Regarding: New Libertarians: New Promoters of a Welfare State johnmccaskey.com John. [G]ood piece. Although, I’m critical of philosophical pretense in social justice as much as I am in the market. If any judgment is beyond our perception, and any concept of social justice is, then we must, as in all other matters where complexity exceeds our perception, develop some kind of instrumentation and means of calculation such that we can reduce that which we cannot perceive, to some analogy to experience that we can perceive. Moral rules are not sufficient for achieving that kind of instrumentation, or performing that kind of calculation. The problems (of instrumentation and calculation) require formal institutions as a means of calculation. For example, we have the market for cooperating on means even if we disagree on ends. We have the government for forcing cooperation on means and ends by majority rule. We have accounting to assist us in the perception of that which we cannot possibly grasp without it. And we have economics to attempt to measure our success. But we have no such instrumentation and means of calculating “social justice” – or even defining such a thing as social justice. (Which current psychologists and economists suspect is reducible to status seeking, and insurance against risk, and nothing more.) Hayek addresses this thoroughly in TCoL. While we might continue to try to rely upon the methods of the past (philosophy), and attempt to concoct yet another empty incalculable moralism for the purported common good, these results are value judgements and nothing more. They are incalculable. Non Empirical. Unascertainable. [M]ost of the post-enlightenment philosophical effort has considered society a monopoly, in contrast to the pre-enlightenment condition of most urban cities, as federations of minorities denied access to political power, and forced to compete outside of politics, in the market. So the idea of social justice is an artifact of monopoly democracy rather than a federation of disparate interests. This is a fallacy. We have no common goals, only common means of cooperating to achieve disparate goals. However, libertarians rightly argue that the only moral test is that of voluntary exchange free of violent coercion. I argue that this ‘test’ is incorrect, since no in-group human organizations demonstrate that low a level of trust, And instead all groups demonstrate and require higher standards of trust, tah also forbid free riding, deception, cheating, as well as burdening other group members indirectly. However, whether we accept a low trust society and high demand for external authority that low trust societies demonstrate, or a high trust society and the low demand for external authority that high trust societies demonstrate, the underlying argument that the only test of moral action is voluntary exchange. So the effort that political philosophers left, libertarian and right have expended under the universalist assumption of the enlightenment has been to find some justification for moral decision making even if the knowledge to make such decisions is impossible both in the market, and afterward, using the profits created from the market. The question instead, is how to construct institutions with which groups can conduct voluntary exchanges, which are by definition moral. Majority rule does not allow this. Majority rule is sufficient for the selection of priorities in homogenous polities with homogenous interests. The market is the means by which heterogeneous polities cooperate on means despite different interests on ends. But how can we construct an institutional system that allows the construction of commons, and other exchanges between groups and classes, but is not dependent upon a monopoly bureaucracy, majority rule, or representatives open to influence, special interest, and corruption? Because a government of contracts, not laws, would allow the exchange of say, adherence to traditions and norms, or requirements for married families in order to obtain redistribution. This would make government a means of cooperation rather than the source and facilitator of conflict. Cheers Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev
Theme: Decidability
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We Require Exchange and ‘Calculability’, Not Yet Another Arbitrary Moral Argument
Regarding: New Libertarians: New Promoters of a Welfare State johnmccaskey.com John. [G]ood piece. Although, I’m critical of philosophical pretense in social justice as much as I am in the market. If any judgment is beyond our perception, and any concept of social justice is, then we must, as in all other matters where complexity exceeds our perception, develop some kind of instrumentation and means of calculation such that we can reduce that which we cannot perceive, to some analogy to experience that we can perceive. Moral rules are not sufficient for achieving that kind of instrumentation, or performing that kind of calculation. The problems (of instrumentation and calculation) require formal institutions as a means of calculation. For example, we have the market for cooperating on means even if we disagree on ends. We have the government for forcing cooperation on means and ends by majority rule. We have accounting to assist us in the perception of that which we cannot possibly grasp without it. And we have economics to attempt to measure our success. But we have no such instrumentation and means of calculating “social justice” – or even defining such a thing as social justice. (Which current psychologists and economists suspect is reducible to status seeking, and insurance against risk, and nothing more.) Hayek addresses this thoroughly in TCoL. While we might continue to try to rely upon the methods of the past (philosophy), and attempt to