Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • I’m going to correct Hans a bit here by saying that human cooperation is the res

    I’m going to correct Hans a bit here by saying that human cooperation is the result of these properties:

    1) the differences in abilities among men.

    2) the geographical distribution of nature-given factors of production.

    3) the local structure of production: the division of knowledge and labor.

    4) the local structure of the family and inheritance rights.

    5) the distribution of property rights between the individual, family, group and the commons.

    6) the degree of suppression of, and intolerance for, free riding both in and out of family.

    7) calculative, cooperative technology available for economic signaling and coordination. (objective truth, numbers, money, prices, interest, writing, contract, and accounting).

    8) The use of formal institutions to perpetuate these constraints.

    9) The competition from groups with alternate structures of production, family, inheritance, property rights, free riding, cooperative technologies, and formal institutions.

    10) The recognition of these facts. (I question whether this last one is true.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-15 11:40:00 UTC

  • Rothbardian Ghetto Ethics As A Parasitic Scam

    Rothbard’s ethics are just another a parasitic scam seeking to replace low transaction cost state parasitism, with high transaction cost universal parasitism. Aristocratic Egalitarians (protestants) had it right: universal responsibility for the universal suppression of all involuntary extractions, thereby forcing every living soul to compete in the market for goods and services, where his efforts produce a virtuous cycle. 1) We can describe all involuntary extractions of property as one of the following: Criminal, unethical, immoral, and conspiratorial (statist). Attached is one of my diagrams that illustrates this spectrum. The curve on the right is the DEMONSTRATED demand curve for liberty. Because it represents the REPRODUCTIVE return on forgone opportunities (opportunity costs). 2) All costs are opportunity costs. That definition of property is the human behavioral definition of property, not some artificially constructed definition of property that was created to justify aggression against property by non physical means. (Which is the very purpose of Rothbard’s argument.) If all costs are opportunity costs then it is not possible to make the argument for bribery except as an excuse to justify theft. (and it is an excuse to justify theft, which is why it’s almost universally rejected except by social outcasts.) The human intuitive perception of property, the human normative description of property, and the reproductively and cooperatively NECESSARY and non-arbitrary definition of property, is defined by the requirements for decreasing transaction costs of cooperation. From the most severe and direct (crime) to the most indirect and imperceptible (displacement via outbreeding or immigrating. A fact which is illustrated in the diagram.) 3) As I’ve said. Either the NAP is insufficient, or the definition of property rights is insufficient. I’m able to construct an argument that the NAP is sufficient as long as the definition of property rights is DESCRIPTIVE. But it is not possible to rationally choose an arbitrary description of private property limited to that which is necessary for economic production (private property) and its dependent ethics, and not ALSO leave unanswered the further definitions of property in all its forms that create the trust necessary for rational risk taking in a polity. My original assumption was that first mises made the error because of his obsession with commodity prices, which are a reductio example of property, and that rothbard further expanded that error with his appeal to predatory extractive ghetto ethics, as an group evolutionary theory. And I can forgive both authors for such errors. We cannot expect all men to be wise in all matters. But as time has progressed I’ve understood the damage that has resulted from the emphasis on a FAILED minority strategy (low trust society), to a successful majority strategy (high trust societies) in producing both eugenic reproduction and expanding wealth. 4) What is circular reasoning, is the arbitrary definition of rothbardian private property rights as a means of justifying involuntary extraction via PRIVATE SECTOR PARASITISM, as a means of replacing involuntary extraction via STATE PARASITISM. Rothbard’s ethics, statism and socialism, are parasitic. ROTHBARD’S ETHICS ARE PARASITIC. Only high trust property rights are fully productive and NOT parasitic. ONLY those high trust ethics. ONLY THOSE AND NO OTHER. Northwestern europeans managed to almost exterminate all involuntary extraction and forcing all human action into the market for goods and services. All of it. Forbidding all other means of free riding. Apriorism is an interesting tool for deceiving mediocre minds via overloading. It works in mathematical philosophy for the same reason it works in ethical philosophy: because these reductive arguments rely on aggregation of concepts that obscure the causal properties. So, yes, rothbardianism is a parasitic scam. 5) If we can get past that point we will get to the dispute over whether it is rational for people to exchange pervasive parasitism, pervasive transaction costs in daily life, for limited parasitic rents, corruption and conspiracy via the state. CLOSING All costs are opportunity costs. Humans DEMONSTRATE that they behave this way in all circumstances. And it is rational for them to do so. And irrational for them not to. And Rothbardian ethics are an attempt to trade one parasitic scam for another. Nothing more.

