Theme: Institution

  • (draft)(more work tomorrow) THE CONSTRAINTS CREATED BY MORALITY IN CONSTRUCTING

    (draft)(more work tomorrow)

    THE CONSTRAINTS CREATED BY MORALITY IN CONSTRUCTING THE INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY

    (undone)

    THE FAMLY STRUCTURE AS A CONSTRAINT ON PROPERTY AND MORALITY

    (undone)

    CAUSES OF PROPERTY

    I’ve articulated the cause of Property, Manners, Ethics and Morals as the necessity of cooperation and the consequential prevention of free riding. This is a ‘pre-property’ argument illustrating the cause of moral behavior, and the limits upon property because of it.

    PROPOSITION 0.0 : Time

    PROPOSITION 1 : Survival is the first universal good.

    …COROLLARY 1.1 : Action

    …COROLLARY 1.2 : Searching

    …COROLLARY 1.3 : Acquisition (identity)

    …COROLLARY 1.4 ; Storing (memory)

    …COROLLARY 1.5 : Planning (calculation)

    {PROPOSITION 2 : The second universal “good” is prosperity. Upon which all other ‘goods’ depend.}

    PROPOSITION 3 : The utility of cooperation in producing prosperity

    …COROLLARY 3.1 : the division of labor

    …COROLLARY 3.2 : the utility of voluntary organization

    …COROLLARY 3.3 : the necessity of property (monopoly of control)

    …COROLLARY 3.4 : the necessity of extending our perception (instrumentalism)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.1 : (logic of cooperation – ethics)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of money, prices, accounting etc)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of identity – necessary properties)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of naming – numbering)

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of relations – mathematics )

    ……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of causality – physics)

    PROPOSITION 4 : The Prohibition on involuntary transfer

    …COROLLARY 4.1 : requirement for contribution to consumption

    (more later, but you get the idea.)

    IS PROPERTY THE CONSEQUENCE OF SCARCITY OR COOPERATION OR THE PROHIBITION ON FREE RIDING – OR ALL THREE?

    (undone)

    THE IMPACT OF FRAMING UNDER POWER AND WEAKNESS

    “I have this right or that” is an appeal by the weak against the strong. “I will not tolerate this or that” is demand, or threat, by the strong. And aristocracy cannot by definition act from a position of weakness.

    (undone)

    RIGHTS ARE POSITIVE ASSERTIONS IN FAVOR OF ONE’S SELF RATHER THAN MORE AGGRESSIVE LANGUAGE THAT PROHIBITS THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS.

    The problem is, that when we assert rights, and construct our ethics from rights, we lose the cause of those rights, and the broader scope of their cause. This causes us to defend rights, instead of consistently evolve positive assertions that reflect the underlying negative cause: the prohibition on free riding.

    THE PROTOCOL OF ARGUMENTATION AS “FRAMING”.

    (undone)

    THE DIALECTICAL PROBLEM OF POSITIVE CLAIMS AND NEGATIVE PROHIBITIONS

    The sayings “do unto others as you wold have done unto you” and “do noting to others that you would not have done to you” are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the assumption of homogeneity of interests in the golden rule vs heterogeneity of interests in the silver rule.

    The terms “incentives” and “calculation” are mutually dependent. on cannot have incentives without the ability to calculate and there is no reason to calculate if one has no incentive to. So, these terms are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the difference between the people who can depend upon incentives to act in the participation of production, and the people who rely on calculation in order to discover complex means of organizing production.

    The terms “prohibition on free riding” and “property rights” are likewise, mutually deponent concepts. They are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the scope of prohibitions under the rule of the prohibition on involuntary transfer, vs the scope of prohibitions under the rule of private property.

    REPAIRING LIBERTARIAN ETHICS

    This repairs libertarian ethics, sufficient for the common law, as the prohibition on involuntary transfer by any means other than competition (the negative version). And conversely (the positive version)


    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 19:04:00 UTC

  • CENTRAL OBJECT OF THE ANARCHIC RESEARCH PROGRAM The central objective of the ana

    http://propertarianism.com/ideas/THE CENTRAL OBJECT OF THE ANARCHIC RESEARCH PROGRAM

    The central objective of the anarcho capitalist research program has been how to eliminate the monopoly bureaucracy and its institutionalize parasitism on the population, yet still produce a prosperous social order.

    In libertarian circles we often refer to this simply as “the problem of social order.”

    THE CENTRAL THEORY

    Like marxism, libertarian philosophy is pretty rigorously thought out. By the time we get to Hoppe, it’s a well articulated theory of politics. So the logical errors in libertarianism tend to be complex, not trivial.

    Most criticisms of libertarianism are naive or irrelevant because libertarian claims are technical, articulated in a formal and technical language, and they are not intuitive or normative claims at all. So without knowledge of the libertarian terminology and it’s arguments, is pretty hard to make a legitimate criticism – and that’s why so many criticisms are not legitimate.

    DEFINITIONS

    “NAP: the non-aggression principle. That one will not aggress against the life and property of others.”

    “Property: (n) Your life, your mind, your body, things you have obtained in trade, and things you have converted to first-use (homesteading).”

    “Violence: (n) Physical aggression against property.”

    “Aggression: (n) hostile or violent behavior or attitudes toward another; readiness to attack or confront.”

    So it’s okay to use violence against aggression. ie: any time you and your property are threatened. And to obtain restitution for your lost property.

    So, no, the NAP is not a prohibition on violence. It’s a prohibition on the violation of property in which you, yourself, are also your property (that which you must have monopoly of control). Or more accurately, private property functions as an extension of your body and life. (true) and as such violations against your ‘things’ are violations against your body.

    WHY PROPERTY THIS SO IMPORTANT

    The general theory upon which anarcho capitalism rests, is that a rigid definition of property, and the common law, are sufficient for the formation of a polity. And that monopoly government and its systematic predation due to lack of competition is not necessary. Because the common law is sufficient ‘government’ for an anarchic polity. (This is the legal framework of a migratory herding people, or disasporic traders.)

    This differs from a high trust agrarian society where the people must organize to prevent others from displacing them from the land. In a landed society, it is necessary for organizations to have leaders, to prevent free riding by those not willing to fight for that land.

    PROSPERITY AS ‘THE COMMON GOOD”

    But since trust is an index of productivity, because lack of trust acts as a friction on seizure of opportunity – and particularly on the concentration of capital by future-oriented people – (a form of transaction cost) then high trust is the the greatest social asset a polity can possess in the production of wealth.

    Property will evolve from trust. Trust evolves from the prevention of free riding. The prevention of free riding evolves from the need to cooperate.

    THE PROBLEM WITH NAP AND PRIVATE PROPERTY: “TRUST”

    Private property and a weak state only evolve in high trust societies. But high trust societies are not dependent upon the NAP. They are dependent upon the suppression of free riding. The absolute nuclear family for example, even prohibits free riding by your children.

    The NAP doesn’t prohibit unethical and immoral actions, so you can’t initiate violence against, say, a blackmailer, or scam artist, or other person who engages in conspiracy. Its a license for predation. Given the high cost of violence and the low cost of unethical and immoral behavior, it’s non-logical to essentially prohibit violence but not prohibit every kind of cheating possible.

    The NAP operates on the assumption that a high trust society already exists, but actually fosters the destruction of the high trust society.

    Because high trust societies do not limit ‘property’ wither private or common to the physical.

    High trust societies prevent free riding, of which private property crime is merely one component.

    That is why it’s non-rational.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 14:52:00 UTC

  • VICTORY!!!! WHOOT. (personal) (philosophy) (innovation) I figured it out!!!! (It

    VICTORY!!!! WHOOT.

    (personal) (philosophy) (innovation)

    I figured it out!!!! (It pays to keep at a problem until you solve it.)

    As the author of (many) shareholder agreements, and participant in (many) lawsuits I have always been troubled by the structure of law. I’ve always intuited the problem. But it never quite got to the answer.

    I knew the golden rule and the silver rule contained a hint at that answer but I couldn’t quite figure out why. Until now.

    Last year I worked on the problem of platonism. I knew the answer was in mathematical philosophy. I just had to master it.

    This year I’m working on formal logic. What are the grammar, syntax, rules, and method for the formal logic of cooperation (ethics and politics)?

    By about 2010, living in Ottawa, I was able to understand, loosely, the human cognitive problems in converting an intuitive and normative discourse rhetoric of ethics, into a formal and calculative logic of ethics.

    I outlined the propertarian method of analysis. But there was this enormous hole in it. It was descriptive alone. How does one construct ETHICAL law as theory? Meaning, how does one construct law while prohibiting in voluntary transfer? And how does one construct a process by which the ethical rules cannot be violated by ‘linguistic means’.

    Since all law is theory, but the costs of those theories are very high, how do you construct law as theory open to revision without corruption? The scientific method emerged from science, but the method of science is applicable to all human epistemology, not just science. So the scientific method is just ‘the method of constructing theories both logically and ethically’.

    The common law and conservatism are both ‘scientific’ in the sense that their theories are open to constant revision by evidence. But as we have seen from the american constitution, that the constitution was too poorly constructed to resist attacks.

    So how do we construct a constitution (theory of law) that is subject to the same constraints as ‘the method’ that we call the scientific method?

    The truth is that the founders did include a process: the modification of the constitution by procedural means. But the differences between the interests of the states was so great that it exceeded the respect for the constitution.

    The Louisiana purchase made those differences in tolerable since it would have meant the conquest of one society by the other (the south would have conquered the north via political process) the north retaliated with war – over territory.

    Then upon immigration of large numbers of catholics and jews from lower trust societies, and the inclusion of women into the voting pool as equal to heads of absolute nuclear households and businesses, the constitution was broken – first by the introduction of the fed and credit money, then by the depression that resulted from the combination.

    So the existing law was not well enough articulated such that it was not open to ‘hermeneutic interpretation’, and outright assault.

    How does one construct ethical theories in formal logic of cooperation?

    How does one construct law from formal ethical logic of cooperation?

    It’s fascinating. 🙂


    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 07:17:00 UTC

  • Russia takes the Chinese Route to Authoritarian Capitalism? Interesting. So we s

    Russia takes the Chinese Route to Authoritarian Capitalism?

    Interesting. So we stopped funding Russian analysts and we missed it? Putin and his inner circle are adopting the Chinese model? He’s told the leading billionaires that any wealth that they have outside of Russia is lost? That two years ago he planned this and told them to bring it home? That he planned this invasion of Ukraine last summer, including the conquest of the east?

    Conquest of Crimea almost complete. Given the level of corruption of the Russian regions of Ukraine, the leadership there knows that they’ll go to jail under a modernized Ukraine, so they’re going to work to support Russian conquest.

    I guess that the deal is done? Ukraine will be split and armed, replacing Germany as the battlefield between east and west?

    Fascinating times. Kind of ruins the joy of experiencing the revolution here.

    Nukes are your only chance at sovereignty.

    Everyone needs nukes. Thats the lesson.

    Thats the lesson that NKorea and Pakistan suggested, Iran has adopted and Ukraine proved.

    Welcome to the end of nuclear non-proliferation.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-11 16:29:00 UTC

  • IMPERIALISM Imperialism is defensive when cooperation is structurally impossible

    IMPERIALISM

    Imperialism is defensive when cooperation is structurally impossible. But if cooperation is possible it is preferable. Even then the goal is merely institutional development so that cooperation is possible. Imperialism like violence is an amoral question.

    Extraction is not. Predation is not. Parasitism is not.

    There is a vast difference between teaching people reading, writing, arithmetic, accounting, property rights, and the common law, so that you can cooperate with them rather than either conquer or displace them, and parasitically using them. And since parasitism is a way of life in primitive cultures -which is why they are primitive – it is a very long and difficult lesson to teach them.

