Curt Doolittle

Theme: Predation

  • LIDDEL-HART’S ORIGINAL “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whethe

    LIDDEL-HART’S ORIGINAL

    “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off … since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.” – Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

    REVISED VERSION

    “It is folly to imagine that the members of the bureaucratic state can be bought off… Since the payment of taxes stimulates the demand for more taxes. But they can be curbed. The very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force. “

    Let all men be armed.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 11:05:00 UTC

  • “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nation

    “It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off … since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.” – Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 07:38:00 UTC

  • IS DEPENDENT UPON RACE MIXTURE. “It turns out that after adjusting for the major

    http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/03/who-kills-who.htmlVIOLENCE IS DEPENDENT UPON RACE MIXTURE.

    “It turns out that after adjusting for the major demographic differences between the two nations, Canada is a much more violent place than is the U.S. (Ed. At least Canadians are polite, eh? Just don’t cross them….)”

    http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/03/who-kills-who.html?m=1

    http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-vs-canada-comparing-oranges-and.html?m=1

    http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-vs-canada-comparing-apples-to-apples.html?m=1

    Source date (UTC): 2012-12-20 08:26:00 UTC

  • THE LEFT IS A FUNDAMENTALLY CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION “…when we consider guerrilla

    THE LEFT IS A FUNDAMENTALLY CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION

    “…when we consider guerrilla warfare … either of the classic Maoist rural form, or the newer urban-guerrilla (“terrorist”) approach, or simply the strategy of building ominous and threatening paramilitary militias. These strategies work for leftist revolutionaries because they are essentially criminal in nature, and leftism – whose Yeatsian passionate energy is inseparable from its capacity for pure plunder – is fundamentally a criminal movement.” — Moldbug

    PRICELESS

    (thank you for the pointer)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-04-04 12:01:00 UTC

  • Reductio Libertarianism As An Effort To Export Costs (ie: Theft)

    In yet another debate with crooks masquerading as libertarians. I ask “Define Moral.” Bob replies “Moral = “Absence of coercion. Immoral = Presence of coercion (force or fraud).” Then he teases me a bit for my usually turgid analytical analysis: “What’s your definition, Curt? We assume it’s gotta be a pretty complex definition or it’s not particularly impressive, correct?” To which I reply: “Yes, you have the correct definition for interpersonal relations. However, the same method of analysis applies to shareholder relations. The problem lies in the process of decision making for transfers of assets, which are determined by the shareholder agreement. ie: “constitution”, whether discreet and written, or traditional and structured, or traditional and unstructured. Moral crimes include crimes against shareholder assets. ie: transfers that are possible because of increasing degrees of ignorance, and therefore without interpersonal coercion. Such transfers are not only possible, but easy and invisible, by the act of transferring opportunity costs: “For example, imagine an island where having a child that you cannot support, and therefore must rely upon charity to feed, is an immoral crime. It is a forcible transfer of wealth, because the shareholder agreement forbids allowing a person or child to starve — and therefore the parent, by having a child, forced other shareholders to pay for the support of that child, otherwise the other shareholders would break the agreement themselves. This is an involuntary transfer. Humans organize. Organizations consist of shareholders. Shareholders have responsibilities to avoid transfers. Any Propertarian analysis must include shareholder agreements and shareholder properties, because people do in fact create and live by those shareholder methods and processes. To ignore such organizations is unscientific. Or, worse, an immoral attempt to privatize opportunities, or externalize costs onto others. 🙂 “So I would state it like this (or as a graph):


    2. There are three forms of coercion:
        1) Violence against a person or property,
        2) Fraud,
        3) Opportunity Deprivation (ie:Ostracization or non-cooperation: deprivation of opportunity) We call this ‘moral’ coercion.

    3. There is only one form of ‘manipulation’ of another person’s actions, which is both voluntary and symmetrical ((I use the term ‘symmetrical’ where most would use ‘equitable’, only because I am somewhat concerned about the loaded content of the word ‘equitable’ which is both imprecise and emotionally loaded for my purposes . )), and that is voluntary Trade (Exchange).

    4. People join organizations in order to increase their opportunities, and decrease their costs of opportunities.

    5. Membership in organizations requires Individuals pay direct costs, such as actions and payments, as well as indirect costs, such as forgoing opportunities for gratification, or choosing a less gratifying alternative in order to adhere to specific moral coercions, because it is these moral self-deprivations that forbid the privatization of other people’s forgone opportunity costs.

    6. People join multiple organizations. They do so by paying the direct costs and opportunity costs prescribed in the ‘shareholder agreement’.

    7. Some organizational requirements conflict with other organizational requirements, therefore people ‘cheat’ on their membership costs in order to obtain additional opportunities at a discount

    8. Therefore Interpersonal Moral Action = Absence of coercion.” But since people join organizations in order to increase their opportunities, and decrease their costs of opportunities, this is an insufficient definition for all exchanges.

    9. Therefore Shareholder Moral Action = Absence of Coercion + Absence of Externalization of Costs + Absence of Privatization of Opportunities. This is a sufficient definition for environments where organizations are present.

    10. All moral human actions consist of one or more actions, using zero or more objects, and zero or more interpersonal exchanges, which occur under zero to many shareholder agreements, where the individual does not use any of the three forms of coercion, and does not externalize costs onto other shareholders, or privatize opportunities unto one’s self, or transfer opportunities to others.

    1. The institution of property itself is a form of coercion. Of sacrificing opportunity costs according to a social contract. Therefore we cannot have property to transfer without the costs paid for self deprivation of opportunity – that’s without even considering the necessity for collective defense.
    2. Narrowly Defining morality only as Interpersonal Moral actions is an attempt at appropriation, that is THEFT, by FRAUDULENT MEANS of the vast opportunity costs paid by all members of an organization, both past and present.
    3. Non-conformity is a form of either expensive research programs, or theft, or forcible redistribution — depending upon whether the objective is to increase production (moral), or to conduct a transfer (immoral)
    4. Humans conduct conflicts between their different organizations using these opportunity cost differences embodied in their different social contracts, to which we apply the terms “culture”. Wars can be conducted by direct violence, or economic competition, or by thefts of cultural opportunity costs. This is why religious cults, and class wars, and immigration can succeed in obtaining power. They steal opportunity costs.

    “Is that OK? Because it’s right you know….. :)”

  • A Better Analysis Of Libertarianism: “Why don’t I kill you and take your stuff?”

    As Camus said, the first problem of philosophy is why we do not commit suicide. But that is followed by the first problem of political philosophy, which is not “how do we best get along?” It is “Why don’t I kill you and take your stuff?” I opt for freedom by advocating the organized application of violence against those who would take my stuff. Violence is a virtue, and the source of the institution of property. Without that violence, there is no property, only slavery to those who have either violence or property. So, property does not insure freedom. Violence insures freedom. Violence is a virtue not a vice. Property is simply a more productive use of freedom, because it allows us to develop fixed capital at lower risk, which then increases production and profits, decreases prices. Yet, once we consider that there are differences in ability between individuals, and therefore their differences in ability to create and obtain property in real time, the question remains: if we ask people to forgo the opportunity for theft, murder and plunder, how do we compensate them for their costs? All costs are opportunity costs. A man who is very powerful, or a group of weak people who by their numbers are powerful, is most free from constraints if they can rape, murder and plunder at will. Since they sacrifice this freedom in order to respect property, then what is their compensation for it? If people form a group, organization or corporation for the purpose of plunder, why should others not form a group for the purpose of preventing plunder and creating property and a market for exchange? Is that not exactly the course of development of these organizations? But once these defensive organizations are founded, and power is concentrated in them the bureaucracy forms, and corruption and predation upon the property of others replaces violence against their ‘person’, people, and things. We then attempt to regulate corruption, rather than replacing bureaucracy with market accountability. We replace violence against the barbarians with bribes so that they will respect our property: redistribution is payment for conformity to the standards property definitions of the organization which defends property. Since all costs are opportunity costs, and there is a cost born by those who respect property, each person who respects property is therefore a shareholder in the market. One could say instead, that access to the market is paid for by the cost of forgoing opportunity to rape, murder, pillage, and plunder, thieve and fraud, deceive and lie. And that might be true. But the question is, whether access to the market is SUFFICIENT compensation for the ongoing cost of opportunity paid by respecting property. And whether this is quantifiable or not, people ACT as though it is insufficient, and they rebel against the constraints. Radical individualism is a rational construct for epistemic purposes. But fundamentally, people ORGANIZE to achieve cooperative ends. Individualism is not enough of a solution to the problem of politics. In effect, propertarianism is an upward redistribution of opportunity costs from the lower to the upper classes. Anarchism is an effort to avoid paying costs of creating organizations that create property and create the market. Anarcho capitalism is a research program that has demonstrated the failure of bureaucracy, and suggested private and competitive rather than public and monopolistic means of achieving group ends. But the question then, is who are the shareholders of this organization that is so costly to implement? The answer is all that forgo opportunities for coercion. And what is their return on their forgone opportunities? I am a libertarian by epistemic method and a classical liberal by institutional method, and a conservative by social class and time preference. And I do not want to privatize the costs of others, and participate in corruption, by failing to compensate others for their forgone opportunities, from which I benefit. I simply want to stop corruption in the bureaucracy, and to privatize everything. I do not want to steal from others. Therefore redistribution of some sort is mandatory, because without redistribution, we cannot say that we respect property.

    [callout] Run the government like a business network. Make it an EMPIRICALLY CALCULABLE DECISION process rather than a RATIONAL AND RHETORICAL POLITICAL DEBATE process: [/callout]

    The problem then becomes how to make this process calculable. The answer is simple. Run the government like a business network. Make it an EMPIRICALLY CALCULABLE DECISION process rather than a RATIONAL AND RHETORICAL POLITICAL DEBATE process: “Loans Not Laws.” Laws are loosely calculable. Loans are narrowly calculable. Laws are rational. Loans are empirical. There is only one law, and that is property. Citizens are shareholders. And as shareholders they are due returns on their investment in opportunity costs. This is the grownup version of libertarianism. Most of which has degenerated into a Rothbardian religion supported by Friedman’s monetary analysis.

