Tag Archives: Austrian School / Libertarian Theory

ADDING KANT TO HISTORY’S MOST DESTRUCTIVE MINDS

Curt Doolittle:

ADDING KANT TO HISTORY’S MOST DESTRUCTIVE MINDS

I’m going to add Kant (obscurant anti-realism), to the ranks of history’s most destructive minds: Cantor(obscurant Pseudoscience), Freud(obscurant pseudoscience), Marx(pseudoscience), Napoleon (total war), Constantine(christianization of Europe), Plato (the Republic), Abraham(monotheism), Zoroaster (divine scripture).

Intellectual Sainthood
– Aristotle
– Machiavelli
– Bacon, Newton and Leibniz
– Smith, Hume and Jefferson
РJevons, Menger, Walras, Marshall, B̦hm-Bawerk, Wieser;
– Pareto, Durkheim, Weber and Hayek.
РPoincar̩, Mandelbrot, Brouwer, Bishop, Taleb

Now, if I could get Hoppe off his Continental and Kantian platonism, then he would have be the first person to succeed in reducing all rights to property rights. Even if his definition of property is incomplete he would have done it. He managed to articulate the morality of states, but not the morality of polities necessary for the voluntary organization of production. And possibly, that was his only goal. Whereas with propertarianism, I’ve illustrated the definition of property necessary for the formation of a polity capable of voluntary organization of production in the absence of a state. But he isn’t a candidate for intellectual sainthood if he’s stuck in Kantian nonsense.

Failing that I’m stuck with doing it myself. And while I feel I have mastered ethics better than anyone else, I do not feel the same for philosophy proper. And while I’m getting there, I’m not there yet. I’m getting there. But the standard of measure is not my own comprehension, but the structure of my arguments. And I am just getting, after a year of solid hard work, to where I feel I can construct those arguments.

Einstein was right (even if a plagiarist) that most of doing something innovative is just working at it longer than anyone else.

Rothbardian Ghetto Ethics

Rothbardian ethics is parasitic, argues Curt Doolittle:

1) Ghetto ethics only require that the exchange is voluntary.
2) They do not require that the exchange is productive, only that parties are satisfied. (blackmail for example is not productive.)
3) They do not require fully informed exchange backed by warranty. (they allow lying and cheating and information holding)
4) They do not prohibit profiting from harm, or causing harm (Usury for example.)
5) They do not require that the exchange is free of externality.

Parasitic ethics of rothbard require only the first, but the high trust ethics of Protestant require all five criteria. High trust ethics (and human in-group moral instinct) require that we eschew free riding (parasitism) and the only means of doing so, is to require exchanges be internally and externally productive.

Under rothbardian ethics it is possible to profit without contribution to production, and to exist entirely parasitically. ie: his ethics are parasitic.

Curt Doolittle – 4 Libertarian Frameworks

THE FOUR LIBERTARIAN FRAMEWORKS
(in order) (political particularism) (natural aristocracy) (profound)

1) Analytic/Ratio-Empirical (Propertarian/NeoReactionary) – the people of empire – Anglo American Protestantism.

2) Continental/Rational-Historical (Hoppeian) – the landed and encircled people – German Protestantism.

3) Psychological/Religio-Moral (Classical Liberal/BHL) – The homogenous island seafaring traders – Anglo/Scottish Protestantism

4) Cosmopolitan/Pseudo-Scientific (Rothbard and Mises) – The urban ghetto. A state with in a state. Judaism.

BAGGAGE: METHODOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL
We all bring our baggage with us. Part of that baggage is cultural. Part of it is methodological.

One of the virtues of each author’s attempt to solve the problem of political institutions in the anarchic research program, is that while each err’s according to his culture’s biases, it is much easier in retrospect to find the common properties of each author’s arguments, than it is for any one of us, in any culture, to construct those properties ex-nihilo. Science progresses by falsification. The same applies to philosophy.

In each generation, we stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before us. And the only way to construct an answer, appears to be to pursue it for three generations. Which we have now done – each of us in our different cultures; and each with our different intuitional and methodological baggage.

METHOD VS CONTENT
1) All four methods are very different. Ratio-empirical, Rational-historical, Religio-Moral(psychological), and Pseudo-Scientific(hermeneutic). All, including the ratio-empirical, place greater weight on the method of distribution of their arguments than on the internal consistency, external correspondence of their arguments.

2) All four method share common properties: a preference for liberty, organizing society for prosperity, meritocracy, inequality, particularism, anti-statism.

3) All four depend differently on the means of propagation and enforcement of the content: Scientific, rational, moral and pseudoscientific arguments

3) All four demonstrate one very different property: The assumption of the effectiveness of the unity of interests in relation to others. Empire, Island, Land, and Ghetto all treat ‘others’ very differently and as such place different constraints on members.

THE GOAL OF PROPAGATION

Ratio-moral arguments are the most effective means of propagating ideas because they are the most pedagogically available to the entire population. But the Ratio-scientific is the most accurate description of the causes and consequences. As such, converting the Ratio-scientific into the Religio-moral form is the most effective means of distributing a particular moral code. The problem is that it takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of many people to do that.

Pseudo-science, as we have seen both in Marxism and in Austrian and Libertarian arguments, are exceptional means of inspiring action, but these arguments generally fail.

The value of religo-moral arguments is that they also inspire action, but if they are based upon ratio-empirical evidence, the elites can continue to construct arguments for the religio-moral mass evangelists.

ARISTOCRATIC LIBERTARIANISM: RELIGIO-MORAL NARRATIVES + RATIO-SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS.

The problem the west faced, is that while there existed a balance of power between the aristocracy and the church, only the church wrote down their ideas. Aristocracy handed it down by generation. So while the Religio-Moral narratives exist both in our norms and our fairy tales and myths, the underlying, scientific cause and consequences were lost.

Aristocracy depends not on universalism, but voluntary enfranchisement of those who would perpetuate aristocratic property rights against usurpation by a central control. It is not a majoritarian philosophy whatsoever. Majoritarianism was added by the enlightenment as an excuse for the mercantile elite to wrest power from the landed elite.

The origin of aristocracy is to allow a small number to concentrate capital in their families, and too make use of technology to prevent usurpation of that property, or position by others.

Aristocracy is a minority proposition. It is how and why, a small number of families could, by the use of technology, organization and expertise, keep the east and its despotism at bay.

That is the source of aristocracy.It is a minority proposition and always will be. Liberty is the desire of the minority. And it is only useful for a minority. It entirely permissible for the majority to engage in socialism because it is in their interests to do so. They are NOT aristocratic, meritocratic, or superior in ability and skill.

As such the purpose of a an aristocratic minority, as it has been for possibly 7000 years, is to deny socialists and tyrannists access to their property and control of their freedoms.

Liberty cannot be obtained at a discount. It is not ‘good’ for the majority except in their role as consumers. It is good for those that desire it. And the more liberty we create the more desirable it is for those that would join us.

But the others cannot rationally join us unless we first create property by denying it to socialists and tyrannists.

The source of liberty is the organized promise and application of violence to deny others access to our property, and limits to our freedom.

Violence is an art. A high art. It is the highest art that nobility can make. Everything else is just decoration.

Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
Kiev

Sorry, Comrade, But You Didn’t Just Discover The Secret To Making Communism Work

“Over the weekend, Jesse Myerson, a twenty-something former Occupy organizer, finally stumbled upon a foolproof recipe for success for today’s struggling Millennials. The recipe? Communism, naturally.” thefederalist.com/2014/01/06/sorry-comrade-didnt-just-discover-secret-making-communism-work/

Ugh. I don’t want to argue with these psychopaths anymore. Can’t we just split into two seperate countries?

“Socialism does work”

I tuned into the other side of the debate this morning:

Holy moley. There will be no winning of the argument. Separatism is the solution. Them recreate the socialist paradise, but let them do it without us.

This guy presents such a dense, moralizing tangle of misinformation. I want to do the work of picking it apart, but I’ve done it so many times before and it takes so much time.

My general reaction is summarized by this gif: i.imgur.com/NGjC2.gif

CHOMSKY ON POSTMODERNISM

“Noam Chomsky is a mixed bag intellectually, but I like this quotation forwarded to me by Edward Fox”
CHOMSKY ON POSTMODERNISM

“There are lots of things I don’t understand — say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat’s last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I’m interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. — even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest — write things that I also don’t understand, but (1) and (2) don’t hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven’t a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of ‘theory’ that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) … I won’t spell it out.”


www.stephenhicks.org/2013/11/27/chomsky-on-postmodernism/

Curt Doolittle on Libertarianism and Diversity

ON RACE AND DIVERSITY IN LIBERTARIANISM
(cross posted for reference) (insights) (important)

METHODS
Methods of justification for libertarianism (or any other political and moral bias)
1) Sentimental (I like it)
2) Moral (it’s better)
3) Historical (it works)
4) Empirical (direct experimentation)
5) Economic (indirect experimentation)
6) Ratio-scientific (cumulative evidence and theory)

TWO SOURCES OF LIBERTARIAN THOUGHT
1) Conservative and Classical Liberal Land holders (christian)
2) Anarchic and religious non-land holders (jewish/gypsies)

FOUR SOCIAL STRUCTURES
1) German (Kant/hierarchical/duty/nuclear family)
2) French ( Rousseau/equalitarian/care/traditional family)
3) British (smith-hume+ / aristocratic egalitarian / empirical/ absolute nuclear family)
4) Jewish (ricardo-mises-rothbard/tribalism)

FOUR AMBITIONS
1) The british saw free trade as an international means of achieving peace and prosperity for all europeans.
2) The germans were trying to resist british consumerism’s disruption of ‘social order’ implicit in german ‘duty’.
3) The french were trying to extend the family to all of society, and demonstrate their nobility having failed to conquer Europe.
(The failures of the world wars and transformation from demonstrated material achievement, to the use of generosity and diversity to maintain status, explain current european behavior.)
4) The jews were and are, trying to justify their participation in a host society without integrating.

THE ANSWER
There are two basic reasons for ‘tolerance’ in the libertarian movement.
1) Jewish authors justifying right to inclusion but denial of the necessity of payment into the commons.
2) christian authors arguing for payment only into non monopolistic commons, while retaining a homogenous moral commons.
3) feminist and postmodernist influences.

DOMINANCE OF JEWISH THOUGHT
I think that Rothbard brought his heritage to the table (just as Hayek stated of Mises) and he conflated the two ambitions.

This is actually, the reason why rothbard failed to give us a morally tolerable libertarianism. And it is why libertarianism fails to gain traction. Humans are tribal. Immigration is a political problem. And human seek political power. So it is better to have a homogenous, liberty seeking people, for whom no seizure of power is of any group benefit, because the group is already in power. And there is no incentive for status achievement, because in a homogenous society, there is no status value to trying to gain power.

HOPPE’S CORRECTION
Hoppe, through admittedly interesting logic, has shown that rothbard was wrong. I have I think, with rather scientific rather than purely rational terms, demonstrated that Rothbard was wrong.

CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT
There is a very great difference between ‘we will not fight despite our differences if we trade’ and ‘we are all equal and can politically cohabitate without conflict’. Politics is a family matter. Trade is a cross-family matter. We can easily trade, but we cannot be politically diverse without replacing conflict over trade with conflict over politics.

ROTHBARD WAS WRONG.

THE STATUS ECONOMY RULES. We don’t ‘need’ much as human beings, except to hold onto our status, improve our status, and prevent loss of status. Loss aversion is more applicable to status than any other human trait except perhaps life and limb. We accumulate status, and desperately hold onto it.

Response to Salon’s “Grow up, Libertarians”

www.salon.com/2013/06/13/grow_up_libertarians/

I’m actually responding to a friend who cited the article and says that he’s visited “libertarian” countries in Africa and SW Asia. I think it may be beyond the ability of these people to understand, but I wrote back anyway:

Afghanistan and Congo are not libertarian. Look for private justice and private security. Medieval Iceland is an oft cited example, albeit an imperfect one – people voluntarily chose clans for their protection.

Another is the Not-so-wild West which had a lower murder rate than most modern American cities. Wagon trains had private constitution. The original meaning of the term “outlaw” was someone declared to be outside the protection of private law. Meaning, private security would not protect him. This seems like a much more sensible means of punishment then *Forcing* victims to pay for the food, lodging and entertainment of their aggressors.

In the not-so-wild west civilization grew faster than the state, but unfortunately, the state and its many psychopaths caught up. So if you want honest example looks there, or to Medieval Iceland, the clan structure of Ireland, the thousands of kingdoms of Germany prior to Bismark and unification.

If you just want to call libertarians childish, as the article does, I would say: fuck you. What’s childish is thinking that a man with a gun can solve all the world’s problems. Health? The government will do it. Education? The government will do it. Consumer protection? Government. Raising children? Restricting commerce? Delivering little pieces of paper back and forth? Deciding whether I can put raw milk in my own body? Government. Government. Government. Government. That’s a very mature and nuanced perspective.