticism of the f

    LIBERTARIANISM, FREE MARKETS AND GOVERNMENT?

    In response to a criticism of the free market, under the question: “Libertarianism: What reservations do you have about libertarian principles?”

    First (a) the free market described by libertarians of all stripes includes prohibitions on Violence, theft, fraud and monopoly (Because monopolies can only be created by governments.) (b) governments prohibit you and I from suing companies and controlling their behavior both by court and market, so the problem is government, not corporations. (c) environmental problems are caused by the government grant of companies special privileges and the elimination of the common law right to sue for pollution and misuse. Again, this is caused by government. (d) None of (the common) criticisms are examples of free market activity – they are examples of corporatist activity that was created by the government.

    GOVERNMENT IS THE CAUSE OF PROBLEMS YOU STATE.

    Property rights, the common law, rule of law, and the courts are our protection against negatives, and boycotts in the market are our protection against poor behavior. THere is a difference between poor behavior, and corporatism, fraud, theft, and violence.

    THE GOVERNMENT in practice (always has) CREATED CORPORATIONS and given them PRIVILEGES. This was done BY DESIGN, in order to eliminate the right that the common man had under the common law to use the courts to control organizations and powerful individuals. The governments took away our rights, and left us the market (boycotts) as a control in order to decrease unemployement and increase tax revenue. (Yes, this is history. Government did this.)

    I will venture that there is NOTHING YOU CAN THINK OF that causes CORPORATISM (which is what you’re arguing against) that was not caused by government. The courts and the market must equally bear responsibility for controlling both the government and companies. The common law is our only defense against government abuses via social groups (SOCIALISM) or corporate groups (CORPORATISM). And the common law can only function if private property is articulated in law, and the state cannot override private property in theory or in practice. And when the courts administer the law by the common law, and the common law alone.

    ON GOVERNMENT

    The NECESSARY properties of of a government are

    1) provide a means of resolving differences without the use of violence (ie: to create a monopoly of violence within a geography.)

    2) To provide a means of resolving differences requires a definition of property rights.

    3) To prohibit alternative definitions of property rights from being imposed by force, theft or fraud, (or immigration.)

    4) To provide a means of investing in commons (human and physical infrastructure) by prohibiting free-riding, privatization, and competition when investing in commons.

    These are the minimum properties of a government.

    In addition to these properties, it may also be possible for a group of people to afford to also have government engage in the following:

    5) To provide a means of cooperation between classes where privatization, free riding, rent seeking and competition prevent cooperation between classes.

    6) To reduce both transaction costs and fraud by implementing weights, measures and currency.

    7) To perform as an insurer of last resort against catastrophes.

    These are advantageous properties of government.

    In addition to these properties, it may be possible for a group of people to afford to also have the government engage in the following LUXURIES:

    8) Redistribution of all kinds, both in services, and in direct payments.

    9) Inter-temporal redistribution from young to old, rather than saving and lending from old to young. (But this is very fragile.)

    These are LUXURIES that can be provided by some governments under rare circumstances in exceptional periods of time, where malthusian and group selection problems have been temporarily held at bay by technological innovation.

    HOPEFULLY THIS HELPED YOU SOMEWHAT

    The government is not the source of the good things. The courts under the common law of property rights is the source of good things. The government has destroyed the common law, the rule of law, and crated both corporatism and socialism. And we now suffer between two factions that try to control the government for corporatist or socialist means.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-30 07:51:00 UTC

  • What Reservations Do You Have About Libertarian Principles?

    All philosophy is class philosophy.  Libertarianism is a class philosophy.  All philosophies give precedence to one class or another.

    Just as socialism suggests that all are better off if we give primacy to the objective of equality, and political power to the lower classes; just as postmodernism suggests that we will all be better off if we give primacy to equality and political power to the academic and public intellectual classes; just as clssical liberalism suggests that we will be better off if we give primacy to the institution of the family to conduct the family as a business without the interference of the state, and give power to family property owners;  libertarianism suggests that we will be better off if we give primacy to individuals who pursue commercial innovation, and political power to the rule of law (contracts) that allow this innovation to persist unfettered. 

    Libertarianism is an economic philosophy that states that (a) we all demonstrate a preference for having our own choices (b) that wealth makes possible our choices (c) that wealth is the product of innovation (creating inequalities which we then pay to equilibrate.)

    Libertarianism as a political philosophy that states that (a) all monopolies are bad because people cannot use competition to constrain the bad behavior of people in monopolies (b) all bureaucracies are bad because people in bureaucracies pursue the interest of the bureaucracy at the expense of those it purports to serve (c) government is a monopoly and a bureaucracy that pursues its interests at the expense of those who do ‘real work’ of innovating, producing, risking.

