Curt Doolittle

Theme: Property

  • PROPERTARAINISM ALLOWS YOU TO WRITE PROOFS. Now, a proof is not a ‘truth’, it is

    PROPERTARAINISM ALLOWS YOU TO WRITE PROOFS.

    Now, a proof is not a ‘truth’, it is a test of existential possibility. It just says something is possible. That’s all it tells you. But just as a proof in math helps you grasp very complex processes, a proof in human action allows you to grasp very complex processes.

    Propertarian proofs are not much harder to write than mathematical proofs. There are a very limited number of operations, and a very limited number of categories of property to consider.

    Within a year or two I will be able to teach people how to write praxeological ‘proofs’, to either test if something is possible, or challenge whether something is possible.

    At that point, psychology will be limited to the study of cognitive biases, and economics will be divided into deceptions (disinformation by policy) and truths (institutional improvements in the means of cooperation).

    And we will be able to demonstrate how to write strictly constructed law free of judicial activism.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-06-15 05:59:00 UTC

  • CHRISTIAN LOVE AND PROPERTARIANISM If you haven’t noticed, I’ve bought the love

    CHRISTIAN LOVE AND PROPERTARIANISM

    If you haven’t noticed, I’ve bought the love thing hook line and sinker. I tell other men I love them on a daily basis. And it’s infectious. We don’t support each other enough.

    Our culture tells us to be stalwart stoic warriors in the germanic tradition. But we no longer have normative means of obtaining positive reinforcement for our actions – thanks largely to feminists.

    So we have to take matters into our own hands. The red pill means not just that we love ourselves, but that we love other men. And tell them so, when they do works in our interest.

    Technically, Propertarianism tells us only to suppress parasitism (free riding/imposed costs). But Aristocratic Egalitarianism tells us to treat with brotherly love, all who engage in abstinence of parasitism, act as sheriff to police it, militia to defend it, and warrior to demand it.

    There is precious little in Propertarianism that was not in Aristocratic Christianity, Mithraism, and the initiatic brotherhood of indo European warriors that led to the construction of the Vedas.

    We are man’s aristocracy.

    Shall we abandon man to immorality?

    Or shall we lead him to universal love and abstinence from parasitism?

    Lets lead.

    They failed.

    We must take back rule.

    Leave them government,

    but take back rule.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Philosophy of Aristocracy

    Source date (UTC): 2015-06-15 05:05:00 UTC

  • Propertarianism’s Family Tree

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  • Propertarianism’s Family Tree

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  • Corporations were, like Limited Monopolies (IP), and like Letters of Marque, Limited Duration Contracts in the Public Interest

    [A] Month of Quotes on Corporatism by Tom Reeves

    —“…how corporations came about — they were all one-off, special purpose and limited-duration monopolies created in the public interest, not charters that the government let you file that were just like limited partnership agreements.”— Tom Reeves

    The same is true for Intellectual property (which we need to constrain), and Letters of Marque (which we need to restore).

    What is interesting, is that if they are not one-off’s, that means that they are not rational and calculable, right?

    —“moral suasion is a meaningful way for people to check each other’s damaging behavior. Before governments started creating corporations “in the public interest,” business enterprises were all intimately tied to communities, their owners were not absolved of potential personal liability, and common law provided effective means of halting damaging behavior entirely.”—Tom Reeves

    Restated: moral suasion evolved to raise the cost of each other’s imposition of costs, and therefore preserve the value of cooperation, and incentive to cooperate.

