Curt Doolittle

Theme: Governance

  • A Defense and Criticism of The Class Philosophy We Call ‘Libertarianism’

    [A]ll philosophy is class philosophy. All philosophies give precedence to one class or another. Libertarianism is a class philosophy as well. A CLASS PHILOSOPHY

      AN ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY Libertarianism is an economic philosophy that states that:

        A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Libertarianism as a political philosophy that states that:

          BRANCHES OF LIBERTARIANISM

          • CLASSICAL LIBERALISM
          • MINIMAL STATE LIBERTARIANISM
          • ANARCHISM
          • ROTHBARDIAN

          LIBERTARIANISM IS AN ARGUMENT AGAINST MONOPOLY AND BUREAUCRACY – NOT SOCIAL GOODSLibertarianism is not an argument against ‘government’. It is an argument against monopoly and bureaucracy which hinder individual innovation and competition, and the creating of ‘differences’ (inequalities) which we then seek to eliminate. Libertarianism is not a prohibition on government. IT IS A PROHIBITION ON A MONOPOLY BUREAUCRACY that we call the STATE, that is able to issue COMMANDS under the guise of LAWS, because it maintains a monopoly on the use of violence to enforce those commands, because that state is isolated from competition, and as such, can pursue the interests of the bureaucracy, or become a tool of special interests that likewise desire monopoly privileges, at the expense of the citizenry. THE POWER OF LIKE-MINDED COMMUNITIES EVEN IF THEIR POWER IS BASED SOLEY ON THEIR VALUE AS CONSUMERS Libertarianism allows us to form our own communities with our own rules and norms, in a balance of power between communities with similar interests. These communities will then compete with one another for population, talent, and services. And people can choose which community to belong to. In this model there is no ‘state’. There are just collections of people who form contractual alliances. Just as we make voluntary commercial organizations, we can make voluntary civic organizations. Consumers are very important. Without consumers and credit it is impossible for commercial organizations to make money, and without the ability to make money there is no ability for people to organize into groups. The lower classes are consumers, and quite honestly, produce very little of value other than their consumption. Lower classes in the libertarian model will either exchange adoption to norms for redistributions in wealthy communities, or organize into their own organizations and charge fees for access to their consumers, which can then be redistributed, thereby minimizing profit. COOPERATING ON MEANS EVEN IF WE HAVE DIFFERENT ENDS: BY EXCHANGES IN THE MARKET AND IN GOVERNMENT The market for competition lets us compete toward different ends and preferences, even if we cooperate on means of achieving them. Monopoly government forces us to compete in government in a win-lose battle for control of the monopoly bureaucracy. Humans have been cooperating in the market on means, despite having disparate ends, for millennia There is no reason that we cannot take this insight as far as possible. MORALITY AND COMPETITION The market allows us to compete upon ends while cooperating upon means. However, competition is morally objectionable to human beings inside the family group, village or tribe. We license and encourage competition, because it produces positive results: a virtuous cycle. We tolerate only one form of immorality: competition. Every other form of involuntary transfer: violence, theft, fraud, omission, externalization, free riding, rent seeking and privatization, systemic corruption, systemic procedural involuntary transfer and warfare – we have constrained or outlawed. We can, in the market, use boycott to deprive organizations of wealth. But it is not always a strong lever. We can use the courts to protect us from violence, theft, fraud and omission if we do not surrender our right to sue. We can use government to protect us from unnecessary competition, free riding and privatization of the commons. when we invest in commons. We can use the state ‘bank’ as an insurer of last resort. We can use multiple houses of government, where we have them, to negotiate exchanges between the classes where market exchange is not possible or creation of commons is not possible, because of the asymmetry of reward of investment in various commons’. But we can only use market and government to cooperate on means of achieving disparate ends, if government is not open to corruttion. And government is open to corruption if it can make laws rather than conttracts. Only the courts can find or discover laws. The government if not corrupt, can only negotiate contracts impossible to negotiate in the market. This emphasis on contracts relies upon the morality of exchange, rather than the immorality of majority rule, or arbitrary command in pursuit of some artificial common ‘good’. ANY OTHER SOLUTION MEANS YOU’RE A THIEF That is, unless your desire is to STEAL rather than EXCHANGE. And you are most likely to want to STEAL rather than exchange if government provides a systematic means of stealing from others. And that’s what government does. It provides a systematic means of stealing. THe common law and property rights provide a systematic means of exchanging instead of stealing.

          ON THE NECESSARY, ADVANTAGEOUS, AND LUXURY FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT

          A) NECESSARY PROPERTIES The NECESSARY properties of of a government are:

            These are the minimum properties of a government. B) ADVANTAGEOUS PROPERTIES In addition to these properties, it may also be possible for a group of people to afford to also have government engage in the following:

              These are advantageous properties of government. C) PROPERTIES THAT ARE LUXURIES In addition to these properties, it may be possible for a group of people to afford to also have the government engage in the following LUXURIES:

                These are LUXURIES that can be provided by some governments under rare circumstances in exceptional periods of time, where malthusian and group selection problems have been temporarily held at bay by technological innovation. The government is not the source of the ‘good things’. The courts, under the common law and property rights is the source of ‘good things’. The government has destroyed the common law, the rule of law, and crated both corporatism and socialism. And we now suffer between two factions that try to control the government for corporatist or socialist means.

                RESERVATIONS ABOUT LIBERTARIANISM

                THE ANCIENT SOURCE OF LIBERTY AND THE DESIRE FOR LIBERTARIANISM White males (the european, or perhaps germanic, race) seek status under the ancient indo-european proscription for heroism via competition. The west is unique for having produced this philosophy of aristocratic egalitarianism – inclusion in equalitarian leadership, and therefore obtaining the reward of property rights, by demonstrated heroism. And the high trust society of the west is the result of aristocratic egalitarianism (heroic achievement, demonstrated excellence, virtue). For most of history, and pre-history, males could achieve this only through combat. With the advent of manorialism, males could demonstrate their fitness through hard work. With the advent of chivalry males could demonstrate their heroic status by charitable service. With the advent of consumer capitalism, males could demonstrate their heroic fitness in commerce. Heroic achievemnet grants access to mates (we have a lof of data on this now that confirms this fact – to the point where we know how many dollars in income per inch of height under 5’10” you must earn to gain the same quality of attractive woman…. Really.) Women are as shallow about status as men are about physical attraction – and the data is the data. As such, white males are intuitively attracted to libertarianism if they see in libertarianism a means of pursuing traditional signals for mating, social status, and wealth. That libertarianism is a rigorous philospohy equalled in detail only by Marxism, and is articulated in economic language and analytical philosophy. It is accessible only to those people with both incentive to learn it, and the ability to understand it. This is why libertarianism is a minority white male philosophy. It is an aristocratic philosophy and difficult to access. Other cultures lack both the mythology and cultural values for heroism and egalitarianism Which is why other cultures also cannot produce the high trust society. And without the high trust society, the wealth necessary for redistribution (charity) is impossible to achieve at scale. RESERVATIONS ABOUT LIBERTARIANISM

                • 1) DISCOUNT-DRIVEN PACIFISM.
                • 2) LIBERTY IS A DESIRE OF THE MINORITY.
                • 3) LACK OF ORGANIZATION.

              • YOU CAN”T HAVE AN ARISTOCRATIC CONSTITUTION, ARISTOCRATIC HOUSES OF GOVERNMENT A

                YOU CAN”T HAVE AN ARISTOCRATIC CONSTITUTION, ARISTOCRATIC HOUSES OF GOVERNMENT AND ARISTOCRATIC JUSTICE IF YOU DON”T HAVE ARISTOCRATS.

                Natural aristocracy is determined by business and war. It is not determined by competition for who can be the greatest expert at exploiting the property rights of individuals.

                Democracy is a competition of crooks.

                Direct democracy, or no democracy.

                Privatize everything.

                Source date (UTC): 2013-07-22 06:15:00 UTC

              • DIALOG ON RACE WITH CLINTON : CIRCULAR LOGIC Listen. I know that solving the pro

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwlEIPfb_WoA DIALOG ON RACE WITH CLINTON : CIRCULAR LOGIC

                Listen. I know that solving the problem of race is a goal of monopolistic government.

                But there are those of us who want to solve the problem of monopolistic government even if it doesn’t solve the problem of race.

                The difference between these two factors is only whether the people in government think their goal is of greater priority than the goal of those of us whose priority is freedom from monopolistic government.

                Race is a problem only because of government.

                ALthough, since most social problems are caused by government prohibiting natural economic and social behavior to play out through voluntary exchange, the fact that government tries to fix the problem it creates is both illogical and impossible.