    Libertarianism is not against ‘government’.  It is against monopoly and bureaucracy which hinder individual innovation and competition, and the creating of ‘differences’ (inequalities) which we then seek to eliminate. 

    Libertarianism allows us to form our own communities with our own rules and norms, in a balance of power between communities with similar interests. These communities will then compete with one another for population, talent, and services.  And people can choose which community to belong to.  In this model there is no ‘state’.  There are just collections of people who form contractual alliances. Just as we make voluntary commercial organizations, we can make voluntary civic organizations.

    Libertarianism is not a prohibition on government. IT IS A PROHIBITION ON A MONOPOLY BUREAUCRACY that we call the STATE, that is able to issue COMMANDS under the guise of LAWS, because it maintains a monopoly on th euse of violence to enforce those commands, because that state is isolated from competition, and as such, can pursue the interests of the bureaucracy, or become a tool of special interests that likewise desire monopoly privileges, at the expense of the citizenry.

    Consumers arre very important.  Without consumers and credit it is impossible for commercial organizations to make money, and without the ability to make money there is no ability for people to organize into groups. The lower classes are consumers, and quite honestly, produce very little of value other than their consumption.  Lower classes in the libertarian model will either exchange adoption to norms for redistributions in wealthy communities, or organize into their own organizations and charge fees for access to their consumers, which can then be redistributed, thereby minimizing profit.

    The market for competition lets us compete toward different ends and preferences, even if we cooperate on means of achieving them.  Monopoly government forces us to compete in government in a win-lose battle for control of the monopoly bureaucracy.   Humans have been cooperating in the market on means, despite having disparate ends, for millennia   There is no reason that we cannot take this insight as far as possible.

    That is, unless your desire is to STEAL rather than EXCHANGE. And you are most likely to want to STEAL rather than exchange if governmetn provides a systematic means of stealing from others.  And that’s what government does. It provides a systematic means of stealing.  THe common law and property rights provide a systematic means of exchanging instead of stealing. 

    ANARCHISM, or anarcho capitalism (a branch of libertarianism) is a RESEARCH PROGRAM that seeks to find solutions to political problems without the use of the monopolistic bureaucratic state.  Libertarian writers have done a thorough job of solving all but one or two very large problems (I think I may have solved those remaning issues in my work but I am not yet certain.)

    ROTHBARDIAN Libertarianism, which is prominent on the web, was designed to be an ideological religion based upon rigorously defended philosophy combining jewish ethics of resistance (the ghetto) with christian legal and moral arguments (natural law) as a  means of resisting both socialism and postmodernism.  As and ideology he reduced that philosophy to very simple moral principles that can function as an ideology (generating emotion) rather than as an institutional prescription (generating arguments.)  This is because Rothbard and his generation understood that the communists had produced a significant literature but could not win the hearts and minds of ordinary voters unless this philosophy was reduced to policy (the ten planks) and ideology (simple, repeatable, emotionally moralistic statements  that would incite people to talk and act in support of those ideas.   So Rothbardian libertarianism is an ideological philosophy not a prescription for institutional solutions to the problems of politics.

    REGARDING WHITE MALES : white males (the european, or perhaps germanic, race) seek status under the ancient indo-european proscription for heroism via competition.  The west is unique for having produced this philosophy of  aristocratic egalitarianism – inclusion in equalitarian leadership, and therefore obtaining the reward of property rights, by demonstrated heroism.  And the high trust society of the west is the result of aristocratic egalitarianism (heroic achievement, demonstrated excellence, virtue).  For most of history, and pre-history, males could achieve this only through combat.  With the advent of manorialism, males could demonstrate their fitness through hard work.  With the advent of chivalry males could demonstrate their heroic status by charitable service.  With the advent of consumer capitalism, males could demonstrate their heroic fitness in commerce.  Heroic achievemnet grants access to mates (we have a lof of data on this now that confirms this fact – to the point where we know how many dollars in income per inch of height under 5’10” you must earn to gain the same quality of attractive woman…. Really.)  Women are as shallow about status as men are about physical attraction – and the data is the data.  As such, white males are intuitively attracted to libertarianism if they see in libertarianism a means of pursuing traditional signals for mating, social status, and wealth.  That libertarianism is a rigorous philospohy equalled in detail only by Marxism, and is articulated in economic language and analytical philosophy. It is accessible only to those people with both incentive to learn it, and the ability to understand it.  This is why libertarianism is a minority white male philosophy. It is an aristocratic philosophy and difficult to access.  Other cultures lack both the mythology and cultural values for heroism and egalitarianism   Which is why other cultures also cannot produce the high trust society.  And without the high trust society, the wealth necessary for redistribution (charity) is impossible to achieve at scale. 