concoct yet another empty incalculable moralism for the purported common good, these results are value judgements and nothing more. They are incalculable. Non Empirical. Unascertainable. [M]ost of the post-enlightenment philosophical effort has considered society a monopoly, in contrast to the pre-enlightenment condition of most urban cities, as federations of minorities denied access to political power, and forced to compete outside of politics, in the market. So the idea of social justice is an artifact of monopoly democracy rather than a federation of disparate interests. This is a fallacy. We have no common goals, only common means of cooperating to achieve disparate goals. However, libertarians rightly argue that the only moral test is that of voluntary exchange free of violent coercion. I argue that this ‘test’ is incorrect, since no in-group human organizations demonstrate that low a level of trust, And instead all groups demonstrate and require higher standards of trust, tah also forbid free riding, deception, cheating, as well as burdening other group members indirectly. However, whether we accept a low trust society and high demand for external authority that low trust societies demonstrate, or a high trust society and the low demand for external authority that high trust societies demonstrate, the underlying argument that the only test of moral action is voluntary exchange. So the effort that political philosophers left, libertarian and right have expended under the universalist assumption of the enlightenment has been to find some justification for moral decision making even if the knowledge to make such decisions is impossible both in the market, and afterward, using the profits created from the market. The question instead, is how to construct institutions with which groups can conduct voluntary exchanges, which are by definition moral. Majority rule does not allow this. Majority rule is sufficient for the selection of priorities in homogenous polities with homogenous interests. The market is the means by which heterogeneous polities cooperate on means despite different interests on ends. But how can we construct an institutional system that allows the construction of commons, and other exchanges between groups and classes, but is not dependent upon a monopoly bureaucracy, majority rule, or representatives open to influence, special interest, and corruption? Because a government of contracts, not laws, would allow the exchange of say, adherence to traditions and norms, or requirements for married families in order to obtain redistribution. This would make government a means of cooperation rather than the source and facilitator of conflict. Cheers Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev
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AND CALCULABILITY NOT ARBITRARY MORALITY John. Good piece. Although, I’m critica
http://www.johnmccaskey.com/joomla/index.php/blog/71-new-libertariansEXCHANGE AND CALCULABILITY NOT ARBITRARY MORALITY
John.
Good piece. Although, I’m critical of philosophical pretense in social justice as much as I am in the market.
If any judgment is beyond our perception, and any concept of social justice is, then we must, as in all other matters where complexity exceeds our perception, develop some kind of instrumentation and means of calculation such that we can reduce that which we cannot perceive, to some analogy to experience that we can perceive. Moral rules are not sufficient for achieving that kind of instrumentation, or performing that kind of calculation. The problem requires formal institutions and means of calculation. We have the market for cooperating on means even if we disagree on ends. We have the government for forcing cooperation on means and ends by majority rule. We have accounting to assist us in the perception of that which we cannot possibly grasp without it. And we have economics to attempt to measure our success. But we have no such instrumentation and means of calculating social justice – or even defining such a thing as social justice. (Which current psychologists and economists suspect is reducible to status seeking, and insurance against risk, and nothing more.)
While we might continue in the methods of the past, and attempt to concoct yet another empty incalculable moralism for the purported common good, these are value judgements and nothing more. They are incalculable. Most of the post-enlightenment effort has considered society a monopoly, in contrast to the pre-enlightenment condition of most urban cities, as federations of minorities denied access to political power, and forced to compete outside of politics, in the market. So the idea of social justice is an artifact of monopoly democracy rather than a federation of disparate interests.
However, libertarians rightly argue that the only moral test is that of voluntary exchange free of violent coercion. I argue that this ‘test’ is incorrect, since no in-group human organizations demonstrate that low a level of trust, And instead all groups demonstrate and require higher standards of trust, tah also forbid free riding, deception, cheating, as well as burdening other group members indirectly. However, whether we accept a low trust society and high demand for external authority that low trust societies demonstrate, or a high trust society and the low demand for external authority that high trust societies demonstrate, the underlying argument that the only test of moral action is voluntary exchange. So the effort that political philosophers left, libertarian and right have expended under the universalist assumption of the enlightenment has been to find some justification for moral decision making even if the knowledge to make such decisions is impossible both in the market, and afterward, using the profits created from the market.
The question instead, is how to construct institutions with which groups can conduct voluntary exchanges, which are by definition moral. Majority rule does not allow this. Majority rule is sufficient for the selection of priorities in homogenous polities with homogenous interests. The market is the means by which heterogeneous polities cooperate on means despite different interests on ends. But how can we construct an institutional system that allows the construction of commons, and other exchanges between groups and classes, but is not dependent upon a monopoly bureaucracy, majority rule, or representatives open to influence, special interest, and corruption? Because a government of contracts, not laws, would allow the exchange of say, adherence to traditions and norms, or requirements for married families in order to obtain redistribution. This would make government a means of cooperation rather than the source and facilitator of conflict.
Cheers
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev
http://www.johnmccaskey.com/joomla/index.php/blog/71-new-libertarians
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 13:48:00 UTC
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Where Libertarians Go Wrong
[L]ibertarians get lost in introspection. The central problem of creating an anarchic society is fully articulating property rights such that they are possible to rationally adjudicate under the common law. It is this rational ability to adjudicate differences under the common law that makes possible ‘rule of law’. Without such rational articulation, rule by man’s discretion is necessary. The sufficiency of that articulated list of property is what determines if transaction costs are low enough that it’s rational for people to voluntarily join a polity in which plans can be made, and disputes can be resolved, according to that list of property rights. As I have written recently, libertarians (foolishly) discount these transaction costs because they tend to be above, and interact above, the threshold at which moral behavior is dominant. [T]he NAP is either an insufficient test, or private property rights that are intersubjectively verifiable are an insufficient scope. Propertarianism extends property to that which people demonstrate they believe is their just property, and places the burden on the individuals with the greater knowledge. “Seller Beware”.
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Where Libertarians Go Wrong
[L]ibertarians get lost in introspection. The central problem of creating an anarchic society is fully articulating property rights such that they are possible to rationally adjudicate under the common law. It is this rational ability to adjudicate differences under the common law that makes possible ‘rule of law’. Without such rational articulation, rule by man’s discretion is necessary. The sufficiency of that articulated list of property is what determines if transaction costs are low enough that it’s rational for people to voluntarily join a polity in which plans can be made, and disputes can be resolved, according to that list of property rights. As I have written recently, libertarians (foolishly) discount these transaction costs because they tend to be above, and interact above, the threshold at which moral behavior is dominant. [T]he NAP is either an insufficient test, or private property rights that are intersubjectively verifiable are an insufficient scope. Propertarianism extends property to that which people demonstrate they believe is their just property, and places the burden on the individuals with the greater knowledge. “Seller Beware”.
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Q: “CURT, WHY IS PRAXEOLOGY A PSEUDOSCIENCE AND THEREFORE FALSE?” A: For a host
Q: “CURT, WHY IS PRAXEOLOGY A PSEUDOSCIENCE AND THEREFORE FALSE?”
A: For a host of reasons:
1) The different properties of axiomatic (proof) vs theoretic (truth) systems. Axiomatic systems are not bounded by correspondence with reality, and theoretic systems are not bounded by our understanding of causes. The reason that we can describe the physical universe with mathematics is not only that the universe consists of constant relations, but that mathematics is constructed on purpose as a set of general rules independent of scale; and since the sale of a single unit (“1”) can be anything imaginable, then it is possible to describe literally anything that consists of constant relations regardless of scale. By contrast, the universe is not constructed of single units but more complex building blocks, and like protein foldings, and various number fields, and as we see demonstrated by the Periodic Table, cannot construct all possible permutations. As such while mathematics can describe all of the universe, the universe cannot describe all of mathematics.
The same criticism applies to logic: It is possible in any logically axiomatic system to describe far more than is semantically meaningful. And vastly more than it correspondent with physical reality.
As such, axiomatic systems are PRESCRIPTIVE sets that are not bounded by semantic meaning, or correspondence with reality, while theoretic systems consist of DESCRIPTIVE sets that ARE bounded by semantic meaning and correspondence with reality.
Reality consists of often innumerable causes, while any given event, that we describe for the purpose of any given utility, is possible to describe by a limited number of causes beyond which the outcome produced is marginally indifferent for that articulated utility. Completeness (truth) of any theory then is limited to the utility of the expression.