                The way to solve the race problem is to eliminate race from government, and hopefully to eliminate government as we currently understand it: a territorial monopoly that uses violence at the whim of a predatory bureaucracy.

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwlEIPfb_Wo&list=TL2UE0Zb0nryc

                Source date (UTC): 2013-07-21 12:00:00 UTC

              • The Rate Of Technological Change Determines The Value Of Different Models Of The State

                [T]he totalitarian system, whether it’s the military or the communist system, is very useful for doing very simple things: fighting wars, imposing education, imposing some system of property rights, and building infrastructure. These are processes of execution, not of invention, research and development in consumer goods. But the totalitarian system cannot improve affairs when there is no understanding of what it must to to approve affairs. The totalitarian system cannot administrate what it does not understand, and it can only understand what is simple and preexisting. The individualist system is superior for invention. It improves affairs. It is scientific not ideological, because science is simply trial and error. For this reason the individualist model is superior when you do not know what to do, because the resource which we call technological knowledge, has been exploited into applications that are beyond the grasp of any group of individuals. If your civilization ‘falls behind’ or becomes ‘calcified by bureaucracy’ then totalitarianism (or revolution) are useful tools for fixing it. But individualism will always out-innovate totalitarianism because it places no prior (input based) constraint on the individual actors in the population. We tend to think in terms of a mixed economy in which the state should focus on execution while the private sector focuses on invention. But our government is not constructed to facilitate this behavior. Its incentives are as Hoppe has shown, to consume cultural, civic, and resource capital as fast as possible in order to maintain power. This doesn’t mean it’s not POSSIBLE to create a mixed government. It’s just not possible to do so under representative democratic republicanism in a heterogeneous polity where each generation possesses the illusion of their own genius, instead of possessing the wisdom that they are members of a cycle reacting to a chain of prior cycles, and that their preferences, beliefs and attitudes, are predictable. It’s the technology that isn’t predictable.

              • The Rate Of Technological Change Determines The Value Of Different Models Of The State

                [T]he totalitarian system, whether it’s the military or the communist system, is very useful for doing very simple things: fighting wars, imposing education, imposing some system of property rights, and building infrastructure. These are processes of execution, not of invention, research and development in consumer goods. But the totalitarian system cannot improve affairs when there is no understanding of what it must to to approve affairs. The totalitarian system cannot administrate what it does not understand, and it can only understand what is simple and preexisting. The individualist system is superior for invention. It improves affairs. It is scientific not ideological, because science is simply trial and error. For this reason the individualist model is superior when you do not know what to do, because the resource which we call technological knowledge, has been exploited into applications that are beyond the grasp of any group of individuals. If your civilization ‘falls behind’ or becomes ‘calcified by bureaucracy’ then totalitarianism (or revolution) are useful tools for fixing it. But individualism will always out-innovate totalitarianism because it places no prior (input based) constraint on the individual actors in the population. We tend to think in terms of a mixed economy in which the state should focus on execution while the private sector focuses on invention. But our government is not constructed to facilitate this behavior. Its incentives are as Hoppe has shown, to consume cultural, civic, and resource capital as fast as possible in order to maintain power. This doesn’t mean it’s not POSSIBLE to create a mixed government. It’s just not possible to do so under representative democratic republicanism in a heterogeneous polity where each generation possesses the illusion of their own genius, instead of possessing the wisdom that they are members of a cycle reacting to a chain of prior cycles, and that their preferences, beliefs and attitudes, are predictable. It’s the technology that isn’t predictable.

              • THE RATE OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE DETERMINES THE VALUE OF DIFFERENT MODELS OF THE

                THE RATE OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE DETERMINES THE VALUE OF DIFFERENT MODELS OF THE STATE

                The totalitarian system, whether it’s the military or the communist system, is very useful for doing very simple things: fighting wars, imposing education, imposing some system of property rights, and building infrastructure. These are processes of execution, not of invention, research and development in consumer goods. But the totalitarian system cannot improve affairs when there is no understanding of what it must to to approve affairs. The totalitarian system cannot administrate what it does not understand, and it can only understand what is simple and preexisting.

                The individualist system is superior for invention. It improves affairs. It is scientific not ideological, because science is simply trial and error. For this reason the individualist model is superior when you do not know what to do, because the resource which we call technological knowledge, has been exploited into applications that are beyond the grasp of any group of individuals.

                If your civilization ‘falls behind’ or becomes ‘calcified by bureaucracy’ then totalitarianism (or revolution) are useful tools for fixing it. But individualism will always out-innovate totalitarianism because it places no prior (input based) constraint on the individual actors in the population.

                We tend to think in terms of a mixed economy in which the state should focus on execution while the private sector focuses on invention. But our government is not constructed to facilitate this behavior. Its incentives are as Hoppe has shown, to consume cultural, civic, and resource capital as fast as possible in order to maintain power.

                This doesn’t mean it’s not POSSIBLE to create a mixed government. It’s just not possible to do so under representative democratic republicanism in a heterogeneous polity where each generation possesses the illusion of their own genius, instead of possessing the wisdom that they are members of a cycle reacting to a chain of prior cycles, and that their preferences, beliefs and attitudes, are predictable.

                It’s the technology that isn’t predictable.

                Source date (UTC): 2013-07-21 06:59:00 UTC

              • What Is Post-modernism?

                POSTMODERNISM IS AN ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT TOTALITARIANISM DESPITE THE FAILURE OF SOCIALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE BY PROMOTING A NEW SECULAR RELIGION THROUGH REPETITION OF DESIRABLE BUT FALSE AND IRRATIONAL STATEMENTS AND REJECTING REALISM, SCIENCE AND HISTORY – THE PROMISE OF EQUALITY AS THE EQUIVALENT TO THE PROMISE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH.

                Postmodernism is a sophisticated set of ideas constructed to account for the failure of Socialism, both ideological and ‘scientific’ in theory and in practice, by changing the  values associated with the language and symbolism of realism (truth is objectively knowable by scientific means) and the nature of man (equality, diversity), and morality ( moral relativism).

                The same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, optimism and equality for all – has now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism  But why? Because with the failure of socialism it has adopted the strategy of abrahamic and zoroastrian religions which involves reciting blatant falsehoods in by repetition, peer pressure and indoctrination: that multiculturalism and diversity are ‘good’, and that equality of outcome rather than opportunity is desirable and possible, despite the contrary theory and evidence. That norms – morals, ethics, and manners – have no meaning or value. That all cultures are relative except european, which is bad.  That men and women are equal, but men are bad.

                This ideology, like Marxism, is present largely in liberal arts departments, despite being rejected by STEM and Economics departments where science retains it’s superiority over anti-realism (and where IQ’s are significantly higher.)

                Thorough attempts have been made by Heidegger and Rorty in particular, to attempt to create a non-rational language for discussing experience in subjective terms, rather than objective.

                However, despite the failure of these intellectual endeavors, ideological Postmodernism has in fact been adopted as the religion of the state, left intellectuals, and liberal arts graduates at all levels.

                However, genetic science, neurobiology, anthropology, and economics continue to counter ideological postmodernism with scientific realism with scholars in each field continuing to undermine these attempts to construct a secular religion of anti-scientific irrationality without the burden of mysticism.

                The best way to explain postmodernism today, is the philosophical equivalent of christianity as was used against Roman pragmatism: the promise of magic to motivate the masses.




                From Stephen Hicks – Explaining Postmodernism.
                Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Expanded Edition): Stephen R. C. Hicks: 9780983258407: Amazon.com: Books

                https://www.quora.com/What-is-post-modernism

              • What Is Post-modernism?

                POSTMODERNISM IS AN ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT TOTALITARIANISM DESPITE THE FAILURE OF SOCIALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE BY PROMOTING A NEW SECULAR RELIGION THROUGH REPETITION OF DESIRABLE BUT FALSE AND IRRATIONAL STATEMENTS AND REJECTING REALISM, SCIENCE AND HISTORY – THE PROMISE OF EQUALITY AS THE EQUIVALENT TO THE PROMISE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH.

                Postmodernism is a sophisticated set of ideas constructed to account for the failure of Socialism, both ideological and ‘scientific’ in theory and in practice, by changing the  values associated with the language and symbolism of realism (truth is objectively knowable by scientific means) and the nature of man (equality, diversity), and morality ( moral relativism).

                The same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, optimism and equality for all – has now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism  But why? Because with the failure of socialism it has adopted the strategy of abrahamic and zoroastrian religions which involves reciting blatant falsehoods in by repetition, peer pressure and indoctrination: that multiculturalism and diversity are ‘good’, and that equality of outcome rather than opportunity is desirable and possible, despite the contrary theory and evidence. That norms – morals, ethics, and manners – have no meaning or value. That all cultures are relative except european, which is bad.  That men and women are equal, but men are bad.

                This ideology, like Marxism, is present largely in liberal arts departments, despite being rejected by STEM and Economics departments where science retains it’s superiority over anti-realism (and where IQ’s are significantly higher.)

                Thorough attempts have been made by Heidegger and Rorty in particular, to attempt to create a non-rational language for discussing experience in subjective terms, rather than objective.

                However, despite the failure of these intellectual endeavors, ideological Postmodernism has in fact been adopted as the religion of the state, left intellectuals, and liberal arts graduates at all levels.

                However, genetic science, neurobiology, anthropology, and economics continue to counter ideological postmodernism with scientific realism with scholars in each field continuing to undermine these attempts to construct a secular religion of anti-scientific irrationality without the burden of mysticism.

                The best way to explain postmodernism today, is the philosophical equivalent of christianity as was used against Roman pragmatism: the promise of magic to motivate the masses.




                From Stephen Hicks – Explaining Postmodernism.
                Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Expanded Edition): Stephen R. C. Hicks: 9780983258407: Amazon.com: Books

                https://www.quora.com/What-is-post-modernism

              • WE DON”T NEED IMMIGRANTS Why should we add immigrants so that we can pay the eld

                http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10185342/Britain-needs-millions-more-immigrants-to-reduce-strain-of-ageing-population.htmlNO WE DON”T NEED IMMIGRANTS

                Why should we add immigrants so that we can pay the elderly below-subsistence wages, instead of keeping the lot of them in the work force, as well as the young in the work force, and driving up wages?

                Compete for rare intellectual talent. But labor is little value unless its scarce.

                Source date (UTC): 2013-07-20 16:35:00 UTC

              • ARE WRONG ON IMMIGRATION. AND IF THEY”RE RIGHT, PROGRESSIVES ARE RIGHT ON DEBT.

                http://cafehayek.com/2013/07/thomas-sowell-and-immigration.htmlLIBERTARIANS ARE WRONG ON IMMIGRATION. AND IF THEY”RE RIGHT, PROGRESSIVES ARE RIGHT ON DEBT.

                (How do you like that one?)

                Reposted from Comments on Cafe Hayek.

                —————

                ACK. POSITIVISM.

                How do we measure the cost to current political friction?

                How do we measure the cost of the decline in property rights?

                How do we measure the cost of the decline in the rule of law?

                How do we measure the cost of the decrease in the civic society?

                How do we measure the opportunity cost of what might have been?

                How do we measure the cost of the decline of the nuclear family?

                How do we measure the cost of declining trust due to diversity?

                I can generate constant economic growth by conducting two centuries of constant warfare, while increasing credit loads predicated on the ongoing success of that warfare. So what?

                How many unmeasured costs of normative, social, and institutional capital are absorbed by immigration?

                I can’t take the time address this problem other than to just make a very long list. To which the ONLY response by libertarians would be correlative empirical nonsense. There is no reason if these intangibles PRODUCE the high trust society and the rule of law, that their sacrifice isn’t a COST that undermines the high trust society and the rule of law.

                After all, the production cycle of high trust norms it looks like, is from 200-700 years, and the production cycle of an economy is months or years. I mean, just how IRRATIONAL is it to measure the NOISE generated by profit, loss and GROWTH, instead of the SIGNAL of social and human capital? I mean, how absolutely ridiculous… it’s essentially numerology – attributing magical properties to numbers, and falling into the vapid positive error of INDUCTION.

                IMMIGRATION IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE GOOD and ECONOMIC MEASURES are contrary indicators of the growth of normative, social and human capital.

                If positivism on this scale is right, then the progressives are also right. All you do is confirm the idiocy of the Krugman-Stigliz-Delong left. And their goal is not economic -it’s political. It’s to undermine the aristocratic high trust society and replace it with the totalitarian equalitarian state.

                Sigh. It’s no wonder that we lose the ideological battle with even the conservatives. At least they understand it even if they speak in allegorical terms.

                Exasperating.

                Source date (UTC): 2013-07-20 12:16:00 UTC