Curt Doolittle

Theme: Governance

  • Do Machiavellian Philosophies Carry Over Into The Modern World?

    You’d need to define what you mean by Machiavellian tactics.  Machiavelli was the first political scientist after Aristotle, and arguably the father of politics as a scientific endeavor.  He entreated rulers to move away from ancient traditions, religious or abstract moral principles, to material, logical, evidence based, principles necessary for the state to persist in the interests of its citizens. At the time of his writing, trade was moving north, and the principalities were being both threatened externally and undermined from within. 

    In this sense, almost all political action in the contemporary world is Machiavellian.

    So if you mean some other sense, then state it, and I’ll try to answer.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-Machiavellian-philosophies-carry-over-into-the-modern-world

  • Is Democracy A Viable System For Everyone?

    Democracy is, at best, a means of peacefully transferring power. If you mean, can representative democracy (a republic) or even a direct democracy (versus an economic democracy), serve the interests of everyone, the answer is apparently “no” for the following reasons.
    a) Majority rule is a means by which a group with similar moral codes and material interests can set PRIORITIES for the use of scarce resources.  It is not possible to use majority rule for groups with competing moral codes and competing material interests to resolve conflicts over GOALS.  Democracy is a means of obtaining majority rule.
    b) the lower, working and lower middle classes are and will always be, the largest pool of potential voters.  Therefore elites with a variety of interests will simply compete for their votes.
    c) the protestant west was unique in that the church managed to break familial bonds by the long term prohibition of intermarriage, and by granting women property rights. Combined with germanic individualism, and the common law, this made possible the fairly low level of corruption in the west, that is endemic elsewhere.  It also gave rise the the universalist ethic, which is contrary to the natural familial and tribal ethic. This is a very long topic on it’s own, but basically the west is fairly unique.  China and India cannot solve the problem of corruption for example from different ends of the spectrum. India remains familial and china authoritarian.
    d) We have fairly good data now, that moral codes vary considerably, and that they are slanted toward the reproductive strategies of the two genders.  Therefore those things that serve one moral code often violate another.  Those things that violate some moral codes (famlilialism) are necessary for democracy to function.
    e) it appears that the philosophers were right, and that a population that can vote itself payments from others will create a fragile economy.  This is a particular weakness of the western model versus say the Singaporean and Galveston models, whereby individual accountability is maintained.
    f) there are dominant cognitive biases on the left and right. the left is victim of the false consensus bias, and the right overestimates threats and risks, and the libertarians overestimate human beings.  These cognitive problems are impossible to resolve by majority rule.

    I have to rush so hopefully this brief outline will illustrate the problem.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-Democracy-a-viable-system-for-everyone

  • What Should Be The Rank-ordered Budget Priorities Of The U.s. Federal Government?

    (I agree with Stephan Kinsella’s answer to What should be the rank-ordered budget priorities of the U.S. Federal Government?. But I’m going to try to answer the question so that it’s possible to provide some insight.)

    Let’s look at this scientifically.

    I. The federal government, as constructed, has no vehicle for prioritization, or considering prioritization. So the federal government cannot prioritize expenses. Parliamentary government is constructed as a tactical organization with limits on it’s power, not a strategic one that must prioritize its actions. In theory an executive branch should establish such priorities, and does, but it does so in order to establish a legacy for the executive, rather than to cautiously administer the ‘trust fund’ that is the country. Instead, parliamentary organizations are vehicles for interest groups to request special claims which can then be forcibly extracted from others by means of complex involuntary transfers.

    II. We can observe what governments do when they are forced to prioritize, and when we make that observation, we find that all governments do the following:
    • a) prevent insurrection
    • b) protect their jobs
    • c) maintain the capacity for extracting income from citizens.
    • d) maintain the capacity for accumulating debt.
    They then threaten or improve those things voters care about (police, emergency, fire, school and libraries) or things voters need (roads, power, and sewer) which are operational, in while capturing as much revenue as they can for ideological programs, favored special interests, and additional personal income capture.

    III. Given what parliamentary governments actually do as tactical organizations, it’s not rational to discuss what priorities they should follow. We did not construct government in order to achieve priorities. Instead, we should discuss, what a government that followed priorities would look like, and how it would run, and how those decisions would be made.

