PROPERTARIAN ANALYSIS Let me ‘get all Propertarian’ here. Define properties, axis, actions, Property, and costs. BIOLOGICAL TRUTH TABLE: Ternary : Neutral(Null), Benefit (True), Harm False) RESULTS (In Descending Order) 1) Mutualism: both organisms benefit. TT 2) Commensalism: one benefits without affecting the other. TN 3) Parasitism: one benefits while the other is harmed. TF 4) Amensalism: one is unaffected and the other is harmed NF 5) (?): both are harmed : FF OPPORTUNITY COSTS vs FIXED PRODUCTION/CONSUMPTION The biological model above does not account for opportunity costs from production, where production in a division of labor. We must correct the difference between organisms that engage in production and those that do not. An opportunity cost is the DIFFERENCE between one choice and another. In other words, only mutually productive exchanges are free of loss. ie: there is only one T position in the truth table. Unlike non-producing organisms. Biology is a poor analogy, because production is nearly unique to man. Lets see if I can simplify this even more without losing the central idea. EXAMPLE A and B engage in a mutually productive exchange. Neither A nor B at this moment have a more productive exchange to engage in. This is the maximum yield any action can produce, at zero opportunity cost. Every action OTHER than this one decreases the benefit and increases the opportunity cost from zero. CORRECTED TRUTH TABLE P= Production , ~P = Lost opportunity for production, H=harm 1) Mutualism: both organisms benefit. TT => P1 + P2 = TRUE 2) Commensalism: one benefits without affecting the other. TN=> P1 + ~P2 = FALSE 3) Parasitism: one benefits while the other is harmed. TF=> P1 + ~P2 – H2 = FALSE 4) Amensalism: one is unaffected and the other is harmed NF=>~P1 + ~P2 – H2 = FALSE 5) (?): both are harmed : FF => ~P1 + H1 + ~P2 + H1 = FALSE EXCEPTION: MODIFIED BY KIN SELECTION Genetic Distance: || Humans demonstrate kin selection; treatment of self, near genes and farther genes as priorities with marginal indifference applied to offspring. INSTINCTS a) desire for cooperation (to reduce costs by increasing productivity) b) prohibition on free riding (cheating as defense against parasitism) CONCLUSION Humans engage in cooperation, eschew free riding, and in any act of cooperation, opportunity costs guarantee that all non-productive exchanges (aside from kin selection) are net losses. This is different from biological organisms who do not have the ability to cooperate on production by choosing between opportunity costs. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev
Theme: Externalities
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CAPLAN’S DISHONEST REDISTRIBUTIVE ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF OPEN IMMIGRATION Caplan’s
CAPLAN’S DISHONEST REDISTRIBUTIVE ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF OPEN IMMIGRATION
Caplan’s argument does not account for costs. He’s wrong. Always has been. This argument is just an extension of Cosmopolitan justification for identitarian incorporation of subgroups into host countries. It is simple literary and economic obscurantism that seeks to ignore the costs of heterogeneity on a population. In an homogenous population under universal absolute nuclear families, we still see high costs of relocation of individuals to changes in capital centers that doe NOT offset the increases in productivity – which are merely artifacts of the change in prices as demand increases in geographies.
In homogenous populations containing ANF families, it takes time for the introduction of heterogeneous forces to play out, but temporary increases do simply to increases in demand for consumption due to relocation are not increases in production, and those costs have to measured against the long term decline of the trust as well as socialistic costs of incorporating lower trust groups into the society.
Trust and homogeneity of high trust, is the most expensive capital to create. And heterogeneity consumes that capital asset – rapidly.
The fallacy of the economic benefit of immigration is that there is no cost to norms. If high trust ethics were fully codified in law, then we could enforce high trust ethics at low cost. However, the immigration of low trust peoples has produced precisely the erosion of our constitution and our liberties that the protestants predicted would happen.
The majority does not desire liberty. The minority desires liberty. And the aristocratic (noble) minority imposed high trust ethics upon the northern european peoples by force. It was that forcible imposition that caused the high trust society, plus the restoration of science, that resulted in european miracle – the only people to possess liberty.
I don’t want to say Caplan is a LIAR, so much as engaged in intentional deception, but he’s no better than the progressives who abuse statistics to tout changes family incomes instead of individual incomes.
Its sort of like his arguments as to why he’s not an austrian. They’re just word games. (There is no difference between the argument for prices and incentives. Obverse and Reverse of the same concept.)