  • Choice Words Against Socialism

    In the context of intellectual history, the argument against socialism was framed as the viability of the “socialist mode of production”. The central argument against socialism is the impossibility of that mode of production on two points: calculation and incentives – with the debate only over the relative importance of each. Second, it is non-logical to disconnect the notion of production from economy. Because that is the function of an economy: production, distribution and exchange, in patterns of sustainable specialization and trade. An economy is a means of production. Otherwise the term has no rational meaning. Third -and this is important – socialist, postmodern and totalitarian humanist dogma is constructed in obscurant language by intent for the purpose of deception. So by stating economic concepts in operational language, as is required by the canons of science, we illustrate the difference between belief and action, and between the irrational and the rational, and between the impossible and the possible. The socialist method or mode of production is impossible both logically and demonstrably. The vague term ‘economic system’ is a form of deception. The capitalist means of production is possible because both the incentives to do what we do not wish to do, and the means of calculating how to do so, are available to us; such that by doing what we may not wish to do, we do what we are capable of doing, and by doing so satisfy the wants of others, such that we may finally satisfy our own wants. The socialist means of production is not possible. It is impossible because neither the means of calculation, nor the incentive to do what we do not desire to, exists in that method of production. Marxism is the biggest organized systemic set of lies since the invention of scriptural monotheism. It is the most murderous religion ever created by man – by replacing mystical allegory with verbal obscurantism and pseudoscience. If you cannot explain an economic argument in operational language you are either engaged in ignorance or deception or perpetuating deception out of ignorance.

  • Choice Words Against Socialism

    In the context of intellectual history, the argument against socialism was framed as the viability of the “socialist mode of production”. The central argument against socialism is the impossibility of that mode of production on two points: calculation and incentives – with the debate only over the relative importance of each. Second, it is non-logical to disconnect the notion of production from economy. Because that is the function of an economy: production, distribution and exchange, in patterns of sustainable specialization and trade. An economy is a means of production. Otherwise the term has no rational meaning. Third -and this is important – socialist, postmodern and totalitarian humanist dogma is constructed in obscurant language by intent for the purpose of deception. So by stating economic concepts in operational language, as is required by the canons of science, we illustrate the difference between belief and action, and between the irrational and the rational, and between the impossible and the possible. The socialist method or mode of production is impossible both logically and demonstrably. The vague term ‘economic system’ is a form of deception. The capitalist means of production is possible because both the incentives to do what we do not wish to do, and the means of calculating how to do so, are available to us; such that by doing what we may not wish to do, we do what we are capable of doing, and by doing so satisfy the wants of others, such that we may finally satisfy our own wants. The socialist means of production is not possible. It is impossible because neither the means of calculation, nor the incentive to do what we do not desire to, exists in that method of production. Marxism is the biggest organized systemic set of lies since the invention of scriptural monotheism. It is the most murderous religion ever created by man – by replacing mystical allegory with verbal obscurantism and pseudoscience. If you cannot explain an economic argument in operational language you are either engaged in ignorance or deception or perpetuating deception out of ignorance.

  • NAP Fails on Transaction Costs Alone

    –“Yes…transaction costs exist. But that simply means that a market can potentially give sub-optimal outcomes. It does nothing to undermine the internal coherence of NAP.”–

    [I]t does everything to undermine the willingness of individuals to reduce their demand for the state.

    Science requires external correspondence not internal consistency. Internal consistency is a property of our logic not of reality. It is not materially useful if something is internally consistent if it fails the test of external correspondence.

    So if you feel that the NAP is sufficient for the rational reduction of demand for the state, you can make all the internally consistent statements that you wish, but unless you can empirically demonstrate that people will do so, your internally consistent argument is false.

    NAP is not false, but insufficient. It is insufficient because people attribute greater resistance to risk and therefore transaction costs, then they to do third party intervention.

    For example: Does the NAP forbid blackmail? Rothbard doesn’t forbid blackmail in his books. Walter block doesn’t either.

    Each marginal improvement in the trust necessary for marginal reduction in demand for the state, requires disproportionate suppression of additional means of cheating (involuntary transfer). The progression is not linear. We can measure it. We have.
    Comments:
    ——————-

    >Osku

    How could slavery reduce transaction costs? Couldn’t voluntary organizations do it instead?

    >Curt Doolittle

    (Sorry, Osku. Not sure the logic you’re using to get to slavery. NAP is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. People DEMONSTRATE that it is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. So what is absent in the NAP as a test of property rights theory, that maintains demand for the state? Slavery isn’t the test, because slavery is satisfied by the NAP. NAP is sufficient to suppress slavery, violence and theft. It is not sufficient to suppress even the low standard of ethics set by blackmail. How can a voluntary society, a free society use the NAP as its critieria for the test of property rights?)

    >Osku

    So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs? I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished. This would not be against NAP, because, it’s voluntarily agreed sanction, like some communities could punish from alcohol consumption, or some other vice.

    If we define society as a co-operative organization, the first principle has to be NAP. Coercion is the opposition of co-operation, so they would be mutually exclusive. The property right to things outside your body, would be next obvious way to co-operate. It’s a way to co-operate more efficiently. Bad manners, like black mailing would be either restricted by social sanctions, or agreed voluntary legal sanctions.

    There is no universal ethics, like in christian theology (except for Christians). Ethics is a concept we use to behave as a social animal in society. NAP and property rights are so elementary for social animal, it’s in our genes to understand them. We also have genes to be altruistic, that helps to lower the transaction cost, when living in closely related tribes. Then there is of course genes, that try to use the free riding strategy.

    If people are free to leave legal orders and societies, and free to form their own, they are living in voluntary societies. If people are forbidden to leave, they are slaves. There is the problem of free riders and they have high demand for public and private slavery. This slavery is supported by violence and propaganda. A slavery can’t fix problem of transaction costs, because it would destroy the benefits of co-operation. People could still want to be or to have slaves, but if enough seceding communities would emerge and compete with each other, most people would have to follow the price signal.

    >Curt Doolittle

    “So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs?”

    The pejorative term ‘afraid’ is an attempt to introduce a fallacy. Instead, praxeologically, it is simply a rational choice that we reduce the burden of many independent interactions with a few major and invisible transactions.

    “I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished.”

    Agreed. However, I don’t dispute that. I’m arguing that without prior promise of constraint of blackmail, we cannot reduce demand for the state. Private Property only developed where unethical and immoral conduct was suppressed at every possible level.

    The EVIDENCE is that the demand for private property only exists in the suppression of immoral and unethical conduct. Criminality is insufficient. So it’s not RATIONAL to argue that the NAP is sufficient. The trust necessary for private property must exist PRIOR to the demand for private property, and the reduction of demand for the state. Further, it’s not evident (it’s contrary to the evidence) that the market suppresses unethical and immoral behavior. Just the opposite. The expansion of the market INCREASES opportunity for immoral and unethical behavior. Immoral and unethical behavior is cheaper than honest ethical and moral behavior, which imposes costs on the participants. Property rights are a cost. Every time they are respected. Forgoing those opportunities requires trust. The result of forgoing opportunities and TRUST creates property rights. Not the other way around. Private property does not create trust. Once you suppress criminal, unethical and immoral behavior, the only POSSIBLE means of interaction is via private property.

    We cannot confuse cause and consequence.

    TRUST FIRST. PROPERTY SECOND. STATE LAST.

    So, again, trust (willingness to take risks / low transaction cost exchange) requires the suppression of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior. And the trust that appears to be sufficient for demand for private property requires near total suppression of unethical behavior.

    We must suppress even MORE unethical and rent seeking and corrupt behavior in order to reduce demand for the state. If we are to define property rights as the basis of a moral and peaceful society, then what is the definition of property rights that prohibits not only criminal behavior (the NAP) but also unethical, immoral, as well as free riding, rent seeking, and corruption?

    I think that it looks like the state would be the natural means of transforming criminal, unethical, immoral behavior into free riding, rent seeking and corruption in an effort to decrease transaction costs. Now, how do we FURTHER suppress free riding, rent seeking and corruption without the state? Privatization. But for privatization we must have a set of property rights that increase suppression of free riding, rent seeking and corruption, without sacrificing the reason for the state: suppression of unethical and immoral behavior.

    It’s non logical to ask people to yet bear again that which they have rid themselves of, by clear and demonstrated preference, almost universally. People have already demonstrated that they are willing to trade unethical and immoral behavior, for corrupt and rent seeking behavior. And they were rational to do so. You cannot tell them that they are gaining something by simply reverting them to a previous state that they have already rejected.

    We can only offer them something BETTER. Which is to ALSO prohibit rent seeking and corruption AS WELL as unethical and immoral behavior.

    So no. The NAP was a terrible mistake for the liberty movement. It was tragic. I understand why they resorted to ghetto ethics, because they didn’t understand where liberty and the high trust society came from.

    But now that we do (or at least I do) we must base any argument that we deem ethically superior on a set of property rights that is a net gain, not a net loss, for the population.

    This is very difficult for Rothbardians to swallow, but pride and personal investment in a failed ideology are less important than the achievement of freedom.

    >Osku

    Doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean, that NAP is incorrect ethical goal, and we should have some anti-NAP goal, that is more achievable? Or are you saying, that the logical reasoning of NAP is not appealing for masses, but could sell them the the private property principle, and NAP would follow by definition from that?

    >Curt Doolittle 

    Close.

    NAP is an INSUFFICIENT ethical test of the violation of property rights needed, (or the ‘goal’ as you say), to COMPENSATE people with the sufficient suppression of immoral and ethical behavior, that they will reduce their DEMAND for government as a means of suppressing that unethical and immoral behavior.

    So, yes, it is an incorrect ethical goal because it is an insufficient goal for rational adoption of anarchy. People will demand a much broader definition of property than ‘criminal’.

    This is not a criticism of Hoppe’s solutions, private government, or minarchy. It is a criticism of the definition of property that is sufficient for people to tolerate private government or minarchy. Any system that is dependent upon property rights as the means of resolving conflicts, would requires a broader definition of property, that accurately reflected the property rights people demand. Nowhere do people demonstrate a preference for property rights as limited as the NAP except in ghettos.

    (There are many ways to approach this argument, but this is the most direct.)

    >Andy

    So if you are defining property rights according to people’s demand wouldn’t you have to define property rights in thousands of ways for thousands of groups of requests for these? (i.e.: ghetto – NAP, as mentioned.)

    And could it not be the case that the NAP be part of this rather that the whole? So maybe it is insufficient but necessary? How do you see this Curt?

    >Curt
    I see the NAP as necessary, but insufficient. The NAP prohibits crime, and we might argue that through the NAP (as Osku suggested) we could prohibit the state, but we cannot prohibit unethical and immoral behavior. And as such we cannot reduce demand for the state to suppress unethical and immoral behavior.

    I think I’ve managed to define the suite of property rights pretty simply actually. However, given that reproductive strategy determines the desirability of some of those rights, and other institutions make some of them more or less necessary, the scope of property rights would need to be specified in a shareholder agreement in private competing governments. (or Constitution that enumerated property rights in minarchic government.)

     

  • NAP Fails on Transaction Costs Alone

    –“Yes…transaction costs exist. But that simply means that a market can potentially give sub-optimal outcomes. It does nothing to undermine the internal coherence of NAP.”–

    [I]t does everything to undermine the willingness of individuals to reduce their demand for the state.

    Science requires external correspondence not internal consistency. Internal consistency is a property of our logic not of reality. It is not materially useful if something is internally consistent if it fails the test of external correspondence.

