Curt Doolittle

Theme: Sovereignty

  • FROM QUORA: Is Iraq an unofficial “vassal” of Iran?Edit Answer by: Curt Doolittl

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clash_of_Civilizations#Core_state_and_fault_line_conflictsQUESTION FROM QUORA: Is Iraq an unofficial “vassal” of Iran?Edit

    Answer by: Curt Doolittle, The Propertarian Institute.

    All civilizations have a ‘core state’ (see link below) except islam, which last relied upon the Turks as the core state. Iran wants to become the core state of islamic civilization, control middle eastern oil, capture the profits from it, and build a military strong enough to ensure it’s centrality, with those profits. If possible, the strategic route to making this come about is to create an alliance, dependency, or at least lack of opposition with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Pakistan and Iran hold nuclear weapons.

    That is the Iranian strategic objective.

    Whether or not Iraq is a Vassal of Iran is an improper use of language. Iraq is no longer capable of opposing Iranian strategic initiatives, and is subject to iranian political pressure. So it is perhaps better to categorize Iraq as successfully within the sphere of influence of Iran, and therefore contributing to the potential of Iran to become the Core State of Islamic civilization — against the wishes of the southern states.

    We must understand that this is not an unwise strategic objective for the Iranians. And it is possibly achievable if they can accomplish it without inciting the USA to remove them as a potential power in the region.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-15 14:45:00 UTC

  • FROM QUORA: HOW CAN THE UNITED STATES REMAIN A GLOBAL POWER? By: Curt Doolittle,

    FROM QUORA: HOW CAN THE UNITED STATES REMAIN A GLOBAL POWER?

    By: Curt Doolittle, The Propertarian Institute.

    I am pretty sure that this represents the best overview of the USA’s current circumstances that exists today.

    There are six factors that play into power:

    1) geography,

    2) demographics,

    3) economy,

    4) currency,

    5) technology

    6) military.

    Given these factors, here are the changing conditions affecting the future of US power at the present time.

    1) The United States has a strategic geographic location, is a large country, and has quite a few natural resources. These factors are is enough to ensure relative importance in global affairs.

    2) The USA (along with the germanic countries) is reasonably free of government corruption, and it’s judiciary can be counted on to resolve contracts. Therefore it has commercial investment strengths that are difficult to duplicate. There is no other place to put risk capital anywhere close to that of the USA.

    3) The liquidity provided by the USA stock market creates a ‘lottery’ that encourages high risk ventures, which is why so much commercial experimentation happens in the states. But statistically speaking, it looks very much like wall street in general produces ‘noise’ and little else. With the collapse of demand for complex financial products, and the rising awareness of the nature of the financial system, plus the backlash against the crash in order to increase taxes on the wealthy, this system appears fragile.

    4) The USA has the highest corporate taxes in the world which encourages companies to invest and make money overseas rather than domestically. Combined with the incentive to use overseas labor, these are strong incentives to create jobs elsewhere.

    5) The USA is plagued by an educational system designed for converting farmers to industrial laborers, and the rest of the advanced economies have converted to systems designed to create a more advanced labor force. Meanwhile a lot of cheaper labor has come online, putting pressure on the lower classes (unskilled labor).

    6) The USA benefits from a) status as a reserve currency, b) price stability in oil caused by threat of military intervention, c) status as a petro-currency, and d) the ability (because of these factors) to accumulate significant debt, then inflate it away rapidly. These benefits are all waning due to the USA’s relative decline in world economic power.

    7) USA’s budget is about 1/3 for Social Security and Medicare benefit programs, 1/3 for the military, and 1/3 for the entire rest of the budget. Taxes only cover 2/3 of the budget. 1/3 must be borrowed and inflated away. So, in practice, the USA cannot maintain the military complex necessary for world power unless it maintains an ability to generate debt, and inflate that debt away.