My purpose is to promote my genes, even at the expense of others genes. If we can cooperate while I do that then that’s fine. But if we cannot cooperate while I do that, then there is no point in cooperation.
We all demonstrate our time preference. That’s mine. That’s everyone other than W.E.I.R.D’s – who are demonstrably suicidal.
You don’t get to determine what my preference is. Thats totalitarian. If you dictate my preferences that is by definition not a state of liberty. I agree to cooperate if it’s beneficial to my ends, but not if it is not. That is all that can be said.
I don’t subscribe to the leftist proposal of Rawls, nor the left libertarian position of open borders. I subscribe to the aristocratic proposal that if cooperation is beneficial to me and mine then we should cooperate, but if it’s not then no. I don’t know what’s libertarian about favoring dysgenics.
I mean, why should I squander my earnings through redistribution? Why should I squander my culture’s high trust norms through redistribution? And why should I squander my genes through dysgenic redistribution?
I mean, if you’re a libertarian and you claim to have rights to your earnings, then why do you only have rights to your earnings and not the right to your other forms of capital?
I can spend my inheritance too. That isn’t an increase in production, that’s just rapid destruction of accumulated capital.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-24 13:59:00 UTC
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Rules of Ethical and Moral Exchanges
DEFINITIONS ETHICAL: no involuntary transfer local to the exchange MORAL: no involuntary transfer external to the exchange. CASES NON/MORAL / AMORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary exchange. (non-violence) UNETHICAL) Two people conduct an voluntary, asymmetrically productive exchange. (unethical) ETHICAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange.(ethical) IMMORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange with externalities (immoral). MORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange without externalities (moral).
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Rules of Ethical and Moral Exchanges
DEFINITIONS ETHICAL: no involuntary transfer local to the exchange MORAL: no involuntary transfer external to the exchange. CASES NON/MORAL / AMORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary exchange. (non-violence) UNETHICAL) Two people conduct an voluntary, asymmetrically productive exchange. (unethical) ETHICAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange.(ethical) IMMORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange with externalities (immoral). MORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange without externalities (moral).
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Descriptive High Trust Ethics of Northern Europeans
[T]he intra-family system of outbred North Sea Europeans contains these rules: 0) Private property 1) Voluntary Exchange 2) Symmetry and Warranty* 3) Prohibition on Externality* 4) Requirement for Value Added* 5) Prohibition on familial Rents and Free Riding. 6) Prohibition on Socialization of Losses and Privatization of Gains These additional properties forbid the use of ‘cunning’ in exchange itself, and force all cunning in production, and distribution. Furthermore in propertarianism, I have added political constraints on contracts (ad laws): 7) Requirement for operational language (as a prevention for obscurantism. Which means propertarian language must be used for contracts and law) 8) Requirement for Calculability ( prohibition on pooling and laundering – this is a complex topic.) 9) The right of exclusion (ostracization). [T]hese last three topics are the complex matters I have had to wrestle with in Propertarianism. Primarily as a defense against the Continentals, the Culture of Critique, the Postmoderns, and their philosophical heirs. All of whom have adopted the technique of obscurantism from monotheistic religion, and modernized it for advocacy of the state. Unfortunately, the Culture of Critique, Postmodernists, and the Continentals have mastered the art of obscurantism, and as such we must require operational language, and calculability of contracts, as does science, as a means of prohibiting use of obscurant language as means of obtaining discounts (theft). High Trust Is A Prohibition On Discounts These rules prohibit discounts. The only reason to eschew violence and engage in exchange is if ALL discounts are prohibited from the market, and therefore, by consequence, all improvements are in the construction and distribution of goods, and NOT in the verbal means of selling those goods. As Such, All Conflict Is Pressed Into The Market Not the market for words, but the market for goods and services. And since the only possible means of competing is innovation in production and distribution, then such societies will innovate in production and distribution faster than all others. So not only do such rules that place a prohibition on both violence, theft, and discounts foster peace and prosperity, it fosters innovation, and trust. As Such, 1. Property is the result of the partial suppression of discounts, 2) Private property is the result of full suppression of discounts 3) Trust is the RESULT of total Suppression of Discounts. As Such, A Common Law System Can Function Where a homogenous set of property rights exist, and *ALL* discounts are violations of property rights, demand for intervention is limited to