    RESERVATIONS
    1) The first reservation that I have about libertarianism is that unlike classical liberalism (conservatism) and socialism, libertarians are pacifist and unwilling to use violence to establish their social order – and as such it is impossible to put into place. Theft is powerful motivation, and profitable to use in pursuit of political power, and theft is antithetical to Libertarians. Socialism is by definition kleptocracy, and wither you conquer as Rome or as Washington DC, conquest by theft, backed by threat of violence is more successful and profitable than pacifism. (If India had been a French colony, Ghandi would not have been an old man.)

    2) The second reservatoin I have about libertarianism is that all philosophies are class philosophies, and that classes are of different sizes. The indo europeans from the Kurgan’s onward were technology using pastoral conquerors and brought aristocratic egalitarianism with them by the use of force. Aristocratic philosophy generates wealth, but also makes visible our differences.  And when those differences in value are visible, people who are in the bottom half of society, or who gain their status through less meritocratic means, feel left behind and ‘unequal’.   For these reasons I think libertarianism is a minority movement and despite having found solutions to every political problem that we know of, we cannot both create inovation and differences while preserving equality   This is logically impossible.  The only solution is to ‘buy’ the compliance of the lower classes through redistribution.

    3) The third reservation I have about libertarianism is the discord its less sophisticated advocates create by creating confusion between state, government, court and market.

    The market allows us to compete upon ends while cooperating upon means. However, competition is morally objectionable to human beings inside the family group, village or tribe. We licence and encourage competition, because it produces positive results: a virtuous cycle. We tolerate only one form of immorality: competition. Every other form of involuntary transfer: violence, theft, fraud, omission, externalization, free riding, rent seeking and priviatization, systemic corruption, systemic procedural involntary transfer and warfare – we have constrained or outlawed.

    We can, in the market, use boycott to deprive organizations of wealth.  But it is not always a strong lever.  We can use the courts to protect us from violence, theft, fraud and omission if we do not surrender our right to sue.

    We can use government to protect us from unnecessary competition, free riding and privatization of the commons. when we invest in commons.

    We can use the state ‘bank’ as an insurer of last resort.

    We can use  multiple houses of government, where we have them, to negotiate exchanges between the classes where market exchange is not possible or creation of commons is not possible, because of the asymmetry of reward of investment in various commons’.

    But we can only use market and government to cooperate on means of achieving disparate ends, if government is not open to corruttion. And government is open to corruption if it can make laws rather than conttracts. Only the courts can find or discover laws.  The government if not corrupt, can only negotiate contracts impossible to negotiate in the market.

    THis emphasis on contracts relies upon the morality of exchange, rather than the immorality of majority rule, or arbitrary command in pursuit of some artificial common ‘good’.

    ON THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT

    A) NECESSARY PROPERTIES
    The NECESSARY properties of of a government are
    1) provide a means of resolving differences without the use of violence (ie: to create a monopoly of violence within a geography.)
    2) To provide a means of resolving differences requires a definition of property rights.
    3) To prohibit alternative definitions of property rights from being imposed by force, theft or fraud, (or immigration.)
    4) To provide a means of investing in commons (human and physical infrastructure) by prohibiting free-riding, privatization, and competition when investing in commons.

    These are the minimum properties of a government.

    B) ADVANTAGEOUS PROPERTIES
    In addition to these properties, it may also be possible for a group of people to afford to also have government engage in the following:
    5) To provide a means of cooperation between classes where privatization, free riding, rent seeking and competition prevent cooperation between classes.
    6) To reduce both transaction costs and fraud by implementing weights, measures and currency.
    7) To perform as an insurer of last resort against catastrophes.

    These are advantageous properties of government.

    C) PROPERTIES THAT ARE LUXURIES
    In addition to these properties, it may be possible for a group of people to afford to also have the government engage in the following LUXURIES:
    8) Redistribution of all kinds, both in services, and in direct payments.
    9) Inter-temporal redistribution from young to old, rather than saving and lending from old to young. (But this is very fragile.)

    These are LUXURIES that can be provided by some governments under rare circumstances in exceptional periods of time, where malthusian and group selection problems have been temporarily held at bay by technological innovation.