    —“We are swimming in moral hazard, risk socialization and needless polarization and conflict — because governments and the corporations they [create] interfere with truly voluntary transactions, catallaxy, and defense of person and property (both private and commons).”—Tom Reeves

    —“[Police] act in out-of-control ways largely because they are unaccountable in the sense they have little or no personal liability for what they do (and their departments/politicians will protect them if they misbehave). They’re a lot like crony capitalists, politicians and bureaucrats (all shielded by the hand of government). To fight corruption, bad behavior, “mistakes” and pervasive risk-socialization, we need to alter our institutional structures to demand more skin in the game from everyone. Right now, we are just playing games with who’s fat is in what fire, in ways that systematically advantage some while oppressing others.”—Tom Reeves

    —“Corporations are creatures of government; that’s why we keep running to government to beg our politicians and bureaucrats to “fix” things, rather than going to out neighbors to ask them to knock off stuff that harms members of the community.”— Tom Reeves

    —“Do you realize that crony capitalism and the mega regulatory state both are fuelled by the dynamic of unaccountability, lack of transparency, moral hazard and risk socialization that have been set in motion by governments selling masks of limited liability etc. to shareholders and those who inhabit the corporations that then grow?—Tom Reeves

    —“When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”—Frédéric Bastiat (By Tom Reeves)


    “The term ‘catallactics’ was derived from the Greek verb katallattein (or katallassein) which meant, significantly, not only ‘to exchange’ but also ‘to admit into the community’ and ‘to change from enemy into friend’. From it the adjective ‘catallactic’ has been derived to serve in the place of ‘economic’ to describe the kind of phenomena with which the science of catallactics deals. The ancient Greeks knew neither this term nor had a corresponding noun; if they had formed one it would probably have been katallaxia. From this we can form an English term catallaxy which we shall use to describe the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market. A catallaxy is thus the special kind of spontaneous order produced by the market through people acting within the rules of the law of property, tort and contract.”
    (Hayek, F. A., 1982, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 2, pp. 108-109).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catallaxy

    —“Catallaxy” is just a term used to describe certain transactions (transactions where markets exist). It’s a tool, not a dogma, and has no tenets.I used the term the other day in a comment thread to point out that markets are destroying the environment, primarily because of property theft and risk externalization via government claims to own the oceans and indigenous resources and because government-made corporations are machines of risk-socialization. Austrian economics is quite useful to understanding how crony capitalism is destroying both society and our natural world.”—Tom Reeves

  • Corporations were, like Limited Monopolies (IP), and like Letters of Marque, Limited Duration Contracts in the Public Interest

    [A] Month of Quotes on Corporatism by Tom Reeves

    —“…how corporations came about — they were all one-off, special purpose and limited-duration monopolies created in the public interest, not charters that the government let you file that were just like limited partnership agreements.”— Tom Reeves

    The same is true for Intellectual property (which we need to constrain), and Letters of Marque (which we need to restore).

    What is interesting, is that if they are not one-off’s, that means that they are not rational and calculable, right?

    —“moral suasion is a meaningful way for people to check each other’s damaging behavior. Before governments started creating corporations “in the public interest,” business enterprises were all intimately tied to communities, their owners were not absolved of potential personal liability, and common law provided effective means of halting damaging behavior entirely.”—Tom Reeves

    Restated: moral suasion evolved to raise the cost of each other’s imposition of costs, and therefore preserve the value of cooperation, and incentive to cooperate.

    —“We are swimming in moral hazard, risk socialization and needless polarization and conflict — because governments and the corporations they [create] interfere with truly voluntary transactions, catallaxy, and defense of person and property (both private and commons).”—Tom Reeves

    —“[Police] act in out-of-control ways largely because they are unaccountable in the sense they have little or no personal liability for what they do (and their departments/politicians will protect them if they misbehave). They’re a lot like crony capitalists, politicians and bureaucrats (all shielded by the hand of government). To fight corruption, bad behavior, “mistakes” and pervasive risk-socialization, we need to alter our institutional structures to demand more skin in the game from everyone. Right now, we are just playing games with who’s fat is in what fire, in ways that systematically advantage some while oppressing others.”—Tom Reeves

    —“Corporations are creatures of government; that’s why we keep running to government to beg our politicians and bureaucrats to “fix” things, rather than going to out neighbors to ask them to knock off stuff that harms members of the community.”— Tom Reeves

    —“Do you realize that crony capitalism and the mega regulatory state both are fuelled by the dynamic of unaccountability, lack of transparency, moral hazard and risk socialization that have been set in motion by governments selling masks of limited liability etc. to shareholders and those who inhabit the corporations that then grow?—Tom Reeves

