Theme: Governance

Last night. Invited to a talk about the enfranchisement of women.

Me, Keith Preston, Sean Gabb

Of course this conversation degenerates quickly to ‘arguing what I understand rather than arguing the subject matter’.

I give my usual:

Enfranchisement is good, assuming that those with different interests have different houses, and that houses reflect demonstrated ability to contribute – not some artificial ‘right’ – so that the houses constitute a market between the classes.

I can’t summarize via this point:

That assuming the family continues to fall apart, and assuming that women retain the franchise, that the trend of single women and single mothers will increase, and that this group will increasingly vote asymmetrically, forming, for all intents and purposes a block, which will continue to determine the direction of policy over that of men, and that policy will continue leftward.

I can’t make these points:

– It makes use of information across the classes. This is a good thing.

– Enfranchisement increases political discourse – and that is not a good thing. Because it is largely a pursuit of power over others. And for every positive attempt at seizure of power we must produce a negative attempt to prevent seizure of power. Whereas under the monarchies all effort must be achieved through market (non-state) means. So, Enfranchisement creates opportunity for political status and power by immoral means, distracting people from opportunity and status by moral means.

– Enfranchisement destroys civic society – the private production of commons.

KEITH PRESTON chimes in. Keith is well read. (very) Argues what he understands. Relied upon wisdom literature, rather than empirical data. I agree with it because it corresponds with the data. Smart guy.

SEAN GABB (UK) Argues what he understands, by shifting the question from what were the consequences of women voting, to what would happen if we took away their vote.

Sean brings up these points:

– We would get lying politicians anyway. True. Irrelevant, because we would get lying politicians who sought to bring different issues to play.

– No one is going to change whether women have the vote. True. Irrelevant, that is not what we were asked to discuss. If we were asked to discuss how we remove women from the vote I wouldn’t participate in the conversation.

– We are seeing a rightward move anyway. True. Irrelevant, (a) since this shift is due to the return of islamism from its 100 year old defeat (after 1400 years of defeating the west consistently). And the question is, had we chosen a different method of enfranchisement, it’s not clear we would be in this position in the first place; and (b) men voting (at least in america) this circumstance would never have occurred. Which is a purely empirical question. (c) I acknowledge that british men are feminized more so than american men and that the data on british elections shows that. It does not show that in america.

– You americans got a ‘trump’. and he’s not legitimate. (bizarre) False. Irrelevant. Legitimacy is a moral claim, not a scientific one. As we say, the purpose of political power is power. Once one has power and can act upon it, moral opinion has no bearing. only the institutional imitations on that power do.

– Women voting or not wouldn’t have changed much. (bizarre) False. Because the accumulated presentation of candidates for office, selection of candidates for office, policies that were put forward, over the past 100 years, in the states, would have dramatically shifted many of our elections, since the past century has largely consisted of policies under which parties auction off privileges (rents). I mean, the entire socio, economic, and political, and consequently, worldwide power shifts that have occurred by the enfranchisement of women in the USA are profound, and most of the propaganda (puritan anglos, and jews in general) has been a catastrophe for western civilization. Education, the academy, family, policy, propaganda … all these changes occur because of women enfranchised. How do you price that? You don’t ‘wave it away’ by saying islamic invasion disproves it….

While Sean is talking I search JSTOR, Pew and SSRN for gender differences in voting patterns. Find the material I’m looking for. But I realize this is a waste of my time. We are not having an adult discussion of empirical evidence, incentives, and institutional means. We are not trash talking for the sake of humor. We are instead talking nonsense.

This is why I am increasingly reluctant to have unstructured conversations. You wanna ‘talk stupid shit’ then you’re welcome to. But I don’t have an interest in correcting people who say stupid things any more than I have to already, in the context of my work.