2) The impossibility of deducing emergent (unpredictable) properties of systems. Despite the possibility of deducing the causes of emergent phenomenon once they are observed, as the consequences of human decisions.
The absurd kantian confusion, exacerbated by Mises, that the a prioiri: “knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience” is somehow extant prior to experience, rather than reconstructed via introspection from memories by the observation of memories and use of logical instrumentation.
What we CAN honestly say is apprehensible a priori is the result of our sympathetic testing of the rationality of any incentives given the same amount of information as any other person. This is because all humans are marginally indifferent in their incentives if we possess sufficient understanding of their incentives, even if they may be marginally different in their sets of moral preferences because we are marginally different in our reproductive strategies, and our reproductive strategies determine our moral preferences.
Note: This is a much longer topic, but hopefully the obvious statement that introspection and observation are synonyms, and logic is a form of instrumentation required for the reduction of that which we cannot perceive to something which we can perceive and compare, just as physical instrumentation is required for the reduction of that which we cannot perceive to that which we can perceive and compare. Our comparison ability is severely limited and subject to a multitude of errors and biases. And all but the most reductio of experiential concepts require either logical or physical instrumentation in order to reduce the imperceptible to the comparable.
3) The claim that praxeology is a science and therefore follows the scientific method, rather than a logic. For a set of statements to be classified as pseudoscientific requires only (a) that the author (speaker) argue that his process or claims are scientific, without having followed the scientific method. For falsification purposes that defend the scientific method itself, we can further stipulate (b) that the claims of the author(speaker) are not not produced. Under both the minimum criteria of having followed the scientific method, and the falsification criteria, of having produced stated outcomes, praxeology fails to meet the criteria of a science.
4) The evidence that science identified emergent properties of economics, while deduction did not. (the list is long but sticky prices are enough of an example).
5) The evidence that science identified cognitive biases, while deduction from first principles did not.
Furthermore:
(a) The evidence is that as productivity increases the prices for the purpose of consumption evolve to price points of marginal indifference, and as a consequence signaling and moral factors determine the majority of choices. Preferences then are not cleared ordinarily but as various weights in a network of preferences that exist independently of prices. Substitution rates of consumption are extremely sticky, just like prices and contracts. Because the cost of reordering networks of choices and preferences and the signals that result as a consequence, is extremely high. Habits must be restructured, expectations set, and time devoted to new solutions to problems of household production, maintenance and care. (Bouridan’s ass never starves.) ie: we clear networks of partial preferences, not ordinal stacks subject to cheap substitution by price. Even businesses avoid this at all costs. (Only an investor or banker, who does not engage in production, would make Mises’ error – compounded by Rothbard.)
6) The evidence that reason (deduction) is inferior to ratio-scientific analysis (internal consistency plus external correspondence) for the purpose of exploration. ie: the requirement that any theory of human cooperation consist of both correspondent tests (actions) that we call and internally consistent tests (logic) that instrumentally compensate for our inherent frailty of reason. Science (ratio scientific argument) requires both tests of action and tests of logic, both of which are stated in operational language. Without operational language we do not know if the author (speaker) relies upon knowledge of construction, or knowledge of use. He can attest to consequences via knowledge of use, but he cannot attest to cause without articulating knowledge of construction.
Without the full set of tests, including: constructed, consistent, correspondent, and falsified, we cannot claim to morally attest to the truth of any argument by means of our own cognition. (The profundity of that statement is not something to ignore.) The scientific method “the ratio-empirical method” is a moral constraint on our utterances. There is no platonic universe we are describing when we assert the truth of something.
Conversely, without demonstration that one has articulated a theory as constructed, consistent, correspondent, and falsified, any truth claim, is predicated on the platonic, magical or the divine, and one cannot ‘attest’ to he truth of it. One cannot morally claim that he speaks the truth.
Truth is a performative action, necessary for recreating meaning – not an intrinsic property outside of human attestation.
