Liberty isnt’ ‘inherent’. Liberty is created by force and held by force. And no people without an armed militia to do so has even had liberty. Property is ‘inherent’ in the sense that it’s necessary, and that the mind is organized to make use of it. But liberty, which is the universal prohibition on the involuntary transfer of property, is a construct made and held by the will to use violence.

Liberty is unnatural to man. That’s why it doesn’t exist outside of a few cases in western history.

Liberty produces peace because conflict must be resolved in the market.

Pacifist libertarianism is not only illogical, and counter to the evidence, but it’s suicidal.

Don’t buy into the christian nonsense in libertarian theory. Liberty is a product of the application of violence. It always has been and it always will be.”

1) SOCIETY:
A society is an organization. It is an organization of people by norms, using exclusion from, and inclusion in, opportunities to gain adherence to norms.

2) GOVERNMENT:
A government is an organization. it is an organization of people who make decisions over the use of property using a bureaucracy that operates by rules, and violence to ensure those inside and outside the bureaucracy obey the decisions and rules.

3) MARKET:
A market is an organization. It is an organization of people by the use and allocation of resources using the incentives produced by prices, and the promise of deprivation or benefit by adhering to the incentives produced by prices.

4) CORRUPTION:
In any bureaucratic organization, some individuals have greater access to rent-seeking (corruption) than other individuals.

5) PARTIAL MONOPOLY RENTS:
In any market organization, some individuals have greater access to the bureaucracy and can therefore obtain licenses for rents (partial monopolies).

6) REVOLUTION:
A revolution is a replacement of individuals in a GOVERNMENT by a different set of individuals, who allocate property differently to different people, using the same or a different bureaucracy according to the same or different rules. (Revolutions are very expensive and societies rarely recover from them without the passage of generations.) Revolutions occur when one group of individuals outside the government has greater economic power than the individuals inside the government, and seek control over the government to perpetuate and improve their organizations.
a) a market is a continuous reordering of society – revolutions are called ‘corrections’.
b) a society is a continuous revolution – revolutions are called ‘reformations’.
c) Government’s are a process of calcification because of:
i) bureaucracies that stagnate rather than contracted private services that adapt,
ii) laws that do not expire when irrelevant, rather than contracts that do when fulfilled.
iii) Taxes regardless of the effect of the government, rather than commissions because of the productivity of the government.

7) IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY: All groups need decision makers. Decision makers must consolidate power across a network of alliances in order to make decisions. A bureaucracy is necessary to support conformity to the organization. Once the organization is stable, all individuals inside it seek rents, and the organization exists for the purpose of self perpetuation rather than the fulfillment of its charter.

NOTE: OH. And remember: all emotions are responses to changes in allocation of property. ***The mind is a property engine.*** Purportedly Moral language is just a way of trying to steal from one another and get away with it. :)”

You know, I don’t really pay much attention to philosophers outside of economics and politics any longer. But I have to give Rorty another go. Just to see if I’m missing something of value. Every time I re-read a great author I get something new. I can re-read a work by Mises or Hayek a half-dozen times before I feel that I’m not getting something new from it.

My work with Propertarianism assumes that Rorty is right. But I don’t really care to further justify why he’s right (that the discipline of philosophy – epistemology – has been a failure.) It’s pretty obvious that science has solved the problem and will continue to do so. It’s pretty obvious that academic philosophy has become immaterial to society.

This is somewhat odd, because, at least until recently, philosophy has effectively been the religion of our upper classes since ancient greece. (Which is why its in the religion section of the book store. :)

But the art of philosophy: which is to reorganize and reorder our perceptions of causal relations, and the values that we should attach to those causal relations, is still a worthy discipline. We are too reliant on norms and flights of fantasy about ourselves not to have philosophy at our disposal.

And really, it is far better to conduct our political warfare in philosophical debates than it is to in religious conflict, or open war and revolution.

What I do care about, is that **the mind is a property engine**. Saying it’s a “difference engine” is kind of cute, and politically correct. But the differences it calculates are differences in property. If property is to be understood in it’s full scope: as humans actually use it. Rather than the narrow legal or philosophical variants of private property.

Curt, what are your comments on Hoppe’s criticism of Rorty?

http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE3_1_16.pdf – Skye Steward

Thanks for the pointer to this paper. Its the second paper that you have sent me to that would provide a good skeleton to tie propertarianism to.

So first i’d have to explain why Hoppe is invested in rationalism as he means it. Second I’d have to explain Rorty’s argument in propertarian terms. Third explain why Hoppe is wrong. And lastly why Rorty, in general, is right. And from that position i could then illustrate that Hoppe’s argumentation is incomplete, that praxeology is incomplete, and that rothbardian ethics are incomplete. And as such, hoppe’s claims proven incomplete and his motivations would be proven unnecessary. And as incomplete they cannot be subject to the certain as he states.

However, that does not mean Hoppe’s insights are not correct. As I have stated elsewhere, his solution is incomplete because it does not account for heterogeneity of interests.