    8) The military infrastructure built up for the cold war is aging, and modern programs to produce innovative technology have been plagued with technical failures and very high costs. The wars in the middle east have ‘consumed’ existing ‘capital equipment”. The USA will have to invest in new technology and equipment in order to maintain and project power. In particular, the surface navy, which the USA relies upon to project its power worldwide, is an extremely vulnerable technology. We also lack the type of equipment to fight urban warfare, which dominates the future of life and warfare. And it is possible that the structure of the army is unsuited for the future of warfare (and the marines are correctly structured.) Western civilization has generally been more successful at war than other cultures despite being poorer and in smaller numbers, because of its reliance on technology, and willingness to rapidly adapt to technology. Technology is expensive. It is coming into question whether we can endure: a) a racially divisive domestic political ’empire’ which is clearly polarizing along racial and cultural lines. b) an aging population that requires high health and support costs. c) an unemployable unskilled class, and unemployably expensive low skilled working class d) a loss of relative economic power needed to pay for power projection, e) our status as a reserve currency, and our status as a petro currency, creating demand for US debt which is used to accumulate dollars which in turn is used for reserves and for the purchase oil. f) a decline in our abilty to issue and inflate debt as a means of paying for our military program that is not covered by taxes.

    9) Given the size of the economy and its geographic location, the USA will continue to hold onto relatively strong world power. It will however, be increasingly unable to project power, and its abilty to pay for programs necessary to modernize and keep pace with changing world powers is waning.

    10) In particular there are two scenarios that are obvious:

    a) if the Iran is successful in creating an Iranian/pakistani/syrian/iraqi block that becomes a nuclear enabled military force that is capable of dictating world oil prices, and therefore capable of demanding the use of any given currency, the USA will not be able to fund its military program, because all ‘profits’ from reserve currency status, and petro-dollar status, will be captured by Iran. (If I could only get Tom Clancy to write a book on that story. Because that’s the story people might desire to understand.)

    b) China is a geographically vulnerable country (with a huge chip on its shoulder due to its loss of position in world history, and its failure with communism.) It would be very, very, easy to starve chinese citizens and foment civil war there by simply controlling the south china seas. The chinese know this and are very concerned about the ‘conquered’ provinces as well as the conflict between rich and poor and south and north. China also has a significant advantage in IQ distribution and literacy that gives its economy an advantage in spite of endemic poverty. The USA does not have this advantage because of a different (lower) IQ and literacy distribution. The “bottom” quintiles of chinese society are much better than the ‘bottom’ quintiles of american society. As impolitic and unpleasant that fact may be.Edit

    Source date (UTC): 2012-07-15 14:23:00 UTC

  • Is Iraq An Unofficial “vassal” Of Iran?

    All civilizations have a ‘core state’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…)  except islam, which last relied upon the Turks as the core state.  Iran wants to become the core state of islamic civilization, control middle eastern oil, capture the profits from it, and build a military strong enough to ensure it’s centrality, with those profits.  If possible, the strategic route to making this come about is to create an alliance, dependency, or at least lack of opposition with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Pakistan and Iran hold nuclear weapons. 

    That is the Iranian strategic objective.

    Whether or not Iraq is a Vassal of Iran is an improper use of language. Iraq is no longer capable of opposing Iranian strategic initiatives, and is subject to iranian political pressure.  So it is perhaps better to categorize Iraq as successfully within the sphere of influence of Iran, and therefore contributing to the potential of Iran to become the Core State of Islamic civilization — against the wishes of the southern states.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-Iraq-an-unofficial-vassal-of-Iran

  • How Can The United States Remain A/the Global Leader?

    I am pretty sure that this represents the best overview of the USA’s current circumstances that exists today. 

    There are six factors that play into power:
    1) geography,
    2) demographics,
    3) economy,
    4) currency,
    5) technology
    6) military.
    They are all inter-related. Here are the major factors affecting the future of US power at the present time.

    1) The United States has a strategic geographic location, is a large country, and has quite a few natural resources.  These factors are is enough to ensure relative importance in global affairs.

    2) The USA (along with the germanic countries) is reasonably free of government corruption, and it’s judiciary can be counted on to resolve contracts.  Therefore it has commercial investment strengths that are difficult to duplicate. There is no other place to put risk capital anywhere close to that of the USA.

    3) The liquidity provided by the USA stock market creates a ‘lottery’ that encourages high risk ventures, which is why so much commercial experimentation happens in the states. But statistically speaking, it looks very much like wall street in general produces ‘noise’ and little else. With the collapse of demand for complex financial products, and the rising awareness of the nature of the financial system, plus the backlash against the crash in order to increase taxes on the wealthy, this system appears fragile.

    4) The USA has the highest corporate taxes in the world which encourages companies to invest and make money overseas rather than domestically.  Combined with the incentive to use overseas labor, these are strong incentives to create jobs elsewhere.