    So if you feel that the NAP is sufficient for the rational reduction of demand for the state, you can make all the internally consistent statements that you wish, but unless you can empirically demonstrate that people will do so, your internally consistent argument is false.

    NAP is not false, but insufficient. It is insufficient because people attribute greater resistance to risk and therefore transaction costs, then they to do third party intervention.

    For example: Does the NAP forbid blackmail? Rothbard doesn’t forbid blackmail in his books. Walter block doesn’t either.

    Each marginal improvement in the trust necessary for marginal reduction in demand for the state, requires disproportionate suppression of additional means of cheating (involuntary transfer). The progression is not linear. We can measure it. We have.
    Comments:
    ——————-

    >Osku

    How could slavery reduce transaction costs? Couldn’t voluntary organizations do it instead?

    >Curt Doolittle

    (Sorry, Osku. Not sure the logic you’re using to get to slavery. NAP is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. People DEMONSTRATE that it is insufficient for reduction of demand for the state. So what is absent in the NAP as a test of property rights theory, that maintains demand for the state? Slavery isn’t the test, because slavery is satisfied by the NAP. NAP is sufficient to suppress slavery, violence and theft. It is not sufficient to suppress even the low standard of ethics set by blackmail. How can a voluntary society, a free society use the NAP as its critieria for the test of property rights?)

    >Osku

    So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs? I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished. This would not be against NAP, because, it’s voluntarily agreed sanction, like some communities could punish from alcohol consumption, or some other vice.

    If we define society as a co-operative organization, the first principle has to be NAP. Coercion is the opposition of co-operation, so they would be mutually exclusive. The property right to things outside your body, would be next obvious way to co-operate. It’s a way to co-operate more efficiently. Bad manners, like black mailing would be either restricted by social sanctions, or agreed voluntary legal sanctions.

    There is no universal ethics, like in christian theology (except for Christians). Ethics is a concept we use to behave as a social animal in society. NAP and property rights are so elementary for social animal, it’s in our genes to understand them. We also have genes to be altruistic, that helps to lower the transaction cost, when living in closely related tribes. Then there is of course genes, that try to use the free riding strategy.

    If people are free to leave legal orders and societies, and free to form their own, they are living in voluntary societies. If people are forbidden to leave, they are slaves. There is the problem of free riders and they have high demand for public and private slavery. This slavery is supported by violence and propaganda. A slavery can’t fix problem of transaction costs, because it would destroy the benefits of co-operation. People could still want to be or to have slaves, but if enough seceding communities would emerge and compete with each other, most people would have to follow the price signal.

    >Curt Doolittle

    “So you are saying, that people like to be slaves of the state, because they are afraid of blackmailing and transaction costs?”

    The pejorative term ‘afraid’ is an attempt to introduce a fallacy. Instead, praxeologically, it is simply a rational choice that we reduce the burden of many independent interactions with a few major and invisible transactions.

    “I would suspect, that if demand is high enough, the competing legal systems would offer a service, where blackmailing is punished.”

    Agreed. However, I don’t dispute that. I’m arguing that without prior promise of constraint of blackmail, we cannot reduce demand for the state. Private Property only developed where unethical and immoral conduct was suppressed at every possible level.

    The EVIDENCE is that the demand for private property only exists in the suppression of immoral and unethical conduct. Criminality is insufficient. So it’s not RATIONAL to argue that the NAP is sufficient. The trust necessary for private property must exist PRIOR to the demand for private property, and the reduction of demand for the state. Further, it’s not evident (it’s contrary to the evidence) that the market suppresses unethical and immoral behavior. Just the opposite. The expansion of the market INCREASES opportunity for immoral and unethical behavior. Immoral and unethical behavior is cheaper than honest ethical and moral behavior, which imposes costs on the participants. Property rights are a cost. Every time they are respected. Forgoing those opportunities requires trust. The result of forgoing opportunities and TRUST creates property rights. Not the other way around. Private property does not create trust. Once you suppress criminal, unethical and immoral behavior, the only POSSIBLE means of interaction is via private property.

    We cannot confuse cause and consequence.

    TRUST FIRST. PROPERTY SECOND. STATE LAST.

    So, again, trust (willingness to take risks / low transaction cost exchange) requires the suppression of criminal, unethical and immoral behavior. And the trust that appears to be sufficient for demand for private property requires near total suppression of unethical behavior.

    We must suppress even MORE unethical and rent seeking and corrupt behavior in order to reduce demand for the state. If we are to define property rights as the basis of a moral and peaceful society, then what is the definition of property rights that prohibits not only criminal behavior (the NAP) but also unethical, immoral, as well as free riding, rent seeking, and corruption?

    I think that it looks like the state would be the natural means of transforming criminal, unethical, immoral behavior into free riding, rent seeking and corruption in an effort to decrease transaction costs. Now, how do we FURTHER suppress free riding, rent seeking and corruption without the state? Privatization. But for privatization we must have a set of property rights that increase suppression of free riding, rent seeking and corruption, without sacrificing the reason for the state: suppression of unethical and immoral behavior.

    It’s non logical to ask people to yet bear again that which they have rid themselves of, by clear and demonstrated preference, almost universally. People have already demonstrated that they are willing to trade unethical and immoral behavior, for corrupt and rent seeking behavior. And they were rational to do so. You cannot tell them that they are gaining something by simply reverting them to a previous state that they have already rejected.

    We can only offer them something BETTER. Which is to ALSO prohibit rent seeking and corruption AS WELL as unethical and immoral behavior.

    So no. The NAP was a terrible mistake for the liberty movement. It was tragic. I understand why they resorted to ghetto ethics, because they didn’t understand where liberty and the high trust society came from.

    But now that we do (or at least I do) we must base any argument that we deem ethically superior on a set of property rights that is a net gain, not a net loss, for the population.

    This is very difficult for Rothbardians to swallow, but pride and personal investment in a failed ideology are less important than the achievement of freedom.

    >Osku

    Doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean, that NAP is incorrect ethical goal, and we should have some anti-NAP goal, that is more achievable? Or are you saying, that the logical reasoning of NAP is not appealing for masses, but could sell them the the private property principle, and NAP would follow by definition from that?

    >Curt Doolittle 

    Close.

    NAP is an INSUFFICIENT ethical test of the violation of property rights needed, (or the ‘goal’ as you say), to COMPENSATE people with the sufficient suppression of immoral and ethical behavior, that they will reduce their DEMAND for government as a means of suppressing that unethical and immoral behavior.

    So, yes, it is an incorrect ethical goal because it is an insufficient goal for rational adoption of anarchy. People will demand a much broader definition of property than ‘criminal’.

    This is not a criticism of Hoppe’s solutions, private government, or minarchy. It is a criticism of the definition of property that is sufficient for people to tolerate private government or minarchy. Any system that is dependent upon property rights as the means of resolving conflicts, would requires a broader definition of property, that accurately reflected the property rights people demand. Nowhere do people demonstrate a preference for property rights as limited as the NAP except in ghettos.

    (There are many ways to approach this argument, but this is the most direct.)

    >Andy

    So if you are defining property rights according to people’s demand wouldn’t you have to define property rights in thousands of ways for thousands of groups of requests for these? (i.e.: ghetto – NAP, as mentioned.)

    And could it not be the case that the NAP be part of this rather that the whole? So maybe it is insufficient but necessary? How do you see this Curt?

    >Curt
    I see the NAP as necessary, but insufficient. The NAP prohibits crime, and we might argue that through the NAP (as Osku suggested) we could prohibit the state, but we cannot prohibit unethical and immoral behavior. And as such we cannot reduce demand for the state to suppress unethical and immoral behavior.

    I think I’ve managed to define the suite of property rights pretty simply actually. However, given that reproductive strategy determines the desirability of some of those rights, and other institutions make some of them more or less necessary, the scope of property rights would need to be specified in a shareholder agreement in private competing governments. (or Constitution that enumerated property rights in minarchic government.)

     

  • Is Philosophy A Vehicle For Theft?

    Is nearly all of philosophy then, outside of logic, an artful construct for the purpose of justifying theft? One can justify suppression of, prevention of, and restitution for, the taking of discounts. (thefts) One can justify the selection of one priority of investment over another. But one cannot argue for the necessity of a monopoly of investments. Nor the mandatory enforcement of participation in investments, other than the suppression of free riding. One can argue the necessity for a homogeneity – monopoly – of property rights for the purpose of logically resolving disputes over property and contract – albeit, private property solves that problem, and articulated shareholder rights, retains that ability even under complexity. But once a monopoly of property rights exists, one cannot argue the necessity for a monopoly of law making. In fact, logic and evidence suggest precisely the opposite is true: that laws evolve and evolve best under the common law, since they must be interpreted by ordinary citizens, and are open to constant revision without external approval as the world evolves. The failure of the common law was (a) its usurpation by the state, and (b) failure to define property rights sufficiently in the face of industrialization. (c) its use by the middle class to dispossess the aristocracy, and consequential use by the proletarians and feminists to dispossess the middle classes. Philosophy is quite simple really. It’s only complicated if you’re trying to lie. And theft requires lying. And lying is best covered by obscurity. Cheers.

  • Is Philosophy A Vehicle For Theft?

    Is nearly all of philosophy then, outside of logic, an artful construct for the purpose of justifying theft? One can justify suppression of, prevention of, and restitution for, the taking of discounts. (thefts) One can justify the selection of one priority of investment over another. But one cannot argue for the necessity of a monopoly of investments. Nor the mandatory enforcement of participation in investments, other than the suppression of free riding. One can argue the necessity for a homogeneity – monopoly – of property rights for the purpose of logically resolving disputes over property and contract – albeit, private property solves that problem, and articulated shareholder rights, retains that ability even under complexity. But once a monopoly of property rights exists, one cannot argue the necessity for a monopoly of law making. In fact, logic and evidence suggest precisely the opposite is true: that laws evolve and evolve best under the common law, since they must be interpreted by ordinary citizens, and are open to constant revision without external approval as the world evolves. The failure of the common law was (a) its usurpation by the state, and (b) failure to define property rights sufficiently in the face of industrialization. (c) its use by the middle class to dispossess the aristocracy, and consequential use by the proletarians and feminists to dispossess the middle classes. Philosophy is quite simple really. It’s only complicated if you’re trying to lie. And theft requires lying. And lying is best covered by obscurity. Cheers.

  • VOTING MORALLY EVEN IF ITS EXPENSIVE, IS VOTING RATIONALLY (minor criticism of t

    VOTING MORALLY EVEN IF ITS EXPENSIVE, IS VOTING RATIONALLY

    (minor criticism of the myth of the rational voter)

    People do vote rationally. Its rational to vote morally even at high personal cost.

    I dont have time to refute the part Kaplan got wrong. But it should be obvious that he got it wrong.

    The failure of economic thought is currently one of insufficient tribalism and insufficient nationalism.

    Any group that votes immorally will be exterminated by groups that vote morally.

    That is why the anglo world is dying: its immoral (reproductively destructive).

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-14 11:22:00 UTC

  • THE PRICE OF MORAL LIFE I don’t see the problem with paying people to have moral

    THE PRICE OF MORAL LIFE

    I don’t see the problem with paying people to have moral incentives versus by not paying them and providing them with immoral incentives. The difference is that I don’t think they natively deserve anything. I just acknowledge that we all follow our incentives and that for those people who cannot engage in production, they need an incentive to act as if they do. So why not pay them to police the world for criminal, unethical, and immoral conduct and then deprive tehm if that payment if they fail in their duties?

    That isn’t a question then of free riding, or allowing them to act immorally. It’s a question of exchange. We need the world free of criminal, unethical, immoral, conspiratorial behavior, and we need it clean, and well maintained in order for those of us who are productive to live in something other than gated communities. So lets pay people to do a lot of very simple work: act morally.

    Right now, the underclasses have every motive to act immorally and the state has every incentive to profit from their immorality. So why not force the state to act morally by forcing the underclasses to act morally, by PAYING them to act morally.

    I’ll deal with the upper classes later. But I’ve got them covered too.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-11 13:50:00 UTC