Curt Doolittle

Theme: Constitutional Order

  • The Construction of Political Orders


    [H]ow we construct classical liberalism from Anarcho-Capitalism, and Anarcho-Capitalism from Nomocracy, and Nomocracy from Capitalism. You can’t do it any other way you know.

    1. Capitalism (property rights) = Voluntary Organization of Production
    2. Nomocracy (Rule of Law) = Organic Evolution of Law
    3. Anarcho-… (anarchy) A Covenential Prohibition on Government.
    …….. Removal of All Political Liberty.
    4. Voluntary Contractual Covenants (Formation of a polity )
    …….. Removal of Some Liberty on use of Property
    5. Mandatory Contractual Covenants (Perpetuation of a Polity)
    …….. Example: Removal of Liberty of Association and Disassociation
    6. Mandatory Contractual Covenants for the Production of Commons (Government).
    …….. Removal of Anarchic Prohibition in exchange for the construction of commons.

    THIS DESCRIBES CLASSICAL LIBERALISM, NOT ANARCHO-CAPITALISM.

    (Reminder: A Covenant is a Constitution without provision for government.)

  • GEORGE FRIEDMAN (STRATFOR) ON FAILED PRESIDENCY (Note: prior to reading this, ke

    GEORGE FRIEDMAN (STRATFOR) ON FAILED PRESIDENCY

    (Note: prior to reading this, keep in mind that this is an artifact of majority rule, and the necessity of the two party system that must evolve under majority rule.)

    —“[U]nderneath all of the churning, about 40 percent of the electorate is committed to each party. Twenty percent is uncommitted, with half of those being indifferent to the outcome of politics and the other half being genuinely interested and undecided. In most normal conditions, the real battle between the parties — and by presidents — is to hold their own bases and take as much of the center as possible.

    So long as a president is fighting for the center, his ability to govern remains intact. Thus, it is normal for a president to have a popularity rating that is less than 60 percent but more than 40 percent. When a president’s popularity rating falls substantially below 40 percent and remains there for an extended period of time, the dynamics of politics shift. The president is no longer battling for the center but is fighting to hold on to his own supporters — and he is failing to do so.

    When the president’s support has fragmented to the point that he is fighting to recover his base, I considered that a failed presidency — particularly when Congress is in the hands of the opposition. His energy cannot be directed toward new initiatives. It is directed toward recovering his base. And presidents who have fallen into this condition near the end of their presidencies have not been likely to recover and regain the center.

    Historically, when the president’s popularity rating has dipped to about 37 percent, his position has been unrecoverable. This is what happened to George W. Bush in 2006. It happened to Richard Nixon in 1974 when the Watergate crisis resulted in his resignation, and to Lyndon Johnson in 1967 during the Vietnam War. It also happened to Harry Truman in 1951, primarily because of the Korean War, and to Herbert Hoover before World War II because of the Great Depression.”–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-18 06:01:00 UTC

  • EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL ORDERS How we evolve classical liberalism from Anarcho-Ca

    EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL ORDERS

    How we evolve classical liberalism from Anarcho-Capitalism, and Anarcho-

    Capitalism from Nomocracy, and Nomocracy from Capitalism. You can’t do it any other way you know. 😉

    1) Capitalism (property rights) = Voluntary Organization of Production

    2) Nomocracy (Rule of Law) = Organic Evolution of Law

    3) Anarcho-… (anarchy) A Covenential Prohibition on Government.

    …….. Removal of All Political Liberty.

    4) Voluntary Contractual Covenants (Formation of a polity )

    …….. Removal of Some Liberty on use of Property

    5) Mandatory Contractual Covenants (Perpetuation of a Polity)

    …….. Example: Removal of Liberty of Association and Disassociation

    6) Mandatory Contractual Covenants for the Production of Commons (Government).

    …….. Removal of Anarchic Prohibition in exchange for the construction of commons.

    THIS DESCRIBES CLASSICAL LIBERALISM, NOT ANARCHO-CAPITALISM.

    (Reminder: A Covenant is a Constitution without provision for government.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-18 02:09:00 UTC

  • Men are the walls of Europa, and the points of our swords its boundaries. Words

    Men are the walls of Europa, and the points of our swords its boundaries.

    Words and laws do not freedom make.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-17 09:11:00 UTC

  • Untitled

    http://www.socialmatter.net/2014/11/11/constitutionalism-empty-doctrine/

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-15 23:41:00 UTC

  • ALL FULL OF SOUND AND FURY SIGNIFYING NOTHING. How can you state that liberty –

    ALL FULL OF SOUND AND FURY SIGNIFYING NOTHING.

    How can you state that liberty – defined as absence of loss of satisfaction caused by the actions others – can be implemented via formal institutions that will allow the formation of a voluntary polity?

    If liberty is synonymous with the absence of such dissatisfying experiences as satisfaction, then what actions can bring about a state of liberty without those undesirable experiences?

    Why is your theory of liberty not merely a description of the experiential state of liberty, and while a true statement, just a restatement of subjective value, expressed from the subjective rather than objective point of view – and therefore not just tautological hand waving without consequence?

    You can claim that your theory of experiential liberty is a solution to the arguments positioned in your paper followed by a criticism of libertarians who are describing institutional rules for construction of liberty, instead of the experience of liberty – but you have not demonstrated either that you have solved the problem of determining the scope of actions that we MUST consider a violation of liberty and those that do not, or why the experiential point of view adds value to the extant proposition that value is subjective, and that the institutional question we are debating is that of the scope of property that we agree to resolve conflicts over, under law?

    The question libertarians ask is how to eradicate need for the state. The problem is that we debate the scope of property rights because we have no non-arbitrary, rationally derived means of knowing the answer. What scope of violation constitutes a lack of imposition of costs?

    Because such violations can include those that are observable and those are not; those that are tolerable and those that are not; those that are errors and those that are not. All libertarians make the same argument that you do, but the contention remains one of how we judge the truth of a claim that one has experienced such a subjective experience of dissatisfaction, so that disputes can be resolved?

    Aren’t you just hand-waving? Isn’t your work irrelevant because it is both obvious, and because it does not solve the problem which you claim that it does? Isn’t your ridicule of libertarians in itself an absurdity? Your definition of, or “theory” of, experiential liberty tells us nothing about resolving the conflict over what actions are and are not permissible, under your self-stated assumption that a state of liberty is that in which we maximize liberty, assuming a state of subjectively maximized liberty is desirable. Isn’t the problem how we maximize liberty? And how does subjective value (an increase or decrease in satisfaction resulting from action) differ from your restatement?

    How does the meaningless term ‘maximizing liberty’ help solve the problem of determining what scope we implement in the rule of law? And how is that any different from the evolutionary progress of the common law ‘s constant discovery of new means of criminal, unethical and immoral conduct?

    Hoppe is correct. The only question we must answer in order to construct a condition of liberty is the scope of property we define as adjudicable under law. His argument (as I believe I understand it), is that intersubjectively verifiable property (prohibition on criminal offenses against extant entities), is the minimum universal scope of property necessary for liberty, and that above that scope, all other possible forms of property so covered under the law are a matter of contractual choice by the polity – not a logical necessity. This limit mirrors Rothbard’s Non-Aggression Principle and the scope of property he defines in The Ethics Of Liberty.

    My criticism of Hoppe’s argument (and of Rothbard’s ethics, and of the fallacy of Non-Aggression reflects a moral proposition), is that the local transaction costs of daily life under intersubjectively verifiable property (mere criminal prohibitions), are sufficiently high that people will prefer an authoritarian state that either imposes additional rules, and/or which suppresses retaliation, because people ACT as if their property has been violated whenever they experience criminal, unethical, immoral or conspiratorial actions. And they will retaliate against them unless the law provides an organized means of restitution, or the state aggressively suppresses retributions. As such only high trust polities that suppress nearly all violations of property as defined by demonstrated human actions. And therefore that non-aggression, and intersubjectively verifiable property are irrelevant because they are insufficient to construct a condition of liberty.

    As such, the definition of property articulated in law must mirror the violations of criminal, ethical, immoral, and conspiratorial actions that people will retaliate against. And a low trust, Rothbardian polity where the minimum scope of property rights is defined as that which is intersubjectively verifiable, is impossible. And that the minimum scope of property is that which people will not desire to retaliate against its violation. That minimum scope of property appears to include not only the intersubjectively verifiable that can be transgressed against, but also unethical, immoral, and conspiratorial actions.

    So your position your theory as a solution to libertarian confusion – however it is merely a restatement of the obvious and already extant: of the invisibly subjective and experiential rather than the observable, objective, and institutional; when subjective value has been stated for a century, and the question remains one of the scope of observable criteria for dispute resolution necessary for the formation of a polity that does not demonstrate demand for a state. We cannot agree on the scope of property and the means of violating it.

    In other words, in your paper “The main philosophical problem with libertarian liberty” (a) you incorrectly state the cause of libertarian confusion as merely a linguistic problem of meaning, (b) and your proposed solution is a mere verbalism: restating the objective description of subjective value as subjective experience, (c) and you have not added clarity nor justified your ridicule, (d) and that the cause of confusion remains: what scope and conditions are permissible and not. 🙂

    I conjecture that (a) the solution to the problem is empirically measurable, (b) that measure will prohibit unethical and immoral impositions, in addition to merely criminal impositions, and (c) the possibility of a condition of liberty increases with normative homogeneity of the polity, and (d) likewise that possibility increases the smaller the family size (the closer to the absolute nuclear family).

    I make this conjecture because (e) transaction costs make liberty non-rational unless nearly equal to kinship transaction costs (trust), (f) tolerance for free riding decrease with kinship distance, and (g) shared norms are perceived as kinship signals.

    It is possible to empirically falsify this argument. And I think that given the evidence it will be very hard to do that.

    I will save my criticism of your misunderstanding of, and abuse of critical rationalism for a later date.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-13 08:48:00 UTC

  • I forgot to add to my list for 2914, the concept that law must be constructed fo

    I forgot to add to my list for 2914, the concept that law must be constructed for individuals, yet state policy for families.

    This is something I will ask Roman to do a video on.

    Cheers.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-13 02:44:00 UTC

  • On Ukraine and Prosperity – Liberty, Violence and Rule of Law

    [I]n the past two years the hryvnia has lost HALF of its value. Prices on everything are rising, while increases in employee compensation are not. All economies face this problem. Salaries are stickier than contracts, and contracts are stickier than prices, and prices are stickier than currency. So all changes in demand for currency around the world SLOWLY work through the economy ‘unsticking’ one thing after another. And salaries are at two edged sword: employees expect them to go up when currency loses value, but employees do not expect them to go down when currency gains value. ON UKRAINE In our case we have two problems. One, that the dollar is getting more valuable in the world, and two, that the Hryvna is getting less valuable in the world. And our people pay the consequences.

    • We can only fix Ukraine’s problem with credit.
    • We can only obtain credit with legal certainty.
    • We can only obtain legal certainty with rule of law.
    • We can only possess rule of law with judges who obey rule of law.
    • We can only possess judges with the rule of law if we can replace our judges – and for that matter, the entire court staff.
    • We can only replace the judges and the court staff with someone to force them out.
    • We can only force them out if the police to act upon it.
    • We can only expect the police to act upon it if they are also uncorrupt and respect rule of law.
    • We can only have police who are uncorrupt and respect rule of law if we fire them all and re-hire them again with higher standards, higher pay, and higher punishment for corruption – it must be wiser to collect a pension than to accept a bribe of any size.
    • We can only trust that they will be punished and stay honest if we have courts that enforce it.
    • And we can only have courts that will enforce it if we have juries to override the judges.
    • And we can only juries to override the judges if we have people who will act honestly on juries.
    • We will only have people who act honestly on juries once enough Ukrainians understand that all of Ukraine depends upon them and only them:
    • (a) sit a jury and enforce the law, even against friends and family.
    • (b) speak the truth even if it leads to your loss, and require it of others, and punish them if they do not.
    • (c) replace the government by armed violence until all of the above are enacted.