    I don’t like imperialism. I don’t like empires at all. I do like cooperative production and trade.

    Respect for others’ property today will mean others may at least attempt to respect your property tomorrow.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-09 11:08:00 UTC

  • UKRAINE’S ECONOMY IS A MESS IMHO: Ukrainians have the Highest IQ per dollar and

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/ukraine-and-russiaWHY UKRAINE’S ECONOMY IS A MESS

    IMHO: Ukrainians have the Highest IQ per dollar and best work ethic outside of the USA. An incredible piece of real estate and natural gas reserves. They are just broken from generations of peasantry, generations of communism, and a generation of economic uncertainty. Victims of a predatory post-soviet government. But they still soldier onward. (I love them),

    WHY DO THEY SUFFER?

    –“Dodgy economic policy, distaste for reform and endemic corruption have brought the country to its knees.”–

    –“Corruption and poor governance…”–

    –“The Ukrainian shadow economy is one of the biggest in the world—at around 50% of GDP, according to IMF research. Businesses operating underground tend not to pay taxes, further depriving the government of funds. And last week Ukraine’s new prime minister estimated that $37 billion had gone missing during Viktor Yanukovych’s rule.”–

    –“Protecting the currency drained the central bank’s reserves, which tumbled from a high of $40 billion in 2011 to about $12 billion today. Last month the central bank admitted defeat and let the currency go. Currency depreciation, while necessary, will be an economic headache for Ukraine in the short term. About half of its public debt is in foreign currencies: as the hrvynia loses value, Ukraine’s debt burden rises.”—

    –“The state gas company, Naftogaz, only charges consumers a quarter of the cost of importing the gas. Cheap gas discourages investment: Ukraine is one of the most energy-intensive economies in the world and domestic production has slumped by two-thirds since the 1970s.”–


    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-06 05:06:00 UTC

  • ***Natural elites MUST organize to construct property rights. It is impossible t

    ***Natural elites MUST organize to construct property rights. It is impossible to POSSESS PROPERTY RIGHTS unless one organizes to construct and protect them.***


    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-03 08:35:00 UTC

  • UPDATE: OVERSING PROGRESS (nerds) Our product, Oversing, has evolved from lookin

    UPDATE: OVERSING PROGRESS

    (nerds)

    Our product, Oversing, has evolved from looking and feeling like ‘Supersized-Jira’ to a full blown ERP/PSA.

    We took an interesting technical risk by using our “Panel” UI to construct task, role, and function based user interfaces out of a set of available panels.

    This risk had the potential to overload the DOM, but it seems that with judicious use of Backbone and hand coding we have managed to pull off a next-generation UI that is well… amazing, and we have not even tried to refactor for performance yet. (I love using denormalization-on-update to speed selects, and the devs just do not like it at *all*. But I will win in the end. 🙂 )

    Anyway, there is nothing like Oversing. Anywhere.

    We are a year and a half into it. And it’s beginning to come together.

    It will take us three years to put the whole scope of work together. And at that point the “ERP for Everybody”, I am pretty sure, will be on desktops and laptops everywhere.


    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-26 08:35:00 UTC

  • AS LAWS Having a great, fun, chat with Paul Bakhmut on Slavic superstition and h

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_traditions_and_superstitionsSUPERSTITIONS AS LAWS

    Having a great, fun, chat with Paul Bakhmut on Slavic superstition and he’s connecting the dots for me on the use of superstitions in lieu of laws. It’s genius. I love it. All these superstitions have some useful purpose.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_traditions_and_superstitions


    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-23 09:30:00 UTC

  • Oborne: “…the House of Commons cannot be relied on to defend traditional Engli

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10191978/These-hereditary-peers-put-our-MPs-to-shame.html?fbPeter Oborne: “…the House of Commons cannot be relied on to defend traditional English liberties or the British way of life. Again and again, the nation has found itself relying on the good sense and sound instincts of the House of Lords, in particular the hereditary element. “


    Source date (UTC): 2014-02-23 09:10:00 UTC