One of our many human cognitive biases is our instinctual avoidance of blame wherever and whenever possible. It is usually destructive to, and antithetical to debate. As such, over the millennia, in the art of our arguments, we have systematically avoided the social discomfort of blame by using verbal contrivances to cast truth as a platonic construct rather than what it is: an attestation that one’s testimony (theory, construction, proof, demonstration and falsifications) are true witness, not dependent upon deception, here-say, assumption, imagination, or error.
(This version of the performative theory of truth is an extremely important concept which solves many of the empty verbal problems of philosophy.)
(Note: To avoid further complexity, I have not above, included the additional requirements of “context or utility” of a theory which determines the scope of the attestation, the “completeness” of the theory, and the “parsimony” of its causes. The compete set of tests of the ratio-scientific method should include: Utility (problem), theory, construction, proof, demonstration, falsification, completeness and parsimony. This places a much higher constraint on truth than all other theories of truth, and relegates all other statements of ‘truth’ as subservient to the performative theory. The discussion of the resulting hierarchy of truth claims and what they claim and do not can be reduced to “I can say X given the partial truth condition Y”. This solves, completely, the problem of multiple competing definitions of truth. But that discussion is outside of the scope of this one.)
7) The stipulation that any set of statements describing cooperation, that are reduced to a sequence of human actions, are open to the individual, sympathetic test of rational voluntary transfer. As such, the value of “praxeological” analysis is not in determining outcomes, or emergent phenomenon, but in the determination of whether any exchange is rational, ethical and moral to the actors. This is the proper value of the logic of cooperation. Just as we can loosely test whether red = red, we can also loosely test whether an exchange is rational, ethical and moral or not.
8) Even if we can subjectively test the rationality of incentives, it turns out that we are (Libertarians in particular) morally blind enough that we cannot ascertain the sympathetic appreciation of incentives available to the majority of peoples when they conduct an exchange or transfer when any moral question is a member of the set of preferences that must be satisfied (cleared). As such our ability to correctly value moral properties of human interactions is extremely ‘nearsighted’ and limited to the very obvious forms of harm and visible theft, but as we enter ethical, moral and political questions we cannot correctly sympathize and therefore test the rationality of incentives.
For these reasons as well as others that I don’t think are necessary to go into, Praxeology is a pseudoscience. Economics and human cooperation are, as I have stated, an empirical endeavor.
Our rational abilities are quite frail. It is only through instrumentation both logical and physical that we sense, perceive, and judge that which is beyond the very simple and pre-cognitive.
This is not my final word on this matter, but it is my first draft, and while extensible it should be sufficient enough that we discard Praxeology and instead work upon articulating a theory of cooperation expressible as a formal logic of institutions.
If we combine this effort with a theory of property that corresponds completely to the criminal, ethical, moral and political spectrum, then it is possible to render all possible disputes in and across all groups resolvable by means of the common law. And thereby eliminate demand for the state as a means of suppressing criminal, unethical and immoral transaction costs.
What remains then, is merely the need for formal institutions that allow for the construction of commons while preventing the privatization of and socialization of losses onto those commons. Competition in the marketplace is virtuous, but competition in the production of commons produces transaction costs that always and everywhere create demand for the state.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-11 14:30:00 UTC
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HUMANS WILL INVENT INSTITUTIONS TO FILL ETHICAL AND MORAL VACUUMS. (important)(i
HUMANS WILL INVENT INSTITUTIONS TO FILL ETHICAL AND MORAL VACUUMS.
(important)(insight)(parsimony)
The trick is to fill moral and ethical vacuums with rationally adjudicable property rights rather than the state, religious authority, superstition, or some other rule or taboo.
The rothbardian definition of property will not produce rational incentives sufficient for the formation of a voluntary polity. Definitions of property, like rules of common law, must evolve with the complexity of the society to reflect all possible ethical and moral constraints such that ALTERNATIVE ethical and moral constraints – of which the state is only one form – do not evolve to take the place of missing moral and ethical constraints. Humans will find a way to fill a moral or ethical vacuum because transaction costs of the moral and ethical vacuum are simply prohibitively high. That is why societies have eccentric moral codes, laws, rules and rituals: they have no method – like the common law – of advancing property rights by rational means. Property is our only rational means of advancing prohibition on unethical and immoral behavior and thereby driving out the high transaction costs they create.