    The government is not the source of the ‘good things’. The courts, under the common law and property rights is the source of ‘good things’. The government has destroyed the common law, the rule of law, and crated both corporatism and socialism. And we now suffer between two factions that try to control the government for corporatist or socialist means.

    https://www.quora.com/What-reservations-do-you-have-about-libertarian-principles

  • Libertarianism as a Class Philosophy

    [A]ll philosophy is class philosophy. Libertarianism is a class philosophy. All philosophies give precedence to one class or another. Just as socialism suggests that all are better off if we give primacy to the objective of equality, and political power to the lower classes; just as postmodernism suggests that we will all be better off if we give primacy to equality and political power to the academic and public intellectual classes; just as clssical liberalism suggests that we will be better off if we give primacy to the institution of the family to conduct the family as a business without the interference of the state, and give power to family property owners; libertarianism suggests that we will be better off if we give primacy to individuals who pursue commercial innovation, and political power to the rule of law (contracts) that allow this innovation to persist unfettered. Libertarianism is an economic philosophy that states that (a) we all demonstrate a preference for having our own choices (b) that wealth makes possible our choices (c) that wealth is the product of innovation (creating inequalities which we then pay to equilibrate.) Libertarianism as a political philosophy that states that (a) all monopolies are bad because people cannot use competition to constrain the bad behavior of people in monopolies (b) all bureaucracies are bad because people in bureaucracies pursue the interest of the bureaucracy at the expense of those it purports to serve (c) government is a monopoly and a bureaucracy that pursues its interests at the expense of those who do ‘real work’ of innovating, producing, risking. Libertarianism is not against ‘government’. It is against monopoly and bureaucracy which hinder individual innovation and competition, and the creating of ‘differences’ (inequalities) which we then seek to eliminate. Libertarianism allows us to form our own communities with our own rules and norms, in a balance of power between communities with similar interests. These communities will then compete with one another for population, talent, and services. And people can choose which community to belong to. In this model there is no ‘state’. There are just collections of people who form contractual alliances. Just as we make voluntary commercial organizations, we can make voluntary civic organizations. Libertarianism is not a prohibition on government. IT IS A PROHIBITION ON A MONOPOLY BUREAUCRACY that we call the STATE, that is able to issue COMMANDS under the guise of LAWS, because it maintains a monopoly on th euse of violence to enforce those commands, because that state is isolated from competition, and as such, can pursue the interests of the bureaucracy, or become a tool of special interests that likewise desire monopoly privileges, at the expense of the citizenry. Consumers arre very important. Without consumers and credit it is impossible for commercial organizations to make money, and without the ability to make money there is no ability for people to organize into groups. The lower classes are consumers, and quite honestly, produce very little of value other than their consumption. Lower classes in the libertarian model will either exchange adoption to norms for redistributions in wealthy communities, or organize into their own organizations and charge fees for access to their consumers, which can then be redistributed, thereby minimizing profit. The market for competition lets us compete toward different ends and preferences, even if we cooperate on means of achieving them. Monopoly government forces us to compete in government in a win-lose battle for control of the monopoly bureaucracy. Humans have been cooperating in the market on means, despite having disparate ends, for millennia There is no reason that we cannot take this insight as far as possible. That is, unless your desire is to STEAL rather than EXCHANGE. And you are most likely to want to STEAL rather than exchange if governmetn provides a systematic means of stealing from others. And that’s what government does. It provides a systematic means of stealing. THe common law and property rights provide a systematic means of exchanging instead of stealing. ANARCHISM, or anarcho capitalism (a branch of libertarianism) is a RESEARCH PROGRAM that seeks to find solutions to political problems without the use of the monopolistic bureaucratic state. Libertarian writers have done a thorough job of solving all but one or two very large problems (I think I may have solved those remaning issues in my work but I am not yet certain.) ROTHBARDIAN Libertarianism, which is prominent on the web, was designed to be an ideological religion based upon rigorously defended philosophy combining jewish ethics of resistance (the ghetto) with christian legal and moral arguments (natural law) as a means of resisting both socialism and postmodernism. As and ideology he reduced that philosophy to very simple moral principles that can function as an ideology (generating emotion) rather than as an institutional prescription (generating arguments.) This is because Rothbard and his generation understood that the communists had produced a significant literature but could not win the hearts and minds of ordinary voters unless this philosophy was reduced to policy (the ten planks) and ideology (simple, repeatable, emotionally moralistic statements that would incite people to talk and act in support of those ideas. So Rothbardian libertarianism is an ideological philosophy not a prescription for institutional solutions to the problems of politics.