disputes over property via common law courts. Without homogeneity of property rights, and wherever all discounts are not suppressed, then demand for the State increases, since commensurability of discounts is logically impossible. (This is profound if you grasp it.) In other words, under rothbardian ethics, the common law is not possible. Under aristocratic ethics, it is possible. Any Science Requires Means of Commensurability As such Propetarianism provides us with the previously unmet promise of praxeology by changing the theory of human behavior from a deductive a priori form of rationalism, to an empirically descriptive science of all human behavior whose units of measure are property, and whose truths and falsehoods are involuntary transfers via discounts. Praxeology: (Action, Property, Calculation and Incentives), supplies us with a science of human action, if we treat property as DESCRIPTIVE rather than NORMATIVE. 1) Reason renders words and concepts commensurable. 2) Numbers render countable objects commensurable 3) Measurements render relations commensurable 4) Physics renders physical causes commensurable. 5) Money renders goods and services commensurable 6) Property renders cooperation (ethics, morals, politics) commensurable
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Descriptive High Trust Ethics of Northern Europeans
[T]he intra-family system of outbred North Sea Europeans contains these rules: 0) Private property 1) Voluntary Exchange 2) Symmetry and Warranty* 3) Prohibition on Externality* 4) Requirement for Value Added* 5) Prohibition on familial Rents and Free Riding. 6) Prohibition on Socialization of Losses and Privatization of Gains These additional properties forbid the use of ‘cunning’ in exchange itself, and force all cunning in production, and distribution. Furthermore in propertarianism, I have added political constraints on contracts (ad laws): 7) Requirement for operational language (as a prevention for obscurantism. Which means propertarian language must be used for contracts and law) 8) Requirement for Calculability ( prohibition on pooling and laundering – this is a complex topic.) 9) The right of exclusion (ostracization). [T]hese last three topics are the complex matters I have had to wrestle with in Propertarianism. Primarily as a defense against the Continentals, the Culture of Critique, the Postmoderns, and their philosophical heirs. All of whom have adopted the technique of obscurantism from monotheistic religion, and modernized it for advocacy of the state. Unfortunately, the Culture of Critique, Postmodernists, and the Continentals have mastered the art of obscurantism, and as such we must require operational language, and calculability of contracts, as does science, as a means of prohibiting use of obscurant language as means of obtaining discounts (theft). High Trust Is A Prohibition On Discounts These rules prohibit discounts. The only reason to eschew violence and engage in exchange is if ALL discounts are prohibited from the market, and therefore, by consequence, all improvements are in the construction and distribution of goods, and NOT in the verbal means of selling those goods. As Such, All Conflict Is Pressed Into The Market Not the market for words, but the market for goods and services. And since the only possible means of competing is innovation in production and distribution, then such societies will innovate in production and distribution faster than all others. So not only do such rules that place a prohibition on both violence, theft, and discounts foster peace and prosperity, it fosters innovation, and trust. As Such, 1. Property is the result of the partial suppression of discounts, 2) Private property is the result of full suppression of discounts 3) Trust is the RESULT of total Suppression of Discounts. As Such, A Common Law System Can Function Where a homogenous set of property rights exist, and *ALL* discounts are violations of property rights, demand for intervention is limited to disputes over property via common law courts. Without homogeneity of property rights, and wherever all discounts are not suppressed, then demand for the State increases, since commensurability of discounts is logically impossible. (This is profound if you grasp it.) In other words, under rothbardian ethics, the common law is not possible. Under aristocratic ethics, it is possible. Any Science Requires Means of Commensurability As such Propetarianism provides us with the previously unmet promise of praxeology by changing the theory of human behavior from a deductive a priori form of rationalism, to an empirically descriptive science of all human behavior whose units of measure are property, and whose truths and falsehoods are involuntary transfers via discounts. Praxeology: (Action, Property, Calculation and Incentives), supplies us with a science of human action, if we treat property as DESCRIPTIVE rather than NORMATIVE. 1) Reason renders words and concepts commensurable. 2) Numbers render countable objects commensurable 3) Measurements render relations commensurable 4) Physics renders physical causes commensurable. 5) Money renders goods and services commensurable 6) Property renders cooperation (ethics, morals, politics) commensurable
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RULES OF ETHICAL AND MORAL EXCHANGES DEFINITION ETHICAL: no involuntary transfer
RULES OF ETHICAL AND MORAL EXCHANGES
DEFINITION
ETHICAL: no involuntary transfer local to the exchange
MORAL: no involuntary transfer external to the exchange.