For libertarianism to be palatable and rationally preferable for other than a marginally indifferent minority, we must repair the definition of property that is adjudicable under the common law, to reflect the entire scope of moral and ethical constraints. Moral intuitions do vary in amplitude and priority but those that apply to cooperation are instinctual prohibitions on in-group free riding: violence, theft, fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by negative externality, free riding, socialization of losses, privatization of gains, corruption and conspiracy – and every permutation and possibility in between.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-08 04:14:00 UTC
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WHERE LIBERTARIANS GO WRONG. Libertarians get lost in introspection. The central
WHERE LIBERTARIANS GO WRONG.
Libertarians get lost in introspection. The central problem of creating an anarchic society is fully articulating property rights such that they are possible to rationally adjudicate under the common law.
It is this rational ability to adjudicate differences under the common law that makes possible ‘rule of law’. Without such rational articulation, rule by man’s discretion is necessary.
The sufficiency of that articulated list of property is what determines if transaction costs are low enough that it’s rational for people to voluntarily join a polity in which plans can be made, and disputes can be resolved, according to that list of property rights.
As I have written recently, libertarians (foolishly) discount these transaction costs because they tend to be above, and interact above, the threshold at which moral behavior is dominant.
The NAP is either an insufficient test, or private property rights that are intersubjectively verifiable are an insufficient scope. Propertarianism extends property to that which people demonstrate they believe is their just property, and places the burden on the individuals with the greater knowledge. “Seller Beware”.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-05 14:56:00 UTC
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**ALL LAW IS “THEORY” AND IS BOUND BY REQUIREMENTS OF THEORY** The Economist fin
http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21596796-democracy-was-most-successful-political-idea-20th-century-why-has-it-run-trouble-and-what-can-be-doPROPERTARIANISM: **ALL LAW IS “THEORY” AND IS BOUND BY REQUIREMENTS OF THEORY**
The Economist finally gets on board and criticizes democracy. TWENTY-TWO YEARS after most of us. It was pretty clear by 1992 that democracy was a failed experiment. It is pretty clear to those of us who specialize in political economy, that FEDERALISM is also a failure.
REASONS WHY THE ECONOMIST ARTICLE IS MERELY “OK”
Because, while the author does raise awareness of the failure of democracy, he does not address the reason’s for that failure:
1) RENT SEEKING AND BUREAUCRACY: Succeeds in identifying rent-seeking and bureaucracy as the structural problem that democracy cannot correct. But does not address that privatization and competition solve that problem.
2) RULE OF LAW AND CALCULABILITY : Fails to identify the difference between majoritarianism (bad) and rule of law (good). And therefore fails to Hayek’s argument requiring the CALCULABILITY of the rule of law and legal processes requires to change law under rule of law.
3) REPRESENTATION vs LOTTOCRACY: Fails to identify that the problem with republican democracy is that we have chosen the worst of all worlds: elected representatives. When we could also choose between direct democracy, economic democracy, lottocracy, lottocratic citizen juries, and flexibility to add additional houses to represent each class’s interests. All of these solutions solve the problem of interests, and return us to the original purpose of democracy: lottocracy. (The common law is lottocratic which is why it’s so successful.)
4) THE TRADEOFF OF SCALE: Fails to identify the reason micro-nationalism succeeds and macro-nationalism fails: That is because there is a trade off between the trade and insurance benefits of scale on the one hand, and the similarity of interests on another.
5) THE PROBLEM OF MORAL DIVERSITY: Fails to identify the problem of moral diversity in different family structures, and the impossibility of reconciling competing moral codes except by degrading the higher moral code. **All moral compromises are devolutionary.** Truth is not a matter for compromise. The greater the suppression of free riding, the more moral the rule. Differences then, are not matters for compromise. They are matters for evolution or devolution.
ALL LAW IS THEORETICAL, AND ALL LAWS, THEORIES
What we have learned about humans from the discipline of science is that we must always adhere to two rules, in articulating any theory, because ALL LAW is a theory, and is bound by the same constraints as scientific theory.
Revision of law, is equally a revision of theory, bound by the same constraints as all theory.
Those two rules are:
— a) Calculability and;
— b) Operational language.
In the context of law, ‘Calculability’ is a property of Empiricism (observation) that refers to the necessity that all monetary actions are made visible – and therefore there is a prohibition on pooling and laundering data through the use of aggregates. This implication is vast, and applies to all laws in all circumstances.
