WHY IS POLITICAL ECONOMY ONCE AGAIN CENTER STAGE, WHILE MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY CLAIM LESS ATTENTION?
Because it’s become obvious that democracy, permanent growth, equality, diversity, and the end of political innovation were false assumptions.
Tribalism has, does, and will always rule.
Perhaps academia should focus more on institutions of cooperation rather than optimum choices for all.
MONOPOLY IS A BAD IDEA EVERYWHERE IN NATURE THAT WE FIND IT.
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-20 08:57:00 UTC
http://www.propertarianism.com/MORE ON CONSERVATIVE LITERATURE
(books on rational conservatism)
–See reading lists at www.propertarianism.com Then “Reading Lists” from the menu–
My last post was just too narrow so I thought I’d forward this canon on rational conservatism. It doesn’t hold a candle to Libertarian theory because it’s fundamentally an emphasis on the normative rather than political or economic economy. But that’s precisely why we should study it. Conservatives ‘get it’. Even if they can’t talk about it rationally or intelligently. ARATIONAL != IRRATIONAL.
MORE ON THE ANALYTICAL AND HISTORICAL APPROACH
Jerry z Muller :
_Conservatism_
http://www.amazon.com/Conservatism-Anthology-Political-Thought-Present/dp/0691037124/
_The Other God That Failed_
http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-that-Failed-Deradicalization/dp/069100823X
“Us and Them : The enduring power of ethnic nationalism”
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63217/jerry-z-muller/us-and-them
“Capitalism and Inequality : What the right and the left get wrong”
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138844/jerry-z-muller/capitalism-and-inequality
George H. Nash: _Conservative Intellectual Movement in America_
http://www.amazon.com/Conservative-Intellectual-Movement-America-ebook/dp/B0055PNMQ4
Robert NIsbett : _The Quest for Community_
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1558150587?ie=UTF8&creativeASIN=1558150587
F.A. Hayek : _The Constitution of Liberty_, _The Road to Serfdom_
RESTORATION SCHEMES
Mark R Levin : _The Liberty Amendments_ (Restoration)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Liberty-Amendments-Restoring-American-ebook/dp/B00CO4IP5M
(Levin’s ideas are solid but the Genii is out of the bottle. Secession is the only power we have to force a rewrite, and that would simply lead to organized dissolution.)
Richard M Weaver : _Ideas Have Consequences_ (Philosophy/Ideology)
http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Have-Consequences-Richard-Weaver-ebook/dp/B00BN4YIGY
(Weaver’s Philosophical attempt at Restoration.)
ON ‘THE FALL’
(Criticism is good. It’s just not an answer to the problem)
Richard Epstein : _How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution_
http://www.amazon.com/Progressives-Rewrote-Constitution-Richard-Epstein-ebook/dp/B004XOZ658/
Whittaker Chambers: _Witness_
http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Whittaker-Chambers-ebook/dp/B0028085JS/
Thomas Sowell : _The Vision Of The Anointed_
http://www.amazon.com/The-Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social/dp/046508995X
ON SENTIMENTAL AND ANALOGICAL CONSERVATISM
(What I want to get away from.)
Before about 1990, the scientific knowledge did not exist to support conservatism. And the speculation generated by the pseudo-sciences of the 19th century by Marx, Freud, Cantor, The Frankfurt School, the American Marxist Movement, and the American-European Postmodern movement, were successful, particularly in the 1970’s in creating anti-rational ideas in the masses via universities.
Leo Strauss : _History of Political Philosophy_
Russell Kirk : _The Conservative Mind_
____________ : _The Politics of Prudence_
http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Prudence-Russell-Kirk-ebook/dp/B0055PKEX8
Michael Oakeshott (everything)
Ostwald Spengler : _The Decline of the West_
Francis Yockey : _Imperium_ (romantic vision of totalitarian recreation)
GOING FORWARD – REFORMATION CONTINUES
The connection between christianity, high victorian language, germanic manners, and our morally loaded aristocratic poetry and literature, is still present in these works. We have, slowly, converted most of our language to that of science, models and the study of incentives and cognitive abilities and biases. We have learned a great deal, slowly, about the institutions, traditions, memes, morals, ethics, manners, myths and metaphysics of western civilization. But most importantly, we have learned enough about political economy, and the influence of norms on that political economy, to discuss ‘the pagan and christian west’ in ratio-scientific rather than ratio-philosophical terms.
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-19 15:33:00 UTC
http://newamerica.net/node/77134WEAK GRAND STRATEGY : AND A STRONGER ONE
“The strategic landscape of the 21st century has finally come into focus. The great global project is no longer to stop communism, counter terrorists, or promote a superficial notion of freedom. Rather, the world must accommodate 3 billion additional middle-class aspirants in two short decades — without provoking resource wars, insurgencies, and the devastation of our planet’s ecosystem. For this we need a strategy.”
I HAVE A BETTER ONE
Each of the ten main urban cores break into 10 region-states, while leaving the federal insurance, banking, and military intact. Devolve all law-making and taxation to the local regions.
THAT IS A GRAND STRATEGY FOR A MORE DYNAMIC ECONOMY
Everyone in the upper two percent will make haste to seize the opportunity.
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-17 17:55:00 UTC
http://csis.org/files/publication/twq12FallScobellNathan.pdfCHINA’S NEW HISTORIC MILITARY MISSIONS
(giving the red army direction)
—Addressing the Central Military Commission (CMC), Hu formally articulated a set of four extremely broad mission areas for the armed forces, subsequently dubbed the ‘‘New Historic Missions’’:
1) ‘‘guarantee’’ the‘‘ruling position’’ of the Chinese Communist Party;
2) safeguard China’s ‘‘national development’’;
3) protect China’s ‘‘national interests’’; and
4) preserve ‘‘world peace.’’
These quickly became part of the lexicon of official Chinese defense documents and authoritative writings. —
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-17 17:45:00 UTC
(silly)(sentimental)
I try not to get into the humor business. And I’m hoping to cut down to just more serious articles when I can. But this satirical criticism of ‘without government who will build the roads?!’ is too priceless to pass up. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-17 06:11:00 UTC
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691037116/ref=tsm_1_fb_lkCONSERVATISM VS ORTHODOXY : “THE IMPORTANCE OF MORAL CAPITAL”
(insight)
Conservatism relies upon the use of articulated reason to critique the enlightenment program. Orthodoxy relies upon adherence to rules. The problem is that conservatives fail to understand the uniqueness of western civilizations. Aristocratic civilization is more fragile, because the society based upon the nuclear family is more fragile.
From Jonathan Haidt:
“Muller began by distinguishing conservatism from orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the view that there exists a “transcendent moral order, to which we ought to try to conform the ways of society.” Christians who look to the Bible as a guide for legislation, like Muslims who want to live under sharia, are examples of orthodoxy. They want their society to match an externally ordained moral order, so they advocate change, sometimes radical change. This can put them at odds with true conservatives, who see radical change as dangerous.
“Muller next distinguished conservatism from the counter-Enlightenment. It is true that most resistance to the Enlightenment can be said to have been conservative, by definition (i.e., clerics and aristocrats were trying to conserve the old order). But modern conservatism, Muller asserts, finds its origins within the main currents of Enlightenment thinking, when men such as David Hume and Edmund Burke tried to develop a reasoned, pragmatic, and essentially utilitarian critique of the Enlightenment project. Here’s the line that quite literally floored me:
–What makes social and political arguments conservative as opposed to orthodox is that the critique of liberal or progressive arguments takes place on the enlightened grounds of the search for human happiness based on the use of reason. —
“As a lifelong liberal, I had assumed that conservatism = orthodoxy = religion = faith = rejection of science. It followed, therefore, that as an atheist and a scientist, I was obligated to be a liberal. But Muller asserted that modern conservatism is really about creating the best possible society, the one that brings about the greatest happiness given local circumstances. Could it be? Was there a kind of conservatism that could compete against liberalism in the court of social science? Might conservatives have a better formula for how to create a healthy, happy society?
“…Muller went through a series of claims about human nature and institutions, which he said are the core beliefs of conservatism. Conservatives believe that people are inherently imperfect and are prone to act badly when all constraints and accountability are removed . Our reasoning is flawed and prone to overconfidence, so it’s dangerous to construct theories based on pure reason, unconstrained by intuition and historical experience. Institutions emerge gradually as social facts, which we then respect and even sacralize, but if we strip these institutions of authority and treat them as arbitrary contrivances that exist only for our benefit, we render them less effective. We then expose ourselves to increased anomie and social disorder.
“…As I continued to read the writings of conservative intellectuals, from Edmund Burke in the eighteenth century through Friedrich Hayek and Thomas Sowell in the twentieth, I began to see that they had attained a crucial insight into the sociology of morality that I had never encountered before. They understood the importance of what I’ll call moral capital.”
Haidt, Jonathan (2012-03-13). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Kindle Locations 5075-5103). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-17 03:21:00 UTC
THE SEVEN LITTLE LIBERTARIANS
1) The libertarians that think that they can somehow return to the classical liberal tradition, with old world families, women, and single parents in the voting pool.
2) The libertarians that think that it is possible, if we just try, to convince people that our set of moral priorities and methods is superior then they will somehow see the light.
3) The libertarians that think that we can incrementally implement policy that will gradually restore some semblance of liberty despite the various incentives that the lefts incrementalism has used to create dependence on the state.
4) The libertarians that think that we can build a culture within a culture despite the overwhelming incentives for everyone else to prohibit us from doing so.
5) The libertarians that think that moral outrage accomplish anything other than giving themselves a sense of superiority. When it means the opposite.
6) The libertarians that advocate separatism as the only means of obtaining our freedom, while letting the others retain their communalism.
7) The libertarians that want to use every possible tactic to overthrow and delegitimize the state so that they can force a libertarian society into being, out of nothing more than self defense.
There is an interesting pattern here….
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-16 09:56:00 UTC
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/10376017/World-should-de-Americanise-says-China-following-default-fears.htmlPRETTY PLEASE WITH ICE CREAM AND A CHERRY ON TOP?
De-Americanize The World.
As long as it means we pull our military out of all foreign land bases, then I’m all for it.
We can’t get Europe to behave intelligently as long as we subsidize them. Enough coddling. The war was over a long time ago.
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-14 14:10:00 UTC
http://www.myfoxny.com/Story/23684342/microsofts-phone-update-to-feature-driving-modeMORE TECH FASCISM – INCREMENTALISM IN ACTION
First an option. Then mandatory.
There is NO REASON FOR THIS FEATURE.
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-14 14:08:00 UTC
AMERICAN (strategy)
Well, amidst this wonderful bit of rebellion we’re seeing, at least the media are mentioning us as ‘conservatives and libertarians’, or as ‘the libertarian wing’, and positioning us as cooperating ideologies.
We need policy control of the second party. I don’t care what it is called.
The meme we must get out there is ‘the conservative wing of the was not able to either protect our liberty or our family, or our culture, nor produce policy. We can do that. Because we speak in rational terms about liberty.’
And then we need to critique the progressive wing of libertarianism as ‘the crazy people’ who prevented us from uniting with conservatives – ‘because its true.
I think that demographics tell us that the time is past, and that we must break up the country into no less than three, if not many, many, more, new states. But working all strategies simultaneously is something that works as well – buying lots of options so to speak, because they’re cheap options. So, there isnt any harm in trying to work within the existing system, using the threat of breaking the country apart through nullification and secession, or civil war.
But I’m up for any strategy. Although civil war would be the most entertaining, nullification and secession is the cheapest and easiest, that creates many new opportunities for increasing capital.
Source date (UTC): 2013-10-14 05:28:00 UTC