Curt Doolittle

Theme: Responsibility

  • PRIVATIZE IRS INSPECTORS AND REQUIRE (a) they have a law degree, and (b) they ar

    PRIVATIZE IRS INSPECTORS AND REQUIRE (a) they have a law degree, and (b) they are CPA’s, and (c) that they are bonded and insured – just like lawyers and doctors.

    This will mean that only very good people will conduct audits and investigations, and that their careers will depend on their neutrality.

    Of course, just doing away with the entire institution would be better… 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-15 09:05:00 UTC

  • It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on t

    It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.” – Gandhi

    Violence is a virtue not a vice. Violence and time are the only capital nature grants us at birth. The institution of private property is the product of the organized application of violence. There is no greater return on our use of violence than the creation of the institution of private property. There is no greater loss than the loss of the institution of private property. And the loss of the institution of private property can only occur if we fail to use violence to create and maintain it.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-05-11 10:24:00 UTC

  • RIGHT TO A JOB? VS RIGHT TO WORK? Is having a job a right? Are jobs something th

    RIGHT TO A JOB? VS RIGHT TO WORK?

    Is having a job a right? Are jobs something that a society is obliged to provide to each individual?

    SOME OK ANSWERS BY OTHERS, BUT I WILL GIVE A BETTER ONE

    A right is something provided by a contract. We can in theory create a contract that states that every person has a right be as attractive as a victoria’s secret model. The problem is, that the provision isn’t enforceable because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequence of even trying would probably be really bad (somehow… although I can’t think of any at the moment.)

    NEGATIVE RIGHTS, are things do by avoiding doing something: killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud, are all things we can avoid doing. And since it means avoiding something, we can, every single one of us, avoid killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud and all such damage to life and property.

    Jobs are called POSITIVE RIGHTS. They require resources, and resources that no one has to provide.

    One can have a right to a job in the sense that no one can be prohibited from working, who is willing, by a government. That is a negative right. It is a right to engage in work. It says no one may restrain another from engaging in the voluntary trade of his effort in exchange for something that he wants (money.) But one cannot have the right to have a job provided, because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequences of even trying would be really bad.

    The international declaration of human rights contains a number of provisions (22-26) are positive rights, which were included in order to satisfy the then-powerful communist governments, the same way the north was required to allow for slavery in the constitution inorder to gain the compliance of the south.

    The question is whether positive rights are possible to provide. Or whether it is only possible to provide insurance against destitution (which appears possible). This important question isn’t yet answered because we haven’t been doing it long enough to be sure. It certainly appears that both Europe and the USA are having significant economic, cultural and demographic problems because of these policies – which can only be satisfied with the use of ponzi schemes.

    (And yes, I am happy to argue with anyone on this point including our favorite left wing Nobel Prize winner.)