CASES
AMORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary exchange. (non-violence)
UNETHICAL) Two people conduct an voluntary, asymmetrically productive exchange. (unethical)
ETHICAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange.(ethical)
IMMORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange with externalities (immoral).
MORAL) Two people conduct a voluntary, symmetrically productive exchange without externalities (moral).
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-01 14:41:00 UTC
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NAP Fails on Transaction Costs Alone
–“Yes…transaction costs exist. But that simply means that a market can potentially give sub-optimal outcomes. It does nothing to undermine the internal coherence of NAP.”–
[I]t does everything to undermine the willingness of individuals to reduce their demand for the state.
Science requires external correspondence not internal consistency. Internal consistency is a property of our logic not of reality. It is not materially useful if something is internally consistent if it fails the test of external correspondence.
So if you feel that the NAP is sufficient for the rational reduction of demand for the state, you can make all the internally consistent statements that you wish, but unless you can empirically demonstrate that people will do so, your internally consistent argument is false.
NAP is not false, but insufficient. It is insufficient because people attribute greater resistance to risk and therefore transaction costs, then they to do third party intervention.
For example: Does the NAP forbid blackmail? Rothbard doesn’t forbid blackmail in his books. Walter block doesn’t either.
Each marginal improvement in the trust necessary for marginal reduction in demand for the state, requires disproportionate suppression of additional means of cheating (involuntary transfer). The progression is not linear. We can measure it. We have.
Comments:
——————->Osku
How could slavery reduce transaction costs? Couldn’t voluntary organizations do it instead?
>Curt Doolittle
(Sorry, Osku. Not sure the logic you’re using to get to slavery. NAP is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. People DEMONSTRATE that it is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. So what is absent in the NAP as a test of property rights theory, that maintains demand for the state? Slavery isn’t the test, because slavery is satisfied by the NAP. NAP is sufficient to suppress slavery, violence and theft. It is not sufficient to suppress even the low standard of ethics set by blackmail. How can a voluntary society, a free society use the NAP as its critieria for the test of property rights?)
>Osku
So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs? I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished. This would not be against NAP, because, it’s voluntarily agreed sanction, like some communities could punish from alcohol consumption, or some other vice.
If we define society as a co-operative organization, the first principle has to be NAP. Coercion is the opposition of co-operation, so they would be mutually exclusive. The property right to things outside your body, would be next obvious way to co-operate. It’s a way to co-operate more efficiently. Bad manners, like black mailing would be either restricted by social sanctions, or agreed voluntary legal sanctions.
There is no universal ethics, like in christian theology (except for Christians). Ethics is a concept we use to behave as a social animal in society. NAP and property rights are so elementary for social animal, it’s in our genes to understand them. We also have genes to be altruistic, that helps to lower the transaction cost, when living in closely related tribes. Then there is of course genes, that try to use the free riding strategy.
If people are free to leave legal orders and societies, and free to form their own, they are living in voluntary societies. If people are forbidden to leave, they are slaves. There is the problem of free riders and they have high demand for public and private slavery. This slavery is supported by violence and propaganda. A slavery can’t fix problem of transaction costs, because it would destroy the benefits of co-operation. People could still want to be or to have slaves, but if enough seceding communities would emerge and compete with each other, most people would have to follow the price signal.
>Curt Doolittle
“So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs?”
The pejorative term ‘afraid’ is an attempt to introduce a fallacy. Instead, praxeologically, it is simply a rational choice that we reduce the burden of many independent interactions with a few major and invisible transactions.
“I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished.”
Agreed. However, I don’t dispute that. I’m arguing that without prior promise of constraint of blackmail, we cannot reduce demand for the state. Private Property only developed where unethical and immoral conduct was suppressed at every possible level.
The EVIDENCE is that the demand for private property only exists in the suppression of immoral and unethical conduct. Criminality is insufficient. So it’s not RATIONAL to argue that the NAP is sufficient. The trust necessary for private property must exist PRIOR to the demand for private property, and the reduction of demand for the state. Further, it’s not evident (it’s contrary to the evidence) that the market suppresses unethical and immoral behavior. Just the opposite. The expansion of the market INCREASES opportunity for immoral and unethical behavior. Immoral and unethical behavior is cheaper than honest ethical and moral behavior, which imposes costs on the participants. Property rights are a cost. Every time they are respected. Forgoing those opportunities requires trust. The result of forgoing opportunities and TRUST creates property rights. Not the other way around. Private property does not create trust. Once you suppress criminal, unethical and immoral behavior, the only POSSIBLE means of interaction is via private property.