And where our ancestors lacked empirical evidence and had to rely on universal assumptions, we now have empirical evidence proving heterogeneity of interests.

Rorty’s central tenets are not in conflict with libertarian thought. Hoppe is fighting the wrong war. I have accommodated Rorty. But then i read him with propertarian eyes.

In context Hoppe’s generation was fighting agains a dragon now dead. Having slain that dragon, and faced with a broader polity, we now need to build a camelot. Rothbards ghetto liberty is insufficient and intolerable. Hoppe’s solution is for homogenous tribes. I THINK I may have found one possible alternative in “contractual government” and aristocratic ethics. But i could of course be wrong.

I am having breakfast in a cafe and typing with my thumb. Which is doing an injustice to this debate. So i hope you forgive me for brevity and obscurity. Although i think you probably understand most of what i mean here – typos and all.

Net is Hoppe is half right, but his criticism of Rorty is not the half he is right about.

On the other hand i don’t like criticizing Hoppe. I’d rather produce solutions to the problems of institutions in a heterogeneous polity.

Because a critic wastes air. We need solutions not criticisms.

So first i’d have to explain why Hoppe is invested in rationalism as he means it. Second I’d have to explain Rorty’s argument in propertarian terms. Third explain why Hoppe is wrong. And lastly why Rorty, in general, is right. And from that position i could then illustrate that Hoppe’s argumentation is incomplete, that praxeology is incomplete, and that rothbardian ethics are incomplete. And as such, hoppe’s claims proven incomplete and his motivations would be proven unnecessary. And as incomplete they cannot be subject to the certain as he states.

However that does not mean Hoppe’s insights are not correct. As I have stated elsewhere, his solution is incomplete because it does not account for heterogeneity of interests.

And where our ancestors lacked empirical evidence and had to rely on universal assumptions, we now have empirical evidence proving heterogeneity of interests.

Rorty’s central tenets are not in conflict with libertarian thought. Hoppe is fighting the wrong war. I have accommodated Rorty. But then i read him with propertarian eyes.

In context Hoppe’s generation was fighting against a dragon now dead. Having slain that dragon, and faced with a broader polity, we now need to build a Camelot. Rothbards ghetto liberty is insufficient and intolerable. Hoppe’s solution is for homogenous tribes. I THINK I may have found one possible alternative in “contractual government” and aristocratic ethics. But i could of course be wrong.

I am having breakfast in a cafe and typing with my thumb. Which is doing an injustice to this debate. So i hope you forgive me for brevity and obscurity. Although i think you probably understand most of what i mean here – typos and all.

Net is Hoppe is half right, but his criticism of Rorty is not the half he is right about.

On the other hand i don’t like criticizing Hoppe. I’d rather produce solutions to the problems of institutions in a heterogeneous polity.

Because a critic wastes air. We need solutions not criticisms. ;)

“ruth·less /ˈro͞oTHləs/

Adjective
Having or showing no pity or compassion for others. feeling or showing no mercy;

Synonyms
merciless – pitiless – unmerciful – remorseless

Propertarian translation: disregard for externalities. Different from ‘cruel’ which is to intentionally cause externalities.”

The so called enlightenment is a mental self deception for the purpose of obtaining signals at a discount and nothing more.

The enlightenment view of man was a myth invented to justify the taking if power from the landed nobility. It was that aristocracy that created western excellencies that made us unique in the world, and that we now spend for signaling discounts.

Enlightenment principles are genocidal. And we see that in the reproductive data. Liberals don’t breed.

RENT SEEKING

In its original sense, rent seeking is the act of gaining partial ownership of land in order to gain control of a part of its production.

In government it is the act of gaining privileges, redistribution or partial monopolies.

In its broadest sense it is the act of obtaining some sort if claim on the productivity of others rather than producing something ones self, or through voluntary exchange.

We all seek rents. We all seek opportunity for benefitting from either the actions of our organizations, the actions of others, or the grant of state state monopolies. Women seek mates as monetary rents and men to ease the burden of childrearing. We all seek rents. We could argue that rent seeking is the primary incentive for cooperation. Because so few of us are productive enough through direct exchange of our efforts.

The only rent thats totally moral is interest. Interest is free of involuntary transfer.

Interest, in the sense that we rent money to others, contrary to our superstitions, is moral.

Now, It is possible to seek rents via interest. Either through usury or through leveraging the state’s fiat money.

One can collect interest on production. On can collect interest on consumption. Neither of these things is necessary. Both are voluntary. Neither produce negative externalities. They create whole sequences of positive externalities.

But collecting interest on externalities is immoral if it creates externalities that produce involuntary transfers.

Rothbards ghetto ethics actually encourage involuntary transfers. Under the false presumption that the market will solve the problem through competition. But Since all things being equal, profit from externalities is greater than the same loan without externalities, just the opposite is true. The market will encourage externalities.

Also, ghetto ethics assume that judges will not hold people accountable for those externalities and require restitution of them. But they have and will. Because it is consistent with the ethics of property to do so.

To Ethan Walters:
Re: http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/

Welcome to the Uncomfortable Enlightenment (or the Dark Enlightenment).

History, Economics and Anthropology have addressed this issue for decades:
RICHARD DUCHESENE: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization
MARIjA GIMBUTAS: (Everything she has written)
SAMUEL HUNTINGTON: Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress.
KAREN ARMSTRONG: The Great Transformation
(Or See the reading list at: propertarianism.com/menu/reading-list/)

We’ve learned that our enlightenment view of humanity is flawed. The purpose of that vision was to justify the taking of political power from the landed aristocracy and the church, by the emerging middle class of northern european merchants.

That political change may have been necessary in order to create the industrial society that we live in. However, the aristocratic view of man and mankind was accurate. And our ‘enlightened’ view of the perfect natural man if only ‘set free’ is simply an error. Man is an animal that must be trained to participate in one society of another.

Our ‘progressive’ view of humanity is flawed as well. The purpose of that vision was to justify the taking of political power by women and the working classes. The ‘progressive view’ was put forth by Marx and Freud.

But as Friedrich Hayek said, the trend in 20th century political ideology, which was the product of Marx and Freud, will eventually be seen as a new era of mysticism – with no basis in fact. In fact, counter-to-fact.

And that will mirror the warnings of most of the great historians: Toynbee, Gibbon, Braudel, Spengler, Quigley, Durant, Burnham, McNeil, Keegan. That we are unique and unique for circumstantial reasons, and that all of science and reason are the product of our uniqueness.

It has only been since the progressive ideology has become received wisdom due to the ‘revisionist history’ put forth by the last generation of academics, and then followed by the collapse of western economic uniqueness, that we have begun to see scientists, and a new generation of academics begin to undermine that ideological view of man.

Welcome to the “Dark Enlightenment”: We are unequal and Western Civ is Unique and impossible to replicate.

Western civ is the product of individualistic aristocratic egalitarianism caused by indo european battle tactics learned as pastoral radiers. Objectivity, debate and science, and the unique western solution to the problems of politics and market are the product of the need to obtain consent from other peers, rather than obey a chosen leader.

Then, the church created individual property rights, and created the universalism which led to the high trust society when it tried to break up the noble families, outlawed cousin marriage, and gave women property rights. Western high trust is a produced within the Hanjal line and the Lotharingian kingdom at the bottom, and the english and scandinavians at the top.

Manorialism: or the ownership of land, and the need for men to demonstrate their conformity and reliability, as well as participate in military when needed, in order to gain access to land, created the protestant ethic. It encourage the working classes to adopt the ethics of the nobility.

Chivalry provided a means for men regardless of land-holding to demonstrate their socials status through service -which is a unique means of status achievement we thing of as ‘heroism’ that no other society has in such abstract, non-familial terms.

The need to ‘keep the east at bay’ using the germans, and therefore preserving german militarism was a intentional choice of the catholic countries. The western high trust society is the product of this aristocratic egalitarian individualism.

Culture is a set of property definitions, property rights, relying upon myths, traditions and rituals to propagate those rights. It is a set of rules for sending status signals. Status signals are those things that we imitate because they give us better access to mates and opportunities. Property definitions vary from the individual to the commons on one axis, and administration of it from the individual to the state on the other. Cultures matter. Our culture matters most. Cultures are not equal, and ours was (not is) unique.

Northern European (protestant) Americans (at least to some degree) carry this ancient aristocratic tradition with them today. It isn’t well understood that the anglo-celtic and german populations were about equal in america until the progressive strategy to take over ‘white’ america through immigration was put in place in the 60′s. (But that’s why American english speech is flatter than UK english – it’s merged with the flatter german tonal structure.)

Americans did not have an ‘aristocracy’ or a landed church to rebel against. There was no opportunity like in europe to create a popular “US vs Them”. We retained our distaste for government, where the europeans saw themselves as taking over the government from the aristocracy and church. Instead, it became feminists and the lower classes against white protestant male culture. This is one of the reasons why other cultures think our male-female relations are ‘businesslike’ rather than intimate and affectionate.

And quite contrary to the revisionist progressive historians, it was not luck that made we westerners successful in our ‘great divergence’. The west was a poorer, less numerous people on the edge of the bronze age who used technology, cooperation, speed and strategy to give their inferior numbers the advantage against an east that was always more brutal, totalitarian, numerous and wealthy.

Americans have the lock on the world’s speculative capital, because we are the people least likely to abuse it through various schemes of privatization. In abstract terms, we own the stock market. and the Brits own the Bond market. The brits lend and the americans risk. You can trust an english speaker or one of the varieties of german speaker with your money. But you pretty much can’t trust anyone else in the world. And that is a cultural value that runs back 4500 years.

We westerners apologize for our conquest and colonialism, but we have spent the past five hundred years dragging humanity out of ignorance, mysticism, totalitarianism and dirt-scratching crushing poverty, hunger and disease. We should not feel guilty for it. We should instead, require others thank us for it. For while we did it sloppily at times, we did it none the less.

(In essence, that’s the Dark Enlightenment philosophy.)