    Cheers

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 05:49:00 UTC

  • Rights, Punishment and Human Rights

    [W]hen someone violates NATURAL RIGHTS (life, liberty, property, by fraud, theft or violence) we punish them by removing their NATURAL RIGHTS, by imprisoning them. Natural rights are NECESSARY RIGHTS to engage in cooperation via exchanges within society: life, liberty, and property. We pay for our natural rights by forgoing our opportunity for fraud, theft and violence. We also pay for access to opportunities to interact with others by paying the cost of effort to deonstrate manners, and the cost of forgone opportunities for stealing from others by respecting ethics and morals. For violations of normative laws, we are ostracized from opportunity (boycotted) rather than punished or incarcerated. But we retain our natural rights as long as we can find someone to voluntarily exchange with us who does not refuse to boycott us because of our manners, ethics and morals. However, we do not remove anyone’s HUMAN RIGHTS any longer for any reason. This is in no small part, because we are wealthy enough that deprivation from society and consumption alone are enough to coerce people into respecting both natural laws, and for normative laws. The international declaration of human rights was created in no small part to control the abuse of individuals by communist countries. It is a DESIRED list of rights. This DESIRED list of rights is a CONTRACT between GOVERNMENTS. This contract is a TREATY. This treaty demands that member countries hold governments accountable for the treatment of individuals, and to sanction those countries if they do not. Even to the point of replacing a government for their abuses of their individuals. It is important that we understad that this charter is a treaty by governments that like a treaty for the promise of mutual defense, binds other countries such that they are required to use legal, financial and economic sanctions against countries that violate the rights that the charter agrees all people in all countries, regardless of government, possess. In effect, as a worldwide treaty, it is a worldwide constitution for that limits the powers of governemnts. This is waht RULE OF LAW means: it means that governemtns, and the people in them, are limited to the actions that are allowed in their constitutions. Rule of law does not mean that there are laws. It means that the government itself is bound by law. The Charter of human rights is a very simple document. It is vaguely divided into sections. The first few are restatements of NATURAL LAW. After that there are a variety of prohibitions against the government, that require that all people in society must be treated equally before the law. That they have the right to live ordinary lives, marry, have a family, make friends, earn a living, Articles 23, 24, 25, and 26, were necessary to gain the support of the socialist and communist countries, in the same way that the north was required to allow slavery in order to gain the signatures of the south during the american civil war. This is the primary problem with the declaration of human rights: is that these are not possible, not testable, and not achievable except in rare circumstances and for short periods of time – and they create a moral hazard as well as perverse incentives. These are POSITIVE rights. And positive rights can only exist as preferences, not rights. Article 29 specifies how you PAY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, and that is by granting them to other people equally. Rights require exchange. Without exchange the term ‘rights’ is meaningless. One does not HAVE human rights as if they fall from heavens. One is granted them by others, and pays for them over one’s lifetime by granting the same rights to others. Otherwise the document is not terribly different from the American Bill of Rights. What I hope to get accross here is that these are not divine rights, nor necesary and therefore natural rights, they are human rights, and human rights are those that we choose to require, by threat of force and economic punishment, that all governments must hold to.

  • What Are Rights? The “Final Word” on Rights

    1) RIGHTS: A “right” is a claim against other members of a contract, wherein each party grants the other party something (a right) in exchange for somthing else (an obligation). Each person then has ‘rights’ as agreed upon in the contract, as well as obligations. This is the meaning of the term ‘right’. A right is something that you obtain from others in exchange for granting them something. There is no other logical meaning of the term, unless you invent a god or demon, or some equivalent that you are supposedly in contract with. (Although the term ‘right’ is abused by way of analogy and metaphor, which I will explain below.) 2) CONTRACTS: A contract can be discreetly created, such as a handshake, a promise, or an agreement. Or a contract can be written as a note, a written contract, or a constitution. A contract can be created by habituation as a “norm”, such as manners, ethics and morals. While very few people understand this, ethical and moral statements are those that compensate for asymmetry of information between members of a contract for norms. This contract for norms is we call a society. Manners are promises that you will respect ethical and moral norms. Ethics are rules that we follow to make sure that there are no involuntary transfers of prooperty due to asymmetry of information in an exchange. Morals are general rules that we will follow to make sure there are no involuntary transfers from others who are outside (external to) any action or exchange. (Having a chid that you cannot pay for, and expecting others to support it, is an involuntary transfer from others. That is why it’s generally been considered immoral.) One can voluntarily enter discreet contracts. But normative contracts are a necessity because people cannot peacefully and productively cooperate without them. One can generally move between groups with different normative contracts (societies, and communities) but it is all but impossible to avoid them entirely, and it is entirely impossible to exist in a community without adhering to that contract – usually people are excluded from opportunity, punished, imprisoned, ostracized, or deported, for violations of the normative contract. 3) NATURAL RIGHTS: Some contract rights are both necessary for humans to engage in contracts, and possible to grant in contracts. Such as surrendering our opportunity for violence theft and fraud, from those with whom we are in contract. If we surrender our opportunity to use violence theft and fraud, we define this set of forgone opportunities “property rights’. Because these rights are necessary for peaceful cooperation, and necessary for contracts to function, we call these necessary rights ‘Natural Rights’ – in an effort to limit the ability of governments to violate the contract rights that are necessary for human cooperation when they make laws. If we define our minds and bodies as our property. And we define those objects, that we freely obtained through exchange as our property, then there is only one natural right and that is property. It is the only right necessary, and the only right universally possible to grant to one another – because we must refrain from something, rather than do something. In this sense, there is only one possible human right, and all other rights derive from it. 3) HUMAN RIGHTS: Some contract rights are not necessary but beneficial. These rights generally can be categorized as forms of ‘insurance’. They cannot be direclty exchanged without an intermediary institution acting as the insurer. People cannot equally contribute to their costs. We call these rights ‘Human Rights’. 4) PRIVILEGES: Sometimes we attempt to seek privileges not rights – a privilege is something that unlike insurance, is something we are likely to obtain, and which comes at a cost to others, without our providing something else in exchange. These are not rights, but privileges at the expense of others. 5) RENTS (Corruption) In contemporary politics, unscrupulous people attempt to label privileges as rights, so that they can obtain something from others at no cost to themselves This is not seeking rights but seeking privileges. It is a form of corruption, which is just an indirect form of theft. In economics, seeking privileges from government is a form of corruption called ‘rent-seeking’. (Which admittedly, is an old and confusing name. In previous centuries, people would seek to obtain an interest in land so that they could collect rents on it.) Today, people seek an interest in tax revenue so that they can collect income from it. This is Rent-Seeking. The government, in practice, if not in theory, owns all land, and we rent it from the government by taxes. If you cannot pay your taxes, you cannot keep your land. Taxes today, are no different from taxes under feudalism. We have just replaced private landowners with a political bureaucracy. In both cases we are renting our land, and in many cases the homes we build, from the government. Taxes are our rents. And people who seek to own part of taxes are rent-seekers. 6) DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) if you obey norms (manners, ethics and morals) and obey natural rights (property), you do so at a cost to you. If you think of society as a business (it is, because it must be), and the business is to grow the local market (it is, at least to maintain it), because everyone in the local market will profit from it. (they do). Then these businesses (societies) grow through phases, just as businesses do (or really, business go through phases like society does, just a lot faster because they’re smaller), and in certain early phases(startups) they require a lot of investments from their shareholders (citizens), and in other phases they produce tremendous surpluses (mature, commoditized businesses), then we can see that most of the problem we deal with in politics, is who makes what contributions, and who collects what dividends, and how those dividends are used. PROBLEMS WITH DETERMINING DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) It is very hard to argue against dividends (redistribution) if people respect (adhere to) manners, ethics, morals, and natural rights (property rights), as well as whatever arbitrary laws are created that affect all people equally. The general argument, which is true, is that by adhering to maners, ethics, morals, natural rights and arbitrary laws, you earn the right to participate in the market for goods and services. And that dividends are a due only to those people who provide goods and services in the market. The problem with dividends (redistribution) is not the logical requirement for dividends (redistribution), but the problem with how to determine what a dividend is, how to collect them, who has earned them, and how to allocate them, and how to distribute them. But I will have to leave that discussion for another time.

  • What Are Rights? The “Final Word” on Rights

    1) RIGHTS: A “right” is a claim against other members of a contract, wherein each party grants the other party something (a right) in exchange for somthing else (an obligation). Each person then has ‘rights’ as agreed upon in the contract, as well as obligations. This is the meaning of the term ‘right’. A right is something that you obtain from others in exchange for granting them something. There is no other logical meaning of the term, unless you invent a god or demon, or some equivalent that you are supposedly in contract with. (Although the term ‘right’ is abused by way of analogy and metaphor, which I will explain below.) 2) CONTRACTS: A contract can be discreetly created, such as a handshake, a promise, or an agreement. Or a contract can be written as a note, a written contract, or a constitution. A contract can be created by habituation as a “norm”, such as manners, ethics and morals. While very few people understand this, ethical and moral statements are those that compensate for asymmetry of information between members of a contract for norms. This contract for norms is we call a society. Manners are promises that you will respect ethical and moral norms. Ethics are rules that we follow to make sure that there are no involuntary transfers of prooperty due to asymmetry of information in an exchange. Morals are general rules that we will follow to make sure there are no involuntary transfers from others who are outside (external to) any action or exchange. (Having a chid that you cannot pay for, and expecting others to support it, is an involuntary transfer from others. That is why it’s generally been considered immoral.) One can voluntarily enter discreet contracts. But normative contracts are a necessity because people cannot peacefully and productively cooperate without them. One can generally move between groups with different normative contracts (societies, and communities) but it is all but impossible to avoid them entirely, and it is entirely impossible to exist in a community without adhering to that contract – usually people are excluded from opportunity, punished, imprisoned, ostracized, or deported, for violations of the normative contract. 3) NATURAL RIGHTS: Some contract rights are both necessary for humans to engage in contracts, and possible to grant in contracts. Such as surrendering our opportunity for violence theft and fraud, from those with whom we are in contract. If we surrender our opportunity to use violence theft and fraud, we define this set of forgone opportunities “property rights’. Because these rights are necessary for peaceful cooperation, and necessary for contracts to function, we call these necessary rights ‘Natural Rights’ – in an effort to limit the ability of governments to violate the contract rights that are necessary for human cooperation when they make laws. If we define our minds and bodies as our property. And we define those objects, that we freely obtained through exchange as our property, then there is only one natural right and that is property. It is the only right necessary, and the only right universally possible to grant to one another – because we must refrain from something, rather than do something. In this sense, there is only one possible human right, and all other rights derive from it. 3) HUMAN RIGHTS: Some contract rights are not necessary but beneficial. These rights generally can be categorized as forms of ‘insurance’. They cannot be direclty exchanged without an intermediary institution acting as the insurer. People cannot equally contribute to their costs. We call these rights ‘Human Rights’. 4) PRIVILEGES: Sometimes we attempt to seek privileges not rights – a privilege is something that unlike insurance, is something we are likely to obtain, and which comes at a cost to others, without our providing something else in exchange. These are not rights, but privileges at the expense of others. 5) RENTS (Corruption) In contemporary politics, unscrupulous people attempt to label privileges as rights, so that they can obtain something from others at no cost to themselves This is not seeking rights but seeking privileges. It is a form of corruption, which is just an indirect form of theft. In economics, seeking privileges from government is a form of corruption called ‘rent-seeking’. (Which admittedly, is an old and confusing name. In previous centuries, people would seek to obtain an interest in land so that they could collect rents on it.) Today, people seek an interest in tax revenue so that they can collect income from it. This is Rent-Seeking. The government, in practice, if not in theory, owns all land, and we rent it from the government by taxes. If you cannot pay your taxes, you cannot keep your land. Taxes today, are no different from taxes under feudalism. We have just replaced private landowners with a political bureaucracy. In both cases we are renting our land, and in many cases the homes we build, from the government. Taxes are our rents. And people who seek to own part of taxes are rent-seekers. 6) DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) if you obey norms (manners, ethics and morals) and obey natural rights (property), you do so at a cost to you. If you think of society as a business (it is, because it must be), and the business is to grow the local market (it is, at least to maintain it), because everyone in the local market will profit from it. (they do). Then these businesses (societies) grow through phases, just as businesses do (or really, business go through phases like society does, just a lot faster because they’re smaller), and in certain early phases(startups) they require a lot of investments from their shareholders (citizens), and in other phases they produce tremendous surpluses (mature, commoditized businesses), then we can see that most of the problem we deal with in politics, is who makes what contributions, and who collects what dividends, and how those dividends are used. PROBLEMS WITH DETERMINING DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) It is very hard to argue against dividends (redistribution) if people respect (adhere to) manners, ethics, morals, and natural rights (property rights), as well as whatever arbitrary laws are created that affect all people equally. The general argument, which is true, is that by adhering to maners, ethics, morals, natural rights and arbitrary laws, you earn the right to participate in the market for goods and services. And that dividends are a due only to those people who provide goods and services in the market. The problem with dividends (redistribution) is not the logical requirement for dividends (redistribution), but the problem with how to determine what a dividend is, how to collect them, who has earned them, and how to allocate them, and how to distribute them. But I will have to leave that discussion for another time.

  • Do Convicted Criminals Deserve Human Rights Since They Willingly Deprived Someone Else Of Theirs?

    When someone violates NATURAL RIGHTS (life, liberty, property, by fraud, theft or violence) we punish them by removing their NATURAL RIGHTS, by  imprisoning them.   Natural rights are NECESSARY RIGHTS to engage in cooperation via exchanges within society: life, liberty, and property.

    We pay for our natural rights by forgoing our opportunity for fraud, theft and violence. 

    We also pay for access to opportunities to interact with others by paying the cost of effort to deonstrate manners, and the cost of forgone opportunities for stealing from others by respecting ethics and morals. 

    For violations of normative laws, we are ostracized from opportunity (boycotted) rather than punished or incarcerated. But we retain our natural rights as long as we can find someone to voluntarily exchange with us who does not refuse to boycott us because of our manners, ethics and morals.

    However, we do not remove anyone’s HUMAN RIGHTS any longer for any reason.  This is in no small part, because we are wealthy enough that deprivation from society and consumption alone are enough to coerce people into respecting both natural laws, and for normative laws.

    The international declaration of human rights was created in no small part to control the abuse of individuals by communist countries. It is a DESIRED list of rights.  This DESIRED list of rights is a CONTRACT between GOVERNMENTS. This contract is a TREATY.  This treaty demands that member countries hold governments accountable for the treatment of individuals, and to sanction those countries if they do not. Even to the point of replacing a government for their abuses of their individuals.

    It is important that we understad that this charter is a treaty by governments that like a treaty for the promise of mutual defense, binds other countries such that they are required to use legal, financial and economic sanctions against countries that violate the rights that the charter agrees all people in all countries, regardless of government, possess.

    In effect, as a worldwide treaty, it is a worldwide constitution for that limits the powers of governemnts.  This is waht RULE OF LAW means: it means that governemtns, and the people in them,  are limited to the actions that are allowed in their constitutions.  Rule of law does not mean that there are laws. It means that the government itself is bound by law.

    The Charter of human rights is a very simple document. It is vaguely divided into sections. The first few are restatements of NATURAL LAW. After that there are a variety of prohibitions against the government, that require that all people in society must be treated equally before the law.  That they have the right to live ordinary lives, marry,  have a family, make friends, earn a living, 

    Articles 23, 24, 25, and 26, were necessary to gain the support of the socialist and communist countries, in the same way that the north was required to allow slavery in order to gain the signatures of the south during the american civil war.  This is the primary problem with the declaration of human rights: is that these are not possible, not testable, and not achievable except in rare circumstances and for short periods of time – and they create a moral hazard as well as perverse incentives.  These are POSITIVE rights. And positive rights can only exist as preferences, not rights. 

    Article 29 specifies how you PAY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, and that is by granting them to other people equally.  Rights require exchange. Without exchange the term ‘rights’ is meaningless.  One does not HAVE human rights as if they fall from heavens. One is granted them by others, and pays for them over one’s lifetime by granting the same rights to others.

    Otherwise the document is not terribly different from the American Bill of Rights.

    What I hope to get accross here is that these are not divine rights, nor necesary and therefore natural rights, they are human rights, and human rights are those that we choose to require, by threat of force and economic punishment, that all governments must hold to.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-convicted-criminals-deserve-human-rights-since-they-willingly-deprived-someone-else-of-theirs

  • What Is A “right”?

    1) RIGHTS:
    A “right” is a claim against other members of a contract, wherein each party grants the other party something (a right) in exchange for somthing else (an obligation).  Each person then has ‘rights’ as agreed upon in the contract, as well as obligations. This is the meaning of the term ‘right’.  A right is something that you obtain from others in exchange for granting them something.  There is no other logical meaning of the term, unless you invent a god or demon, or some equivalent that you are supposedly in contract with.  (Although the term ‘right’ is abused by way of analogy and metaphor, which I will explain below.)

    2) CONTRACTS:
    A contract can be discreetly created, such as a handshake, a promise, or an agreement. Or a contract can be written as a note, a written contract, or a constitution. A contract can be created by habituation as a “norm”, such as manners, ethics and morals.

    While very few people understand this, ethical and moral statements  are those that compensate for asymmetry of information between members of a contract for norms.  This contract for norms is we call a society.  Manners are promises that you will respect ethical and moral norms.  Ethics are rules that we follow to make sure that there are no involuntary transfers of prooperty due to asymmetry of information in an exchange.  Morals are general rules that we will follow to make sure there are no involuntary transfers from others who are outside (external to) any action or exchange.  (Having a chid that you cannot pay for, and expecting others to support it, is an involuntary transfer from others. That is why it’s generally been considered immoral.)

    One can voluntarily enter discreet contracts.  But normative contracts are a necessity because people cannot peacefully and productively cooperate without them. One can generally move between groups with different normative contracts (societies, and communities) but it  is all but impossible to avoid them entirely, and it is entirely impossible to exist in a community without adhering to that contract – usually people are excluded from opportunity, punished, imprisoned, ostracized, or deported, for violations of the normative contract.

    3) NATURAL RIGHTS:
    Some contract rights are both necessary for humans to engage in contracts, and possible to grant in contracts. Such as surrendering our opportunity for violence  theft and fraud, from those with whom we are in contract. If we surrender our opportunity to use violence theft and fraud, we define this set of forgone opportunities “property rights’.  Because these rights are necessary for peaceful cooperation, and necessary for contracts to function, we call these necessary rights ‘Natural Rights’ – in an effort to limit the ability of governments to violate the contract rights that are necessary for human cooperation when they make laws.

    If we define our minds and bodies as our property. And we define those objects, that we freely obtained through exchange as our property, then there is only one natural right and that is property. It is the only right necessary, and the only right universally possible to grant to one another – because we must refrain from something, rather than do something.  In this sense, there is only one possible human right, and all other rights derive from it.

    3) HUMAN RIGHTS:
    Some contract rights are not necessary but beneficial. These rights generally can be categorized as forms of ‘insurance’. They cannot be direclty exchanged without an intermediary institution acting as the insurer. People cannot equally contribute to their costs.  We call these rights ‘Human Rights’.

    4) DEMANDED RIGHTS:
    Now this is not to say that you have no control over your rights. You can for example (and we all do) demand additional rights in exchagne for our compliance with manners, ethics, morals, norms, laws that are levied equally against all. These rights are not human rights, they are not natural rights.  They are rights that you demand for your compliance.  THe problem is, that means that they are just a preference.  That’s all.  You must get a right in exchange even if you demand it, it cannot exist until there is a contract for it, somehow. And we can cause discomfort, economic friction, and political resistance. Or we can offer to contribute more somehow in exchange for additional rights.  In this sense, most arguments are in favor of demanded rights, in the form of FREE RIDING, PRIVILEGES, RENTS, and DIVIDENDS.

    5) FREE RIDING (CORRUPTION)
    Free riding is letting other people pay for something that you enjoy. Voting for a tax that you don’t have to pay is free riding.  Living off your parents is free riding.

    5) PRIVILEGES (CORRUPTION):
    Sometimes we attempt to seek privileges not rights – a privilege is something that unlike insurance, is something we are likely to obtain, and which comes at a cost to others, without our providing something else in exchange. These are not rights, but privileges at the expense of others.

    6) RENTS (CORRUPTION)
    In contemporary politics, unscrupulous people attempt to label privileges as rights, so that they can obtain something from others at no cost to themselves   This is not seeking rights but seeking privileges. It is a form of corruption, which is just an indirect form of theft.

    In economics, seeking privileges from government is a form of corruption called ‘rent-seeking’. (Which admittedly, is an old and confusing name.  In previous centuries, people would seek to obtain an interest in land so that they could collect rents on it.)  Today, people seek an interest in tax revenue so that they can collect income from it.  This is Rent-Seeking. The government, in practice, if not in theory, owns all land, and we rent it from the government by taxes. If you cannot pay your taxes, you cannot keep your land.  Taxes today, are no different from taxes under feudalism. We have just replaced private landowners with a political bureaucracy. In both cases we are renting our land, and in many cases the homes we build, from the government. Taxes are our rents.  And people who seek to own part of taxes are rent-seekers.

    7) DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION)
    if you obey norms (manners, ethics and morals) and obey natural rights (property), you do so at a cost to you.

    If you think of society as a business (it is, because it must be), and the business is to grow the local market (it is, at least to maintain it), because everyone in the local market will profit from it. (they do). Then these businesses (societies) grow through phases, just as businesses do (or really, business go through phases like society does, just a lot faster because they’re smaller), and in certain early phases(startups) they require a lot of investments from their shareholders (citizens), and in other phases they produce tremendous surpluses (mature, commoditized businesses), then we can see that most of the problem we deal with in politics, is who makes what contributions, and who collects what dividends, and how those dividends are used.

    PROBLEMS WITH DETERMINING DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION)

    It is very hard to argue against dividends (redistribution) if people respect (adhere to) manners, ethics, morals, and natural rights (property rights), as well as whatever arbitrary laws are created that affect all people equally.

    The general argument, which is true, is that by adhering to maners, ethics, morals, natural rights and arbitrary laws, you earn the right to participate in the market for goods and services.  And that dividends are a due only to those people who provide goods and services in the market.  The problem is that a market can’t exist without consumers, and that consumption is equally as important as production and distribution.  You can’t have one without the other.  So this argument is at best, empirically weak.

    The problem with dividends (redistribution) is not the logical requirement for dividends (redistribution), but the problem with how to determine what a dividend is,  how to collect them, who has earned them, and how to allocate them, and how to distribute them.

    But I will have to leave that  rather lengthly discussion for another time. 🙂

    This is very close to the ‘final word’ on rights. It is extremely hard to criticize this series of statements using any form of rational argument.  I will be happy to engage literate people on the topic but ask the moderators for their help.

    Curt.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-right

  • Are There Any Absolute Unrestricted Rights?

    RIGHT
    A right is a universal, contractual obligation, reciprocally granted to others by voluntary consent to the agreement of all parties.

    NATURAL RIGHT
    A natural right is a NECESSARY right that we must have in order to form a cooperative division of labor – largely by avoiding violence, fraud, and theft.  The only natural right is property and all other rights derive from that one. Because the only possible rights you can reciprocally grant regardless of circumstances are those that do not require material resources from you:

    1) property rights (safety and freedom of your body, your children, your spouse and your things),

    2) Charity under temporary duress (mutual insurance to the extend of your capacity) 

    3) kindness without material cost (manners that signal safety and that you will respect both 1, and 2.) 

    Since these require no resources from you other than those at your disposal in a temporary emergency, then these are the only rights that all people regardless of condition can grant to others, and they are the only necessary rights in a division of knowledge and labor.

    HUMAN RIGHTS
    A Human RIght as we use the term, a statement of moral ambition.  They are aspirations, because very few things can be both necessary and reciprocally granted.  We call these aspirations rights in an effort to pursuade all governments to implement these aspiration with the force of law, thereby making the aspirations into contractual rights for all people within a polity. 

    The universal declaration of human rights consists almost entirely of derivations of property rights.   Where they do not, they suggest that we must work together to raise people out of poverty (but we cannot stop them from breeding – which is what would achieve it.)

    SUMMARY
    There is a very great difference between what is possible to possess as rights that are guaranteed by others, and those that we desire to have guaranteed by others. If it requires others act, then that is very difficult. If it requires others refrain from acting, that is somewhat easier. In current western governments we ask people to refrain from consumption by taxing them so that others may consume. So far this is the only possible way we have found to solve the problem of inequality of ability and circumstance in solving material disparities, even if immaterial disparities (no fraud theft or violence) are possible without material cost.


    PART II – ANSWERING ALL QUESTIONS ON RIGHTS
    (Added in response to the question: “Yes or No?”

    The problem is the wording of the question. It is either dishonest, misleading or erroneous.  But it is so common that it is worth answering:

    “Are there” is a play on words – a deception.  Are there where? Where are they? if they exist, where are they? If you cannot find them, then how do they exist? How do they come into being? If you can ACT to create  them, then you can make them exist by your actions. If many people act the same way, for some reason, and they require others to act the same way or they will ignore, ostracize or punish them, then that action is called a ‘norm’.

    So, if you say that some rights are required for us to cooperate, or at least, avoid violence, then if we want to cooperate we must act to create those rights. And by our actions, create a habit, that is a norm.

    One of the ways to create a habit is force (law). But most laws are the contractual codification of norms, in order to justify, and clarify, and create equal punishments for, violation of those norms.

    All rights are contract rights.  That contract can be temporary and conditional mutual consent. It can be habit within the group. It can be norm within society. It can be codified with the force of law.

    That some set of normative contract rights are NECESSARY for human life, in order to make cooperation POSSIBLE, is true.  Without some portfolio of property rights it is not possible to develop a division of knowledge and labor. It is not even possible for people to live together in tribes or families.

    That some OTHER set of normative contract rights is ADDITIONALLY necessary if we want to achieve other things in society, we need only develop the means of communicating and enforcing them.

    So, again, the original question is an erroneous play on words. A contract right cannot exist without someone else’s participation in an exchange of rights.  And normative contract rights require most people grant them and that they somehow punish offenders.  And legal rights require that most people have hired specialists (politicians and judges) to specialize in enforcing their legal rights.

    As such, there are  normative contractual rights that are necessary for human life in a polity EVEN IF there is no force of law.  These rights are commonly called NATURAL RIGHTS. Living in the natural world requires that we have them.

    Beyond necessary (natural) contract rights, there are PREFERRED normative contract rights that become possible ONLY because a market society is generating enough excess production through the division of knowledge labor and capital, that it becomes possible to MAINTAIN the norm of natural rights, while granting, conditionally, assuming the resources exist, those PREFERRED contractual rights.  In this case, these PREFERRED rights are not necessarily granted by individuals directly, but through the corporation we call the government, and its members – the bureaucracy. Thus creating a third party, albiet an organizational party, to the contract.

    Pareto efficiency is the idea that you can take some amount of taxes from group A and distribute those funds either directly (good) or via services (bad), to group B, without causing the producers of taxes in group A to stop working, or to slow their working, thereby making the act of taxation counter productive.  And, when, above, I say, that we can gant additional, not necessary, but preferred, contract rights to people, if we can, we are limited in their willingness to maintain the norm of NATURAL contract rights.

    Human (contract) Rights, in the sense that they have been written as a document called the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights,  include both NECESSARY and PREFERRED contract rights.  The additional rights that are preferred, are preferred because conditions must exist to make them possible, and those conditions are greater than any individual can grant to any other individual. Therefore human rights are a political, governmental, and legal contract right.

    The only necessary rights are property rights: Life, body, action, time, and property. Which means avoiding theft and violence.

    The necessary rights for the high trust society also appear to include (a) prohibition against fraud (fraud by misrepresentation), (b) requirement for fully informed symmetry of information in any exchange (fraud by omission) (c) warranty as a defense against fraud and asymmetry, (d) requirement of action to earn profit, (e) prohibition against free-riding, privatization (corruption), profit by impediment.  The net of these rules is that all exchanges are voluntary and that all competition takes place only in the market for goods and services.

    I believe that this answers all questions on the cause and difference between rights as contract rights, (necessary) natural rights,  and (preferred) human rights, and how they can be used as temporary (truce), normative (culture), and legal (political), and economic (positive) contractual rights.

    I could edit this a bit. But it is very close to the final word on rights as we understand them.

    https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-absolute-unrestricted-rights

  • STIGLITZ SYNDROME ; UNACCOUNTABLE INTELLECTUALS “Stiglitz Syndrome” after Nobel

    STIGLITZ SYNDROME ; UNACCOUNTABLE INTELLECTUALS

    “Stiglitz Syndrome” after Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, referring to the phenomenon of public intellectuals being held utterly unaccountable for their bad predictions.

    From Taleb

    Source date (UTC): 2013-03-24 11:03:00 UTC