Theme: Science

ON REISMAN’S CAPITALISM

(from elsewhere)

It’s an exceptional work, and it’s probably timeless. I’ve thought about writing a criticism of it in order to make it even better, and by consequence Austrian Economics (natural economics) even better.

But this brief overview.

All philosophies are class philosophies. Most if not all, are written by the middle class as a rebellion against the status quo, in a bid for rotation of power.

The question is (a) what resources, geography, and competitors are near, (b) what gives a family, tribe, nation, or polity competitive advantage against competitors, (b) once competitive advantage is obtained, then what organization of property, production, and decision making perpetuates and improves competitive advantage.

In this sense, Reissman’s Capitalism, like Natural Law, presents us with an ideal. But competing polities must make contracts within natural law, and within capitalism, that preserve their assets: optimum rates of innovation, given optimum human capital, without exposing the polity to vulnerability from competitors inside and out.

This is the failure of ‘bottom up’ constructions of Natural Law, Common Law, and Capitalism. They tell us that which is law, not contract with one another, just as physics tells us what is law not engineering – the contract with the universe.

Note that I don’t consider mises an Austrian(natural law) but a Polish or Ukrainian Jewish anarchist. And I certainly don’t consider Rothbard an Austrian, but a Russian and Polish jewish anarchist. Although polish, Ukrainian, and Russian jews in that era were indifferent. Austrian Economics and Anarchic economics are different. They share only the avoidance of authority. But Austrian economics seeks social science in order to preserve german sovereignty. Anarchic economics seeks to avoid bearing the cost of the commons in order to preserve separatism. Austrian economics seeks to create liberty as the most competitive commons under natural law. Rothbard and Mises seek to escape any commons whatsoever.

Why? The landed agrarian legal aristocracy of commons producers of versus the un-landed religious middle class of commons free-riders. We carry our group competitive strategy with us at all times as metaphysical and moral value judgements and we cannot escape relying upon introspection for decidability in moral and metaphysical judgements.

So I think this is the correct positioning for reissman’s capitalism: it is a work of natural law – almost. I think it can be made into one.

But it is not a manual for surviving competition. In no small part because we compete for human capital. And human capital chooses rationally not ideologically. And commons are a competitive advantage.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine