CONTRA TOM WOODS AND CHRIS CANTWELL ON AGGRESSION (Note: I love the pejorative term ’emotional hypochondriac’. I’ll have to use that.) CRITICISM 1 To say that aggression is precise is not the same as saying it’s sufficient. (It’s not). To say that harm is imprecise is not the same as saying it’s false. All these two statements mean as that we have not yet solved the problem of the necessary AND sufficient criteria for liberty. I’m a hard-right libertarian. More right than Hans Hoppe. In that I am certain, given the evidence, both of history, of reason, and in addition, the recent evidence produced by science, that the only means of obtaining liberty is for the minority of those of us who desire it, to impose it by the threat, promise, and execution of organized violence. Their is no contrary evidence. And Rothbardians have no counter to this argument except ‘faith’ that others will somehow adopt their arguments. Which is also counter to the evidence. Left libertarians are trying to reconstruct the church – just as the progressive left is. Rothbardians are advocating the ethics and politics of diasporic jewish merchants and bankers, as well as american Puritans. And right libertarians advocating for the return to the monarchy, independent judiciary, common law and the militia. We are all advocating our moral specializations, like good ants specializing in one form of activity or other. The question is which institutional model will result in a condition of liberty in the absence of a state? Will people choose a rothbardian anarchy that only prohibits physical aggression against property? Or, will they choose an anarchy that also prohibits immoral and unethical violations of property? Is it possible to peacefully obtain a state of anarchy for the minority of humans who are liberty seekers? Or is necessary to obtain that state of anarchy by the organized threat of violence to obtain that liberty whether others wish to permit it or not? CRITICISM 2 Tom, in good rothbardian form, states that harm is a fuzzy criteria. But aggression is also fuzzy – unless we define property as IVP. Harm may be ‘fuzzy’ but only because one does not define property subject to harm. Harm against defined property is not fuzzy. The involuntary transfer of property, when property is defined, is not fuzzy. So, the argumentative logic here is a fallacy. As Hoppe has stated repeatedly, it’s the definition of property that determines whether one has committed a violation of the rules of cooperation, not the means of violation of that property. Any means of violating the property one has defined is a transgression. It is easier to emotionally envision and empathize with aggression, than it is to enumerate the forms of property that allow for peaceful, moral, ethical cooperation, and as such eliminate demand for the state as a suppressor of violence, immorality, and unethical actions, as well as the violence that results from the failure to suppress criminal immoral and unethical actions. In a consanguineous band of hunter gatherers, very little is allocated as private property and almost everything remains communal in ownership. As we break into families, that which can be inherited is allocated into private property. As we develop into a division of knowledge and labor, under traditional families nearly everything is allocated into private property at the family level, but remains relatively communal within the family since free riding in the family is a form of insurance, but non-family is prohibited from free riding. As we suppress free riding in the family and adopt the absolute nuclear family, property becomes a universally individualistic allocation, and all collective rights of any kind must be allocated via some sort of shareholder agreement. (And that’s what we have seen evolve.) Property reflects the relationship between reproductive structures (family) and the structure of production in which the family exists. Private property and the absolute nuclear family are highly meritocratic levels of property definition. Meanwhile, as complexity of human relationships increase with the division of knowledge and labor, so does the opportunity for unethical and immoral activity due to increases int he asymmetry of knowledge. In other words, morality increases with the complexity of the society as moral constraints narrow along with the definition of private property. Law, Morality (ethics), and Property evolve as a set of parallel rules as the division of knowledge and labor increases in complexity. No society can anchor a definition of property, law, or morality, unless it also anchors its economic progress. If the division of knowledge and labor increases, but property law and morality do not, then unethical and immoral and criminal behavior will fill the new vacuum, and people will demand ‘order’ in the form of the state to suppress that behavior. This is the virtue of the common law and the organic development of property rights. So, not only are rothbardians wrong to use the NAP without specifically stating that it’s not the NAP that matters, but the definition of property under IVP. But even so, the IVP is static and unevolving. And the combination of NAP/IVP embodied as the basis of the law, effectively licenses immoral and unethical behavior. And by consequence, rothbardianism drives, incontrovertibly, to demand for, and construction of, the oppressor state. Why do I care? Because Rothbardians try to achieve catharsis through verbal repetition: the attempt to construct reality by chanting. And this chanting has undermined the movement for liberty both by delegitimizing libertarians, and distracting us from finding a solution to the problem of property definitions necessary for the resolution of disputes such that no state is necessary. CRITICISM 3 You cannot both appropriate the term ‘libertarian’ that is far older than Mr Rothbard’s use of it, and criticize the left for appropriating ‘liberal’. You cannot both levy a claim against IP, and then claim the term ‘libertarian’ as equal to “rothbardian libertarian’. Rothbard used the term “libertarianism” for his philosophy, he state the criteria for adherence as non-aggression, and defined property only as that which is intersubjectively verifiable. However, in the etymology of the term, and in the survey evidence we possess, and now the cognitive science we possess, those of use who desire ‘liberty’ are still ‘libertarians’ because we attach higher priority to freedom to experience, and freedom from constraint than do members of the other points of the political spectrum. So, squatting on ‘libertarian’ as if it is identical to “Rothbardian Libertarianism under the NAP/IVP” is (a) appropriation of a term (b) an attempt at monopolizing the movement (c) unscientific since anyone who treats liberty as the highest political priority is by definition ‘libertarian’. He may or may not ascribe to Rothbardian Libertarianism and the NAP/IVP but he is a libertarian. And our failure to find a set of principles that unite all people with that highest priority, while preventing the evolution of the state, is yet another indicator that the Rothbardian Libertarian NAP/IVP program is a failure. Aggression is the great nonsense distraction of our time. The problem any polity faces is the definition of necessary property rights given their state of advancement, and their family structures. The means of violating that property are irrelevant. As far as I know this argument is bulletproof. Although that won’t stop Rothbardians from attempting to create an alternate reality by chanting. WELCOME Welcome tho the dark enlightenment – the return to particularism, propertarianism – the logic of cooperation, and aristocratic egalitarianism – the ethics of sovereignty. It’s where Rothbarians go when they grow up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDGrYXqjpWA
Theme: Property
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For Tom Woods: On Thick and Thin
Tom, Great of you to weigh in on this topic. You’ve also provided Rothbardians with an ‘out’ that I didn’t think of. That the NAP is fullness of libertarianism but not the fullness of life. I’d thought that the only ‘out’ was that rothbardian libertarianism was sufficient for the moral interaction of states, but insufficient for the construction of a polity. THE PROBLEM IS LAW It’s true that aggression is immoral and it’s true that aggression must be illegal. But is it rational for humans to join a voluntary, anarchic polity, if the basis of **LAW** is “non-aggression against intersubjectively verifiable property”, or must the basis of law be either based on something other than aggression, or broader in scope than intersubjectively verifiable property? What is the minimum basis for the law upon which it becomes rational to join a voluntary, anarchic polity? If we have a choice between: (a) a totalitarian capitalist society, like say, China. (b) a contemporary social democracy, like say the States. (c) an anarchic polity in which one CAN bring suit against immoral and unethical actions (say, blackmail, and fraud by omission). (d) an anarchic polity where unethical and immoral actions are expressly licensed by the law, and retribution for immoral and unethical actions is forbidden. 1) Then which of these will which people of which moral biases, choose? 2) How will members of that polity be treated by members of the competing polities? 3) How will the territory and trade representatives of that polity be treated by competing polities? I think that an intellectually honest analysis of those questions produces an obvious, and remarkably consistent answer. That is, that either aggression is the incorrect test of peaceful cooperation, or intersubjectively verifiable property is an insufficient test of the scope of property that must be protected from violation, or more likely both. The current proceeds of anthropology, genetics, and cognitive science, tell us that violations of the evolutionary preference for cooperation, are reducible to ‘free riding’: that is non-contribution. Since in any set of individuals, if we do not require productive contribution, then some are the victims of free riding (parasitism) and others benefit from free riding (parasitism). MORALITY If we analyze the common prohibitions of all moral codes under all family structures, and we remove moral constraints that are purely ritualistic, these moral codes are universally reducible to necessary prohibitions on what we would call ‘property violations’ in an effort to facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation. Moral Prohibition Spectra: 1) Agression: Harm/Oppression, 2) Trust: Subversion/Betrayal/Cheating, 3) Purity: Inobservance of Norms/Behavioral impurity/Pollution All of these are reducible to shareholder rights and obligations. Humans universally demonstrate a greater interest in punishing moral violations than we demonstrate self interest. IN fact, we justify our pre-cognitive moral punishments without even being able to articulate why we hold them. We are wired for morality. We evolved language and punishments violations of these moral intuitions in the form of criminal, ethical, and moral prohibitions: 1. Violence (asymmetry of force) 2. Theft (asymmetry of control) 3. Fraud (false information) 4. Omission (Omitting information) 5. Obscurantism (Obscuring information) 6. Obstruction (Inhibiting someone else’s transaction) 7. Externalization (externalizing costs of any transaction) 8. Free Riding (using externalities for self benefit) 9. Socializing Losses (externalization to commons) 10. Privatizing Gains (appropriation of commons) 11. Rent Seeking (organizational free riding) 12. Corruption ( organized rent seeking) 13. Conspiracy (organized indirect theft) 14. Extortion (Organized direct theft) 15. War (organized violence) PROPERTY We can empirically observe that people treat a broad spectrum of things as their property, and that they intuit violations of that property, and act to defend that property. I. Several (Personal) Property Personal property: “Things an individual has a Monopoly Of Control over the use of.” Physical Body and Several Property: Those things we claim a monopoly of control over. II. Artificial Property Shares in property: Recorded And Quantified Shareholder Property (claims for partial ownership) Trademarks and Brands (prohibitions on fraudulent transfers within a geography). III. Kin and Interpersonal (Relationship) Property Mates (access to sex/reproduction) Children (genetic reproduction) Consanguineous Relations (tribal and family ties) IV Status and Class (reputation) Social Status Reputation V. Institutional (Community) Property (i) Institutional Property: “Those objects into which we have invested our forgone opportunities, our efforts, or our material assets, in order to aggregate capital from multiple individuals for mutual gain.” (ii)Informal (Normative) Institutions: Our norms: manners, ethics and morals. Informal institutional property is nearly impossible to quantify and price. The costs are subjective and consists of forgone opportunities. (iii)Formal (Procedural) Institutions: Our institutions: Religion (including the secular religion), Government, Laws. Formal institutional property is easy to price. costs are visible. And the productivity of the social order is at least marginally measurable. ECONOMICS We can judge economic impacts of high trust societies that practice near total prohibition on criminal, unethical and immoral actions. And we can compare those to low trust societies that suppress fewer unethical and immoral actions. CLOSING So under what reasoning, would it be logical to support the Non Aggression Principle under Intersubjectively verifiable property (NAP/IVP) as the basis for the law, which explicitly licenses unethical and immoral action and prohibits retribution for it? The NAP/IVP has been a detriment to liberty wherever advocates argue that it is a sufficient means of determining moral and legal rules of cooperation. Because it’s not. And we cannot pursue an alternative to the existing high trust society without providing people with an alternative that is morally SUPERIOR to the state. And the NAP/IVP fails that test. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev.
Nonaggression is a part of, but not the fullness of, morality. Virtue and excellence need to be cultivated, too. “I don’t punch people for no reason” isn’t the beginning and end of a decent human life.
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For Tom Woods: On Thick and Thin
Tom, Great of you to weigh in on this topic. You’ve also provided Rothbardians with an ‘out’ that I didn’t think of. That the NAP is fullness of libertarianism but not the fullness of life. I’d thought that the only ‘out’ was that rothbardian libertarianism was sufficient for the moral interaction of states, but insufficient for the construction of a polity. THE PROBLEM IS LAW It’s true that aggression is immoral and it’s true that aggression must be illegal. But is it rational for humans to join a voluntary, anarchic polity, if the basis of **LAW** is “non-aggression against intersubjectively verifiable property”, or must the basis of law be either based on something other than aggression, or broader in scope than intersubjectively verifiable property? What is the minimum basis for the law upon which it becomes rational to join a voluntary, anarchic polity? If we have a choice between: (a) a totalitarian capitalist society, like say, China. (b) a contemporary social democracy, like say the States. (c) an anarchic polity in which one CAN bring suit against immoral and unethical actions (say, blackmail, and fraud by omission). (d) an anarchic polity where unethical and immoral actions are expressly licensed by the law, and retribution for immoral and unethical actions is forbidden. 1) Then which of these will which people of which moral biases, choose? 2) How will members of that polity be treated by members of the competing polities? 3) How will the territory and trade representatives of that polity be treated by competing polities? I think that an intellectually honest analysis of those questions produces an obvious, and remarkably consistent answer. That is, that either aggression is the incorrect test of peaceful cooperation, or intersubjectively verifiable property is an insufficient test of the scope of property that must be protected from violation, or more likely both. The current proceeds of anthropology, genetics, and cognitive science, tell us that violations of the evolutionary preference for cooperation, are reducible to ‘free riding’: that is non-contribution. Since in any set of individuals, if we do not require productive contribution, then some are the victims of free riding (parasitism) and others benefit from free riding (parasitism). MORALITY If we analyze the common prohibitions of all moral codes under all family structures, and we remove moral constraints that are purely ritualistic, these moral codes are universally reducible to necessary prohibitions on what we would call ‘property violations’ in an effort to facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation. Moral Prohibition Spectra: 1) Agression: Harm/Oppression, 2) Trust: Subversion/Betrayal/Cheating, 3) Purity: Inobservance of Norms/Behavioral impurity/Pollution All of these are reducible to shareholder rights and obligations. Humans universally demonstrate a greater interest in punishing moral violations than we demonstrate self interest. IN fact, we justify our pre-cognitive moral punishments without even being able to articulate why we hold them. We are wired for morality. We evolved language and punishments violations of these moral intuitions in the form of criminal, ethical, and moral prohibitions: 1. Violence (asymmetry of force) 2. Theft (asymmetry of control) 3. Fraud (false information) 4. Omission (Omitting information) 5. Obscurantism (Obscuring information) 6. Obstruction (Inhibiting someone else’s transaction) 7. Externalization (externalizing costs of any transaction) 8. Free Riding (using externalities for self benefit) 9. Socializing Losses (externalization to commons) 10. Privatizing Gains (appropriation of commons) 11. Rent Seeking (organizational free riding) 12. Corruption ( organized rent seeking) 13. Conspiracy (organized indirect theft) 14. Extortion (Organized direct theft) 15. War (organized violence) PROPERTY We can empirically observe that people treat a broad spectrum of things as their property, and that they intuit violations of that property, and act to defend that property. I. Several (Personal) Property Personal property: “Things an individual has a Monopoly Of Control over the use of.” Physical Body and Several Property: Those things we claim a monopoly of control over. II. Artificial Property Shares in property: Recorded And Quantified Shareholder Property (claims for partial ownership) Trademarks and Brands (prohibitions on fraudulent transfers within a geography). III. Kin and Interpersonal (Relationship) Property Mates (access to sex/reproduction) Children (genetic reproduction) Consanguineous Relations (tribal and family ties) IV Status and Class (reputation) Social Status Reputation V. Institutional (Community) Property (i) Institutional Property: “Those objects into which we have invested our forgone opportunities, our efforts, or our material assets, in order to aggregate capital from multiple individuals for mutual gain.” (ii)Informal (Normative) Institutions: Our norms: manners, ethics and morals. Informal institutional property is nearly impossible to quantify and price. The costs are subjective and consists of forgone opportunities. (iii)Formal (Procedural) Institutions: Our institutions: Religion (including the secular religion), Government, Laws. Formal institutional property is easy to price. costs are visible. And the productivity of the social order is at least marginally measurable. ECONOMICS We can judge economic impacts of high trust societies that practice near total prohibition on criminal, unethical and immoral actions. And we can compare those to low trust societies that suppress fewer unethical and immoral actions. CLOSING So under what reasoning, would it be logical to support the Non Aggression Principle under Intersubjectively verifiable property (NAP/IVP) as the basis for the law, which explicitly licenses unethical and immoral action and prohibits retribution for it? The NAP/IVP has been a detriment to liberty wherever advocates argue that it is a sufficient means of determining moral and legal rules of cooperation. Because it’s not. And we cannot pursue an alternative to the existing high trust society without providing people with an alternative that is morally SUPERIOR to the state. And the NAP/IVP fails that test. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev.
Nonaggression is a part of, but not the fullness of, morality. Virtue and excellence need to be cultivated, too. “I don’t punch people for no reason” isn’t the beginning and end of a decent human life.
