Curt Doolittle

Theme: Institution

  • Contractual Commons: Law is Discovered, Contracts and Exchanges are Made.

    [W]e can produce a market for un-consumable commons using a government just as we produce a market for consumable private goods. But that law and commons are two different things. But there is no reason whatsoever, that knowing how to construct the common law, government should be capable of producing law. It cannot. Law is discovered, contracts and exchanges are made.
    1. Economic velocity (wealth) is determined by the degree of suppression of parasitism (free riding/imposed costs). This eliminates transaction costs.

    2.  Central power originates to centralize parasitism and increase material costs, by suppressing local parasitism and as a consequence, eliminated local transaction costs. And using those costs to pay for the suppression of local parasitism.  We trade expensive local transaction costs for less expensive costs of suppression.

    3. Once centralized those costs can be incrementally eliminated. But if and only if an institutional means of deciding conflicts can be used to replace personal judgement as a means of deciding conflicts.

    4.  The only means of producing institutional rules to replace personal judgement (provision of ‘decidability’) is in the independent, common, evolutionary law resting upon a prohibition on parasitism/free-riding/imposed costs (negatives), codified as property rights (positives): productive, warrantied, fully informed, voluntary transfer(exchange), free of negative externalities.

    5. Suppression of violence and theft is fairly easy because the actions are existential and the results obvious.  But as we increasingly suppress violence and theft, people resort to fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by suggestion, imposition of costs by externality, corruption, and conspiracy. So suppression of these more complex thefts requires testimony and decidability.

    6. Language evolved to justify (morality), negotiate (deceive), and rally and shame (gossip), and only tangentially and late to describe (truth). Truth as we understand it is an invention and an unnatural one – which is why it is unique to the west, and why it has taken philosophers so long to understand it. However, westerners evolved a military epistemology because they relied upon self-financing warriors voluntarily participating, as well as the jury and truth telling. (The marginal difference in intellectual ability apparently not common – they were all smart enough. and such testimony was in itself ‘training’.)

    7. We cannot expect or demand truthful testimony from people unless they know how to produce it. ie: Education in what I would consider the religion of the west: “the true, the moral and the beautiful”. So I consider this education ‘sacred’ not just utilitarian.

    8. We cannot demand truth and law from people unless it is not against their interests: ie: the only universal political system is Nationalism, because groups can act truthfully internally, truthfully externally, and can use trade negotiations to neutralized competitive differences. And with nationalism, individuals cannot escape paying the cost of transforming their own societies, and themselves, and laying the burden of doing so upon other societies.

    9. Commons are a profound competitive advantage. Territorial, institutional, normative, genetic, physical, and economic (industrial) commons are a profound advantage to any group.


      The west is the most successful producer of commons so it is even more important to the west. So we must provide a means of producing those commons.


      The difference between market for private goods and services (where competition in production is a good incentive) and corporate (public) goods, where we must prevent privatization of gains an socialization of losses, requires that we provide monopoly protection of those goods from consumption.


      But does not require that we provide monopoly contribution to them. Commons require only that the people willing to pay for them, do so. Otherwise there is no demonstrated preference for that commons.

      Insurance is a commons and I will leave that for another time.

      Return on investment (dividends) are the product of commons. I will leave that for another time as well.


      The central point is that we can produce a market for common goods using government just as we do in the market private goods. But that law and commons are two different things. and that there is no reason whatsoever, knowing how to construct the common law, that government should be capable of producing law. it cannot.

      Law is. It cannot be created. Only identified.


  • Contractual Commons: Law is Discovered, Contracts and Exchanges are Made.

    [W]e can produce a market for un-consumable commons using a government just as we produce a market for consumable private goods. But that law and commons are two different things. But there is no reason whatsoever, that knowing how to construct the common law, government should be capable of producing law. It cannot. Law is discovered, contracts and exchanges are made.
    1. Economic velocity (wealth) is determined by the degree of suppression of parasitism (free riding/imposed costs). This eliminates transaction costs.

    2.  Central power originates to centralize parasitism and increase material costs, by suppressing local parasitism and as a consequence, eliminated local transaction costs. And using those costs to pay for the suppression of local parasitism.  We trade expensive local transaction costs for less expensive costs of suppression.

    3. Once centralized those costs can be incrementally eliminated. But if and only if an institutional means of deciding conflicts can be used to replace personal judgement as a means of deciding conflicts.

    4.  The only means of producing institutional rules to replace personal judgement (provision of ‘decidability’) is in the independent, common, evolutionary law resting upon a prohibition on parasitism/free-riding/imposed costs (negatives), codified as property rights (positives): productive, warrantied, fully informed, voluntary transfer(exchange), free of negative externalities.

    5. Suppression of violence and theft is fairly easy because the actions are existential and the results obvious.  But as we increasingly suppress violence and theft, people resort to fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by suggestion, imposition of costs by externality, corruption, and conspiracy. So suppression of these more complex thefts requires testimony and decidability.

    6. Language evolved to justify (morality), negotiate (deceive), and rally and shame (gossip), and only tangentially and late to describe (truth). Truth as we understand it is an invention and an unnatural one – which is why it is unique to the west, and why it has taken philosophers so long to understand it. However, westerners evolved a military epistemology because they relied upon self-financing warriors voluntarily participating, as well as the jury and truth telling. (The marginal difference in intellectual ability apparently not common – they were all smart enough. and such testimony was in itself ‘training’.)

    7. We cannot expect or demand truthful testimony from people unless they know how to produce it. ie: Education in what I would consider the religion of the west: “the true, the moral and the beautiful”. So I consider this education ‘sacred’ not just utilitarian.

    8. We cannot demand truth and law from people unless it is not against their interests: ie: the only universal political system is Nationalism, because groups can act truthfully internally, truthfully externally, and can use trade negotiations to neutralized competitive differences. And with nationalism, individuals cannot escape paying the cost of transforming their own societies, and themselves, and laying the burden of doing so upon other societies.

    9. Commons are a profound competitive advantage. Territorial, institutional, normative, genetic, physical, and economic (industrial) commons are a profound advantage to any group.


      The west is the most successful producer of commons so it is even more important to the west. So we must provide a means of producing those commons.


      The difference between market for private goods and services (where competition in production is a good incentive) and corporate (public) goods, where we must prevent privatization of gains an socialization of losses, requires that we provide monopoly protection of those goods from consumption.


      But does not require that we provide monopoly contribution to them. Commons require only that the people willing to pay for them, do so. Otherwise there is no demonstrated preference for that commons.

      Insurance is a commons and I will leave that for another time.

      Return on investment (dividends) are the product of commons. I will leave that for another time as well.


      The central point is that we can produce a market for common goods using government just as we do in the market private goods. But that law and commons are two different things. and that there is no reason whatsoever, knowing how to construct the common law, that government should be capable of producing law. it cannot.

      Law is. It cannot be created. Only identified.


  • Public Economics of Marriage

    [M]arriage is, first and foremost, a contract between two parties, husband and wife. And this contract is originally set up to last for all eternity — till death do them part. As such, two married people (Family, in the following) form an economic union with responsibilities deriving from the contract, if so specified explicitly, or from societal norms accompanying it (yes, including current Zeitgeist, and prevailing moral concepts), and their union’s main purpose is to control reproduction and property. From the fact that a family is set up to be ever-lasting, the main purpose of controlling reproduction and property, and basic economics, we can derive a few things:

    1. Any one person is either member of a Family as defined above, or not.
    2. A family can allocate their resources (labor or capital) to produce goods, and either consume them, or invest (“save”) them.
    3. A family can engage in (re)production.
    4. Derivative from 2 and 3: A family will engage in long-term planning to optimize their inter-temporal resource-allocation. Depending on future time orientation, this planning horizon may span a few weeks, or a few centuries.
    5. A family that engages in long-term planning can probably be relied upon in/by another family’s long-term plans, given coincidence of wants.
    6. Derivative from 5: Families can engage in mutually beneficial trade with other families.
    7. Derivative from 4, 5 and 7: In any society, Families can form cartels, to exclude less-reliable parties.
    8. Derivative from 8 and 4: Any one single person will be found less reliable than any one family, cartel-breakers notwithstanding.
    9. Cartel-breakers will benefit in the short-term, and be punished in the long-term. Bear in mind that the famous “Bromkonvention”-case study, which Libertarians like to harp over, does not work in real life. Cartels form all the time, for mutual benefit.
    10. A family member (husband or wife) can suspend the marital covenant, and engage in cheating (“cheater”, in the following)
    11. Derivative from 10 and 1: Any one cheating family member (“cheater”) must do so with either a non-family-member, or a fellow cheating family member (“cheater”).
    12. For any cartel to remain stable, cartel members must be in a position to force high costs on any cartel breaker.
    13. Derivative from 6, 8, 9, and 12: Families must levy a high tax on whoever is discovered cheater, or enabler of cheaters (It *does* take two to Tango).
    14. Currently, the divorce laws enable “no fault divorce”, with basic separation of economic goods (aka, “She gets half.”)
    15. Even if women bear no children, women typically earn less during their lifetime. However, for equal qualification and ambition, women earn the same.
    16. Derivative from 14 and 15: The introduction of no-fault divorce laws has weakened a man’s position to get away with cheating, without losing half his Family’s assets. In other words, he loses more than he contributed to that marriage, on average.
    17. Derivative from 14 and 15, pt 2.: The introduction of no-fault divorce laws has strengthened a woman’s position to get away with cheating, all the while retaining half her Family’s assets. In other words, she gains more than she contributed to that marriage, on average.
    18. Publicly known cheaters, and their enablers, will be discriminated against economically (in matters as obtaining income and credit).

    Cheating, like lying, doesn’t pay off. QED.

  • Public Economics of Marriage

    [M]arriage is, first and foremost, a contract between two parties, husband and wife. And this contract is originally set up to last for all eternity — till death do them part. As such, two married people (Family, in the following) form an economic union with responsibilities deriving from the contract, if so specified explicitly, or from societal norms accompanying it (yes, including current Zeitgeist, and prevailing moral concepts), and their union’s main purpose is to control reproduction and property. From the fact that a family is set up to be ever-lasting, the main purpose of controlling reproduction and property, and basic economics, we can derive a few things:

    1. Any one person is either member of a Family as defined above, or not.
    2. A family can allocate their resources (labor or capital) to produce goods, and either consume them, or invest (“save”) them.
    3. A family can engage in (re)production.
    4. Derivative from 2 and 3: A family will engage in long-term planning to optimize their inter-temporal resource-allocation. Depending on future time orientation, this planning horizon may span a few weeks, or a few centuries.
    5. A family that engages in long-term planning can probably be relied upon in/by another family’s long-term plans, given coincidence of wants.
    6. Derivative from 5: Families can engage in mutually beneficial trade with other families.
    7. Derivative from 4, 5 and 7: In any society, Families can form cartels, to exclude less-reliable parties.
    8. Derivative from 8 and 4: Any one single person will be found less reliable than any one family, cartel-breakers notwithstanding.
    9. Cartel-breakers will benefit in the short-term, and be punished in the long-term. Bear in mind that the famous “Bromkonvention”-case study, which Libertarians like to harp over, does not work in real life. Cartels form all the time, for mutual benefit.
    10. A family member (husband or wife) can suspend the marital covenant, and engage in cheating (“cheater”, in the following)
    11. Derivative from 10 and 1: Any one cheating family member (“cheater”) must do so with either a non-family-member, or a fellow cheating family member (“cheater”).
    12. For any cartel to remain stable, cartel members must be in a position to force high costs on any cartel breaker.
    13. Derivative from 6, 8, 9, and 12: Families must levy a high tax on whoever is discovered cheater, or enabler of cheaters (It *does* take two to Tango).
    14. Currently, the divorce laws enable “no fault divorce”, with basic separation of economic goods (aka, “She gets half.”)
    15. Even if women bear no children, women typically earn less during their lifetime. However, for equal qualification and ambition, women earn the same.
    16. Derivative from 14 and 15: The introduction of no-fault divorce laws has weakened a man’s position to get away with cheating, without losing half his Family’s assets. In other words, he loses more than he contributed to that marriage, on average.
    17. Derivative from 14 and 15, pt 2.: The introduction of no-fault divorce laws has strengthened a woman’s position to get away with cheating, all the while retaining half her Family’s assets. In other words, she gains more than she contributed to that marriage, on average.
    18. Publicly known cheaters, and their enablers, will be discriminated against economically (in matters as obtaining income and credit).

    Cheating, like lying, doesn’t pay off. QED.

  • Getting Un-Lost: It’s All of the Above: Genetic, Cultural, Institutional, Territorial

    [I] think I have lost a bunch of you. It seems we get truth. It seems we get the high trust society. It seems we get the western model of truth and trust produce economic velocity. It seems we get the reproductive division of perception and cognition. It seems we get that the anglo saxon and classical liberal model could not tolerate the enfranchisement of women and the loss of the church as a separate house of government. It seems we get the century of mysticism, pseudoscience and propaganda caused by the Jewish century – now at an end.

    But now that I venture into history in search of motivation to restore or sense of kin selection, it seems like everyone wants a single axis of causation: genetic, cultural, institutional, territorial. But it’s all of them. Not one.

  • Getting Un-Lost: It’s All of the Above: Genetic, Cultural, Institutional, Territorial

    [I] think I have lost a bunch of you. It seems we get truth. It seems we get the high trust society. It seems we get the western model of truth and trust produce economic velocity. It seems we get the reproductive division of perception and cognition. It seems we get that the anglo saxon and classical liberal model could not tolerate the enfranchisement of women and the loss of the church as a separate house of government. It seems we get the century of mysticism, pseudoscience and propaganda caused by the Jewish century – now at an end.

    But now that I venture into history in search of motivation to restore or sense of kin selection, it seems like everyone wants a single axis of causation: genetic, cultural, institutional, territorial. But it’s all of them. Not one.

  • On Gays, Gay Marriage, and the Consequence of Breaking the Limits of Tolerance

    (interesting) (some novel ideas) [T]wo over-the-top, 60-year-old, male, American, gay travelers at the table across from me, in ‘full whine’. (Full Bitch is a hostile countenance, Full Whine is just a complaining countenance.) I think gay men are pretty awesome ‘additions’ to civilization. I mean, how would I dress myself, without them? Seriously? How much MORE crazy would women be without a gay male friend? In general, I tend to see gay men as having the best of both gender’s worlds, with the drawback of a female need for confirmation and approval that is almost impossible to satisfy. I don’t envy them really. But in my world we are all unequal, and we divide up the universe into a distribution of perception, cognition, knowledge, judgement, demand, advocacy and labour. The counter proposition (which Hoppe was crucified for) is that the gay time preference does not contribute to the inter-generational, inter-temporal, reproductive order. And so this makes me question the value of such perception – and perhaps criticise it. I am not sure I buy this argument. And I am fairly sure that enfranchising the gay community provides them with identical incentives. But even if it’s true, that is a question of politics not of individual rights to be free of and obligations to avoid parasitism. And once we understand that being gay is an in-utero ‘birth defect’ that runs in families, and not a moral failure, it is not something we can really seek to suppress. If it’s not a choice, our actions are irrelevant. I’ve always supported civil partnerships for gay couples. I am still not terribly happy with the idea of redefining ‘marriage’, because I don’t see that level of permanence in gay relationships, and second the purpose of ‘marriage’ is intertemporal reproduction, and third, the purpose of marriage is to meritocratic-ally regulate reproduction through property rights. Despite having had close female gay friends, I find that culture to be as negative as male gay culture is celebratory. I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t think I want to spend time on it really. Too many other problems to solve. Not sure I can really get my mind around the problem either. The postmodern strategy of is to use the media to repeat exposure until the disgust response is either acclimated or shamed out of use. I have never had a disgust response to gay personalities (although I seem to have one for transvestites). I definitely have one to gay sex. I can’t go there even for a moment. I am extremely worried that the left will continue to seek status signals by expanding perversity. Not because they want to, but because that is what the left does to find purpose and status and groupishness in life. Leftists intuit the female reproductive strategy: rallying and shaming in numbers to achieve by political force what they cannot achieve by voluntary exchange. Gay marriage was probably the borderline between European civilization and the brazilification of the Americas. No one else will follow us. We are no longer a country to imitate. We are the symbol of what to reject. So we are probably at the limit of tolerance now. If it’s time to redefine marriage, it’s also time to redefine government and law. And that’s my plan. And it’s working.

  • On Gays, Gay Marriage, and the Consequence of Breaking the Limits of Tolerance

    (interesting) (some novel ideas) [T]wo over-the-top, 60-year-old, male, American, gay travelers at the table across from me, in ‘full whine’. (Full Bitch is a hostile countenance, Full Whine is just a complaining countenance.) I think gay men are pretty awesome ‘additions’ to civilization. I mean, how would I dress myself, without them? Seriously? How much MORE crazy would women be without a gay male friend? In general, I tend to see gay men as having the best of both gender’s worlds, with the drawback of a female need for confirmation and approval that is almost impossible to satisfy. I don’t envy them really. But in my world we are all unequal, and we divide up the universe into a distribution of perception, cognition, knowledge, judgement, demand, advocacy and labour. The counter proposition (which Hoppe was crucified for) is that the gay time preference does not contribute to the inter-generational, inter-temporal, reproductive order. And so this makes me question the value of such perception – and perhaps criticise it. I am not sure I buy this argument. And I am fairly sure that enfranchising the gay community provides them with identical incentives. But even if it’s true, that is a question of politics not of individual rights to be free of and obligations to avoid parasitism. And once we understand that being gay is an in-utero ‘birth defect’ that runs in families, and not a moral failure, it is not something we can really seek to suppress. If it’s not a choice, our actions are irrelevant. I’ve always supported civil partnerships for gay couples. I am still not terribly happy with the idea of redefining ‘marriage’, because I don’t see that level of permanence in gay relationships, and second the purpose of ‘marriage’ is intertemporal reproduction, and third, the purpose of marriage is to meritocratic-ally regulate reproduction through property rights. Despite having had close female gay friends, I find that culture to be as negative as male gay culture is celebratory. I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t think I want to spend time on it really. Too many other problems to solve. Not sure I can really get my mind around the problem either. The postmodern strategy of is to use the media to repeat exposure until the disgust response is either acclimated or shamed out of use. I have never had a disgust response to gay personalities (although I seem to have one for transvestites). I definitely have one to gay sex. I can’t go there even for a moment. I am extremely worried that the left will continue to seek status signals by expanding perversity. Not because they want to, but because that is what the left does to find purpose and status and groupishness in life. Leftists intuit the female reproductive strategy: rallying and shaming in numbers to achieve by political force what they cannot achieve by voluntary exchange. Gay marriage was probably the borderline between European civilization and the brazilification of the Americas. No one else will follow us. We are no longer a country to imitate. We are the symbol of what to reject. So we are probably at the limit of tolerance now. If it’s time to redefine marriage, it’s also time to redefine government and law. And that’s my plan. And it’s working.

  • Institutions not Genetics. Epigenetic or Otherwise.

    [E]pigenetics is interesting but it doesn’t help me with institutions. As far as I can tell, we don’t need to ‘persuade’ anyone of anything. We just need to outlaw the entire spectrum of lying in addition to fraud theft violence and murder and to create universal standing in matters of the commons, and natural incentives will take care of the rest.

    I differ from the right in the sense that while our personalities may in fact be 80/20 genetic, I am not sure that the resulting genetic composition isn’t 80/20 institutions. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.

    So we can use institutions to produce genetic outcomes.

    That is better than warfare. 

  • Institutions not Genetics. Epigenetic or Otherwise.

    [E]pigenetics is interesting but it doesn’t help me with institutions. As far as I can tell, we don’t need to ‘persuade’ anyone of anything. We just need to outlaw the entire spectrum of lying in addition to fraud theft violence and murder and to create universal standing in matters of the commons, and natural incentives will take care of the rest.

    I differ from the right in the sense that while our personalities may in fact be 80/20 genetic, I am not sure that the resulting genetic composition isn’t 80/20 institutions. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.

    So we can use institutions to produce genetic outcomes.

    That is better than warfare.