For example, taxes are pooled into general funds, and their use discretionary, rather than taxes (fees) are collected for the purpose of particular contracts, and when those contracts are complete the taxes (fees) expire. Cause and effect are broken. Laws are not contracts that expire. They must be. Otherwise they would be ‘incalculable’.
(continued)
PART II. See my next post: The Canons Of Theory (which is the philosophical basis of Propertarianism.)
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-04 11:28:00 UTC
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The Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Calculability, The Solution To Direct Redistribution (Part 1)
Positioning Libertarian Ethics By Philosophical School 1) CLASSICAL “PSYCHOLOGICAL” (Smith,Hume,Locke,Burke)(BHL’s) 2) GHETTO COSMOPOLITAN (Rothbard), 3) CONTINENTAL RATIONAL (Hoppe), 4) ANGLO ANALYTIC (Doolitte), I keep intuitively wanting to classify the Bleeding Heart Libertarians led by Matt Zwolinski as right-continental rationals, but it’s pretty clear if you go through the past two years of articles on BHL, that their arguments are consistent with the classical psychological while borrowing arguments from everyone else where helpful. I pretty much agree with the BHL’s sentiments. But formal institutions that depend on psychological (and normative) moral intuition and belief, cannot possibly survive postmodern, obscurant, and pseudoscientific propaganda. Worse, they cannot survive the dissolution of the nuclear family. And it’s the nuclear family, or the Absolute Nuclear Family of the anglo tradition that is the primary source of our anglo american moral code. And in a world where immigrants no longer practice that family structure, where single mothers produce 40% of the population, and where ‘alternative marriages’ and ready divorce undermine the institution of the nuclear family, the moral intuitions upon which the Psychological School depends are statistically irrelevant. The family structure is the constructor of moral intuitions which merely direct and modify genetic and gender driven differences in moral sensitivity. Period. Conservatives were correct about the family and norms and we were not. In a democratic polity, where the majority can implement policy, the family structure of the majority will determine morality. And since morality determines property rights, no such property rights can exist within a democracy. We are in our current crisis because the American founders did not grasp the necessity and utility of the principle of calculability (no did any one until Weber). Had they for example, required original intent, and strict construction, and placed explicit authority in the common law, our world might be a very different place. At that time, given the state of science, and the prevalence of religious and poetic phrasing, it was impossible for them to grasp the concept of operational language as a necessary structure of all calculable statements. The BHL’s are not able to innovate per se, because they have no calculable and rational argumentative structure to rely upon. And so their arguments are victim to the moral predisposition their audience. But instead they are positioning libertarian arguments through sympathetic psychological contrasts and advocacy. Which is excellent marketing. And given the damage done by Rothbard’s morally reprehensible parasitic Ghetto Ethics to the cause of liberty, we certainly need good marketing. Propertarianism is not morally loaded. It’s analytic and calculable. In propertarian ethics I’ve placed the formal requirement for operational language. For that reason it isn’t morally aspirational – like most scientific argument it’s a little unsatisfying to reduce all human behavior to it’s physical properties – but it’s factually moral and defensible by science and reason. Whereas the Psychological model may advocate the correct ideas but they are not argumentatively powerful unless one is predisposed to agree with them. As such they are not arguments, but statements of confirmation bias. I have tried to provide the BHL’s with a Propertarian argument for redistribution. My argument requires full calculability from start to finish. And it fully warrants, justifies, explains in causal terms, why direct redistribution to consumers is necessary compensation mandated by respect for property rights. My criticism of the BHL’s to date has been limited (as my autistic arguments often are) to the fact that they are not contributing to innovation in libertarian theory, only to libertarian propaganda. Because I don’t disagree with their sentiments. I disagree with their Psychological School arguments. My hope is that at some point they will grasp that the formal logic of property is sufficient to justify their psychologically argued, and morally intuited ends. And they can back their good marketing with good science, reason, and institutional solutions that are calculable and therefore impervious to the multitudinous forms of fraud that are used by the obscurantist left both socialist, Postmodern, Feminist and whatever else they manage to invent. Property under Propertarianism is a scientifically moral, not rationally moral, or psychologically moral construct. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev