Theme: Truth

THE ECONOMIC METHOD IN CRITICAL RATIONALISM (heavy philosophy warning) (profound

THE ECONOMIC METHOD IN CRITICAL RATIONALISM

(heavy philosophy warning) (profound) (austrian econ) (scientific method)

Math can be stated in a language of NAMES existentially possible operations free of errors of interpretation; or stated in a language of ANALOGIES to operations that are subject to errors of interpretation.

Math can be used to describe a unique instance in an existential context, or to construct general rules of arbitrary precision independent of existential context.

With arbitrary precision (independent of real world context) we encounter the problem of decidability (insufficient information) and therefore necessity of the grand label ‘axiom of choice’).

Much of the language of mathematics obscures the underlying operations upon which all such mathematical statements are constructed. So students usually speak in a ‘language’ of analogy, rather than in a language of ‘names of operations’.

To circumvent this problem, intutionistic proofs have been suggested as a means of insuring that any deduction is open to operational construction. If it is not, then we cannot claim it is fully criticized.

This is EXACTLY the same problem we face economics: if any statement of economics is not reducible to subjectively testable operations, we cannot claim that it is fully criticized.

(Note that this is were Mises failed. He stated that economics was deductive and therefore justifcationary rather than critical process, and the praxeology was a science rather than a test of internal consistency – an error I work daily to correct as a means of rescuing Austrian econ from the Heterodox fringe. )

Now, because we evolved logic from moral discourse, we used justification. Because we evolved mathematics from the justificationary pre-scientific era, and because mathematical deduction is dependent upon the use of operations (discovery and proof are conducted by the same methods in mathematics), we retained justification. But a proof is not a truth – a proof is a form of criticism that a statement must survive in order for one to testify that it is potentially true.

The same criterion applies in economics: if we cannot demonstrate that an economic statement can be constructed by subjectively testing a sequence of rational choices, then we cannot warranty that such a statement is existentially possible – and then we cannot say that it has been fully criticized. And as such we cannot warranty that the statement can survive criticism, and we cannot then testify that it is potentially true.

As such, the means by which we hypothesize is irrelevant – we can construct theories through free association, or by random sentence construction for that matter. What matters is the criticism: due diligence that we have performed.

The discipline of science is reducible to a series of tests of due diligence, the purpose of which is to eliminate imaginary content, leaving only existential content. If this due diligence is performed, then the author can testify that he speaks as truthfully as possible. Otherwise he cannot testify that he has spoken as truthfully as is possible. (Albeit he can speak truthfully only to those due diligences that he has performed, and those he has not performed.)

But the reason to practice mainstream macro without subjectively testable micro-foundations, is so that we can justify misinforming individuals (committing fraud) in order to cause them to increase their consumption. As such, mainstream macro is in no small part, the art of deceit: how much can we use the information system provided by prices to deceive people into increasing consumption.

Whereas the Misesian proposition in economics (and the Hayekian in law) is that we should seek to identify how to inform people truthfully so that we assist them in making mutually beneficial decisions. The jury is still out on whether the accumulated effect of deceit is preferable to the accumulated effect of truth.

But if the Austrian cycle theory is correct (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), and if the conservative criticisms against denegration of norms, traditions, law, and family structure by this deceit are correct (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) then the Austrian argument will have demonstrated itself to falsify the mainstream argument.

So, methodologically, we can use the monopoly process we call majority rule; for the construction of monopolistic commons, and we can perform immoral (fraudulent) economics to measure the effects of that monopoly, and we can justify our immoral (fraudulent) monopoly, and immoral (fraudulent) economics and immoral (fraudulent) morality, using fallacious (fraudulent) philosophy that attempts to justify monopoly and takings by aggregate (fragility-producing, equalitarian and dysgenic) measures rather than meritocratic and eugenic) subjective measures.

OR;

We can construct economics as a means of conducting research into how to facilitate institutions for the provision of moral actions consisting of truthful statements; and we can use government as a means of providing a market for the construction of contracts for the production of commons; and we can justify (morality is justified, science is criticized) these markets by the uncontestable law of cooperation: the prohibition on free riding – fully articulated as the requirement for productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary transfer, free of negative externality of the same.

And to assuage the unproductive classes, there is no need for monopoly production of commons only monopoly prohibition on parasitism (free riding), and conversely, the requirement for production – even if one’s production is limited to the defense of the most important commons: property in all its forms, whereby the voluntary organization of production is possible, and without friction.

Science is, as I have tried to show here, the pursuit of the means of speaking truthfully: warranties that we have eliminated all imaginary content, error, bias, and deception.

Because the only existentially possible truth is the testimony of an individual that he has performed due diligence to eliminate imaginary content, error, bias, and deception tot he best of his knowledge and ability.

That is the only existentially possible meaning of truth.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine.

( Michael Philip Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Frank Lovell #criticalrationalism #libertarian )

Source date (UTC): 2015-05-24 03:13:00 UTC

May 24, 2015
Yes on Samuelson and Marshall. Reason? JUSTIFICATION IS NOT SCIENTIFIC If one su

Yes on Samuelson and Marshall. Reason?

JUSTIFICATION IS NOT SCIENTIFIC

If one subscribes to the error of justificationism, the method legitimizes the theory. If one subscribes to critical rationalism, the method of theorizing is irrelevant, and the ability of the theory to withstand criticism is its only meaningful test of truth content.

The problem of ‘mathiness’ is that without reduction to subjectively testable sequence of operational statements, we cannot state that our statements are existentially possible.

I usually recommend people who understand economics and want to learn to discuss it, read and follow Karl Smith’s writing, because he writes in operational and therefore scientific terms. And that style is the reason he has provided insights that others have previously missed. (He writes less now unfortunately. I would love to see him on a talking head show.)

And why does Karl write in Operational terms? Because he has non-trivial knowledge of technology. And that’s what software teaches you to do. To avoid the problem of mathiness.

Cheers

Source date (UTC): 2015-05-22 15:14:00 UTC

May 22, 2015
Danny Frederick wrote a paper in popper that’s worth reading! I had given up hop

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37663988/Critical_Rationalism.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1432296340&Signature=P6AGu6JN8r6VWISKYpuWCMvLDoM%3DDammit. Danny Frederick wrote a paper in popper that’s worth reading!

I had given up hope! 😉

I criticise popper for failing as did all his cosmopolitan peers because of his cultural hermeneutic bias. I criticise his followers for heaping undue praise and idol worship. Others For errors of formal logic to a problem

Of action. And for errors of empty verbalism. (Fuzzy language)

But in the end my work is an extension of Popper’s Critical Rationalism, and Hoppe’s formal argumentative application of property to explain gaudy’ findings, and to confirm Hayek’s insight into law.

Criticise followers. Appreciate the shoulders you stand upon.

Source date (UTC): 2015-05-22 07:22:00 UTC

May 22, 2015
The Cost of Learning Propertarianism

(worth repeating) [P]ropertarianism is like learning any other formal logic. It is non-trivial. But what you get from the effort of learning it is explanatory power. Unfortunately I am a much better philosopher than a teacher, or it would be easier to understand. Also, I’m just finishing it, so you’re trying to learn mid-stream. If I finished the book and you could go back to it for reference, then life would be easier for you (and me.)

‪#‎propertarianism‬

Source: Curt Doolittle

May 19, 2015
The Cost of Learning Propertarianism

(worth repeating) [P]ropertarianism is like learning any other formal logic. It is non-trivial. But what you get from the effort of learning it is explanatory power. Unfortunately I am a much better philosopher than a teacher, or it would be easier to understand. Also, I’m just finishing it, so you’re trying to learn mid-stream. If I finished the book and you could go back to it for reference, then life would be easier for you (and me.)

‪#‎propertarianism‬

Source: Curt Doolittle

May 19, 2015
The Most Profound 1000 Words You Can Read On Political Philosophy Today.
(worth repeating) [A]ll, Thank you for asking me to respond. I didn’t respond on LessWrong’s site because (honestly) I thought it was a rather pointless argument. But I’ll convert it from signaling (the author’s criticism and somewhat humorous demonstration of signaling), from moral to scientific language and I think it will be clearer: 1) All radicals do not fit into the center of the distribution – the statement is tautological, not insightful. 2) We all signal, and signaling is necessary for evolutionary reproductive selection. 3) The presumption of not fitting into some locus of the median of the distribution is a democratic one – that we are equal rather than (as I argue) we constitute a division of cognitive labor: perception, evaluation, knowledge and advocacy. (humans divide cognition more so than other creatures because we specialize in cognition.) 4) Our theories do tend to justify our social positions (signaling) but then, we would not have information necessary to theorize about any other set of interests, now would we? 5) The origin of theories is irrelevant (justification is false), and therefore the question of a theory produced by any subset of a polity can be judged by only criticism – its irrelevant who comes up with a theory. The vast difference between pseudoscience and science in ethics, law, politics, and economics is captured those few words. Now, to state the positive version: the solution to the fallacy of the enlightenment hypothesis of equality of ability, interest, and value is captured in these additional points: 6) economic velocity (wealth) is determined by the degree of suppression of parasitism (free riding/imposed costs). This eliminates transaction costs. 7) central power originates to centralize parasitism and increase material costs, by suppressing local parasitism and transaction costs. Once centralized they can be incrementally eliminated. If and only if an institutional means of following rules can be used to replace personal judgement. 8) The only means of producing institutional rules to replace personal judgement (provision of ‘decidability’) is in the independent, common, evolutionary law resting upon a prohibition on parasitism/free-riding/imposed costs (negatives), codified as property rights (positives): productive, warrantied, fully informed, voluntary transfer(exchange), free of negative externalities. 9) Language evolved to justify (morality), negotiate (deceive), and rally and shame (gossip), and only tangentially and late to describe (truth). Truth as we understand it is an invention and an unnatural one – which is why it is unique to the west, and why it has taken philosophers so long to understand it. However, westerners evolved a military epistemology because they relied upon self-financing warriors voluntarily participating, as well as the jury and truth telling. (The marginal difference in intellectual ability apparently not common – they were all smart enough. and such testimony was in itself ‘training’.) 10) We cannot expect or demand truth from people unless they know how to produce it. ie: Education in what I would consider the religion of the west: “the true, the moral and the beautiful”. So I consider this education ‘sacred’ not just utilitarian. 11) We cannot demand truth and law from people unless it is not against their interests: ie: the only universal political system is Nationalism, because groups can act truthfully internally, truthfully externally, and can use trade negotiations to neutralized competitive differences. And with nationalism, individuals cannot escape paying the cost of transforming their own societies, and themselves, and laying the burden of doing so upon other societies. 12) Commons are a profound competitive advantage. Territorial, institutional, normative, genetic, physical, and economic (industrial) commons are a profound advantage to any group. The west is the most successful producer of commons so it is even more important to the west. So we must provide a means of producing those commons. The difference between market for private goods and services (where competition in production is a good incentive) and corporate (public) goods, where we must prevent privatization of gains an socialization of losses, requires that we provide monopoly protection of those goods from consumption. But does not require that we provide monopoly contribution to them. Commons require only that the people willing to pay for them, do so. Otherwise there is no demonstrated preference for that commons. Insurance is a commons and I will leave that for another time. Return on investment (dividends) are the product of commons. I will leave that for another time as well. The central point is that we can produce a market for common goods using government just as we do in the market private goods. But that law and commons are two different things. and that there is no reason whatsoever, knowing how to construct the common law, that government should be capable of producing law. it cannot. Law is. It cannot be created. Only identified. (This is also probably the most profound 1000 words on politics that you will be able to find at this moment in time) ‪#‎propertarianism‬ Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute
- Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Very concise. With this is it safe to say that you have abandoned libertarianism? Please elaborate your (4). And curt, surely the law may be invented or created?
- Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Also, i find your tenth and eleventh propositions problematic. Surely the term you are looking for is commons* and not “truth”
- Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Your 8 is beautiful beyond words
- Curt Doolittle—“With this is it safe to say that you have abandoned libertarianism?”–
  
  Well, does ‘libertarianism’ mean Rothbardianism, classical liberalism, or aristocratic egalitarianism? I think it means that I have abandoned the enlightenment, or perhaps, further reformed it away from pseudoscience and into science? I think it means that I have appropriated the application of the language of economics to morality in the misesian-rothbardian-hoppeian system. I think it means I retain the scientific (competitive innovative) bias common to those who see liberty as a means of competition – a group evolutionary strategy.
  
  So I would consider myself a libertarian for those reasons.
  
  I would consider my self a conservative because I advocate for networks of families maturing at different rates, rather than a universalist. And because I am certain that territory, institutions, and norms are more important than technological advancement in the long term. So I consider myself an aristocratic egalitarian, which is a libertarian predisposition. And as far as I understand it, that makes me a conservative libertarian rather than a social or religious conservative.
- Curt Doolittle—Please elaborate your (4)—
  
  If indeed I am correct, and that we are genetically biased to reflect variations in moral spectrum according to our reproductive needs: both masculine-feminine(gender) and desirable-undesirable(class), and that as such we each only perceive and evaluate part of the moral spectrum, and that as such we divide the labor of cognition, and that voluntary cooperation is the means by which we calculate cooperative means. Then it is rational that each group that advocates for a particular part of the spectrum would produce philosophical justifications of their narrative – if and only if they lack the perception, knowledge, and bias to specialize in anything else BUT their region of the spectrum. So, as I have tried to show in Propertarian Class THeory, we develop specialists in each of these domains, and these specialists compete using their skills to move the population one way or another: Gossip(religion/shaming), Violence (law/threat), Trade (libertarian). This is a rich topic of exploration and I only started working on it seriously last fall. But it’s a lot of legs: explanatory power.
- Curt Doolittle—“And curt, surely the law may be invented or created?”—
  
  Perhaps this is language, but do we create laws of nature or do we discover them? Do we crate means of suppressing parasitism, or do we discover them. I tend to see all our work in the law as reactive, and therefore we identify errors expressed in the common law the same way we identify science through criticism (failure). As such the common law is scientific. Or as close as many can make it.
- Curt Doolittle—…10th…11the problematic…—
  Yes I fell into a bad habit. We cannot expect ‘truthful testimony’ if people do not know how to construct it. In other words, truthfulness (warranty of due diligence in testimony) is different from analytic truth.
  
  I have gotten into the habit (that I shouldn’t) of treating analytic truth as irrelevant, and testimonial truth as the only existentially possible that we can know.
  
  And if I dont’ keep my rigor I will lose people. So you are correct. I will fix it after lunch. smile emoticon
  
  Curt Doolittle—8 is beautiful beyond words—
  
  Thanks. From you that is the highest possible praise I could hear.
May 19, 2015
The Most Profound 1000 Words You Can Read On Political Philosophy Today.
(worth repeating) [A]ll, Thank you for asking me to respond. I didn’t respond on LessWrong’s site because (honestly) I thought it was a rather pointless argument. But I’ll convert it from signaling (the author’s criticism and somewhat humorous demonstration of signaling), from moral to scientific language and I think it will be clearer: 1) All radicals do not fit into the center of the distribution – the statement is tautological, not insightful. 2) We all signal, and signaling is necessary for evolutionary reproductive selection. 3) The presumption of not fitting into some locus of the median of the distribution is a democratic one – that we are equal rather than (as I argue) we constitute a division of cognitive labor: perception, evaluation, knowledge and advocacy. (humans divide cognition more so than other creatures because we specialize in cognition.) 4) Our theories do tend to justify our social positions (signaling) but then, we would not have information necessary to theorize about any other set of interests, now would we? 5) The origin of theories is irrelevant (justification is false), and therefore the question of a theory produced by any subset of a polity can be judged by only criticism – its irrelevant who comes up with a theory. The vast difference between pseudoscience and science in ethics, law, politics, and economics is captured those few words. Now, to state the positive version: the solution to the fallacy of the enlightenment hypothesis of equality of ability, interest, and value is captured in these additional points: 6) economic velocity (wealth) is determined by the degree of suppression of parasitism (free riding/imposed costs). This eliminates transaction costs. 7) central power originates to centralize parasitism and increase material costs, by suppressing local parasitism and transaction costs. Once centralized they can be incrementally eliminated. If and only if an institutional means of following rules can be used to replace personal judgement. 8) The only means of producing institutional rules to replace personal judgement (provision of ‘decidability’) is in the independent, common, evolutionary law resting upon a prohibition on parasitism/free-riding/imposed costs (negatives), codified as property rights (positives): productive, warrantied, fully informed, voluntary transfer(exchange), free of negative externalities. 9) Language evolved to justify (morality), negotiate (deceive), and rally and shame (gossip), and only tangentially and late to describe (truth). Truth as we understand it is an invention and an unnatural one – which is why it is unique to the west, and why it has taken philosophers so long to understand it. However, westerners evolved a military epistemology because they relied upon self-financing warriors voluntarily participating, as well as the jury and truth telling. (The marginal difference in intellectual ability apparently not common – they were all smart enough. and such testimony was in itself ‘training’.) 10) We cannot expect or demand truth from people unless they know how to produce it. ie: Education in what I would consider the religion of the west: “the true, the moral and the beautiful”. So I consider this education ‘sacred’ not just utilitarian. 11) We cannot demand truth and law from people unless it is not against their interests: ie: the only universal political system is Nationalism, because groups can act truthfully internally, truthfully externally, and can use trade negotiations to neutralized competitive differences. And with nationalism, individuals cannot escape paying the cost of transforming their own societies, and themselves, and laying the burden of doing so upon other societies. 12) Commons are a profound competitive advantage. Territorial, institutional, normative, genetic, physical, and economic (industrial) commons are a profound advantage to any group. The west is the most successful producer of commons so it is even more important to the west. So we must provide a means of producing those commons. The difference between market for private goods and services (where competition in production is a good incentive) and corporate (public) goods, where we must prevent privatization of gains an socialization of losses, requires that we provide monopoly protection of those goods from consumption. But does not require that we provide monopoly contribution to them. Commons require only that the people willing to pay for them, do so. Otherwise there is no demonstrated preference for that commons. Insurance is a commons and I will leave that for another time. Return on investment (dividends) are the product of commons. I will leave that for another time as well. The central point is that we can produce a market for common goods using government just as we do in the market private goods. But that law and commons are two different things. and that there is no reason whatsoever, knowing how to construct the common law, that government should be capable of producing law. it cannot. Law is. It cannot be created. Only identified. (This is also probably the most profound 1000 words on politics that you will be able to find at this moment in time) ‪#‎propertarianism‬ Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute
- Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Very concise. With this is it safe to say that you have abandoned libertarianism? Please elaborate your (4). And curt, surely the law may be invented or created?
- Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Also, i find your tenth and eleventh propositions problematic. Surely the term you are looking for is commons* and not “truth”
- Ayelam Valentine Agaliba Your 8 is beautiful beyond words
- Curt Doolittle—“With this is it safe to say that you have abandoned libertarianism?”–
  
  Well, does ‘libertarianism’ mean Rothbardianism, classical liberalism, or aristocratic egalitarianism? I think it means that I have abandoned the enlightenment, or perhaps, further reformed it away from pseudoscience and into science? I think it means that I have appropriated the application of the language of economics to morality in the misesian-rothbardian-hoppeian system. I think it means I retain the scientific (competitive innovative) bias common to those who see liberty as a means of competition – a group evolutionary strategy.
  
  So I would consider myself a libertarian for those reasons.
  
  I would consider my self a conservative because I advocate for networks of families maturing at different rates, rather than a universalist. And because I am certain that territory, institutions, and norms are more important than technological advancement in the long term. So I consider myself an aristocratic egalitarian, which is a libertarian predisposition. And as far as I understand it, that makes me a conservative libertarian rather than a social or religious conservative.
- Curt Doolittle—Please elaborate your (4)—
  
  If indeed I am correct, and that we are genetically biased to reflect variations in moral spectrum according to our reproductive needs: both masculine-feminine(gender) and desirable-undesirable(class), and that as such we each only perceive and evaluate part of the moral spectrum, and that as such we divide the labor of cognition, and that voluntary cooperation is the means by which we calculate cooperative means. Then it is rational that each group that advocates for a particular part of the spectrum would produce philosophical justifications of their narrative – if and only if they lack the perception, knowledge, and bias to specialize in anything else BUT their region of the spectrum. So, as I have tried to show in Propertarian Class THeory, we develop specialists in each of these domains, and these specialists compete using their skills to move the population one way or another: Gossip(religion/shaming), Violence (law/threat), Trade (libertarian). This is a rich topic of exploration and I only started working on it seriously last fall. But it’s a lot of legs: explanatory power.
- Curt Doolittle—“And curt, surely the law may be invented or created?”—
  
  Perhaps this is language, but do we create laws of nature or do we discover them? Do we crate means of suppressing parasitism, or do we discover them. I tend to see all our work in the law as reactive, and therefore we identify errors expressed in the common law the same way we identify science through criticism (failure). As such the common law is scientific. Or as close as many can make it.
- Curt Doolittle—…10th…11the problematic…—
  Yes I fell into a bad habit. We cannot expect ‘truthful testimony’ if people do not know how to construct it. In other words, truthfulness (warranty of due diligence in testimony) is different from analytic truth.
  
  I have gotten into the habit (that I shouldn’t) of treating analytic truth as irrelevant, and testimonial truth as the only existentially possible that we can know.
  
  And if I dont’ keep my rigor I will lose people. So you are correct. I will fix it after lunch. smile emoticon
  
  Curt Doolittle—8 is beautiful beyond words—
  
  Thanks. From you that is the highest possible praise I could hear.
May 19, 2015
Paining John Quiggin Over His Pseudoscientific Definition of Economics.

[I ]am singling out John Quiggin here. And singling him out, perhaps unfairly, because like anyone else, he is an econometrician flirting with philosophy that is far over his head – a mistake we all make in assuming skills are portable. But we all need examples, and this is an excellent example of someone attempting to justify a cultural bias (a privilege) as if it is a good (a truth). In other words, it’s unscientific.This post is actually quite profound if you want to understand the problem faced by mainstream economics – our prevailing pseudoscience, in matters of policy. You can find John’s original posts here, and here. He ostensively wants to update Economics in One Lesson so that instead of asking the individual to analyze all trajectories from actions, he instead defines economics as justification for Rawlsian ethics and Pareto redistribution using Keynesian (marxist) aggregations (false equalities). Curt —– John (Quiggin), This might come across as offensive, but we all have jobs to do in defense and preservation of the informational commons, and this is mine. 1) Fascism was a ‘good’. Fascism was a necessary means of combating communism. Persisting in the denigration of authors who supported it is merely conflating a utility in time of stress with a truth of social science. Fascism was a good. By any measure. 2) Hayek’s Journey Hayek completed his journey by correctly identifying the common law as the source of liberty, which is how he perceived western exceptionalism. Most of his work an be seen as a series of investigations in various fields into solving the problem of the social sciences. It took him most of his life but he got there. Prior works can only be seen in this light. Most of his work is partly correct. His movement across fields is evidence that he ran into dead ends in all of them. 3) Social Democracy The jury is out on social democracy, and at present, despite the rather obvious self interest of the state and academy, those of us who work the subject are fairly certain that democracy is little more than a temporary luxury for the redistribution of a civilizations windfall, rather than a system that constructs liberty and prosperity. 4) Everyone Failed – Not Just Mises Mises failed to solve the problem of economics because he failed, like everyone else in his generation, to solve the problem of operationalism. (Mises:economics, Brouwer:math, Hayek:Law, Bridgman:physics. And countless others in philosophy.) Everyone failed. They failed, and Hayek’s prediction that the 20th century would be seen in retrospect as an era of mysticism appears to be true. He didn’t get it quite right, because pseudoscience and mysticism perform the same obscurantist functions differently. But it is becoming clear that the 20th century (macro included) will be seen as an era of pseudoscience, and most of us will be cast as fools because of it. Hayek is not to be disrespected for having failed if so many thinkers failed in every other field of human inquiry. I made this mistake myself by crucifying Mises for a time. They were men of their time. They could sense something was wrong, but they were not able to solve it. Strangely enough, Brouwer and Bridgman do so, but not thoroughly enough to grasp that the problem was material in morality, epistemology, law, economics, and politics. Helpful in physical science. and only tepidly meaningful in mathematics. Its both telling and interesting that psychology – a pseudoscientific field totally absent any empirical content – saved itself by adopting Operationalism – and in doing so produced all the innovative content that it has in just twenty years – nearly overturning the century of pseudoscience. Economics requires this reformation as well. Mises could sense but not construct it. In simple terms Keynesian macro is the the study of how much we can ‘lie’ in order to achieve a suspected good by increasing consumption despite the negative externalities for mankind by doing so. So objectively, mainstream macro is very much the study of immoral politics The operational view, and the moral study of economics (Austrian) is predicated on attempting to improve voluntary transfers so that all lying is eliminated from human cooperation. They were great minds working desperately hard against an existential threat to man. But they failed. That does not mean we have to. Neither does it mean that we should consider luxuries not of our own construction, as measures of our merit. They are not. If anything we merely consume twenty thousand years of western development in a century. 5) Economics is the study of human cooperation. Otherwise it is a deceit. So, economics is the study of human cooperation. We can perform that study toward immoral ends (dysgenia, consumption, and lying), or we can perform that study toward moral ends (eugenia, accumulation, and truth). There is only one ‘law’ of human cooperation: that is that the only moral criteria that one can imposed costs upon another, is by productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of negative externality. Under no other condition is cooperation rational. That single statement explains all moral biases. The purpose of economics is to complete the sequence of training the human mind to understand cause and effect at different levels of complexity. Perception(existence), counting(scale), arithmetic, mathematics(ratio), geometry(space), calculus(relative motion), economics(equilibria), relativity(frames).Only with this understanding can man understand and apply this general rule to human affairs such that we can calculate all worlds determined by an action, and choose between them. But only once we have determined the full circuit of consequences in each. Only with this understanding can man apply this general rule to human affairs so that we can use monetary prices to sense and compare complex phenomenon at a given point in time. Only with this understanding can we make policy decisions that allow us to justify takings and givings as producing a common good. But only if we include all costs: Genetic, Territorial, Institutional, Normative, Pedagogical (Knowledge), Material, can we say we have accounted for all costs. Otherwise, we are just engaged in an obscurant means of justifying our preferences. 5) John Quiggin: Austrailian Justification by Selection of Costs You (John) have an extremely Australian view of the world, and your definition of economics and your interpretation of what ‘economics is reducible to’ is a justification of that Australian view. That Australian view is, like that of the English, Canadian and Americans: a North Sea islander’s view: one who is insulated by the seas from the pressures common to territorial peoples. If your tradition and genetics originated in the steppe or the levant you would hold very different views. So it appears (obvious) that your perception is a cognitive bias that you are seeking to justify, not a scientific truth that describes necessary properties of human cooperation. It is terribly apparent to me (as I would assume it was to any intellectual historian) that you are confusing a luxury of circumstance with a ‘good’ that one should aspire to. So as far as I can tell your selected definition is one that justifies your conclusion. It’s creative accounting so to speak by selective ‘ben franklin’ accounting of costs and benefits. By carefully defining a preconception as a good, we can justify anything. And that is what your two laws do. 6) The Alternative Argument The alternative argument I would like to put forward. “Every forced transfer, is a lost opportunity for mutually beneficial exchange.” We do need a means of constructing commons. Physical and institutional commons are a unique western competitive advantage, second only to our most valuable commons: truth-telling. But why is it that commons must be constructed monopolistically? Why is not government constructed to facilitate exchanges, rather commands? There isn’t an answer justifies that question that does not violate the only law of human cooperation: that cooperation must be rational. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

May 19, 2015
Paining John Quiggin Over His Pseudoscientific Definition of Economics.

[I ]am singling out John Quiggin here. And singling him out, perhaps unfairly, because like anyone else, he is an econometrician flirting with philosophy that is far over his head – a mistake we all make in assuming skills are portable. But we all need examples, and this is an excellent example of someone attempting to justify a cultural bias (a privilege) as if it is a good (a truth). In other words, it’s unscientific.This post is actually quite profound if you want to understand the problem faced by mainstream economics – our prevailing pseudoscience, in matters of policy. You can find John’s original posts here, and here. He ostensively wants to update Economics in One Lesson so that instead of asking the individual to analyze all trajectories from actions, he instead defines economics as justification for Rawlsian ethics and Pareto redistribution using Keynesian (marxist) aggregations (false equalities). Curt —– John (Quiggin), This might come across as offensive, but we all have jobs to do in defense and preservation of the informational commons, and this is mine. 1) Fascism was a ‘good’. Fascism was a necessary means of combating communism. Persisting in the denigration of authors who supported it is merely conflating a utility in time of stress with a truth of social science. Fascism was a good. By any measure. 2) Hayek’s Journey Hayek completed his journey by correctly identifying the common law as the source of liberty, which is how he perceived western exceptionalism. Most of his work an be seen as a series of investigations in various fields into solving the problem of the social sciences. It took him most of his life but he got there. Prior works can only be seen in this light. Most of his work is partly correct. His movement across fields is evidence that he ran into dead ends in all of them. 3) Social Democracy The jury is out on social democracy, and at present, despite the rather obvious self interest of the state and academy, those of us who work the subject are fairly certain that democracy is little more than a temporary luxury for the redistribution of a civilizations windfall, rather than a system that constructs liberty and prosperity. 4) Everyone Failed – Not Just Mises Mises failed to solve the problem of economics because he failed, like everyone else in his generation, to solve the problem of operationalism. (Mises:economics, Brouwer:math, Hayek:Law, Bridgman:physics. And countless others in philosophy.) Everyone failed. They failed, and Hayek’s prediction that the 20th century would be seen in retrospect as an era of mysticism appears to be true. He didn’t get it quite right, because pseudoscience and mysticism perform the same obscurantist functions differently. But it is becoming clear that the 20th century (macro included) will be seen as an era of pseudoscience, and most of us will be cast as fools because of it. Hayek is not to be disrespected for having failed if so many thinkers failed in every other field of human inquiry. I made this mistake myself by crucifying Mises for a time. They were men of their time. They could sense something was wrong, but they were not able to solve it. Strangely enough, Brouwer and Bridgman do so, but not thoroughly enough to grasp that the problem was material in morality, epistemology, law, economics, and politics. Helpful in physical science. and only tepidly meaningful in mathematics. Its both telling and interesting that psychology – a pseudoscientific field totally absent any empirical content – saved itself by adopting Operationalism – and in doing so produced all the innovative content that it has in just twenty years – nearly overturning the century of pseudoscience. Economics requires this reformation as well. Mises could sense but not construct it. In simple terms Keynesian macro is the the study of how much we can ‘lie’ in order to achieve a suspected good by increasing consumption despite the negative externalities for mankind by doing so. So objectively, mainstream macro is very much the study of immoral politics The operational view, and the moral study of economics (Austrian) is predicated on attempting to improve voluntary transfers so that all lying is eliminated from human cooperation. They were great minds working desperately hard against an existential threat to man. But they failed. That does not mean we have to. Neither does it mean that we should consider luxuries not of our own construction, as measures of our merit. They are not. If anything we merely consume twenty thousand years of western development in a century. 5) Economics is the study of human cooperation. Otherwise it is a deceit. So, economics is the study of human cooperation. We can perform that study toward immoral ends (dysgenia, consumption, and lying), or we can perform that study toward moral ends (eugenia, accumulation, and truth). There is only one ‘law’ of human cooperation: that is that the only moral criteria that one can imposed costs upon another, is by productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of negative externality. Under no other condition is cooperation rational. That single statement explains all moral biases. The purpose of economics is to complete the sequence of training the human mind to understand cause and effect at different levels of complexity. Perception(existence), counting(scale), arithmetic, mathematics(ratio), geometry(space), calculus(relative motion), economics(equilibria), relativity(frames).Only with this understanding can man understand and apply this general rule to human affairs such that we can calculate all worlds determined by an action, and choose between them. But only once we have determined the full circuit of consequences in each. Only with this understanding can man apply this general rule to human affairs so that we can use monetary prices to sense and compare complex phenomenon at a given point in time. Only with this understanding can we make policy decisions that allow us to justify takings and givings as producing a common good. But only if we include all costs: Genetic, Territorial, Institutional, Normative, Pedagogical (Knowledge), Material, can we say we have accounted for all costs. Otherwise, we are just engaged in an obscurant means of justifying our preferences. 5) John Quiggin: Austrailian Justification by Selection of Costs You (John) have an extremely Australian view of the world, and your definition of economics and your interpretation of what ‘economics is reducible to’ is a justification of that Australian view. That Australian view is, like that of the English, Canadian and Americans: a North Sea islander’s view: one who is insulated by the seas from the pressures common to territorial peoples. If your tradition and genetics originated in the steppe or the levant you would hold very different views. So it appears (obvious) that your perception is a cognitive bias that you are seeking to justify, not a scientific truth that describes necessary properties of human cooperation. It is terribly apparent to me (as I would assume it was to any intellectual historian) that you are confusing a luxury of circumstance with a ‘good’ that one should aspire to. So as far as I can tell your selected definition is one that justifies your conclusion. It’s creative accounting so to speak by selective ‘ben franklin’ accounting of costs and benefits. By carefully defining a preconception as a good, we can justify anything. And that is what your two laws do. 6) The Alternative Argument The alternative argument I would like to put forward. “Every forced transfer, is a lost opportunity for mutually beneficial exchange.” We do need a means of constructing commons. Physical and institutional commons are a unique western competitive advantage, second only to our most valuable commons: truth-telling. But why is it that commons must be constructed monopolistically? Why is not government constructed to facilitate exchanges, rather commands? There isn’t an answer justifies that question that does not violate the only law of human cooperation: that cooperation must be rational. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

May 19, 2015
THE COST OF LEARNING PROPERTARIANISM (worth repeating) Propertarianism is like l

THE COST OF LEARNING PROPERTARIANISM

(worth repeating)

Propertarianism is like learning any other formal logic. It is non-trivial. But what you get from the effort of learning it is explanatory power. Unfortunately I am a much better philosopher than a teacher, or it would be easier to understand. Also, I’m just finishing it, so you’re trying to learn mid-stream. If I finished the book and you could go back to it for reference, then life would be easier for you (and me.)

#propertarianism

Source date (UTC): 2015-05-18 05:35:00 UTC

May 18, 2015