    IV. If such a government could be constructed, and if it could survive attempts to circumvent it, then I suspect that the following would be the priority scheme that would be ‘best’ if we assume ‘best’ is something other than arbitrary. In the ase below, ‘best’ means, delivering the prosperity necessary for people to have choices, with the minimum cheating, corruption and rent seeking.
    1. Define a set of property rights (all human rights can be articulated as property rights.)
    2. Establish a geography within which those rights apply.
    3. Establish a judiciary for the resolution of differences according to the property rights.
    4. Establish registries for property (titles to anything and everything).
    5. Establish military, police, and other emergency service services to secure those rights.
    6. Establish and maintain commercial infrastructure.
    7. Establish an educational infrastructure.
    8. Given sufficient income produced from establishing commercial and educational infrastructure, allocate gains to the preferences of the people. (monuments, parks, social programs, etc.)

    In periods of duress, work backward from the end of the list to the top, cutting services such that the public is informed as to the importance of those priorities.

    https://www.quora.com/What-should-be-the-rank-ordered-budget-priorities-of-the-U-S-Federal-Government

  • Why Does The Tech Community Seem To Be So Liberal?

    I have no idea why you think the tech community as a whole is liberal.  All the data that I’ve ever seen shows that libertarianism is the only overrepresented political representation in the technology community.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-tech-community-seem-to-be-so-liberal

  • Political Theory: Is The West’s Problem With Middle Eastern ‘democracy’ That It Tends To Be Religious?

    I HAVE TO DISAGREE with the other answers.

    The USA’s strategic policy equates democracy with consumer capitalism,  human rights, and economic and military stability. They are a set, for which ‘democracy” is a simply a shorthand. Which is unfortunate, since that brevity obscures the complexity of the strategy.

    The USA spent the majority of the past century trying to prevent the alternative to consumer capitalism, world communism, from developing the military and economic power necessary to interfere with world oil production, and world trade – as well as preventing the further death and suffering that are the result of managed economies.

    Therefore the simplistic statement “democracy is good”, means “Democracy that is good is democracy that advances consumer capitalism, will create states that are good world citizens and will not disrupt the world system of trade, and world production of oil.”

    The problem that the USA has with islamic states, is that, having spent the past century trying to prevent the rise of anti-capitalist states, it appears that the muslim world is going to coalesce into three or so factions all of whom are militant and at least one of whom’s ambitions  (Iran) is to control the price of oil as a means of concentrating the capital necessary to build a military strong enough to defeat the other two factions, thereby restoring the islamic empire. 

    So the USA is very cautious, and one should not confuse “democracy” which is simply the means of transitioning power, with the broader concept of democratic, consumer capitalism of small independent states all of whom are good world citizens.  Those are different things.

    Party politics is a nonsense-sport to entertain the population. The USA generally follows strategic policy, because the consequences are so serious, which is why all politicians, once in office, tend to follow it.  If the world system of trade is dramatically threatened, the average american can lose a third to a half of his standard of living in far shorter order than we did in the great depression. And at the current level of social discord, the government may not be able to prevent civil conflict.

    https://www.quora.com/Political-Theory-Is-the-Wests-problem-with-Middle-Eastern-democracy-that-it-tends-to-be-religious

  • Why Does The Tech Community Seem To Be So Liberal?

    I have no idea why you think the tech community as a whole is liberal.  All the data that I’ve ever seen shows that libertarianism is the only overrepresented political representation in the technology community.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-tech-community-seem-to-be-so-liberal

  • Political Theory: Is The West’s Problem With Middle Eastern ‘democracy’ That It Tends To Be Religious?

    I HAVE TO DISAGREE with the other answers.

    The USA’s strategic policy equates democracy with consumer capitalism,  human rights, and economic and military stability. They are a set, for which ‘democracy” is a simply a shorthand. Which is unfortunate, since that brevity obscures the complexity of the strategy.

    The USA spent the majority of the past century trying to prevent the alternative to consumer capitalism, world communism, from developing the military and economic power necessary to interfere with world oil production, and world trade – as well as preventing the further death and suffering that are the result of managed economies.

    Therefore the simplistic statement “democracy is good”, means “Democracy that is good is democracy that advances consumer capitalism, will create states that are good world citizens and will not disrupt the world system of trade, and world production of oil.”

    The problem that the USA has with islamic states, is that, having spent the past century trying to prevent the rise of anti-capitalist states, it appears that the muslim world is going to coalesce into three or so factions all of whom are militant and at least one of whom’s ambitions  (Iran) is to control the price of oil as a means of concentrating the capital necessary to build a military strong enough to defeat the other two factions, thereby restoring the islamic empire. 

    So the USA is very cautious, and one should not confuse “democracy” which is simply the means of transitioning power, with the broader concept of democratic, consumer capitalism of small independent states all of whom are good world citizens.  Those are different things.

    Party politics is a nonsense-sport to entertain the population. The USA generally follows strategic policy, because the consequences are so serious, which is why all politicians, once in office, tend to follow it.  If the world system of trade is dramatically threatened, the average american can lose a third to a half of his standard of living in far shorter order than we did in the great depression. And at the current level of social discord, the government may not be able to prevent civil conflict.

    https://www.quora.com/Political-Theory-Is-the-Wests-problem-with-Middle-Eastern-democracy-that-it-tends-to-be-religious

  • ONLY INSTITUTION AMERICANS INCREASINGLY TRUST IS THE MILITARY

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/losing-faith-in-american-institutions/THE ONLY INSTITUTION AMERICANS INCREASINGLY TRUST IS THE MILITARY

    Source date (UTC): 2012-06-25 21:38:00 UTC

  • COMPETITION OF CROOKS” I’m not a member of the cult of ridicule that seems to pe

    http://www.hanshoppe.com/2012/06/professor-hoppes-new-book-der-wettbewerb-der-gauner-the-competition-of-crooks/”THE COMPETITION OF CROOKS”

    I’m not a member of the cult of ridicule that seems to pervade the libertarian movement. So I’m just a bit thrown by the title of Hoppe’s new book, “The Competition Of Crooks”, which, while bearing a colloquial title, is apparently an elaboration of Hoppe’s theory of the private law society that criticizes the predatory bureaucratic state. The book is apparently only available in German for now. So we pidgin-speaking anglo heretics will have to wait. 🙂 That said, I will read it as soon as it’s available.

    Professor Hoppe: The Competition of Crooks

    http://www.hanshoppe.com/2012/06/professor-hoppes-new-book-der-wettbewerb-der-gauner-the-competition-of-crooks/

    The Professor’s new book is out, in German, with the release information here. Hopefully, Herr Groezinger is busy on the translation, as aside from orderi…

    (from Andy Duncan at godthatfailed.com)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-06-25 19:05:00 UTC

  • Are There Any Arguments Against Immigration That Are Compatible With Libertarian Thought?

    1) Hoppe has put forth an argument (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han…)  But hoppe would also argue that if a bunch of neighbors made a contract that no one without red hair could move into a neighborhood/village/city that was all privately owned, even by the use of shares, that since that contract was vountarily entered into by members that they would all have to respect it.  (This is called the “right of exclusion”.)

    2) When libertarians talk about any given issue, they do so within the libertarian context: the inviolability of private property. The inviolability of private property requires that no involuntary transfers occur. This tenet of in turn requires the absence of redistributive programs that allow immigrants to transfer weath by moving into a geography and obtaining redistribution (theft).  Theft which therefore is used to fund the growth of the bureaucratic (parasitic) governmnet. This argument is that OPEN immigration is incompatible with the welfare state.
     
    The alternative solutions are that a) people pay their way in, or b) they borrow and pay back their way in c) or that they are ‘sponsored’ by someone who is financially responsible for their productivity or loss (as was common in history). Further that they conform to norms that are expressions of property rights. Any one of these solutions makes immigration possible without violating property rights. Open immigration under redistribution doesn’t. I think this argument is pretty hard to refute.

    https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-arguments-against-immigration-that-are-compatible-with-libertarian-thought