    5) The USA is plagued by an educational system designed for converting farmers to industrial laborers, and the rest of the advanced economies have converted to systems designed to create a more advanced labor force.  Meanwhile a lot of cheaper labor has come online, putting pressure on the lower classes (unskilled labor).

    6) The USA benefits from a) status as a reserve currency, b) price stability in oil caused by threat of military intervention, c) status as a petro-currency, and d) the ability (because of these factors) to accumulate significant debt, then inflate it away rapidly. These benefits are all waning due to the USA’s relative decline in world economic power.

    7) USA’s budget is about 1/3 for Social Security and Medicare benefit programs, 1/3 for the military, and 1/3 for the entire rest of the budget.  Taxes only cover 2/3 of the budget. 1/3 must be borrowed and inflated away.  So, in practice, the USA cannot maintain the military complex necessary for world power unless it maintains an ability to generate debt, and inflate that debt away.

    8) The military infrastructure built up for the cold war is aging, and modern programs to produce innovative technology have been plagued with technical failures and very high costs. The wars in the middle east have ‘consumed’ existing ‘capital equipment”.  The USA will have to invest in new technology and equipment in order to maintain and project power. In particular, the surface navy, which the USA relies upon to project its power worldwide, is an extremely vulnerable technology. We also lack the type of equipment to fight urban warfare, which dominates the future of life and warfare. And it is possible that the structure of the army is unsuited for the future of warfare (and the marines are correctly structured.)  Western civilization has generally been more successful at war than other cultures despite being poorer and in smaller numbers, because of its reliance on technology, and willingness to rapidly adapt to technology. Technology is expensive.  It is coming into question whether we can endure: a) a racially divisive domestic political ’empire’ which is clearly polarizing  along racial and cultural lines.  b) an aging population that requires high health and support costs.  c) an unemployable unskilled class, and unemployably expensive low skilled working class d) a loss of relative economic power needed to pay for power projection, e) our status as a reserve currency, and our status as a petro  currency, creating demand for US debt which is used to accumulate dollars which in turn is used for reserves and for the purchase oil.  f) a decline in our abilty to issue and inflate debt as a means of paying for our military program that is not covered by taxes.

    9) Given the size of the economy and its geographic location, the USA will continue to hold onto relatively strong world power. It will however, be increasingly unable to project power, and its abilty to pay for programs necessary to modernize and keep pace with changing world powers is waning.

    10) In particular there are two scenarios that are obvious:

    a) if the Iran is successful in creating an Iranian/pakistani/syrian/iraqi block that becomes a nuclear enabled military force that is capable of dictating world oil prices, and therefore capable of demanding the use of any given currency, the USA will not be able to fund its military program, because all ‘profits’ from reserve currency status, and petro-dollar status, will be captured by Iran.  (If I could only get Tom Clancy to write a book on that story. Because that’s the story people might desire to understand.)

    b) China is a geographically vulnerable country (with a huge chip on its shoulder due to its loss of position in world history, and its failure with communism.) It would be very, very, easy to starve chinese citizens and foment civil war there by simply controlling the south china seas.  The chinese know this and are very concerned about the ‘conquered’ provinces as well as the conflict between rich and poor and south and north.  China also has a significant advantage in IQ distribution and literacy that gives its economy an advantage in spite of endemic poverty.  The USA does not have this advantage because of a different (lower) IQ and literacy distribution.  The “bottom” quintiles of chinese society are much better than the ‘bottom’ quintiles of american society.  As impolitic and unpleasant that fact may be.

    https://www.quora.com/How-can-the-United-States-remain-a-the-global-leader

  • What Is The Justification For Political Authority Enforced By Force?

    I’m going to try to clarify the “Monopoly Of Violence” argument in Propertarian terms:

    All human existence can be reduced to property rights.
    • 0. All human beings object to involuntary transfer of what they worked to obtain, by theft, fraud, or violence, and whether that transfer be direct or indirect.
    • 1. All societies have collections of property rights.
    • 2. These rights exist along a spectrum that consists of individual, shareholder, and collective property rights.
    • 3. Those property rights can be constructive, neutral or destructive. They can be just or unjust. They can be dominated by egalitarianism, expropriation, or meritocracy or a combination thereof.
    • 4. Those rights are met with corresponding obligations we call norms: forgone opportunities, manners, ethics, morals. They are, in large part, prohibitions on involuntary transfers of property.
    • 5. And these obligations are costs. They are the cost of the institution of property. People feel that they ‘own’ their institutions because they ‘pay’ for them.
    • 6. Since any foreign group’s portfolio, upon interaction with the home group’s portfolio, will by definition and necessity cause involuntary transfers from any home group, and the inverse, then groups use violence to both to institute their property rights and obligations and to prevent involuntary transfers both inside and outside of the group.

    Groups have different property rights. Even among libertarians, we disagree upon warranty, symmetry, external costs and the right of exclusion. All groups, regardless of their portfolio, pay for property rights with forgone opportunities for violence, theft, and fraud. And the promise of violence remains whenever violence, theft, and fraud are committed.

    Therefore, people are ‘justified’ in protecting their property. Their property rights themselves are a form of property. They are justified in forming a group that mandates those property rights. They are justified in combating a government that abridges or abrogates those rights.

    You can run on with this reasoning and answer almost all political questions. However, to answer yours, directly, we need to understand that one does not ‘justify’ power. One exercises it to achieve one’s preferences, and either has the power to achieve them or not. Justification is an attempt to achieve one’s preferences at a lower cost, or to lower the cost of maintaining those preferences. But that is all.

    So your question implies a universalism that is not present in political action.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-justification-for-political-authority-enforced-by-force

  • Question? What value is there to being an american citizen?

    Question? What value is there to being an american citizen?

    Source date (UTC): 2012-05-11 19:26:00 UTC

  • Putting The American Failure To Support Britain Over Argentina In Strategic Context

    Nile Gardner recently wrote about the lack of American political support for the UK’s problems with Argentina. He asks, what thanks does Britan get for fighting alongside the US in Afghanistan? Of course, it may be not obvious that Gardner’s article is an attack on the Obama administration. And that might be forgiven. But the comments by readers are troubling, because they see this as an american problem, not a problem of the Obama Presidency. And I see it as a problem of anglo civilization. So maybe this is a topic worthy of discussion. The Obama Administration Is Not The Country The Obama administration hates the west. But the administration isn’t the population. The USA is a big place with many coalitions. The administration never represents the people, just some accidental alliance of coalitions necessary to obtain power at that point in time. So if you want open political support just help us get rid of him. US Material Support Of The UK Is Unwavering Verbal support just feeds the Argentinian domestic cause. It’s better to stay quiet and carry a big stick. Public discourse just feeds the populations nationalistic support for the government. It’s all talk anyway. Material military support of the UK is unquestioning. If there is any action anywhere in the world against British interests, the USA will defend it like it’s our own. Perhaps more so because its without political taint if we exercise our military for someone else’s good. The sanctity with which Americans treat the UK is a product of our American religiosity for heritage. Just look at the Royal Family’s approval ratings. The Queen hovers around 80%, and Charles at something just below 70%. If they could run for office in the states UK Military Support Of the USA Is Political Not Material As insulting as it may be, UK support in Afghanistan is political not material. That is not to disrespect those solders who fight or dishonor those who have died. It is to state the simple truth that their presence is not material to the outcome, and their absence would not affect the outcome. The value for the UK in military participation is entirely self serving. It helps the UK to maintain its capability as the only remaining military force in Europe, and it further exercises its military supply chain. This is a valuable investment for the UK’s future. An un-exercised military is a weak one. And the UK, while in comparison to the US is weak, in comparison to Europe, South America, Russia, the middle east and Asia it is strong. This matters because the UK is a financial nation with highly distributed international interests, as well as a partly diasporic population. The UK has had to ASK to participate in military maneuvers despite the fact that the US command structure believes that UK military support is no longer viable enough to warrant the additional costs of cooperation on anything other than intelligence. In the most recent example, the UK literally begged to be involved in middle east naval patrols after the USA stated that it would not be useful. The problem the UK has long term, is that it’s a financial economy (the UK is the world’s Switzerland) and that economy is dependent upon the anglo alliance with the states. The US alliance guarantees UK financial independence from appropriation of UK wealth via European regulation, and provides security to the rest of the world’s investors precisely because the UK has the power of the USA behind it, but is separate from the USA and therefore third parties cannot be manipulated by the USA through the UK financial or diplomatic system. US Is Following A Long Term Grand Strategy The Afghan war was conducted for the purpose of punishing that state, and for threatening other states, for failing to control their jihadists. The Iraq war was in response to daily antagonism and the economic and geopolitical impact of that antagonism. Because of these actions, the world no longer has the perception that Americans will not apply violence. The inverse is now true. But there was a belief in the past that the USA would not spend blood and treasure to defend strategic interests. That belief has been eradicated. The world is now concerned that the USA is all too willing to act. And that reputation has tremendous value. The objective in war is not to win the battles or even surrender, it is to win the strategic objective. The strategic objective is simple: the Ottomans were militaristic agrarians who could not modernize. They were a dying but antagonistic civilization and were conquered. And unlike India where a state emerged along with rationalism and law, colonialism was a failure in the Ottoman empire in every respect. During the communist era, the USA was simply trying to prevent adoption of communism and an alliance between the oil states and the communist states. Radical islam is just the new instantiation of communism under a different flag, but it is still just anti modernism. So the strategy is the same: Islamic civilization has not matured such that it can adopt consumer capitalism. (Assuming it is possible may be the underlying problem with the strategy.) The usa is trying to prevent the accumulation of power by any state capable of becoming a core state for Islamic civilization, when that core state could both concentrate capital, control oil prices, and adopt Islamic and Ottoman military expansionism, or any other form of organization other than consumer capitalism. The process of conversion has succeeded in the German, Japanese, Sinic and Byzantium regions. We seem to be having a very hard time in African and Islamic civilizations. The arguments to why vary, and will have to be addressed elsewhere. But the strategic objective is to prevent concentration of power in the middle east until middle classes develop in those countries, so that those middle classes may hold power, develop consumer capitalism, and their governments can demonstrate the Smithian international responsibility that comes from consumer capitalism. This strategy illustrates why the USA will conduct an Iranian war. It will use the threat to israel as an opportunity to pursue the primary objective which is to protect the reserve status of the dollar, without which the USA cannot pay for its military complex, and its ability to police world trade. UK support in these wars is political not material. The entire armed forces of Europe are militarily incapable of material action — as we saw in Libya. And the reason are incapable is that the USA has been paying for european military defense as a postwar necessity we have yet to correct. Interestingly enough, the world pays for US military policing of trade through the purchase of US debt instruments, the dollars from which are used to purchase oil, whereupon the USA then inflates its currency destroying the debt. This is just a very complex politically tolerable means of progressively taxing the world for US police services in defense of the international financial, trade, and energy systems. Looking at the system in this light, helps understand, global activity in something other than the absurd moralistic terms used by average people, as if nation states are family members were arguing over trivialities of home administration. The Global Problem Of The English Speaking Peoples In Context A longer term context might be valuable to UK citizens who do not have the experience of living in the states: The Irish experience, the Scottish secessionist movement, the emergence of the BNP and similar movements, and the evidence of the failure of the Euro, and perhaps the entire European project, is visible to most UK citizens. But it may not be as visible that the USA is beginning a process of similar balkanization along regional, cultural, racial, and tribal lines which is currently most visible in the highly polarized electorate. (See The Nine Nations Of North America.) The USA is dividing into a version of Europe. Europe will not become a version of the states. It isn’t possible for the reasons the Euro project is failing. Norther and southern european civilizations are substantially different. And we value our differences. For western people, if not all people, smaller states are better states. Getting to ‘Denmark’ — meaning creating the egalitarian state, which is the stated goal of political science — requires getting to small and homogenous states. Large states are empires. Small states can federate. But large states are empires. And members of empires are subjects not citizens. In this context, the future of the Anglo peoples as a civilization, a culture, a system of government, — and if you consider us a ‘race’, a race too — will be dramatically affected by this century. Maybe anglo nihilism is in full maturity and it doesn’t matter to enough of us any longer whether our civilization continues. But the minority status of anglos in the states, the economic alliance of Australia with Asia, and the conflict between London and the rest of the country is large enough that we must choose some explicit unity, or simply devolve into factions and disappear like the Hellenes before us — The only people in history to which Britain adequately compares. Personally, as an Anglo American, I’m pretty frustrated with seemingly high-minded criticism of us over here. Especially if we go back and look in the Times, Guardian and Telegraph to 2008, where we were ridiculed on-end for our financial folly in both editorial and commentary … until it turned out that the UK was in even worse shape, and Europe catastrophically so. But you don’t see us ridiculing you over here on your character. (Ok. Maybe the French. Sure.) We understand the north-south divide in Europe and we don’t think it’s solvable. We don’t, because we have the same problem over here. In Closing It’s Obama that doesn’t support Britain. And Obama is observably naive, arguably a racist, and inarguably an anti-westerner. He hates everything that the anglo civilization has achieved in the five hundred years that we have spent dragging humanity out of mystical ignorance and destitute poverty. Albeit, we did an imperfect job, using the crude tools and concepts at our disposal. And we even destroyed Europe by trying, possibly wrongly — probably wrongly — to contain our cousins in Germany, who keep proving their cultural model is superior to ours at producing a productive economy. But, it’s not like there was any manual for raising humanity out of ignorance and poverty. We did our best. And the results for humanity speak for themselves. But no man is a hero to his debtors. And I think it’s about time our complaining UK relatives looked in the mirror to see if they’re just whining debtors too. Or whether the world is full of a lot of nonsense talk, and having succeeded in transforming that world, we should once again focus on some form of unity amongst ourselves, and look to the future we want to create together. Curt Doolittle

  • RE: STRATFOR On Iran’s Strategy — Why I Support Action Against Iran

    Depending upon your concept of the world: universalist democratic socialist, or hierarchical tribalist, or utilitarian economist, you might see US policy toward Iran in a different light. One thing is for sure: we are accomplishing for militant islam, on behalf of Iran, precisely what the Persians and the radicals have always desired — a restoration of the empire from the mediterranean to the Sino-Hindu border, and a vehicle for concentrating wealth via oil revenues that will surpass both the classical era’s means of concentrating wealth via agriculture, the renaissance era’s means of concentrating wealth through shipping, or the industrial era’s means of concentrating wealth through institutional capitalism and industrial production. We will have an expansionist, anti-rational, totalitarian civilization, operating on non-market principles, with which much of the developed world cannot compete. We will lose the dollar as a reserve currency, and as a Petro-currency, and finish the cycle of credit expansion, finish the Keyenesian economic era, and eradicate the ability of the west to pursue debt-dependent social programs. We will see europe need to remilitarize just when it cannot afford to. We will see the USA split between a hostile and patient china and a hostile and impatient islam, just when the USA is itself split by political, regional and racial discord. One cannot ‘spread democracy’. One can only spread capitalism and consumerism. Democracy is a unique property of the west, because the west is the only civilization to have broken familial and tribal bonds — having forbidden intermarriage for centuries. Democracy will never succeed except among families, tribes, villages and small cities. It is antithetical to human nature. Even capitalism is ‘democratic’. Nations adopt democratic republicanism when the middle class requires access to politics, and when the antiquarian political systems can no longer accomodate the increased number of people with economic interests. Republican democracy is not ideological, it is simply a necessity born of increases in the numbers of economic interests. For these reasons I did, and do, favor war in the middle east on an entirely humanistic, as well as economic, as well as cultural basis: We have spent five hundred years raising humanity out of agrarian ignorance and poverty, through the spread of rationalism, science, technology and the capitalist institutions that make industrial production possible. We must treat Islam as we did the Soviets and the Chinese communists: a militaristic, expansionist form of anti-market regressiveism. A threat to our existing way of life, by a mystical, tribal and familial empire, its culture and religion. Until the last, most primitive civilization has joined the movement, they are a regressive threat to all of humanity. They are the latest luddite movement — yet another variation on Marxism, and nothing more. An attempt by existing power structures, and existing cultural investments, to hold onto antiquity despite the obvious failure of their culture in the contrast to others. And while my libertarian friends do not like battle drums, they too often ignore the fact, that one must defend one’s market from non-market forces. Markets of the peculiar composition in the west, were made by man, by intent, not by accident. The institution of property itself requires defense of not only the property itself, but the institutions of property, and the market itself. Our libertarianism evolved within that set of institutions. And within that set of Institutions it is viable. That does not mean the same principles apply without. Those broader threats pose to high a risk. Ideology is for children living under the convenience of those institutions. Although I would argue that the attempt to contain Germany actually caused the suicide of the west, our attempts to contain the Russians, Chinese and now islam has not been so.

  • YOU READ ONE ARTICLE THIS WEEK – THIS IS THE ONE TO READ: STRATFOR ON IRAN’S STR

    http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/irans-strategyIF YOU READ ONE ARTICLE THIS WEEK – THIS IS THE ONE TO READ:

    STRATFOR ON IRAN’S STRATEGY

    Depending upon your concept of the world: universalist democratic socialist, or hierarchical tribalist, or utilitarian economist, you might see US policy toward Iran in a different light.

    One thing is for sure: we are accomplishing for militant islam, on behalf of Iran, precisely what the Persians and the radicals have always desired — a restoration of the empire from the mediterranean to the Sino-Hindu border, and a vehicle for concentrating wealth via oil revenues that will surpass both the classical era’s means of concentrating wealth via agriculture, the renaissance era’s means of concentrating wealth through shipping, or the industrial era’s means of concentrating wealth through institutional capitalism and industrial production.

    We will have an expansionist, anti-rational, totalitarian civilization, operating on non-market principles, with which much of the developed world cannot compete.

    We will lose the dollar as a reserve currency, and as a Petro-currency, and finish the cycle of credit expansion, finish the Keyenesian economic era, and eradicate the ability of the west to pursue debt-dependent social programs. We will see europe need to remilitarize just when it cannot afford to. We will see the USA split between a hostile and patient china and a hostile and impatient islam, just when the USA is itself split by political, regional and racial discord.

    You cannot ‘spread democracy’. You can only spread capitalism and consumerism. Democracy is a unique property of the west, because the west is the only civilization to have broken familial and tribal bonds — having forbidden intermarriage for centuries. Democracy will never succeed except among families, tribes, villages and small cities. It is antithetical to human nature. Even capitalism is ‘democratic’. Nations adopt democratic republicanism when the middle class requires access to politics, and when the antiquarian political systems can no longer accomodate the increased number of people with economic interests. Republican democracy is not ideological, it is simply a necessity born of increases in the numbers of economic interests.

    For these reasons I did, and do, favor war in the middle east on an entirely humanistic, as well as economic, as well as cultural basis: We have spent five hundred years raising humanity out of agrarian ignorance and poverty, through the spread of rationalism, science, technology and the capitalist institutions that make industrial production possible. We must treat Islam as we did the Soviets and the Chinese communists: a militaristic, expansionist form of anti-market regressiveism. A threat to our existing way of life, by a mystical, tribal and familial empire, its culture and religion.

    Until the last, most primitive civilization has joined the movement, they are a regressive threat to all of humanity. They are the latest luddite movement — yet another variation on Marxism, and nothing more. An attempt by existing power structures, and existing cultural investments, to hold onto antiquity despite the obvious failure of their culture in the contrast to others.

    And while my libertarian friends do not like battle drums, they too often ignore the fact, that one must defend one’s market from non-market forces. Markets of the peculiar composition in the west, were made by man, by intent, not by accident.

    The institution of property itself requires defense of not only the property itself, but the institutions of property, and the market itself. Our libertarianism evolved within that set of institutions. And within that set of Institutions it is viable. That does not mean the same principles apply without. Those broader threats pose to high a risk.

    Ideology is for children living under the convenience of those institutions.

    Although I would argue that the attempt to contain Germany actually caused the suicide of the west, our attempts to contain the Russians, Chinese and now islam has not been so.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-04-10 16:11:00 UTC

  • Is Political Legitimacy Possible?

    Legitimacy would be ‘perfect’ if the actions of a representative (the government) were identical in both priority and content to the preferences of the individual. Legitimacy is neutral if the preferences and priorities are unobjectionable. Legitimacy is lost when the preferences and priorities are actively unwanted, despised or damaging. We can consider tyranny an absolute moral concept. Or a praxeological concept. As a praxeological concept, tyranny is the use of property (resources) to accomplish ends using means that we disagree with. Since there are three economies we operate within: the material, the normative, and the signaling economy, the chance of tyranny increases with the heterogeneity of material economic, normative economic, and signaling economies. As such tyranny is less likely to be expressed in a small homogenous society, and more likely, if not mandatory, in a large heterogenous society. This is one of the reasons that small european states preserved individual liberty, and consequential economic experimentation and innovation, while the competing civilizations, most of which were older and wealthier, were left behind by the competing disorganized european micro-states. As libertarians, it is useful to use praxeological analysis (the study of actions and transfers) rather than to stick with imprecise use of dogmatic first principles. Those first principles are useful because of their generality and wide applicability, but imprecise because of that generality. General principles, rather than causal explanations, may not inform us as to what insights and actions can actually help us achieve our objective: freedom, rather than simply whine about it.