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Moral Realism: The Prohibition On Free Riding
(pulled out and reposted) [L]ibertarianism argues that Non Aggression, (NAP) + Intersubjectively Verifiable Property (IVP) constitute a universal moral natural law. This is ‘almost real’. And any claim that natural rights or natural law exist is to claim moral realism (constant correspondence.) Now, I disagree with IVP and NAP, because I have learned that human moral standards are universally higher than that. That no groups exist and can exist by treating internal members as such. And that peoples who use the NAP with outsiders are usually outcast and exterminated. However, if we look at universally demonstrated human behaviors, we see that it is quite possible to identify a small number of constant moral constraints upon our action. And that these moral constraints reflect our reproductive strategies – and must. Further, that all cultures may implement more or less of these moral constraints, and that many of these moral constraints are mixed with signaling (which is not a moral constraint, but a signal of commitment to moral constraints – usually ritualistic costs that one must bear). This means that all moral systems include the universal moral rules, a level of adoption of those rules that suits their reproductive structure within the particular moral structure of production available to them, and a body of rituals and signals. And that all moral codes in all groups can be reduced to technical descriptions on the axes I have described. If this is true, and I am correct, and I think the evidence suggests that I am correct, then the underlying moral code is on that is in favor of cooperation while prohibiting free riding, where failing to engage in cooperation is also free riding. As such, the underlying moral intuition begins with the prohibition on free riding. Further that depending on a number of environmental variables such as geography and competition, humans will produce predictable moral codes, albeit a wide variety of signals. And yes, the genders differ in the distribution of weights that they give to those underlying moral codes. As such, we have finally uncovered the logic and science of morality. And as such, morality is both real, and non arbitrary. Thus the only means of moral action we possess is voluntary, fully informed, warrantied exchange, free of negative externalities, in which we contributed to production. It implies that one cannot refuse a trade that causes one no loss, takes no effort, exposes one to no risk, and benefits another. Everyone has something to trade. Even if it’s merely respect for life, property, manners, ethics, morals and rituals. And that is enough to trade for the benefits of the market, and the opportunity to conduct other trades with those who likewise enter into the bargain.
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Moral Realism: The Prohibition On Free Riding
(pulled out and reposted) [L]ibertarianism argues that Non Aggression, (NAP) + Intersubjectively Verifiable Property (IVP) constitute a universal moral natural law. This is ‘almost real’. And any claim that natural rights or natural law exist is to claim moral realism (constant correspondence.) Now, I disagree with IVP and NAP, because I have learned that human moral standards are universally higher than that. That no groups exist and can exist by treating internal members as such. And that peoples who use the NAP with outsiders are usually outcast and exterminated. However, if we look at universally demonstrated human behaviors, we see that it is quite possible to identify a small number of constant moral constraints upon our action. And that these moral constraints reflect our reproductive strategies – and must. Further, that all cultures may implement more or less of these moral constraints, and that many of these moral constraints are mixed with signaling (which is not a moral constraint, but a signal of commitment to moral constraints – usually ritualistic costs that one must bear). This means that all moral systems include the universal moral rules, a level of adoption of those rules that suits their reproductive structure within the particular moral structure of production available to them, and a body of rituals and signals. And that all moral codes in all groups can be reduced to technical descriptions on the axes I have described. If this is true, and I am correct, and I think the evidence suggests that I am correct, then the underlying moral code is on that is in favor of cooperation while prohibiting free riding, where failing to engage in cooperation is also free riding. As such, the underlying moral intuition begins with the prohibition on free riding. Further that depending on a number of environmental variables such as geography and competition, humans will produce predictable moral codes, albeit a wide variety of signals. And yes, the genders differ in the distribution of weights that they give to those underlying moral codes. As such, we have finally uncovered the logic and science of morality. And as such, morality is both real, and non arbitrary. Thus the only means of moral action we possess is voluntary, fully informed, warrantied exchange, free of negative externalities, in which we contributed to production. It implies that one cannot refuse a trade that causes one no loss, takes no effort, exposes one to no risk, and benefits another. Everyone has something to trade. Even if it’s merely respect for life, property, manners, ethics, morals and rituals. And that is enough to trade for the benefits of the market, and the opportunity to conduct other trades with those who likewise enter into the bargain.
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SHOULD HAVE BEEN “GUNS, GERMS, AND PROPERTY RIGHTS” Well, if you start a civiliz
SHOULD HAVE BEEN “GUNS, GERMS, AND PROPERTY RIGHTS”
Well, if you start a civilization with the problem of coordinating irrigation if an alluvial plain, thats very different from starting a civilization with the problem of allocating land to farmers who do not rely upon irrigation.
Each culture, each civilization, carries with it, its means of warfare, means of coordination of use of the land, and family structure.
None of which are particularly relevant in a modernity, in which our means of production and reproduction depend upon abstract institutions of property and contract which allow the voluntary organization of production in vast, unknowable overlapping patterns of specialization and trade.
Capitalism isnt a belief, its a technology.
Guns, germs, steel… MONEY, ACCOUNTING, AND PROPERTY RIGHTS.
Source date (UTC): 2014-06-13 05:33:00 UTC
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Property? – It Wasn’t Scarcity. 🙂
Curt Doolittle : so you agree with Tucker here? http://youtu.be/83se-G-9SeU?t=23m26s (Jeffrey Tucker AMA Hosted by Mike Shanklin)
[W]ell, I think the scarcity-as-primary cause has been replaced with an evolutionary spectrum. The evidence now appears that: (a) Property evolved for preventing free riding during cooperation (along with mating – we dont’ know which was first – cooperation or pairing off, but it looks like cooperation was first.) (b) Language evolved to control mating (pairing off conditional monogamy – mates as property) (c) Property matured to facilitate the retention of goods and tools. (d) Property matured to facilitate capture of livestock. (e) Property matured to facilitate inheritance in families (f) Property matured to facilitate the division of labor. (g) Property evolved as a means of forming cooperative networks and positive expression of legal rules. As far as I can tell, it is the prevention of free riding needed to maintain incentives to produce that was the source of the evolution of property. As far as I can tell, it is probably more accurate to say that scarcity forced retention of redistribution within family and tribe, it did not cause the evolution of property. The hard problem that only Northern Europeans have solved, is to suppress redistribution in the tribe and family. I won’t address the evolution of shared intentionality and cooperation here. Too may different paths. But either way I think this is the correct evolution. I don’t think this is a meaningful revision of libertarian theory. It’s a correction. But the order of development doesn’t change the importance of property rights for the purpose of incentives, calculation, and dispute resolution. But it does reinforce my argument that the purpose of property is the prevention of free riding necessary for cooperation. So that property evolved a positive expression of the negative prohibition. Not as a good in itself in response to scarcity. In fact, I am pretty confident that the scarcity argument is a CROSS-GROUP problem not an in-group problem. (Again, this is why ghetto ethics were a failure – wrong problem. In group evolved prior to out-group.) [A]ctually, now that I think about it, this is a good example of why crusoe ethics are a mistaken distraction (another ghetto-ethics error) because the evolution of cooperation and property did not occur in the island-as-analogy-to-walled-ghetto, but among an extended family conducting pervasive redistribution.
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Property? – It Wasn't Scarcity. 🙂
Curt Doolittle : so you agree with Tucker here? http://youtu.be/83se-G-9SeU?t=23m26s (Jeffrey Tucker AMA Hosted by Mike Shanklin)
[W]ell, I think the scarcity-as-primary cause has been replaced with an evolutionary spectrum. The evidence now appears that: (a) Property evolved for preventing free riding during cooperation (along with mating – we dont’ know which was first – cooperation or pairing off, but it looks like cooperation was first.) (b) Language evolved to control mating (pairing off conditional monogamy – mates as property) (c) Property matured to facilitate the retention of goods and tools. (d) Property matured to facilitate capture of livestock. (e) Property matured to facilitate inheritance in families (f) Property matured to facilitate the division of labor. (g) Property evolved as a means of forming cooperative networks and positive expression of legal rules. As far as I can tell, it is the prevention of free riding needed to maintain incentives to produce that was the source of the evolution of property. As far as I can tell, it is probably more accurate to say that scarcity forced retention of redistribution within family and tribe, it did not cause the evolution of property. The hard problem that only Northern Europeans have solved, is to suppress redistribution in the tribe and family. I won’t address the evolution of shared intentionality and cooperation here. Too may different paths. But either way I think this is the correct evolution. I don’t think this is a meaningful revision of libertarian theory. It’s a correction. But the order of development doesn’t change the importance of property rights for the purpose of incentives, calculation, and dispute resolution. But it does reinforce my argument that the purpose of property is the prevention of free riding necessary for cooperation. So that property evolved a positive expression of the negative prohibition. Not as a good in itself in response to scarcity. In fact, I am pretty confident that the scarcity argument is a CROSS-GROUP problem not an in-group problem. (Again, this is why ghetto ethics were a failure – wrong problem. In group evolved prior to out-group.) [A]ctually, now that I think about it, this is a good example of why crusoe ethics are a mistaken distraction (another ghetto-ethics error) because the evolution of cooperation and property did not occur in the island-as-analogy-to-walled-ghetto, but among an extended family conducting pervasive redistribution.
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Property? – It Wasn’t Scarcity. 🙂
Curt Doolittle : so you agree with Tucker here? http://youtu.be/83se-G-9SeU?t=23m26s (Jeffrey Tucker AMA Hosted by Mike Shanklin)
[W]ell, I think the scarcity-as-primary cause has been replaced with an evolutionary spectrum. The evidence now appears that: (a) Property evolved for preventing free riding during cooperation (along with mating – we dont’ know which was first – cooperation or pairing off, but it looks like cooperation was first.) (b) Language evolved to control mating (pairing off conditional monogamy – mates as property) (c) Property matured to facilitate the retention of goods and tools. (d) Property matured to facilitate capture of livestock. (e) Property matured to facilitate inheritance in families (f) Property matured to facilitate the division of labor. (g) Property evolved as a means of forming cooperative networks and positive expression of legal rules. As far as I can tell, it is the prevention of free riding needed to maintain incentives to produce that was the source of the evolution of property. As far as I can tell, it is probably more accurate to say that scarcity forced retention of redistribution within family and tribe, it did not cause the evolution of property. The hard problem that only Northern Europeans have solved, is to suppress redistribution in the tribe and family. I won’t address the evolution of shared intentionality and cooperation here. Too may different paths. But either way I think this is the correct evolution. I don’t think this is a meaningful revision of libertarian theory. It’s a correction. But the order of development doesn’t change the importance of property rights for the purpose of incentives, calculation, and dispute resolution. But it does reinforce my argument that the purpose of property is the prevention of free riding necessary for cooperation. So that property evolved a positive expression of the negative prohibition. Not as a good in itself in response to scarcity. In fact, I am pretty confident that the scarcity argument is a CROSS-GROUP problem not an in-group problem. (Again, this is why ghetto ethics were a failure – wrong problem. In group evolved prior to out-group.) [A]ctually, now that I think about it, this is a good example of why crusoe ethics are a mistaken distraction (another ghetto-ethics error) because the evolution of cooperation and property did not occur in the island-as-analogy-to-walled-ghetto, but among an extended family conducting pervasive redistribution.
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Property? – It Wasn't Scarcity. 🙂
Curt Doolittle : so you agree with Tucker here? http://youtu.be/83se-G-9SeU?t=23m26s (Jeffrey Tucker AMA Hosted by Mike Shanklin)
[W]ell, I think the scarcity-as-primary cause has been replaced with an evolutionary spectrum. The evidence now appears that: (a) Property evolved for preventing free riding during cooperation (along with mating – we dont’ know which was first – cooperation or pairing off, but it looks like cooperation was first.) (b) Language evolved to control mating (pairing off conditional monogamy – mates as property) (c) Property matured to facilitate the retention of goods and tools. (d) Property matured to facilitate capture of livestock. (e) Property matured to facilitate inheritance in families (f) Property matured to facilitate the division of labor. (g) Property evolved as a means of forming cooperative networks and positive expression of legal rules. As far as I can tell, it is the prevention of free riding needed to maintain incentives to produce that was the source of the evolution of property. As far as I can tell, it is probably more accurate to say that scarcity forced retention of redistribution within family and tribe, it did not cause the evolution of property. The hard problem that only Northern Europeans have solved, is to suppress redistribution in the tribe and family. I won’t address the evolution of shared intentionality and cooperation here. Too may different paths. But either way I think this is the correct evolution. I don’t think this is a meaningful revision of libertarian theory. It’s a correction. But the order of development doesn’t change the importance of property rights for the purpose of incentives, calculation, and dispute resolution. But it does reinforce my argument that the purpose of property is the prevention of free riding necessary for cooperation. So that property evolved a positive expression of the negative prohibition. Not as a good in itself in response to scarcity. In fact, I am pretty confident that the scarcity argument is a CROSS-GROUP problem not an in-group problem. (Again, this is why ghetto ethics were a failure – wrong problem. In group evolved prior to out-group.) [A]ctually, now that I think about it, this is a good example of why crusoe ethics are a mistaken distraction (another ghetto-ethics error) because the evolution of cooperation and property did not occur in the island-as-analogy-to-walled-ghetto, but among an extended family conducting pervasive redistribution.