  • LIBERTARIANISM AS A CLASS PHILOSOPHY All philosophy is class philosophy. Liberta

    LIBERTARIANISM AS A CLASS PHILOSOPHY

    All philosophy is class philosophy. Libertarianism is a class philosophy. All philosophies give precedence to one class or another.

    Just as socialism suggests that all are better off if we give primacy to the objective of equality, and political power to the lower classes; just as postmodernism suggests that we will all be better off if we give primacy to equality and political power to the academic and public intellectual classes; just as clssical liberalism suggests that we will be better off if we give primacy to the institution of the family to conduct the family as a business without the interference of the state, and give power to family property owners; libertarianism suggests that we will be better off if we give primacy to individuals who pursue commercial innovation, and political power to the rule of law (contracts) that allow this innovation to persist unfettered.

    Libertarianism is an economic philosophy that states that (a) we all demonstrate a preference for having our own choices (b) that wealth makes possible our choices (c) that wealth is the product of innovation (creating inequalities which we then pay to equilibrate.)

    Libertarianism as a political philosophy that states that (a) all monopolies are bad because people cannot use competition to constrain the bad behavior of people in monopolies (b) all bureaucracies are bad because people in bureaucracies pursue the interest of the bureaucracy at the expense of those it purports to serve (c) government is a monopoly and a bureaucracy that pursues its interests at the expense of those who do ‘real work’ of innovating, producing, risking.

    Libertarianism is not against ‘government’. It is against monopoly and bureaucracy which hinder individual innovation and competition, and the creating of ‘differences’ (inequalities) which we then seek to eliminate.

    Libertarianism allows us to form our own communities with our own rules and norms, in a balance of power between communities with similar interests. These communities will then compete with one another for population, talent, and services. And people can choose which community to belong to. In this model there is no ‘state’. There are just collections of people who form contractual alliances. Just as we make voluntary commercial organizations, we can make voluntary civic organizations.

    Libertarianism is not a prohibition on government. IT IS A PROHIBITION ON A MONOPOLY BUREAUCRACY that we call the STATE, that is able to issue COMMANDS under the guise of LAWS, because it maintains a monopoly on th euse of violence to enforce those commands, because that state is isolated from competition, and as such, can pursue the interests of the bureaucracy, or become a tool of special interests that likewise desire monopoly privileges, at the expense of the citizenry.

    Consumers arre very important. Without consumers and credit it is impossible for commercial organizations to make money, and without the ability to make money there is no ability for people to organize into groups. The lower classes are consumers, and quite honestly, produce very little of value other than their consumption. Lower classes in the libertarian model will either exchange adoption to norms for redistributions in wealthy communities, or organize into their own organizations and charge fees for access to their consumers, which can then be redistributed, thereby minimizing profit.

    The market for competition lets us compete toward different ends and preferences, even if we cooperate on means of achieving them. Monopoly government forces us to compete in government in a win-lose battle for control of the monopoly bureaucracy. Humans have been cooperating in the market on means, despite having disparate ends, for millennia There is no reason that we cannot take this insight as far as possible.

    That is, unless your desire is to STEAL rather than EXCHANGE. And you are most likely to want to STEAL rather than exchange if governmetn provides a systematic means of stealing from others. And that’s what government does. It provides a systematic means of stealing. THe common law and property rights provide a systematic means of exchanging instead of stealing.

    ANARCHISM, or anarcho capitalism (a branch of libertarianism) is a RESEARCH PROGRAM that seeks to find solutions to political problems without the use of the monopolistic bureaucratic state. Libertarian writers have done a thorough job of solving all but one or two very large problems (I think I may have solved those remaning issues in my work but I am not yet certain.)

    ROTHBARDIAN Libertarianism, which is prominent on the web, was designed to be an ideological religion based upon rigorously defended philosophy combining jewish ethics of resistance (the ghetto) with christian legal and moral arguments (natural law) as a means of resisting both socialism and postmodernism. As and ideology he reduced that philosophy to very simple moral principles that can function as an ideology (generating emotion) rather than as an institutional prescription (generating arguments.) This is because Rothbard and his generation understood that the communists had produced a significant literature but could not win the hearts and minds of ordinary voters unless this philosophy was reduced to policy (the ten planks) and ideology (simple, repeatable, emotionally moralistic statements that would incite people to talk and act in support of those ideas. So Rothbardian libertarianism is an ideological philosophy not a prescription for institutional solutions to the problems of politics.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-27 04:00:00 UTC