“A perfect order that actually existing people will not support is less perfect than a less perfect order they will support.”— Eli Harman
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-08 03:15:00 UTC
Theme: Governance
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THE NEXT EVOLUTIONARY STEP IN CLASSICAL LIBERALISM I think the debate in classic
THE NEXT EVOLUTIONARY STEP IN CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
I think the debate in classical liberalism is unfortunately (as Hayek tried to inform us) too much on the structure of government (the market for the production of commons), and too little on the rule of law (the evolution of means of suppression of parasitism) and distracted by the artificial (false) demarcation in property rights, and totally absent of the debate on the problem of suppressing immorality (the total suppression of involuntary transfer, and the forcible removal of all alternatives to market participation).
Humans are want to reduce debates to single issues. Unfortunately, most issues are determined by equilibria not states. In the case of politics, the rule of law as the means of suppressing immorality and forcing people into productive activity is one topic. And the construction of commons that cannot be produced by the incentives of the market is something else.
As far as I know the solution to the rule of law is known. Two problems remain: (a) the problem with the production of commons – primarily because of the problem of free riding among tax payers; and because of the problem of bureaucratic incentives among administrators. And (b) because of the problem of the declining presence of means of participating in the market (employment) – a problem which we anticipate increasing.
The problem (b) is solvable by shareholdership and dividends, and loss of shareholdership in the event that one violates the shareholder agreement.
The problem (a) is solvable by eliminating monopoly decision making under majority rule, and instead, providing the individual commitment of funds. In other words, independent of whether we rely on (i)elected representatives, (ii)representatives chosen by lot (juries), or (iii)direct participation, if the total revenues were divided by the number of participants in i,ii,or iii, then we voted our dollars, we could pursue policies (commons) that interested us, and not pursue commons that did not. And competition would provide answers that reason cannot. There is no need for majority rule.
However, that is a prescription for the production of material commons, not of normative commons. And it is necessary to redistribute (de-centralize) the production of normative commons (rules of public behavior). Again, competition will drive adoption. And there is no value in normative tyranny.
This model allows us to federate insurance (universal insurance), cooperate in the production of material and economic commons, and to choose to compete in the production of normative commons.
As such the classical liberal method expanded such that the government remains a market for the production of cooperation on commons and mutual insurance, rather than a means of the projection of monopoly.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-08 03:08:00 UTC
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PEOPLE ASK ME WHY I THINK THE POLITICAL WORLD IS FRAGILE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/scattered-power-outages-reported-across-dc-area/2015/04/07/8f4e8b84-dd49-11e4-a500-1c5bb1d8ff6a_story.htmlAND PEOPLE ASK ME WHY I THINK THE POLITICAL WORLD IS FRAGILE.
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-07 15:05:00 UTC
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RULE OF LAW AND THE FAILURE OF THE PRESIDENCY. All, This problem – of the Presid
http://nomocracyinpolitics.com/2015/04/06/after-the-rule-of-law-by-john-samples/THE RULE OF LAW AND THE FAILURE OF THE PRESIDENCY.
All,
This problem – of the Presidency – is well studied in the literature. The general argument, and as far as I know, the general consensus, is that the presidency is a failed experiment. That had Washington accepted monarchy with veto power, and had we as a consequence adopted the British (English) system of prime minister, that we would find more consistent long term policy and less politicization of the bureaucracy.
People overwhelmingly prefer monarchs – familial, tribal, cultural, and spiritual leaders and families that symbolize the populace. Curiously, countries with Monarchs outperform countries without. So the question of whether presidents abuse rule of law is a misplaced one: of course they have. The presidency was a mistake. Very few men in power respect rule of law. Their vanity, pride, idealism, legacies, entourage, pressures, dependents, and the people that put them into power guarantee it.
RULE OF LAW
As for rule of law, as far as I know, that lasted until Lincoln at best. And ended with FDR. It’s just taken this long to transform from a president who abused it but the public and academy wouldn’t tolerate (Nixon) to a president who can’t conceive of it (Obama), an academy the actively undermines it, and a public that is ignorant of and dismisses it.
Either laws completely and totally limit our executives in all circumstances other than defensive warfare, or there is no rule of law. Administrative ‘law’ is an impossibility. We can issue administrative commands, and by deceit, claim that they hold the same properties as law. We can issue regulatory commands, and by deceit claim that they hold the same properties as law. But they always have been convenient deceits – to grant to arbitrary human wish that which is necessary law of cooperation.
Law is discovered, and recorded by neutral jurists, no less scientifically than physical laws, biological processes, and mechanical operations: as we invent new means of involuntary transfer – from the most simplistic and obvious violence theft and fraud, to the most indirect and obscure socialization of losses, privatization of commons, rent seeking and free riding – we register this new means of involuntary transfer (just as we register patents) as new prohibitions on involuntary transfer: law.
We can choose to construct contracts for the production of commons, using government, and we can resolve those contracts in courts, using laws. But beyond the voluntary production of commons, all else is usurpation and command.
LIE BY ANALOGY
One can lie easily using analogies. It is extremely difficult to lie using operational language. That is why science requires operational definitions. Whenever someone makes a statement about ‘law’ and rule of law, it is helpful to ascertain whether the person is engaged in deceit, by questioning whether he is talking about law, contractual provision, command, or permission.
Humans evolved cooperation from non-cooperation because it was an unequalled multiplier in the production of calories, and concentration of calories in expensive offspring. But as soon as one develops cooperation one invites free riding (parasitism). The prevention of free riding is necessary for the preservation of cooperation – otherwise cooperation is irrational and counter-productive. Without the prevention of free riding, and without aggressive punishment of free riders – from the lazy family member to the aggressive alpha, to the predatory competitor – people cease to cooperate, and must cease to cooperate. And productivity declines accordingly. And trust declines accordingly. And economic velocity declines accordingly. And violence theft, fraud, free riding, and rent seeking and corruption and conspiracy – including political conspiracy at scale, and bureaucratic conspiracy of common malincentives expand to the point of equilibrium.
We either possess rule of law: constraint, without exception, on discretion, or conversely, independence from discretion in matters of involuntary transfer – or we do not.
THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE IS RULE OF LAW
So on two questions, the presidency and rule of law, it is of little sense throwing money into a hole in the water, and of equally little sense debating the wishful virtues of men. Plato caused us enough harm doing so for one civilization to bear. We will not solve this problem or any other without restoring rule of law: there is no reason that the public is prohibited from universal standing for suing individuals in the government. The voting booth fails outside of the neighborhood of the voters.
If we restore rule of law we can keep the president, even if the choice between president or prime minister is a matter of the quality of long term policy. But without rule of law, it matters little whether we have president or prime minister – because we merely obey commands.
Without rule of law we are not provided with the means of conflict resolution for the purpose of developing cooperation by the organized and incremental prevention and prosecution of free riding. Instead, we are subjects, commanded, by an elaborate, obscurantist, operatic, ceremonial means of justifying those commands. And nothing else.
And hence, there exists no incentive to cooperate. There is only incentive to obey commands offset by incentives to disobey commands. Liberty is the effect of rule of law. And rule of law cannot exist when courts cannot redress grievances.
Sic Semper Tyrannis.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev, Ukraine
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-07 13:35:00 UTC
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MUST BREAK UP AMERICA INTO SMALLER COUNTRIES. That’s the only answer. Your appea
http://larrysummers.com/2015/04/05/time-us-leadership-woke-up-to-new-economic-era/WE MUST BREAK UP AMERICA INTO SMALLER COUNTRIES.
That’s the only answer. Your appeals are well intentioned but irrelevant.
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-06 13:48:00 UTC
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The Decline in the USA’s Military Power Is Not A Problem for Americans – Only For Bureaucrats
THE DECLINE IN USA’S MILITARY POWER IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR AMERICANS – ONLY FOR BUREAUCRATS
(from elsewhere)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/31/396604082/dozens-of-countries-join-china-backed-bank-opposed-by-washington[T]he USA pays for its military through the sale of petro-dollars and debt that it inflates away. It was this technique started under Nixon that allowed the USA to economically bankrupt the soviets via military competition. (Something easy enough to repeat with the Putinista Russians.)
The sale of oil in euros was the first blow that limited future american military expansion. This allowed europeans to cease indirect payment for defense to the USA. The rise of China and demand for american debt sustained american military expansion. The attempt of Iran to create a bourse and take over this tax on world oil production by demanding middle eastern oil in the currency of their choice, is an effort to transfer this power. With nuclear weapons it becomes a possibility for them.
China has set out to replace america as the global power in the current century. But to do so requires weakening the USA’s state department, and to weaken american financial interests. It is more important to weaken the relationship between capital and democracy. So for china, the use of such a bank, will extend its power, and more importantly, eliminate the correlation between demand for credit, demand for commerce, and the corresponding demand for democracy and human rights. In other words, china wants to spread authoritarian capitalism, by improving the standing of authoritarian capitalism.
So in the long term, americans will have to retrench, because democracy is a failed experiment, social democracy a failed experiment, and authoritarianism with limited capitalism (aristocratic capitalism), superior to proletarian capitalism (social democracy).
Americans would very much prefer to withdraw from world affairs. Especially that we are now marginally oil independent. Unfortunately, the left has succeeded in overwhelming americans through immigration, and thereby achieving through population-conquest what could not be achieved through ideas.
But to state that this change in power is a ‘problem for americans’ is simply not true. It’s a problem for bureaucrats. But americans will merely experience a decline in standard of living to european levels of consumption. They will dramatically decrease their public spending on the military. Europe will dramatically increase its military spending on the military. And the world will equilibrate to less variation in purchasing power between nations. And the nations with the greatest purchasing power will be those that possess the best legal systems, with the greatest experimentation, and the least rents. In that race, americans may still win.
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The Decline in the USA’s Military Power Is Not A Problem for Americans – Only For Bureaucrats
THE DECLINE IN USA’S MILITARY POWER IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR AMERICANS – ONLY FOR BUREAUCRATS
(from elsewhere)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/31/396604082/dozens-of-countries-join-china-backed-bank-opposed-by-washington[T]he USA pays for its military through the sale of petro-dollars and debt that it inflates away. It was this technique started under Nixon that allowed the USA to economically bankrupt the soviets via military competition. (Something easy enough to repeat with the Putinista Russians.)
The sale of oil in euros was the first blow that limited future american military expansion. This allowed europeans to cease indirect payment for defense to the USA. The rise of China and demand for american debt sustained american military expansion. The attempt of Iran to create a bourse and take over this tax on world oil production by demanding middle eastern oil in the currency of their choice, is an effort to transfer this power. With nuclear weapons it becomes a possibility for them.
China has set out to replace america as the global power in the current century. But to do so requires weakening the USA’s state department, and to weaken american financial interests. It is more important to weaken the relationship between capital and democracy. So for china, the use of such a bank, will extend its power, and more importantly, eliminate the correlation between demand for credit, demand for commerce, and the corresponding demand for democracy and human rights. In other words, china wants to spread authoritarian capitalism, by improving the standing of authoritarian capitalism.
So in the long term, americans will have to retrench, because democracy is a failed experiment, social democracy a failed experiment, and authoritarianism with limited capitalism (aristocratic capitalism), superior to proletarian capitalism (social democracy).
Americans would very much prefer to withdraw from world affairs. Especially that we are now marginally oil independent. Unfortunately, the left has succeeded in overwhelming americans through immigration, and thereby achieving through population-conquest what could not be achieved through ideas.
But to state that this change in power is a ‘problem for americans’ is simply not true. It’s a problem for bureaucrats. But americans will merely experience a decline in standard of living to european levels of consumption. They will dramatically decrease their public spending on the military. Europe will dramatically increase its military spending on the military. And the world will equilibrate to less variation in purchasing power between nations. And the nations with the greatest purchasing power will be those that possess the best legal systems, with the greatest experimentation, and the least rents. In that race, americans may still win.
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THE NEW CURRICULUM? (worth repeating) I would argue that we should be taught the
THE NEW CURRICULUM?
(worth repeating)
I would argue that we should be taught the following:
1) Manners, ethics, and Morality under the Golden Rule, Silver Rule, and the one-rule of property and voluntary exchange. The miracle of cooperation. How we insure one another in a multitude of ways.
2) Truthfulness, Witness and Testimony (Operationalism and Existential Possibility) as well as how to spot errors in truthfulness, witness, and testimony.
3) Logic, Grammar, Rhetoric, Debate and Oratory (as we once were), including how to spot ignorance, error, bias, deception, and Loading-Framing-Overloading (“Suggestion that overwhelms reason”).
4) External Correspondence (empirical observation, analysis and testing) with a nod to Instrumentalism. And how to falsify external correspondence. What a pseudoscience is, and how to spot it.
5) How to use free association (what we call ‘creativity’) “Filling the shelves of your mind, and then ‘playing’. Which is a discipline if you work at it. (It’s my preferred discipline.)
6) Arithmetic, Accounting, Finance, Economics (in that order)
7) Mathematics, Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry, and at least the ‘idea’ of calculus. But taught as the history of the development of these problems that people were solving, instead of as wrote. With far more emphasis on word problems.
8) Mind. Biology. Chemistry, Physics, (in that order)
9) The western heroic canon.
10) As much history – as the narrative of problems people solved – as we can tolerate.
And honestly, I think all philosophy is discardable except as an interesting inquiry into the intellectual history of the struggle to develop science: Truth telling.
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-06 05:01:00 UTC
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THE DECLINE IN USA’S MILITARY POWER IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR AMERICANS – ONLY FOR BU
THE DECLINE IN USA’S MILITARY POWER IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR AMERICANS – ONLY FOR BUREAUCRATS
(from elsewhere)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/31/396604082/dozens-of-countries-join-china-backed-bank-opposed-by-washington
The USA pays for its military through the sale of petro-dollars and debt that it inflates away. It was this technique started under Nixon that allowed the USA to economically bankrupt the soviets via military competition. (Something easy enough to repeat with the Putinista Russians.)
The sale of oil in euros was the first blow that limited future american military expansion. This allowed europeans to cease indirect payment for defense to the USA. The rise of China and demand for american debt sustained american military expansion. The attempt of Iran to create a bourse and take over this tax on world oil production by demanding middle eastern oil in the currency of their choice, is an effort to transfer this power. With nuclear weapons it becomes a possibility for them.
China has set out to replace america as the global power in the current century. But to do so requires weakening the USA’s state department, and to weaken american financial interests. It is more important to weaken the relationship between capital and democracy. So for china, the use of such a bank, will extend its power, and more importantly, eliminate the correlation between demand for credit, demand for commerce, and the corresponding demand for democracy and human rights. In other words, china wants to spread authoritarian capitalism, by improving the standing of authoritarian capitalism.
So in the long term, americans will have to retrench, because democracy is a failed experiment, social democracy a failed experiment, and authoritarianism with limited capitalism (aristocratic capitalism), superior to proletarian capitalism (social democracy).
Americans would very much prefer to withdraw from world affairs. Especially that we are now marginally oil independent. Unfortunately, the left has succeeded in overwhelming americans through immigration, and thereby achieving through population-conquest what could not be achieved through ideas.
But to state that this change in power is a ‘problem for americans’ is simply not true. It’s a problem for bureaucrats. But americans will merely experience a decline in standard of living to european levels of consumption. They will dramatically decrease their public spending on the military. Europe will dramatically increase its military spending on the military. And the world will equilibrate to less variation in purchasing power between nations. And the nations with the greatest purchasing power will be those that possess the best legal systems, with the greatest experimentation, and the least rents. In that race, americans may still win.
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-05 08:05:00 UTC
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Cut Russia out of the internet. Cut the hard wires. Cut the Satellites. Cut the
Cut Russia out of the internet. Cut the hard wires. Cut the Satellites. Cut the SWIFT system. Let them die of their own follies.
Source date (UTC): 2015-04-04 06:05:00 UTC