  • Reason Is Insufficient To Reform Immigration. Violence Is The Only Political Option.

    A friend posted an article on immigration reform. It’s yet another appeal to perceived wisdom.

    [callout]We can be free, or we can be exploited, or we can be oppressed or we can be enslaved, or we can be murdered. Choose your position on that spectrum. [/callout]

    Once an argument is understood in that it possesses explanatory power, is non-contradictory, and solves a pertinent practical political problem, one can seek consensus. And as long as that consensus appeals to a majority, then a democratic polity can adopt the policies that support the argument. However, the classical liberal ideal cannot be supported within a democracy, and no such rational arguments can prevail, for the sole reason that freedom is the desire of the minority – the creative class. And instead, safety is the objective of the majority. And the majority will always pursue safety rather than liberty. If the freedom-desiring minority loses it’s willingness to use violence to preserve it’s freedom, it will possess neither freedom, nor prosperity. And the rest of the civilization will calcify upon being deprived of the mental fertility of its creative, and therefore, most productive classes. This is the history of civilization. Fertility followed by calcification, followed by conquest and poverty. The answer is not violence, nor is the answer argument. The answer is sufficient argument so that the creative classes will apply violence, for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining the political power needed to secure the minority liberty against the predatory majority’s exploitation of the creative class in order to obtain security. We can be free, or we can be exploited, or we can be oppressed or we can be enslaved, or we can be murdered. Choose your position on that spectrum. Because your actions and the use of violence will determine it. Talk is cheap, and demonstrably ineffective.

  • The Threat Of Revolt, The General Strike, And The Myth Of Non-Violence

    A tactic used by the vocal left is the threat of violence, or revolt if their needs are not met. The tactic of revolt is ancient. This modern version of revolt is a product of The Myth Of The General Strike. (I am referring to Burnham’s treatment) The contemporary version is the Economic Armageddon and Political Upheaval of the classes. The opposing argument is the libertarian argument for private property, and private capitalism, and the Randian version of Atlas shrugging. Both of these are myths of the general strike. The argument, or myth in any of it’s versions, is disingenuous. Workers will eventually relent, be replaced, or the businesses close. Entrepreneurs will be replaced by others. It is the state who would suffer it’s loss of legitimacy in the event of failure. But a new group would take over in government, and life would go on. An analysis of history tells us that it is much easier for the minority with wealth to pay another minority to violently oppress the peasantry, and to obtain their compliance going forward with commercial incentives and rewards, than it is for a peasantry to organize a movement of a general strike. In fact, the government conducts all general strikes, because without government suport and threats of government violence on business people, they would largely be irrelevant. When a ruling class loses it’s will for violence, the society loses it’s binding mythology. It simply opens it’s ranks for a different group to take over the ruling class, and redefine the existing network-map of property rights, and the dispensation of them. However, provided that the ranks of the elite are open to absorb those ambitous people from all classes, and the elite retain sufficient willingness to use violence, the myth of the revolt is specious. Because people simply need leaders in order to revolt. Before an elite allows itself to be displaced, it commits fraud. They verbally ally themselves with ‘the people’. All societies determine the scope of private and group property differently. There are limits to the scope of private property. Property is necessary because of the limits of people’s knowledge in time. However, there are points at which certain forms of private property deny service to consumers, (such as misuse of intellectual property rights) and therefore it is theft from consumers. Why? Because consumers forgo the opportunity for violence, and in doing so pay for the cost of creating that private property. So denying the market a good in order to increase prices and profits is a theft of the costs paid by consumers to create the opportunity for private property. So the limits to private property come from artificial scarcity (denying a good to market), whereas reinforcement of private property comes from the There are limits to the scope of public property, because there are limits to the amount of knowledge that can exist in any person’s mind, and limits to decision making among groups of individuals, and distortionary effects (basically, perceived risk reduction, limited by the amount of knowledge of the largest population able to exercise it’s will) and the rapidity of timely action, and because of the limits of timely action, limitations on the opportunity cost for the group. ie: increases in private property are an opportunity cost reduction for a group. The purpose of the union movement is to allow the populists to use threats against the capitalists, without fear that the capitalists can respond in kind, and thereby allow government to profit from intermediation, thereby forming an alliance between the unions and the state, regulated only by the long term (and therefore easily imperceptible) impact of their intervention on tax revenues. Violence should not be eliminated from our discourse. It is a ruse. Starting with a principle of non violence is and always shall be a ruse. The fact is, that ALL movements that presume non-violence are attempts at theft of the cost needed to create private property. Costs are the only means of honest political dialog. Both direct costs and opportunity costs. The Principle of Non-violence is fraud. Plain and simple. Period.