We cannot confuse cause and consequence.
TRUST FIRST. PROPERTY SECOND. STATE LAST.
So, again, trust (willingness to take risks / low transaction cost exchange) requires the suppression of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior. And the trust that appears to be sufficient for demand for private property requires near total suppression of unethical behavior.
We must suppress even MORE unethical and rent seeking and corrupt behavior in order to reduce demand for the state. If we are to define property rights as the basis of a moral and peaceful society, then what is the definition of property rights that prohibits not only criminal behavior (the NAP) but also unethical, immoral, as well as free riding, rent seeking, and corruption?
I think that it looks like the state would be the natural means of transforming criminal, unethical, immoral behavior into free riding, rent seeking and corruption in an effort to decrease transaction costs. Now, how do we FURTHER suppress free riding, rent seeking and corruption without the state? Privatization. But for privatization we must have a set of property rights that increase suppression of free riding, rent seeking and corruption, without sacrificing the reason for the state: suppression of unethical and immoral behavior.
It’s non logical to ask people to yet bear again that which they have rid themselves of, by clear and demonstrated preference, almost universally. People have already demonstrated that they are willing to trade unethical and immoral behavior, for corrupt and rent seeking behavior. And they were rational to do so. You cannot tell them that they are gaining something by simply reverting them to a previous state that they have already rejected.
We can only offer them something BETTER. Which is to ALSO prohibit rent seeking and corruption AS WELL as unethical and immoral behavior.
So no. The NAP was a terrible mistake for the liberty movement. It was tragic. I understand why they resorted to ghetto ethics, because they didn’t understand where liberty and the high trust society came from.
But now that we do (or at least I do) we must base any argument that we deem ethically superior on a set of property rights that is a net gain, not a net loss, for the population.
This is very difficult for Rothbardians to swallow, but pride and personal investment in a failed ideology are less important than the achievement of freedom.
>Osku
Doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean, that NAP is incorrect ethical goal, and we should have some anti-NAP goal, that is more achievable? Or are you saying, that the logical reasoning of NAP is not appealing for masses, but could sell them the the private property principle, and NAP would follow by definition from that?
>Curt Doolittle
Close.
NAP is an INSUFFICIENT ethical test of the violation of property rights needed, (or the ‘goal’ as you say), to COMPENSATE people with the sufficient suppression of immoral and ethical behavior, that they will reduce their DEMAND for government as a means of suppressing that unethical and immoral behavior.
So, yes, it is an incorrect ethical goal because it is an insufficient goal for rational adoption of anarchy. People will demand a much broader definition of property than ‘criminal’.
This is not a criticism of Hoppe’s solutions, private government, or minarchy. It is a criticism of the definition of property that is sufficient for people to tolerate private government or minarchy. Any system that is dependent upon property rights as the means of resolving conflicts, would requires a broader definition of property, that accurately reflected the property rights people demand. Nowhere do people demonstrate a preference for property rights as limited as the NAP except in ghettos.
(There are many ways to approach this argument, but this is the most direct.)
>AndySo if you are defining property rights according to people’s demand wouldn’t you have to define property rights in thousands of ways for thousands of groups of requests for these? (i.e.: ghetto – NAP, as mentioned.)
And could it not be the case that the NAP be part of this rather that the whole? So maybe it is insufficient but necessary? How do you see this Curt?
>Curt
I see the NAP as necessary, but insufficient. The NAP prohibits crime, and we might argue that through the NAP (as Osku suggested) we could prohibit the state, but we cannot prohibit unethical and immoral behavior. And as such we cannot reduce demand for the state to suppress unethical and immoral behavior.I think I’ve managed to define the suite of property rights pretty simply actually. However, given that reproductive strategy determines the desirability of some of those rights, and other institutions make some of them more or less necessary, the scope of property rights would need to be specified in a shareholder agreement in private competing governments. (or Constitution that enumerated property rights in minarchic government.)
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NAP Fails on Transaction Costs Alone
–“Yes…transaction costs exist. But that simply means that a market can potentially give sub-optimal outcomes. It does nothing to undermine the internal coherence of NAP.”–
[I]t does everything to undermine the willingness of individuals to reduce their demand for the state.
Science requires external correspondence not internal consistency. Internal consistency is a property of our logic not of reality. It is not materially useful if something is internally consistent if it fails the test of external correspondence.
So if you feel that the NAP is sufficient for the rational reduction of demand for the state, you can make all the internally consistent statements that you wish, but unless you can empirically demonstrate that people will do so, your internally consistent argument is false.
NAP is not false, but insufficient. It is insufficient because people attribute greater resistance to risk and therefore transaction costs, then they to do third party intervention.
For example: Does the NAP forbid blackmail? Rothbard doesn’t forbid blackmail in his books. Walter block doesn’t either.
Each marginal improvement in the trust necessary for marginal reduction in demand for the state, requires disproportionate suppression of additional means of cheating (involuntary transfer). The progression is not linear. We can measure it. We have.
Comments:
——————->Osku
How could slavery reduce transaction costs? Couldn’t voluntary organizations do it instead?
>Curt Doolittle
(Sorry, Osku. Not sure the logic you’re using to get to slavery. NAP is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. People DEMONSTRATE that it is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. So what is absent in the NAP as a test of property rights theory, that maintains demand for the state? Slavery isn’t the test, because slavery is satisfied by the NAP. NAP is sufficient to suppress slavery, violence and theft. It is not sufficient to suppress even the low standard of ethics set by blackmail. How can a voluntary society, a free society use the NAP as its critieria for the test of property rights?)
>Osku
So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs? I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished. This would not be against NAP, because, it’s voluntarily agreed sanction, like some communities could punish from alcohol consumption, or some other vice.
If we define society as a co-operative organization, the first principle has to be NAP. Coercion is the opposition of co-operation, so they would be mutually exclusive. The property right to things outside your body, would be next obvious way to co-operate. It’s a way to co-operate more efficiently. Bad manners, like black mailing would be either restricted by social sanctions, or agreed voluntary legal sanctions.
There is no universal ethics, like in christian theology (except for Christians). Ethics is a concept we use to behave as a social animal in society. NAP and property rights are so elementary for social animal, it’s in our genes to understand them. We also have genes to be altruistic, that helps to lower the transaction cost, when living in closely related tribes. Then there is of course genes, that try to use the free riding strategy.
If people are free to leave legal orders and societies, and free to form their own, they are living in voluntary societies. If people are forbidden to leave, they are slaves. There is the problem of free riders and they have high demand for public and private slavery. This slavery is supported by violence and propaganda. A slavery can’t fix problem of transaction costs, because it would destroy the benefits of co-operation. People could still want to be or to have slaves, but if enough seceding communities would emerge and compete with each other, most people would have to follow the price signal.
>Curt Doolittle
“So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs?”
The pejorative term ‘afraid’ is an attempt to introduce a fallacy. Instead, praxeologically, it is simply a rational choice that we reduce the burden of many independent interactions with a few major and invisible transactions.
“I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished.”
Agreed. However, I don’t dispute that. I’m arguing that without prior promise of constraint of blackmail, we cannot reduce demand for the state. Private Property only developed where unethical and immoral conduct was suppressed at every possible level.
The EVIDENCE is that the demand for private property only exists in the suppression of immoral and unethical conduct. Criminality is insufficient. So it’s not RATIONAL to argue that the NAP is sufficient. The trust necessary for private property must exist PRIOR to the demand for private property, and the reduction of demand for the state. Further, it’s not evident (it’s contrary to the evidence) that the market suppresses unethical and immoral behavior. Just the opposite. The expansion of the market INCREASES opportunity for immoral and unethical behavior. Immoral and unethical behavior is cheaper than honest ethical and moral behavior, which imposes costs on the participants. Property rights are a cost. Every time they are respected. Forgoing those opportunities requires trust. The result of forgoing opportunities and TRUST creates property rights. Not the other way around. Private property does not create trust. Once you suppress criminal, unethical and immoral behavior, the only POSSIBLE means of interaction is via private property.
We cannot confuse cause and consequence.
TRUST FIRST. PROPERTY SECOND. STATE LAST.
So, again, trust (willingness to take risks / low transaction cost exchange) requires the suppression of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior. And the trust that appears to be sufficient for demand for private property requires near total suppression of unethical behavior.
We must suppress even MORE unethical and rent seeking and corrupt behavior in order to reduce demand for the state. If we are to define property rights as the basis of a moral and peaceful society, then what is the definition of property rights that prohibits not only criminal behavior (the NAP) but also unethical, immoral, as well as free riding, rent seeking, and corruption?
I think that it looks like the state would be the natural means of transforming criminal, unethical, immoral behavior into free riding, rent seeking and corruption in an effort to decrease transaction costs. Now, how do we FURTHER suppress free riding, rent seeking and corruption without the state? Privatization. But for privatization we must have a set of property rights that increase suppression of free riding, rent seeking and corruption, without sacrificing the reason for the state: suppression of unethical and immoral behavior.
It’s non logical to ask people to yet bear again that which they have rid themselves of, by clear and demonstrated preference, almost universally. People have already demonstrated that they are willing to trade unethical and immoral behavior, for corrupt and rent seeking behavior. And they were rational to do so. You cannot tell them that they are gaining something by simply reverting them to a previous state that they have already rejected.
We can only offer them something BETTER. Which is to ALSO prohibit rent seeking and corruption AS WELL as unethical and immoral behavior.
So no. The NAP was a terrible mistake for the liberty movement. It was tragic. I understand why they resorted to ghetto ethics, because they didn’t understand where liberty and the high trust society came from.
But now that we do (or at least I do) we must base any argument that we deem ethically superior on a set of property rights that is a net gain, not a net loss, for the population.
This is very difficult for Rothbardians to swallow, but pride and personal investment in a failed ideology are less important than the achievement of freedom.
>Osku
Doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean, that NAP is incorrect ethical goal, and we should have some anti-NAP goal, that is more achievable? Or are you saying, that the logical reasoning of NAP is not appealing for masses, but could sell them the the private property principle, and NAP would follow by definition from that?
>Curt Doolittle
Close.
NAP is an INSUFFICIENT ethical test of the violation of property rights needed, (or the ‘goal’ as you say), to COMPENSATE people with the sufficient suppression of immoral and ethical behavior, that they will reduce their DEMAND for government as a means of suppressing that unethical and immoral behavior.
So, yes, it is an incorrect ethical goal because it is an insufficient goal for rational adoption of anarchy. People will demand a much broader definition of property than ‘criminal’.
This is not a criticism of Hoppe’s solutions, private government, or minarchy. It is a criticism of the definition of property that is sufficient for people to tolerate private government or minarchy. Any system that is dependent upon property rights as the means of resolving conflicts, would requires a broader definition of property, that accurately reflected the property rights people demand. Nowhere do people demonstrate a preference for property rights as limited as the NAP except in ghettos.
(There are many ways to approach this argument, but this is the most direct.)
>AndySo if you are defining property rights according to people’s demand wouldn’t you have to define property rights in thousands of ways for thousands of groups of requests for these? (i.e.: ghetto – NAP, as mentioned.)
And could it not be the case that the NAP be part of this rather that the whole? So maybe it is insufficient but necessary? How do you see this Curt?
>Curt
I see the NAP as necessary, but insufficient. The NAP prohibits crime, and we might argue that through the NAP (as Osku suggested) we could prohibit the state, but we cannot prohibit unethical and immoral behavior. And as such we cannot reduce demand for the state to suppress unethical and immoral behavior.I think I’ve managed to define the suite of property rights pretty simply actually. However, given that reproductive strategy determines the desirability of some of those rights, and other institutions make some of them more or less necessary, the scope of property rights would need to be specified in a shareholder agreement in private competing governments. (or Constitution that enumerated property rights in minarchic government.)
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**Basic rule of ethics: if you aren’t willing to insure it yourself then you sho
**Basic rule of ethics: if you aren’t willing to insure it yourself then you shouldn’t have made the loan.**
The govenrment had to insert all this risk into the economy in order to use the financial system as a distribution network for getting money into the hands of consumers.
We don’t need to use a financial system to distribute money to consumers with loans.
We can just DISTRIBUTE IT TO CONSUMERS.
I’d rather fight for consumer’s spending than fight my government and corrupt bankers who exploit my people, and destroy my savings.
I’d rather the average joe who doesn’t pay any substantial taxes had the same self interest in shrinking the government than I do as a taxpayer.
I don’t like redistribution. But then, I like consumers to have money that I can capture a piece of – that I can COMPETE for.
I like government abuse of me and my citizens, and government’s predilection for war, more than I dislike redistribution.
I like that if we redistributed cash, then we wouldn’t be dependent upon immigration, and in fact, we’d have every incentive NOT to allow immigration except of highly talented people.
Source date (UTC): 2014-01-27 13:01:00 UTC