ARISTOCRATIC EGALITARIAN “HIGH TRUST” ETHICS VS ROTHBARDIAN “GHETTO” ETHICS In the effort to suppress the state via arguments to anarchy the previous generations of libertarians failed to identify the cause of private property, and the differences between the high trust private property practiced by outbred homogenous ANF northern europeans, and the low trust inbred heterogeneous other cultures.
ARISTOCRATIC EGALITARIAN “HIGH TRUST” ETHICS VS ROTHBARDIAN “GHETTO” ETHICS In the effort to suppress the state via arguments to anarchy the previous generations of libertarians failed to identify the cause of private property, and the differences between the high trust private property practiced by outbred homogenous ANF northern europeans, and the low trust inbred heterogeneous other cultures.
If you eliminate free riding in all its forms: violence, theft fraud, omission, obscurantism, externalization, socialization, privatization, corruption, conspiracy and conquest – then the only action remaining available to man is the voluntary exchange of private property.
Cooperation is only possible if we suppress all free riding. Thats what cooperating means.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-14 09:43:00 UTC
TOTALLY COOL HETERO MAN-LOVE. 🙂
Totally Cool Hetero Man Love is an awesome thing. It’s what you feel when you trust other guys. It’s the celebration of admiration, loyalty, respect, and friendship. And we don’t celebrate it by telling each other often enough. In fact, I’m one of the only guys I know who does it always and everywhere. Especially in front of others. Sports teams encourage it. The military does in its own way encourage it. But not enough of us play sports or join the military. So we just have to sort of treat it like being honest, showing good manners and respect.
And BTW: it’s contagious as hell.
Try it. You’ll see.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-11 10:44:00 UTC
THE ARISTOCRATIC ETHIC OF VOLUNTARY EXCHANGE. (BHL Part 2)
(Draft: I have almost got this worked out. Not quite. But almost)
If you believe that voluntary exchange is the test of moral action, then it’s only logical that you follow that reasoning through to its logical consequence: that property rights are obtained by exchanging them with one another; and that in order to exchange those rights, voluntarily, one must possess an incentive to do so – or at least, no disincentive not to.
Since property rights describe prohibitions on involuntary transfer of property on a scale from the very basic forms of: murder, violence, destruction and theft, to the more complex forms of theft by fraud, omission, obscurantism, impediment, externalization, free riding, rent seeking, corruption, conspiracy, and conquest – each of us can grant different people different rights as we choose. And we do. We generally grant friends, family and associates greater rights, and others lesser rights, and foes none at all.
The more dependent we are on members outside of the family and close relationships for our economic survival and prosperity, the more valuable is the extension of property rights to others, because those rights reduce transaction costs.
In a world of shop keepers and craftsmen producing complex goods for one another, everyone has equal incentives.
In a world of 50% unemployed poor 40% labor and clerical, 9% professional and executive, and 1% financial, it is very hard to see why the unemployed poor are not wiser to form some means of extraction from those with more. Trade is merely the best form of obtaining what we desire, but it is not the only.
I don’t see much difference between Walter Block’s ghetto ethic justification of blackmail and the Danegeld. None at all. I don’t see any difference between profiting from the tragedy of others, and organizing an extractive state.
That’s because there isn’t any difference.
To demand property rights from someone without compensation is in itself, an act of attempted theft. This is not because the demand violates some abstract concept of the common good. The only common good we know of is increasing cooperation in a division of knowledge and labor while constantly suppressing free riding on others.
Instead, it’s because (a) while in exchange, higher respect for property rights decreases transaction costs because it decreases risk, but also (b) the more divergent are our interests the higher the compensation each party must offer for the observation of property rights by the other. Conversely, the more identical are our interests, the lower the compensation each party must offer for the observation of property rights by the other.
That is, in practice, what we humans do. In every society we know of. Ever.
THE RATIONAL CHOICE TO COOPERATE
If I grant you respect for property rights, don’t know why I would do that if all I was buying was protection from violence fraud and theft, and not buying trust and therefore protection from blackmail, fraud by omission, fraud by obscurantism, free riding, rent seeking, because corruption, because only the very WEAK would do that, and only out of desperation. (People of the Ghetto) I don’t really understand why I would give up the opportunity to kill, steal, enslave, or otherwise entertain myself with you if I still had to worry about your behavior. Or inversely, why would it be rational for me to grant you property rights if that meant that you could lie, cheat, deceive, engage in corruption and engage in blackmail?
The assumption of humility necessary for us to abandon violence and enter into debate; or the necessary grace we must display in our homogenous polity most of which is an extended family, is, as Hoppe shows in Argumentation, based upon the prior assumption of the grant of property rights.
However, we should not assume that the consequence is the cause: we only grant each other the grace and humility because we have already agreed to put away our violence, deception and coercion.
But for what reason have we all, given our different talents, numbers, and tribal abilities, chosen to grant one another those rights in the first place?
Trust.
Trust reduces transaction costs and the velocity of production. The division of labor saves time an increases velocity. Trust saves time and therefore increases velocity. It is possible to possess a division of labor in a low trust society, but it’s velocity (wealth) will be limited. Whereas, if one increases trust and reduces transaction costs and that group will outcompete all other groups with less trust. We have freed up man from physical labor.
POLITICS: EXTENDING IN-GROUP SUPPRESSION TO OUT-GROUP MEMBERS
The problem of politics, is providing an institutional means by which to accomplish this goal while preserving the low transaction costs of the high trust society. The problem for human’s evolutionary psychology was the balance between free riding and cooperation. The problem we face in our institutions is conducting that balance between free riding and cooperation.
ALL our advances in cooperation: morality, the division of labor, law, money, prices, contracts, interest, accounting – all of them – are extensions of our ability to cooperate in larger numbers while sensing and perceiving free riding.
So if we no longer have common interests in the preservation of property rights against the monopoly state, we must purchase that common interest in the preservation of property rights and diminishing the monopoly state, by paying those who have LESS interest in preserving those rights to police those rights. Depriving those who do not respect or police property of that payment. And forcing restitution, punishing, ostracizing, and if necessary, exterminating those people who persist in violating property rights.
That payment is moral, because it is a voluntary exchange. Asking those with no rational interest in liberty to choose self deprivation rather than engaging in statism is not only irrational, and immoral, but it’s a use of obscurant language to conduct theft by fraud.
We can either break into a multitude of small communities with heterogenous sets of property rights, or we can pay large communities (large markets) to participate in the formation and preservation of property rights. But we must abandon the obscurantist, fraudulent, parasitic lie of Rothbardian ghetto ethics to do it.
The source of liberty is the organized application of violence by a minority willing to pay the high price of suppressing all free riding in all its forms from a population in exchange for property rights. What remains at the end of that suppression is some system of property rights. The highest form of suppression eliminates the need for the state entirely. But it requires we suppress every single means of involuntary extraction from others.
THE EQUAL AND UNEQUAL VALUE OF INDIVIDUALS
In a heterogeneous polity that makes use of natural sources of energy to replace labor, and that uses technology to replace clerical work, the vast majority of people serve only three functions:
1) as consumers;
2) as police of property in all its forms;
3) to provide care of the commons;
4) to provide care and service for others.
The work of production has increasingly fallen to a minority. But the organization of voluntary and dynamic production, and the constitution of liberty, cannot be obtained without paying them for their services, since they no longer have the opportunity to engage in worthwhile production as compensation for their policing of property, care of the commons, and service of others.
If any member of the population chooses to police, care, and serve then they are due dividends from production. Otherwise they are merely slaves.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-11 04:09:00 UTC
SHOULD VS IS ARGUMENTS
I usually make IS arguments. The reason is simple: because if you take the position that the only moral test is fully informed voluntary cooperation in the absence of free riding then, all you need rely on is truth and incentives.
No ‘should’ is necessary. Only “is rational” is necessary.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-06 11:46:00 UTC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_SocietyWHAT DOES “HIGH TRUST” MEAN?
HIGH TRUST = LOW TRANSACTION COSTS = HIGH QUANTITY AND VELOCITY OF EXCHANGE = GREATER WEATH AT LOWER RISK.
(the not so obvious but obvious)
When we say ‘high trust’ and ‘low trust’ what we mean, is the willingness that one has to conduct a contract, whether formal or informal, with a random party that is not a member of your friends or family.
In a low trust society you can only really trust personal relations. In a very low trust society you can only really trust family members. In a high trust society you can trust the average person on the street as thoroughly as you can a friend or family member. (Often more so than family members.)
And given that politicians are universally corrupt, and that we depend upon judges and juries enforce this universal trust, and that judges and juries consist of people from the community, then the community must consist of high trust members for the system to perpetuate itself. So how does one construct a high trust society? Well, western europeans did it with property rights, prohibition on inbreeding and cousin marriage, and prohibition on marriage and child rearing until one had home and hearth.
Other than hiring a legion of northern european jurists, adopting the common law, requiring wills, granting universal private property rights, prohibiting cousin marriage out to four or six generations, prohibiting cohabitation between generations, it’s pretty much impossible.
And feminists and socialists are doing everything in their power to dismantle the total prohibition on free riding that the northern european people have created over five thousand years, but most importantly in the past 1500.
Those of us who claim to be ‘gentlemen’, will often do business on a handshake. Doing business by handshake is a status symbol. For me, I have always said that “I made a deal, we stick to the deal” because this preserves your ability to make deals with high trust. Sometimes we fail.
One of my long time business partners was notorious for constantly revising deals for his own convenience. Which makes me a bit nuts. But people put up with it from him because he always appears to be so honest. But the truth is, it’s an act. He’s always acting in his own pragmatic interest.
Using rural Italy as the example, the first and best work is the Moral Basis of a Backward Society by Edward Banfield.
Source date (UTC): 2014-02-05 13:41:00 UTC
http://imgur.com/r/MapPorn/6ZFTC0VNOTE THAT THE MORE IN-FAMILY FREE-RIDING, THE MORE CORRUPTION IN SOCIETY.
TEACH YOUR CHILDREN: FREE RIDING, IN THE FAMILY OR OUT, IS CORRUPTION – THEFT.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-31 10:28:00 UTC
KIEV UPDATE
Talked to one of the active protesters today at lunch.
He said that they way they work is to wait on chat rooms, message boards, twitter, and all other sort of hangouts. Then someone will say “we need to build a barricade at [wherever] in an hour. They flash mob the location, work for an hour with many hands, then return to coffee shops or food or whatever to get warm. Then repeat the process. I mean, battlefield communications and all that.
I mean, it’s GENIUS. They have the fortification process down cold.
BTW: The Ukrainian President “called in sick” today. 😉 Seriously.
(I LOVE BEING A SPECTATOR TO THIS KIND OF THING)
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-30 14:23:00 UTC
If you get all your neighbors together, sing a few songs, march in a parade, join in a feast, participate in a festival, celebrate a holiday, listen to speeches, watch plays, or play games, then pretty much it’s a good thing at all times. It pretty much doesn’t matter what songs are about, the reason for the parade, the food you eat, the origins of the festival, the content of the speeches, the plot of the play, or the rules of the game.
What matters is that everyone feels the joy of all these many substitutes for running with the pack – where we act as one. As a tribe, pack, flock, school … a single body and soul.
That’s what ‘church’ is for.
Now, I would prefer that w sang songs of our pagan and heroic past, toasted our generals and politicians, celebrated the festivals of our scientists, philosophers and poets, gave speeches to current good deeds, watched plays about the civic virtues, and played games that celebrated our victories.
But we can do non of that living in commercial rabbit warrens, protecting our status signal nest, and insulating ourselves from the reality of our irrelevance independent of one another.
In the end of it all, you cannot be happy without people whom you love and are loved by. Everything else is just decoration.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-30 09:08:00 UTC