    —“When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”—Frédéric Bastiat (By Tom Reeves)


    “The term ‘catallactics’ was derived from the Greek verb katallattein (or katallassein) which meant, significantly, not only ‘to exchange’ but also ‘to admit into the community’ and ‘to change from enemy into friend’. From it the adjective ‘catallactic’ has been derived to serve in the place of ‘economic’ to describe the kind of phenomena with which the science of catallactics deals. The ancient Greeks knew neither this term nor had a corresponding noun; if they had formed one it would probably have been katallaxia. From this we can form an English term catallaxy which we shall use to describe the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market. A catallaxy is thus the special kind of spontaneous order produced by the market through people acting within the rules of the law of property, tort and contract.”
    (Hayek, F. A., 1982, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 2, pp. 108-109).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catallaxy

    —“Catallaxy” is just a term used to describe certain transactions (transactions where markets exist). It’s a tool, not a dogma, and has no tenets.I used the term the other day in a comment thread to point out that markets are destroying the environment, primarily because of property theft and risk externalization via government claims to own the oceans and indigenous resources and because government-made corporations are machines of risk-socialization. Austrian economics is quite useful to understanding how crony capitalism is destroying both society and our natural world.”—Tom Reeves

  • Answering Charles Murray on Legalizing Blackmail

    RE: http://www.aei.org/publication/charles-murray-asks-why-should-blackmail-be-a-crime-walter-block-makes-the-case-for-legalizing-blackmail/ [W]alter Block starts with the rhetorical position that property is a natural right rather than the result of a necessary contractual exchange of rights, agreed to in order to construct property rights that are adjudicable, in order to prevent retaliation for impositions of costs upon one another, by providing a means of restitution and punishment by the community rather than retaliation by the individual. His position is illogical. The first question of ethics is not one in which we assume the value of cooperation, but one in which we assume the value of predation. So cooperation must be preferable to predation. And it is only preferable if it is productive.

    Cooperation must be rational or it is irrational (obviously). For cooperation to be rational, it must be: – Mutually Productive, – Fully informed, – Warrantied to be fully informed, – Consisting of Voluntary Exchange or Transfer, – Free of negative externality (of the same criteria). If these are all true then there is no need for retaliation. Walter Block, like his mentor Rothbard, is attempting to restate Maimonides’ dualist ethics as if they are a universal good. Instead of a utilitarian tactic for a minority living at the behest of a tyrant attempting to minimize his costs of policing. But, the first logically necessary question of ethics is ‘Why don’t I kill you and take your stuff?’ Block’s position on blackmail is one in which it is preferable to kill the blackmailer and take his stuff rather than to cooperate with him. So, it’s not complicated. Dualist (and poly-logical) ethics cannot by logical necessity be advocated as a universal ethic – it’s a logical contradiction. Natural rights are used as a nonsensical justification for various spurious ends. We do not presume rights, nor are they ‘existent’ prior to contract. They are merely the necessary terms for rational political contract. Cosmopolitan ethics attempt to preserve ingroup parasitism on outgroup members, while at the same time prohibiting the formation of family organizations that suppress parasitism. Rothbardian anarchism (libertinism), is an expression of group evolutionary strategy that ‘games’ (circumvents) the defenses of western aristocratic, truth telling civilization. So, instead, the first rule of ethics is that one should not engage in parasitism. Blackmail is unproductive and parasitic, and therefore a violation of the agreement for non-imposition of costs that serves as the only rational incentive to cooperate. (Although this level of argument is probably a bit deep for even the interested and informed.) Cheers

  • Answering Charles Murray on Legalizing Blackmail

    RE: http://www.aei.org/publication/charles-murray-asks-why-should-blackmail-be-a-crime-walter-block-makes-the-case-for-legalizing-blackmail/ [W]alter Block starts with the rhetorical position that property is a natural right rather than the result of a necessary contractual exchange of rights, agreed to in order to construct property rights that are adjudicable, in order to prevent retaliation for impositions of costs upon one another, by providing a means of restitution and punishment by the community rather than retaliation by the individual. His position is illogical. The first question of ethics is not one in which we assume the value of cooperation, but one in which we assume the value of predation. So cooperation must be preferable to predation. And it is only preferable if it is productive.