    [T]he only freedom logically possible is that which is obtained by a militia at the point of a gun. Everything else is just benevolent permission – not liberty. Ether a people is able to act as a militia (a militia means every living able bodied male) to demand these things of their government, or they aren’t able to act as a militia to demand these things of their government – or replace their government if needed. You get the government you deserve. All people possess the government that they deserve. Because no government can sustain universal insurrection, because no economy can survive universal insurrection. Some of us are willing to earn the form government we HOPE to deserve by our actions. The rest simply GET the government that they do deserve by their inaction. We are not yet willing to have the government we work to deserve. Because we are not wiling to evict the entire judiciary and police force – and that is what is required. A government is by its nature corrupt. There is no exception in the world – because a government is a monopoly, and the incentives for individuals in a monopoly all favor corruption. This is why governments must remain small – it is harder to steal when it is harder to be anonymous. So keep the number of people who of necessity must be corrupt and will be corrupt – to a minimum. The people must control the government. But if the people are immoral, they will have an immoral and corrupt government. If the people are moral, then they will have a moral government even if the government’s members are of necessity corrupt in one way or another. But the hard economic facts make political corruption irrelevant – it is judicial and police corruption that prevent the expansion of consumer credit.  The corrupt economy may be large, but that does not affect the individual citizens who merely need CONSUMER CREDIT. The assumption that citizens make is that they could obtain the monies that are siphoned off personally by corrupt government employees wither in the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and asiatic models, or whether they are siphoned off systematically as in the american and european systems, as inflated salaries special benefits, special pensions, absurdly expensive offices, and expensive equipment, or privileges granted to loyal constituents, businesses, organizations and lobbyists. Government people will ALWAYS siphon unearned wealth (corruption). That is what they do. They have no competition other than the militia (armed citizenry) to stop them. [T]he WEST is just as corrupt as the east – it is just systematized into sophisticated corporeal corruption not private corruption. What differs is that in the west, the citizenry has rule of law and therefore credit. So they live well because of their own private sector economy – even though the public sector is just as corrupt everywhere else. Ukraine must evict and ban all sitting judges, clerks and administration from the courts, and all do the same for all police officers. The best choice would be to import a few hundred young German, Scandinavia, and English speaking judges to interview, hire, and manage replacement judges. This would immediately, within one year, change the european perspective on Ukraine and credit. Georgia has already shown us how to fix the police. The problem then is not politicians that prevent us from prosperity WE MUST SOLVE THE RIGHT PROBLEM. The problem that prevents us from prosperity is that we are solving the wrong problem. Politicians are all corrupt. Judges and police who are paid a decent salary are all we need in order to build a prosperous Ukraine. As always the politicians will seek to siphon it off for their own corrupt use just as they do in the west. Just as they do everywhere. Because politicians are by necessity agents of corruption – even when they dont’ intend to be. They have no means of measuring what is ‘right’ other than ‘what they can get away with’. A child has no means of measuring what is right and wrong without a parent. A business has no measure of whether they efficiently serve the world except if they do not do so at a loss. And a politician’s only measure is what corruption can he get away with without voters, judges, police, and competing politicians to stop him. Freedom is created by courts and a militia that demands them freedom and courts. Politicians are just entertainment – they figure out what to do with the profits that they can steal from the people. That’s what politicians do. Ukrainians have never had freedom. Feudal serfs, Soviet Serfs, and now post-soviet cattle to be farmed for the benefit of those in power – in the Russian and Asian model. But for the ordinary people to have profits they must have credit and for credit they must have rule of law. And to have rule of law – all able bodied men must take up arms to demand it. A credible threat alone is enough to force it to happen. SLAVA UKRAINI Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev Ukraine

  • On Ukraine and Prosperity – Liberty, Violence and Rule of Law

    [I]n the past two years the hryvnia has lost HALF of its value. Prices on everything are rising, while increases in employee compensation are not. All economies face this problem. Salaries are stickier than contracts, and contracts are stickier than prices, and prices are stickier than currency. So all changes in demand for currency around the world SLOWLY work through the economy ‘unsticking’ one thing after another. And salaries are at two edged sword: employees expect them to go up when currency loses value, but employees do not expect them to go down when currency gains value. ON UKRAINE In our case we have two problems. One, that the dollar is getting more valuable in the world, and two, that the Hryvna is getting less valuable in the world. And our people pay the consequences.

    • We can only fix Ukraine’s problem with credit.
    • We can only obtain credit with legal certainty.
    • We can only obtain legal certainty with rule of law.
    • We can only possess rule of law with judges who obey rule of law.
    • We can only possess judges with the rule of law if we can replace our judges – and for that matter, the entire court staff.
    • We can only replace the judges and the court staff with someone to force them out.
    • We can only force them out if the police to act upon it.
    • We can only expect the police to act upon it if they are also uncorrupt and respect rule of law.
    • We can only have police who are uncorrupt and respect rule of law if we fire them all and re-hire them again with higher standards, higher pay, and higher punishment for corruption – it must be wiser to collect a pension than to accept a bribe of any size.
    • We can only trust that they will be punished and stay honest if we have courts that enforce it.
    • And we can only have courts that will enforce it if we have juries to override the judges.
    • And we can only juries to override the judges if we have people who will act honestly on juries.
    • We will only have people who act honestly on juries once enough Ukrainians understand that all of Ukraine depends upon them and only them:
    • (a) sit a jury and enforce the law, even against friends and family.
    • (b) speak the truth even if it leads to your loss, and require it of others, and punish them if they do not.
    • (c) replace the government by armed violence until all of the above are enacted.

    [T]he only freedom logically possible is that which is obtained by a militia at the point of a gun. Everything else is just benevolent permission – not liberty. Ether a people is able to act as a militia (a militia means every living able bodied male) to demand these things of their government, or they aren’t able to act as a militia to demand these things of their government – or replace their government if needed. You get the government you deserve. All people possess the government that they deserve. Because no government can sustain universal insurrection, because no economy can survive universal insurrection. Some of us are willing to earn the form government we HOPE to deserve by our actions. The rest simply GET the government that they do deserve by their inaction. We are not yet willing to have the government we work to deserve. Because we are not wiling to evict the entire judiciary and police force – and that is what is required. A government is by its nature corrupt. There is no exception in the world – because a government is a monopoly, and the incentives for individuals in a monopoly all favor corruption. This is why governments must remain small – it is harder to steal when it is harder to be anonymous. So keep the number of people who of necessity must be corrupt and will be corrupt – to a minimum. The people must control the government. But if the people are immoral, they will have an immoral and corrupt government. If the people are moral, then they will have a moral government even if the government’s members are of necessity corrupt in one way or another. But the hard economic facts make political corruption irrelevant – it is judicial and police corruption that prevent the expansion of consumer credit.  The corrupt economy may be large, but that does not affect the individual citizens who merely need CONSUMER CREDIT. The assumption that citizens make is that they could obtain the monies that are siphoned off personally by corrupt government employees wither in the Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and asiatic models, or whether they are siphoned off systematically as in the american and european systems, as inflated salaries special benefits, special pensions, absurdly expensive offices, and expensive equipment, or privileges granted to loyal constituents, businesses, organizations and lobbyists. Government people will ALWAYS siphon unearned wealth (corruption). That is what they do. They have no competition other than the militia (armed citizenry) to stop them. [T]he WEST is just as corrupt as the east – it is just systematized into sophisticated corporeal corruption not private corruption. What differs is that in the west, the citizenry has rule of law and therefore credit. So they live well because of their own private sector economy – even though the public sector is just as corrupt everywhere else. Ukraine must evict and ban all sitting judges, clerks and administration from the courts, and all do the same for all police officers. The best choice would be to import a few hundred young German, Scandinavia, and English speaking judges to interview, hire, and manage replacement judges. This would immediately, within one year, change the european perspective on Ukraine and credit. Georgia has already shown us how to fix the police. The problem then is not politicians that prevent us from prosperity WE MUST SOLVE THE RIGHT PROBLEM. The problem that prevents us from prosperity is that we are solving the wrong problem. Politicians are all corrupt. Judges and police who are paid a decent salary are all we need in order to build a prosperous Ukraine. As always the politicians will seek to siphon it off for their own corrupt use just as they do in the west. Just as they do everywhere. Because politicians are by necessity agents of corruption – even when they dont’ intend to be. They have no means of measuring what is ‘right’ other than ‘what they can get away with’. A child has no means of measuring what is right and wrong without a parent. A business has no measure of whether they efficiently serve the world except if they do not do so at a loss. And a politician’s only measure is what corruption can he get away with without voters, judges, police, and competing politicians to stop him. Freedom is created by courts and a militia that demands them freedom and courts. Politicians are just entertainment – they figure out what to do with the profits that they can steal from the people. That’s what politicians do. Ukrainians have never had freedom. Feudal serfs, Soviet Serfs, and now post-soviet cattle to be farmed for the benefit of those in power – in the Russian and Asian model. But for the ordinary people to have profits they must have credit and for credit they must have rule of law. And to have rule of law – all able bodied men must take up arms to demand it. A credible threat alone is enough to force it to happen. SLAVA UKRAINI Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev Ukraine

  • Marriage with legal requirement for commitment but without legal requirement for

    Marriage with legal requirement for commitment but without legal requirement for sex is unequal representation. It’s not that legal requirement for sex is necessarily the right answer. The right answer is to abandon legal requirement for commitment and financial support.

    (And yeah, my rather absurd costs for this are constantly on my mind.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-11-08 08:58:00 UTC