    Cooperation must be rational or it is irrational (obviously). For cooperation to be rational, it must be: – Mutually Productive, – Fully informed, – Warrantied to be fully informed, – Consisting of Voluntary Exchange or Transfer, – Free of negative externality (of the same criteria). If these are all true then there is no need for retaliation. Walter Block, like his mentor Rothbard, is attempting to restate Maimonides’ dualist ethics as if they are a universal good. Instead of a utilitarian tactic for a minority living at the behest of a tyrant attempting to minimize his costs of policing. But, the first logically necessary question of ethics is ‘Why don’t I kill you and take your stuff?’ Block’s position on blackmail is one in which it is preferable to kill the blackmailer and take his stuff rather than to cooperate with him. So, it’s not complicated. Dualist (and poly-logical) ethics cannot by logical necessity be advocated as a universal ethic – it’s a logical contradiction. Natural rights are used as a nonsensical justification for various spurious ends. We do not presume rights, nor are they ‘existent’ prior to contract. They are merely the necessary terms for rational political contract. Cosmopolitan ethics attempt to preserve ingroup parasitism on outgroup members, while at the same time prohibiting the formation of family organizations that suppress parasitism. Rothbardian anarchism (libertinism), is an expression of group evolutionary strategy that ‘games’ (circumvents) the defenses of western aristocratic, truth telling civilization. So, instead, the first rule of ethics is that one should not engage in parasitism. Blackmail is unproductive and parasitic, and therefore a violation of the agreement for non-imposition of costs that serves as the only rational incentive to cooperate. (Although this level of argument is probably a bit deep for even the interested and informed.) Cheers

  • Q: How Do You Reconcile The Ideal of Property Rights, and Observable Reality: Corporatism, and Cronyism?

    —“Question for Curt: How does property rights fit into mixed economies, corporatism and cronyism? If a corporation has property rights is that for eternity? Who decides?”— Beauregard.

    Beauregard, [I]’m going to try to guess at what “fit in” means. I think you mean, “How do we reconcile the apparent conflicts between the logical ideal of property rights theory, and the existential reality of mixed economies, pervasive corporatism, and cronyism?” The problem I’m having is that I’m not really sure what you’re asking. So I’ll stab in the dark trying to reconcile as best I can. 1) Mixed Economies: Mixed economies are as simple as corporations with shareholders who receive dividends on their investments – whether those investments are in sweat equity (observing norms), acting in an employee capacity(participating in the market of production distribution and trade), or whether one is an investor (taxpayer). There is no difference between a mixed economy and a corporation. It’s an organization where different interests combine different resources, to produce, distribute, and trade. 2) Corporatism: Corporatism exists because the state wanted to give capital a free ride, and took upon policing corporations in the legislature by removing universal standing under the common law. This is a problem of representative democracy. The answer is to revoke the corporate privilege, restore universal standing, and eliminate shareholder voting which is meaningless. (This takes a lot of explanation but I know how to address it.) 3) Cronyism: Cronyism exists because of the combination of representative government policing corporations by rather than citizen policing under universal standing. And because funding choices (monetary, fiscal trade, and industrial policy) are made by representatives rather than held at auction, using modern technology. 4) Corporate ‘Rights’: As for corporate rights, I don’t know what you’re referring to. But if the current shareholders of a corporation purchased rights to their shares, and therefore to a share of some property or other, or that organization persists as a functional organizational entity then it is hard to see how those rights should terminate. But you could be referring to some strange exception like intellectual property rights or something, and I might not really be able to guess your question. [A]ll of these problems arise because of three simple problems. First, a technological problem of the pre-industrial era where time and the speed of communications were problematic. We are not challenged by these problems any longer. Second, by the conflation of law-making (the judiciary) with commons-creation (the government), into a law-making-body called the legislature. Instead, if the government could not make law, only contract enforcible under law, and so the legislature can only produce contracts and not laws, and contracts all expire with the people who wrote them, then there is a time limit on all relations between the public (commons) and the private sector, and laws cannot be constructed to favor corporations for the benefit of politicians. Third, there is no reason whatsoever for majority rule. Monopoly government is pointless. Law must be decidable, so the law must exist as a monopoly definition of property and rights. However, the construction of contracts under that law, for the production of commons, do not need universal approval. They need only prevent imposition of costs on non-participants under the rule of law which protects non-participants property rights from exactly those kinds of attacks. So as far as I know, all of the questions you’re asking are entirely compatible with property rights theory (or at least by Propertarianism), and in fact, they are only confusing in the absence of property rights theory. There are some interesting human cognitive biases in play in the populace but that’s another story for another time.. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Q: How Do You Reconcile The Ideal of Property Rights, and Observable Reality: Corporatism, and Cronyism?

    —“Question for Curt: How does property rights fit into mixed economies, corporatism and cronyism? If a corporation has property rights is that for eternity? Who decides?”— Beauregard.

    Beauregard, [I]’m going to try to guess at what “fit in” means. I think you mean, “How do we reconcile the apparent conflicts between the logical ideal of property rights theory, and the existential reality of mixed economies, pervasive corporatism, and cronyism?” The problem I’m having is that I’m not really sure what you’re asking. So I’ll stab in the dark trying to reconcile as best I can. 1) Mixed Economies: Mixed economies are as simple as corporations with shareholders who receive dividends on their investments – whether those investments are in sweat equity (observing norms), acting in an employee capacity(participating in the market of production distribution and trade), or whether one is an investor (taxpayer). There is no difference between a mixed economy and a corporation. It’s an organization where different interests combine different resources, to produce, distribute, and trade. 2) Corporatism: Corporatism exists because the state wanted to give capital a free ride, and took upon policing corporations in the legislature by removing universal standing under the common law. This is a problem of representative democracy. The answer is to revoke the corporate privilege, restore universal standing, and eliminate shareholder voting which is meaningless. (This takes a lot of explanation but I know how to address it.) 3) Cronyism: Cronyism exists because of the combination of representative government policing corporations by rather than citizen policing under universal standing. And because funding choices (monetary, fiscal trade, and industrial policy) are made by representatives rather than held at auction, using modern technology. 4) Corporate ‘Rights’: As for corporate rights, I don’t know what you’re referring to. But if the current shareholders of a corporation purchased rights to their shares, and therefore to a share of some property or other, or that organization persists as a functional organizational entity then it is hard to see how those rights should terminate. But you could be referring to some strange exception like intellectual property rights or something, and I might not really be able to guess your question. [A]ll of these problems arise because of three simple problems. First, a technological problem of the pre-industrial era where time and the speed of communications were problematic. We are not challenged by these problems any longer. Second, by the conflation of law-making (the judiciary) with commons-creation (the government), into a law-making-body called the legislature. Instead, if the government could not make law, only contract enforcible under law, and so the legislature can only produce contracts and not laws, and contracts all expire with the people who wrote them, then there is a time limit on all relations between the public (commons) and the private sector, and laws cannot be constructed to favor corporations for the benefit of politicians. Third, there is no reason whatsoever for majority rule. Monopoly government is pointless. Law must be decidable, so the law must exist as a monopoly definition of property and rights. However, the construction of contracts under that law, for the production of commons, do not need universal approval. They need only prevent imposition of costs on non-participants under the rule of law which protects non-participants property rights from exactly those kinds of attacks. So as far as I know, all of the questions you’re asking are entirely compatible with property rights theory (or at least by Propertarianism), and in fact, they are only confusing in the absence of property rights theory. There are some interesting human cognitive biases in play in the populace but that’s another story for another time.. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine