Ayn Rand, Aleister Crowley and Anarchism

First, it is best with these three in the title to explain some common misunderstandings:

Ayn Rand was not an advocate for selfishness in the way that term is normally used. Selfishness normally implies self-obsession and a disregard for other people. Diametrically opposed, Ayn Rand's conception is that of self love as a means to aid them.

Aleister Crowley was not a Satanist. Never once was he involved in anything relating to it. He was denounced "the wickedest man in the world" for being an individualist social critic. As I and many others are that as well, it is essentially impossible for me to sympathize with the claim.

Anarchists do not universally ascribe to the belief that:
A) Government should be stopped by force
B) No law should exist
I ascribe to neither of these. There are also many varieties of anarchism insofar as it is conceived, and mine is significantly different from most.

One way to interpret the blend of these three is as a suggestion that we should do anything, absolutely anything, and think only about ourselves as we tear apart society. Another is as a suggestion that we should be self-actualized beings in a free world. So you see, judging a book by its cover is for the very shallow-minded.

Interesting, on that note, to ask: why do people judge books by their covers? One suggestion is that people are irrational and impulsive. Another is that they are drawn in by the consumerist dogma of the West. Another still is that all people are brainwashed by advertisement. Perhaps we should consider the fourth: some people are shallow-minded.

These terms need very adequate descriptions: 'irrational' means that man is not out to serve his own interests, which is demonstrably false. 'Drawn in' suggests that an active force is weighing on people to do things, and we'll discuss this possibility momentarily. 'Brainwashed' entails a complete overhaul of logic by way of repeat suggestion, and this is silly. People wouldn't need the assurances of low prices if their heads weren't programmed to respond in that logical manner.

'Drawn in' is an interesting concept. What does it mean? On some level it is akin to brainwashing in this context: displacing logic with repeated suggestions. In this case, it would be the repeated suggestion to consume opposing the logical response of not consuming as much. One reason we don't have to suspect this is that there is already great incentive to collect wealth in human beings, wherever they live and whatever they do. People need food to survive and want comforts to thrive. Everything in the market is geared exactly towards these wants. Whatever it is that people decided they wanted out of life, insofar as that relates to anything that can be sold, the market will produce it under the right conditions. So, to say that people wouldn't consume as much as they do is only to suggest that there isn't so much that can actually be sold that people should actually want. Given what a wide range there is of sellable products, everything from ideas to books to music to food to drugs to housing and so on, not to mention pets and children and influence over other people's actions, that's a hard one to swallow. Consider that what you're reading right now is information being transferred to you - a process that could only take place with a computer you own. If you wanted to take all the other information out there and condense it into just the right sorts that you need, you'd have to pay for the services of people who teach you. If you still wanted to know more, you could talk over ideas with individuals in person, meetings which take place more frequently with the use of a car. To transmit those ideas to others, you may need to pay a publishing company to send a book out into the world, and an editor to make those ideas as succinct as can be. You'd need the services of a movie production company or a radio host if you wanted to distribute the information in other ways, or perhaps the permission of a popular magazine or newspaper owner. To read the words of those in other languages, one will have to pay for the services of a translator. The list goes on, with the point that even sending ideas to each other is a service that can be sold, and insofar as you consider that valuable, as judged by the fact that you are reading my words right now, the market can sell things for people to consume on a very wide scale and to very large degrees absent entirely from the influence of others' dogma.

Keep in mind that to suggest that there are better things that cannot be sold has no influence on this suggestion. Whatever it is that people can buy, they will buy, insofar as that betters themselves, whether or not there also happen to be other things they can't.

This does not suggest that there is no possibility that "consumerist dogma" has an effect on people, but given that the silent world already tells us to consume in more ways than it could ever be said, we have no reason to suspect as much.

If we can safely eliminate other possibilities, I propose that which forms the center of my message today: shallow-mindedness.

First, let's distinguish this from irrationality.

Irrational thinking is hard to define, probably because it doesn't exist. It can be surmised with the theoretical idea that perhaps thoughts form in people's heads and don't actually string together coherently, but that's not something anyone with a brain can easily fathom. Obviously some people are stupid, but that's very different from suggesting they are irrational. The thoughts they do think have the explicit purpose of bettering themselves and their circumstances, or at least those of others, and anything else can't easily be defined as "thinking."

An irrational person might be a child, as far as one is concerned, as a child does not heed the parents' warnings to buckle their seat belts, brush their teeth or go to bed on time. In actuality, that is explained much better by the concept that they do not see the need for these things, and form their own conclusions, rationally, on the basis of what they do know. They know that the seatbelt is constricting, the toothpaste is gross, and that playing games with friends is a lot more fun than going to bed early. So, they're thinking. They just don't have all the information at hand.

People are always making judgements on the basis of certain facts and uncertain possibilities. To say that this is irrational isn't saying much, as it isn't 'ir'-anything. But to point out that the conclusions people draw for the purpose of increasing welfare use reason and are often adequate is something worth giving a name, and we call that rationality.

Shallow-mindedness is something altogether different. It is looking at the mind as having another dimension aside from intelligence, allowing for deepness - a term people already use for describing thoughts that examine the nature of the universe in some form as opposed to thoughts that do not. It is another dimension as it relates to everyone directly, unlike chemistry or physics or even economics. You can know not those sciences and still be fine with the aid of specialists who examine their contents, but philosophical reasoning is something only you can determine for yourself. No one can give you its results. You must take the whole thing or else leave it all behind. This is because, as Socrates put it, knowledge is distinct from right opinion in the sense that it is 'tied down.' One can only have a fleeting truth if they hold it to be true by opinion, but something lasting and meaningful when they draw the conclusion for themselves. Deep people don't have to be good at putting their conclusions into words, because these realizations often come through insight rather than intellect. But three stoners sitting around a fire will awe at the "deep" words produced when they know that someone has blended his insight with the ability to phrase it.

Really, this is the other dimension we're talking about: insight. It's a dimension of the mind because it is in the nature of the mind, just as intelligence. When one proposes an idea, his ability to relate it to what he considers reality can be described as his intelligence, whilst the accuracy of his perception as to what reality is can be regarded as his insight.

A person can be both rational and shallow. A claim I make here is that all people are rational (except for infants and the mentally handicapped). A person can be both intelligent and shallow, though not really deep and stupid, as insight usually reveals that which allows one to increase their mental capacity. An example of this would be the realization that worries are baseless and acceptance is key, allowing one to refocus their energies on schoolwork and study whilst clearing their mind of wasteful thinking and by so doing become smarter in some way.

Intelligence and smartness differ in some ways, according to how they are defined. Including information held in smartness, while intelligence usually refers to something like processing power and analytical reasoning, makes a stark difference. Either way, it's baseless to call deep people stupid, whoever they are, as insights allow one to restructure their mind in a way that allows it to process more quickly as well as store and acquire more information by means of proper action.

It is key to become deep. Judging a book by its cover will be used here as a prime example. Simply put, when a man is concerned only with entertainment, he will successfully accomplish his goal by confirming that a book has warriors and cyclopses. But if he acknowledges other factors that contribute to his happiness, such as lessons learned and characters with which he sympathizes, the book takes on new meaning and he sets new standards for his books, which go beyond that which he can test by but a glimpse at the cover. These new benefits are usually stronger than the entertainment factor, on top of being more lasting, and are held by everyone in some form, but usually disregarded as irrelevant by-products that cannot be chosen or determined beforehand. Becoming deep means acknowledging these benefits as real, and more real than mindless entertainment, as well as being things that can be willed into one's life.

Castle in the Sky is a movie by Hayao Miyazaki, creator of Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro and many others. His movie influenced me in profound ways, and I was pretty sure it would because so many of his others have done the same. In it, general Muoro is a stalwart, stout man whose goal is to direct an Army and push his forces to victory against impossible odds. He relies on his machine - the airship Goliath - to defeat even the most terrible of robotic enemies. His courage marked me. He lost, and still won. He was angry and fierce, and yet his actions were purposed. Much of the way a character marks you can't be described, or requires incredible detail and a mastery of words. I can tell you one thing: it is the man who fights in the end like he fought at the start that has a part of my heart.

A couple scenes in particular of Muoro stand out to me in a memory that functions as easily as a shattered vase. Memorizing is ineffective for me because it is rare for me to remember things, but useful in the sense that I keep the gold and leave the rest behind, sifting through it. When the general shoots at an advanced hologram of his enemy - a rival who betrayed him and took control of the most powerful city in the sky - Muoro represents courage against the unknown. When all that is around him crumbles into a sea of mysterious magic, he fights as though nothing had changed. He intimidates the enemy who outperforms him on a transcendental level, as only the bravest in life can do.

In the scene where he meets the enemy for the first time, a robot with lasers and wings and metal unmatched, the general holds his ground. He utilizes every last defense with the awareness that his technology is capable under his guidance of destroying the unknown. Muoro represents the knowledge that all the mysteriousness of the world is measurable. That even the most fierce of enemies in the most strange of scenarios is conquerable. That the unknown is known.

Something critical to the understanding of the universe is that any truly unknowns negate all knowledge. If one thing had properties that were entirely unknown to a mind, the mind would know nothing, as these properties could always contradict others. Thus, by knowing anything, we establish certain truths about everything, even if limited only to the fact that everything co-exists and so is not contradictory to the things we know. This can be expanded, however, to something much larger. If a thing is unknown, there are no knowns, and, thus, we know everything if we know anything.

This is contrary to basic intuition and the process of reasoning, as one will see a circle and know only, about all other things, that they do not occupy the same space. However, if there remained properties of those other things that were unknown, those would be things themselves, which cannot be truly unknown lest the circle is not known either. The argument can be presented simply: known is defined as 'that which cannot be contradicted,' unknown is defined as 'that about which nothing is known;' thus, an unknown may contradict anything, meaning that when one has an unknown, he cannot know. Where this argument leads is too deep and involved for this post, but it is meant to illustrate a simple point: our knowledge is something special. Special in the sense that it cannot be understood by us, nor can it be explained using the language we possess. However, it implies something grand about our capabilities and information. This is most easily explained - as the information is seemingly utilized in a functional manner - as that which we attain from a source of all knowledge, of which we are a part. Courage stems from this understanding, and as unintellectual as it by definition is, it is that which one attains through that other dimension of the mind entirely, that insight that allows us to grow in more ways than the mind has the capability to fathom. Quixotic as that is, it is the truth.

How do we become deep?

The surest way to attain deepness is to believe it exists. One of the shallowest conclusions a shallow person can draw is that they cannot go any deeper or that there is nowhere deeper to go. An easy examination of the power of our minds and the mysteriousness of the universe when examined even at rudimentary levels dispels this, but many are not even willing to do as much. Philosophy holds an important place in the mind of every man, and few are willing to take the call.

When one takes the call, certain things become apparent. The nature of knowledge becomes a question, and what knowledge one holds an equally important one. Fundamental knowledge becomes a curious matter. Action and whether or not one is free to do as he likes become topics of inquiry. One's purpose is revealed. And, above all, one accepts a mind as something that is to some degree confusing.

Purpose amounts to doing what you will. "Do what thou wilt," as Aleister Crowley wrote, he claiming to have interpreted it from an angel, much as any religion creator. Though that he claims merely to have heard this voice from inside and written it down as something divine is not unusual to many, and makes perfect sense with the acknowledgement that the divine is connected to us and influences our thoughts. Our understanding of the statement that this being was named "Aiwass" and was a "being" can be explained more acutely by negative theology, which is to say, an acceptance of the divine as being beyond our description, and Crowley's explanation as a sort of 'imperfect reconstruction.'

The next way to become deeper is to realize your own potential. One of the best ways to do start this is to love yourself. People who hate themselves are guaranteed stunted progress in favor of getting by with an appeal to those things which stimulate them in the most basic way possible. In short, inward reflection is one's only tool to examine the mind in all its splendor, and self-haters wish not to think about themselves, which is clearly required.

Becoming deep allows us to find the role God has in store for each of us. Then, by will, you do that. All of the benefits are aligned exactly with the oughts, and all of the oughts are aligned exactly with one's actions. Because God wants you to be free, the only way you can fail is by imprisoning yourself: ethical statements will remain aligned with your actions, but your heart will sink in your chest. You will feel somehow unfit for the actions you make, even though you are, and even though what you do is what you're supposed to be doing. This is all the case until your mind comes to the realization, through understanding reality, that your actions are good, allowing the blanket of faith to lay over those actions whose purpose you cannot glean; a faith held by the continual finding of goodness in your actions when you examine them on deeper levels, and by the very fact that by finding goodness, hidden, in many actions you can conclude that goodness lies somewhere in all of them - in the same way that scientists conclude that gravity is everywhere as a result of many experiments that successfully demonstrate its existence in many regions and over many times - despite the break from logic, as defined by some, that is required to make those conclusions.

Ayn Rand points out something rather extraordinary about insight: that men utilize it individually. Undertakings in business, philosophy and art are solely inspired by the mind of an individual. Theoretical worlds in which the collective of man decides what is art, what is good and what is bad become subject to the lowest common denominator: the intellect of the unspecialized majority. If art is not based on individual appeal, but that which the government, democratically elected, purchases for its shoddy museums, we get: "abstract" - that which offends no one, God forbid someone sues, because it is not actually art (a milder position being that, at least, other art forms are underproduced). If the laws of a country are determined in this way, we get "clean air act," because no one wants "dirty air" - that the individual is willing to pay for an optimal level of pollution is out of the question. More importantly, laws become subject to the general opinion. I differ from Ayn Rand here, but hold resolutely to the claim that law should be a competitive product, sold on the marketplace, such that every man could suit his own needs, rather than have the "needs" of others - anything they can get away with as they aren't paying the cost - forced upon him.

What this amounts to is the claim that people who are insightful and intelligent are more inclined to certain preferences differing from those had by those who are shallow and/or stupid. In combination with differences in preference had for totally unrelated reasons concerning products (flavor preference, color preference, means of entertainment preference (in part), style preference, house preference, location preference, legal preference, etc.) of various sorts, individual desire differs starkly from one human being to the next, and declarations of needs by the collective of man will always be insufficient.

Let's cut to the chase with Anarchism.

Anarcho-Capitalism is:
A) One prediction of Anarchism
B) Entirely unrelated to which laws are beneficial and which laws are not

The second is usually misunderstood. Libertarianism correlates with Anarcho-Capitalism, but is an entirely different animal. As Anarcho-Capitalist economist (son of Milton Friedman) David Friedman describes: whether or not Anarcho-Capitalism leads to a libertarian society "remains to be proven." It is libertarian in the sense that government is abolished, but not necessarily so in the sense that laws produced by the market would be any less restricting than those produced by the government. We can predict as much given our circumstances, but by no means is Anarcho-Capitalism defined this way.

Anarcho-Capitalism is the suggestion that law - a product - be produced by the market. The advantage is that the costs and benefits of law would be directly tied to the material loss or gain of the territorial owner who instates them. This is a fundamental economic principle: that when benefits and costs are tied to an individual, he will produce the optimal result as he produces the optimal result for himself.

Again, this is not libertarian necessarily. If some laws are good, those laws will be produced. If other laws are bad, they will not be produced. As David Friedman puts it: "if the value of a law to its supporters is less than its cost to its victims, that law...will not survive in an anarcho-capitalist society."

A government run by politicians is subject to their individual desires. Whether that be to make their mark in history, obtain good press, be loved by the people, be as famous as possible, or make money by bribes (which come in a thousand different flavors), they will act in a way that is disconnected entirely from the interests of the people they rule. The economy goes down, they place the blame elsewhere. The economy goes up, the praise themselves. The war ends, they praise themselves. The war begins, they justify its necessity. The money supply heavily increases without a corresponding rise in wealth, resulting in detrimental inflation - don't worry about that. The government has its reasons.

Never once do they put their money where their mouth is.

The market is just the opposite. When a business goes sour, its owner pays the price. Bad luck is tough luck - and there's nothing to hide behind when they're to blame. Price is too high? Business is shoddy? Welcome to a life with no customers. What they want - the people - is what you must provide, or you will fail. That means if Joe wants 'x' and Jonny wants 'y', there will be multiple businesses producing both - well. This is because there's money to be had, that the business owner makes himself, for providing what others want.

Economists today debate about all kinds of things from minimum wage laws to tariffs to rent control (On the latter two there is widespread agreement in favor of their abolishment, while the former is something for which there are mixed opinions). As a libertarian, I'd say odds are good that all three are detrimental. Minimum wage laws prevent mutually-beneficial exchanges for jobs of a lower value, eliminating potential workers from those jobs and the products they would produce (which is why minimum wage is strongly linked to unemployment); tariffs reduce competition from overseas producers and allow prices to remain artificially high in nations that produce certain products more expensively, causing a misallocation of labor away from its most profitable uses (think grapes grown in land A, where people more easily grow bananas, and bananas grown in land B, where people more easily grow grapes - because buying grapes in land A from those who produce it cheaply in land B comes with a tax that makes it more expensive still than buying those grapes from land A grape growers, and the same with bananas); rent control creates a shortage of rented housing as the demand for the product rises with a lower price whilst the supply shrinks for the same reason, meaning that people are left homeless. But none of that has to do with anarcho-capitalism. Some rules will make a region a more desirable place in which to live, meaning the owner can raise his prices whilst the masses are pleased, and other rules will have the opposite effect - a team of specialists, with the incentive to figure out which rules are which, will decide properly.

Let's sketch out a possible Anarcho-Capitalist society to make sense of this:

Simply put, imagine smaller regions than nations owned by corporations. The corporation in each region establishes a price for purchasing a home in its region, and establishes a contract for living there, amounting to "abide by these rules, or we will do this."

It's that simple. And imagining that inter-regional law wouldn't be any easier than international law is useless. Nations have to make deals without any conception of the cost, in a way that appeals to the public and in a way that makes history. Those are their incentives. If they don't pan out, it's war. Regions would deal peacefully - any two fighting being extremely detrimental to both in the face of competitors - and agree easily on a cost, a single cost, money, no dick-measuring required, for any legal necessity.

If a 20-year-old can conceive a version of anarchism that functions better than government, whether or not you hop on board, have the foresight to imagine the value of the version made by hundreds of thousands of incentivized professionals when push comes to shove.

The government can be likened to a giant beast that grows larger to a point of being unstoppable. As it is still growing to that point, it must cloud the minds of those who may take action against it and make them docile. Control the media, feed the intellectuals with subsidies, make big speeches, pretend to be enlightened, claim that God Himself is your sanctioning force. People could pledge allegiance to your flag before they know what it represents, for example. As it amounts to, simply, people don't care to learn about politics or the alternative to government because they aren't personally incentivized to do so. The anarcho-capitalist holds maybe one spot on the ballot and you've never heard of him, and even if he does and you did, he won't win. Anyone you vote for, big or small, isn't going to win by one vote, anyway, so your political misunderstanding makes no difference to you. Welcome to the life of the imprisoned - both in mind and body.

If education wasn't public and was allowed to operate in the marketplace, if information transfer expanded as a result of technological progress through economic increase and if products all over the world became cheaper as people became richer, we'd have peace on top of easier deepness.

On the (Inevitable) Failures of Government

This post is a formal response to Benjamin Greschler's "Middle Ground" blog - middlegroundblog.blogspot.com. I'd encourage you to follow the link and read what he has to say, though I'll be frequently referring to the text in my critique.

Ben starts, after a quick analysis of the Reagan administration, with:

"In turn, we lost a government that worked for the people and gained a government that simply worked for profit."

Tell me, when has a government, in the history of the world, ever been truly - in anything other than rhetoric - "for the people?" Or, for that matter, "for profit?" Government actors seek to stay popular and in office, and if that means pretending to help, that's a very different thing than the altruistic motive so ascribed.

Public choice theory - applying economics to government - making the same assumptions about people in office as to people outside of it - that they're self-interested and limited, rather than all-knowing white knights - has been so immensely accurate a tool for predicting government action that it cannot be denied. We don't have tariffs on steel because some virtuous, enlightened group of people sat around a table and decided it was "for the people." We have them - to the detriment of the entire industry and market - because somebody in some very large steel company paid a very large sum of money or otherwise complained to the government. This is common knowledge. We don't have agricultural subsidies and tariffs on sugar because there's some economic externality that the government is cleverly accounting for - we have them, and for no good reason - it is perhaps the single most universally-agreeable waste among all economists, from Krugman to Rothbard - because the firms of that industry are willing to stick their boots in the hind of politicians to get what they want; and the dispersed harm inspires not one regular old soul - who pays an extra .50 for his soda to get that American corn syrup over cheaper Brazilian sugar - to stop them.

There is not one solution for this problem. It will plague us until the government is gone.

He later acknowledges:

"The lobbyists endorsed their candidates through large donations, and in turn, when they were in office, they repaid them through legislation that benefited them and continued turning in profits."

Bingo. Welcome to how the government is and has always been working. This is the vicious government process that cannot be stopped - interest groups with concentrated wealth will inevitably overrule the interests of society at large through the political arm - unless we cut it off. But there's no pretending that this is some newfound happenstance thanks to Reagan. This is always and forever, amen.

"So while it benefits the average American and world citizen to support research into alternative energies that can be sustainable and efficient, our country at least is brought down by these lobbyists who cap our knowledge for their profit. While these lobbyists remain in charge of our government, there is little doubt that our system will remain as it has, for it isn’t in the benefit of those with the lobbying power to change the system at all."

Like the words came right out of my mouth - but when is it ever not like this?

"The government (in turn, us as a nation) can’t afford to leave the market to its own devices like they have the last 40 years"

The market was left to its own devices? looks left, looks right Where?

"But what line should they draw? Where should they create legislation, and where should they let the market work its usually effective devices? Well, while just about every economist has a different perspective about that"

The government does not care what the economists think. What line they should draw, and what line they will draw are forever separate things. The former is not even worth our consideration - it will never ever manifest. The only thing the government should is be very not there.

"there are two places that I would argue require the attention of the government. I’ll start off with the need for price of a product to factor in larger amounts of costs that are currently being ignored. When a tree is chopped down and sold, the person who chops down the tree doesn’t charge for the damage to the ecosystem that the lost tree influences. In large part that is because the damage has no visible effect on our lives. . . So the market would naturally not factor this into a price, as it has no short-term impact."

Again, this is the type of scalpel-reasoning that the government is entirely unresponsive to. The options are: government, and no government - give a bunch of guys guns, badges and ultimate uncheckable authority, or don't. There is no "government that Ben directs" option. There is no "government that is kind, patient and caring for the needs of the forest" option.

Fortunately, the problem is solvable through market forces, whose adequacy betrays the shortsightedness Ben ascribes. The market doesn't fail to account for the ecosystem damage of felling trees because it has 'no short-term impact' and there is no 'visible effect on our lives' - it's just because there is barely any impact to that particular lumberjack. He doesn't care about our lives - he cares about his life. Externalities 101. You solve an externality with law, that's true - but that law can come from the private sector, and doesn't (evidently) come from the government.

Make the forest someone's property, make them care about that ecosystem, and presto - externality abolished. Now, he's not going to care specially for the critters or the tree-spirits, but he's going to care about its value (yes, long-term - when it's no longer his it's because he sold it) to human beings, which may include those things.

"it would be difficult to even quantify a price that the chopping of a tree had for the ecosystem, especially if you had to calculate the future cost to the ecosystem. It was impossible to put a number on that."

It is difficult, but it is possible. That's what makes the market so complicated, and the government such an abominable substitute.

"The second role government should play in our economy is another controversial one, but in my opinion more immediately important, being the redistribution of wealth. The rich are enjoying a period of wealth unlike what has ever been seen or conceived, and the poor and unfortunate will only continue to be worse off without policies that redistribute wealth back into their hands"

Once again, to beat a dead horse, Benjamin Greschler does not decide where the government distributes wealth. The people who do decide that are not white knights, nor can we ever count on them to be as such. The government hands tax breaks to people who lobby, subsidies people who lobby, tariffs against competitors in favor of firms that lobby, and gives really, really awful schools to poor people. If you can't afford servants to be in bed with politicians, and you're simultaneously part of an income group vastly outnumbered by middle-class voters, this system dooms you to the stick's short end.

What the poor need, who spend a much larger percentage of their money on food and gasoline, who are constantly out of work, is no more food and gas tax, and no more minimum wage. Is everyone in the room aware that excluding the possibility of a voluntary transaction between a worker of low skill and his employer makes both of them worse off?

I hope so.

Why do we have minimum wage laws? Why were they originally conceived? Because people with jobs don't like competing with people willing to work for less, so they kick the government. Plain and simple. And if all you can do is work for less on your journey up the corporate ladder - guess you're not working! Better not educate yourself among your terrible public school options either, since you need to get on the job right away to get anything at all.

But you can't live on minimum wage or less! I'm sorry, did you know that people lived 200 years ago? Like, before the hydraulic press? If America wants to build a damn wooden shack and there's someone willing to buy it, it's done. The reason you don't see them is because there's not even a market for them. The "living cost" of society is itself conceived by the richness of society - it costs that much to live here because there does not even exist a substantial market of people poorer. Why does that market not exist? Why is everyone richer than they were? Capitalism. Face it or squint your eyes at history, on pain of your intellectual integrity.

What's more, this is entirely predictable by economic theory. Why do the rich get richer and the poor get richer when the government doesn't stick a gun in the way? Because competition demands that an increased output of labor be accompanied by an increased wage, which wage is constantly itself improved by the profit-driven advances in technology that increased the labor output, vastly multiplying its value. 

All of this is digression, of course, since the government, one way or another, is not helping the poor as Ben proposes. You may stick up for that government or see it gone - there is no third route.

Let me explain that another way: suppose Ben Greschler becomes president someday. Ben only wins by signing his soul to the will of a forever uninformed public, and he only stays by confirming that signature, and he only gets anything done by acting the same as everyone else with that signature, and he only gets favorable press by scribbling that signature onto everything he writes. His predecessor will have done the same, and he will be predecessor to one who does the same. The institution excludes all other possibilities - which is why we dismantle the institution.

Why is the public forever uninformed? For the basic reason that none has incentive to become informed! They get one vote to make one say that is guaranteed to have no effect on the ultimate outcome. It is, from the cost-benefit perspective of any regular Joe, a total waste of time. If economics predicts anything, it is that Democracy is total idiocy.

"In the end, our actions and will to change as a nation will boil down to if we can represent more than the lobbyists"

And in the end, you lose.

Anarchy, please and thanks.

A Plea to Libertarians

I speak to you as a fellow Libertarian.

It is the natural instinct of the Libertarian to announce that he has the greatest features of "both sides." From the fascist Republicans he takes the economic freedom, and from the socialist Democrats he takes the social freedom. The result is a kind of man who hates the government and wants nothing to do with the IRS, social security, the military, nor food stamps.

The first problem with this is that the Republicans and Democrats don't actually sponsor either of what has just been suggested. Not in actuality. You can find fringe-members of each party, be it Ron Paul or the Democrat-equivalent, but the party itself, and the units they elect, are much closer to one another than they are to either of the ideals expressed. Economic and social freedom - freedom - is lost to the two-party system.

The second problem is much more complex, and regards how one defines "freedom." Freedom is a buzzword that most are inclined to support, but it doesn't so easily stand behind a single platform in the face of the interpretations of many people. Right-libertarians, like myself, are captialists. That means property establishment, and that means guns and borders. That means: cross that line and you're dead. Not exactly "free." But freedom is denied to man in its perfect form, so saith these types. The right-libertarians posit that a world without property is less free than a world with it, because property establishes a space in which you may act freely, where propertylessness produces only chaos. A world where every man has his own land is a world that utilizes that land the best, and also where people can freely pursue their own interests, so saith we. But that's a very different statement than "social freedom," or "economic freedom," the latter of which simply means adhering to the exclusive ownership rights of property.

I have been, at one point in my life, drawn away from right-libertarianism for this the property issue. It is hard to support property based largely on its inequitable distribution and exclusive nature. My plea is that libertarians come back to the old ways of natural rights, and forget the argument of establishing property on the basis of consequentialist jabber.

Natural rights are hard things to support. How could it be that what matters more than the outcome is... anything? Don't the ends justify the means? - it is what we're looking at after all, what we're considering. To these I say, yes - I hold no contention. There is no problem with pursuing the best ends, but we must acknowledge that these ends can only be pursued in the first place, insofar as those ends are good, by establishing property rights. Whatever value a man has and wishes to pursue, whatever good value - be it peace, love, friendship - these values are lost automatically in a world ravaged by conflict. Conflict-avoidance is a goal that comes temporally prior to the pursuing of ends, thereby establishing it as an a priori ethic. Property rights are the means by which conflict is avoided. It is initially appropriated by homesteading - the act of utilizing virgin resources - because the goal of land, for man, is to be utilized, and once utilized there is no sense in the removal of that title for the sake of another. Moreover, such 'first come, first served' with regard to the unutilized world is natural - it is what any man would expect, and so establishes itself as a Schelling point - a thing that man will respect on the basis of a mutually-agreeable point in the vast land of unagreeable ones.

To establish libertarianism on this basis is an inherently more powerful argument. It side-steps the values debated by the consequentialists by imposing a natural law that supersedes them. Its support necessitates the libertarian code and its many extensions, where the consequentialist would have to painstakingly enumerate. None of this is to say that a consequentialist argument doesn't serve the libertarian well - indeed, supporting the use of property rights as a means of conflict-avoidance would need to also suggest that values could and would be pursued in a state of peace, and in this avenue such arguments are welcome. But to stand on these alone is to lose a powerful advantage.

Changes, changes

What does one learn from accepting his ignorance? Sometimes, he shouldn't be so opinionated.

Allow me to explain my (former) attraction to left-anarchism: if God can direct people through their hearts, could he not make a society of people who love each other unceasingly? The economic calculation problem is gone in their socialist commune, because God calculates for them, and they obey. God will tell them, and they should be aware of those who do not fit in the commune - more importantly, no one not fit for it would bother to join, believing what everyone else believes about left-anarchy: it's chaos. One could contend that if the society runs smoothly it will then attract the thieves and the murderers, but surely God could save the commune, or at least point out the wicked.

Furthermore - apparent to those who read last post's link by Kropotkin - there's a deep and fulfilling sense of a world without poor. A world where the science of man applies to all men, a world where no one goes hungry, a world where no one is devoid of a chance; surely in such an atmosphere - not to mention one endowed by the Supreme Creator - the hearts of men could change for the better, and the world could live in peace.

Now let me explain why I think that's wrong.

First, one's connection to God through the subjective - though the ultimate provider of truth - is certainly imperfect, and this I've come to more clearly in my recent experience than ever before. Man can try, he can align his long-term path with God, but he remains of the flesh, remains totally imperfect. With imperfection comes error, and with error comes, well, in a lawless society, chaos. This, I believe, is the function of church - to provide a standard for men to live their lives; and I believe, further, I know, that God endows the religious leaders of Earth, who He surely chose by hand - the great ones - with the knowledge to govern the faithful under their direction. But even with this tool - who many, even the religious, choose themselves to ignore (and who can doubt the left-anarchists, of all people, are inclined to disrespect the authority of organized religion?) - we still are of the flesh.

It seems to me that I know what's wrong for politics - I know many things that are wrong - but that I can't necessarily pinpoint what's best. A totalitarian dictatorship is contrary to the will of God - contrary to the free establishment of His churches, and contrary to the use of our God-given agency. Man, under government, must be allowed to choose wrong, and who can doubt that the leaders of government are fallible? Surely we can try, by democracy, to elect those rulers whose countenance and manner appeals to the ethical light within us, but let us never allow them the extreme power of tyranny over our very lives - for what then when they stray? Checks and balances on the authority of mankind - which authority must be restricted in extent to those duties that allow us, protected by law, to lead good, productive lives - is clearly essential for a bright future for the nations of Earth.

The tyrants - the obviously-power-hungry and ruthless dictators - I, perhaps peacefully, oppose. But the authority placed by God and democracy of man, whose power is restricted for allowing freedom in a broad sense, is an authority I humbly respect. Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Jill Stein have various outlooks on the best option for our country, but despite my personal preference for perhaps a candidate like Doctor Paul or the Green Party over the seemingly more violent Romney and Obama, all of these leaders share a general respect for the freedom of the country, and under the rule of various men and women like them, we've undoubtedly prospered. Is our nation perfect? By a fair margin, no. Are there people in need of assistance - public or otherwise? Certainly, yes. Is our foreign policy exactly in line with what might strike one as respectful? Definitely not. But we are all of the flesh and sculpted from a coarse clay; sometimes keeping it all together is the best for which one can ask.

So I'd consider myself moderate. Though decidedly from an American politics perspective.

Starting Over

In some sense, the title of this blog has lost its meaning; in some sense, it will take on more meaning than ever before - but hold those thoughts.

What is truth? This is the question all must answer, but because it answers the more relevant question - the only relevant question - what should I do?

Life is complicated and mysterious; no matter where you look, the appraisal of one opinion is coupled by its exact antithesis, and if you don't see it, it's because you haven't found it - that it's there all the same is what brings the mystery. How can one mediate the opinions of all people, the many "facts" that support them, when one hardly has the reasoning to choose what to do with his or her own life? Furthermore, how could one begin to mediate the opinions that people have yet to find?

As I've said here before, logic is to be built in chains - you start from assumptions and work to conclusions; so obvious, so overlooked. But the reason to back the logic you have is forever insufficient - how can you back the conclusion when you can never back the assumption, which, itself, always assumes something else?

You have to work back to an axiom: a certain truth; there only can you start and work forward and know the conclusion. People accept many things as axioms: one's own existence, the existence of others perhaps, existence itself - but they have no reason. Ask them how they know, and they are ultimately silent.

Rain falls. How do you know? Gravity. How do you know? I feel it. How do you know? ...

But can one really, honestly deny that they know? that they know something? and therein lies the paradox; people and animals alike - creatures - have knowledge where they shouldn't. Each creature accepts things he or she can't explain, and knows them to be true; you know, for example, that at this precise moment in time you are at your computer, you are in your body, you are; there is no reason why you know, in any traditional sense of "reason"; you know because you feel it, and you're right, and you feel that you're right, and nothing more can be said; this is what is meant by "truth is subjectivity": you, yourself, are aware of knowledge, but you can't explain it to others, because you can't even explain it to yourself.

You're a free person; this too you know. The choices you make come down to you, and that includes what you believe, even if that means believing something you know - on the deepest level - isn't true.

But can you believe you know nothing? How could you? For would not this, itself, be something you would know? The very fact that you think about your insufficiency - that you are aware of your thinking - is knowledge.

So you know. You know that you know, and, hopefully, you believe it. Then comes the question: how could you? How could you know what you can't explain - by feeling? How could this feeling be, and how could you know it? And if not by your own creation, and surely you are conscious that you did not create it, then how are they made? Where do they come from? How do you have them?

There is only one answer that satisfies these questions: God.

Only a being that knew everything, whose knowledge was without unknowns, could possibly be the mediator - the determiner and creator - of truth, and likewise the truth that we have. There is no alternative - it is as sure as yourself, and only by denying your own sureness could you deny that He has granted it.

You could say that we have the knowledge and merely can't explain why we have it, that we have it, but don't know why; then I assure you, what you will find, in searching yourself, is that you do know why; as surely as you know anything, you know God, and that He loves you, and that He has a plan for you, and you have but merely to ask. This I have found, this many have found, this you can find.

But allow me to dismiss readily another easily concluded alternative - that the knowledge comes by virtue of "yourself." First, what is you? Allow me to propose: a consciousness. Not a mind, not even a soul, both of which you have, as surely as you think and act, and both of which you are conscious, but surely what you are is conscious - it is your base "act"; it is the only thing you do not "have" and are.

If you are conscious, and are conscious of your knowledge, but not of why you have it, can you not question your knowledge? Can you - the only and ultimate in this alternative - not dismiss it? Can you - the chooser, by virtue of the soul you also know - not know something different? You are a free being, yet funneled into but one knowledge - a knowledge independent of yourself. Your choice is that knowledge or none at all, but you cannot create another.

To reason alone, I have proved not a thing, nor ever can. Only by acknowledging knowledge independent of understanding can one choose to understand, for only by accepting my axiom from the knowledge in themselves - the knowledge I cannot give - can they also know the conclusions of my reason.

Have you ever had a train of thought where you accept certain conclusions but they feel wrong? A feeling that's caused you to reexamine and reconsider until it feels right? This occurs because of the beliefs you hold that lead you to one conclusion or another; the beliefs not always at the front of your mind, but ingrained there by choice.

By choice - have I not contradicted my earlier statement? No, for we are funneled into one knowledge, but not into one belief, and as truth is a point and untruth another, we can choose either.

How then is one to separate those beliefs he knows from the ones he holds and does not know?

Find the axiom. Or, rather, the axioms. Work the argument backward with the reason you have, and study the starting points out in your mind. Do you know them? You will know. If you struggle, God's at the door.

God has rooted the same axioms in each of our minds, it is what makes us human. Fortunately, many of these axioms are in plain sight - arguments can go on with basic assumptions like the existence of people and the existence of things, else where could we go!? Less fortunately, many of them are not. The crowd of reason has chosen to accept only the easiest axioms, and to deny all else.

Examine the question from a reasonable perspective: does God live? Well let's start with some axioms, note that one of them isn't God. ...

Then that's the argument! Said and done!

What's curious is where that argument tends to go, since it does go further, without actual purpose. It's usually something like "God isn't the simplest explanation"; "we should assume only the axioms we have"; "we cannot reason past our axioms." ...It's all superfluous! It's the same statement, that the arguer does not know God, in as many ways as one could possibly say it! That they even assume something else, like an objective reality and universe, in either a blatant contradiction - as there is no reason for these either - or else not, but only by virtue of the fact that they have accepted these, but not God, as axioms!; how fortunate they have none to argue with, as the faithful accept these too; how fortunate there stands no opposition, as the faithful do not oppose; how fortunate to live in a world you create, then marvel at your ability to say nothing at all.

Except it isn't really fortunate. It's miserable.

Do I weep at the unknowing of my brothers and sisters? Constantly. But it is a joyous weep, just as theirs is a miserable pleasure. I see them, I love them, and I need to save them, but I know that they can only save themselves; I know that I can show them the door, but that they must open it; I marvel at my purpose, I love it, but I love the possible conclusions more than I even fathom. It's as though the most beautiful damsel stood in front of me behind a layer of fog; I know she's there, but I can't see her; I know she is beautiful beyond a beauty I can imagine - a thing unthinkable to know; I follow her, knowing, inexplicably, the steps she takes; I imagine her to the best of my ever limited ability, and keep my eyes on a prize that I know is ever greater. How then can I stray?

The faithful's is a lonely road, yet perfectly accompanied. In the face of the crowd, it is madness - neither understood nor accepted; in the face of the faithful, it is God - accepted, but still never understood; but in the face of God, it is true love - acceptance and understanding - and is not His love ever greater? I love God, even as I do not understand Him, by His own grace; He makes Himself personable, He makes Himself the most personable, even as he is the least; I awe at His condescension.

So it is not lonely, but it could be. It, like all, is by choice - a chosen perspective.

Ah, but I slow myself - what's that? All is by choice?

"I choose heaven, yet here I am!" you retort.

Consider: can you choose to be at the grocery store? Try it. Be there. You cannot do it directly - that is, within your repertoire of options, there is no "be at store"; but you can do it indirectly - by taking each necessary step. So it is with heaven.

What necessitates the distinction between direct and indirect choice? Why are some choices mine to make in the moment, and others mine to delay? I will tell you: insufficiency. God has placed you in an arbitrary, for He can give you knowledge, but only as you gain experience, which He cannot give you. The arbitrary is, however, an arbitrary only by choice; one that we choose out of incapability to choose otherwise; it is the existence one is forced to perceive in inaction, and better he perceive, to gain experience, and thus knowledge from God, than not perceive, and remain without capability to progress. But it bends to our will, and we can even escape it - each of us, in either case, to varying degrees. When the boy daydreams in class with his eyes on the ceiling, he perceives not the arbitrary - not that existence in which he is otherwise forced - but the world he chooses; does the arbitrary grant a castle, all his to enjoy - and without a mite of physical labor? Does it grant him fair women, loving swaths of people, or sheer enjoyment without flaw? No. He has transcended it.

The "reasonable" man takes a look at this world - the world of his choice - and rejects it. Perhaps out of pride in his ability to conquer the arbitrary on his own - false pride indeed, as there is no such ability; perhaps out of a lack of pride in himself - his true self - to improve his creations, and he can improve them, for is he not of God Himself?

"Sit down! Shut up! Look at the teacher! Do your work!" Slave your life, your energy, your potential, into the finite. 

WHY, I SAY? THERE IS HEAVEN TO BE HAD - MAKE IT YOURS.

Do I say: reject the finite? Do I say: reject its science? No. For we must acknowledge our present weakness, and our current reliance on it. But to need it is not to love it. Need your science, but love your God, for the former is only a means to the latter.

"Get a job! What on Earth do you do with your time? There's always more money to be had and you've got nothing." Progression is confined to the arbitrary and to the finite. Work for the system and lose your soul; you can trade it for the riches you've never had.

REBEL.

Work in it, sure - but only because you have no other choice. Your goal is to make that other choice, and to bring all people - your family - with you. You need only to foster your love in God and you cannot fail, for He is transcendent.

"Science is the answer, really. Too bad you're not intelligent enough to understand it. Trust all these other people - they lead the crowd, and can lead you too. You are nothing but inferior to the other finite creatures; you have no choice but to drag behind on the coattails of your authority and hope for the best.

THE CROWD IS UNTRUTH.

When the way is unsure, and you need an order, there are only two choices: the order of God, and the order of man: be it your government, your boss, your school, your anyone. Good men give advice, and to them you can listen, and from them grow - for as you are confined, by your weakness, to the arbitrary, you must learn within it - from God, and also from people, your family. But if it is good to follow a command, that can be a command of God alone. No man is as God; no man can be superior; he can only pretend, and by so doing become totally miserable. While those at the bottom suffer a real pain under pressure, there is no greater reason to abolish the hierarchy of man than for the sake of those at the top - the ones living in fantasy. God's reality of choice - true freedom - is to them a fantasy, and the fantasy of true joy in the arbitrary - which will never be found - is their reality, for they are deceived by power, which is misery disguised; what a need we have to save them!

We, the lovers, grant greater material care to the poor and oppressed, for in this respect they have the greater need, but by the same token, we must grant the wealthy (and the oppressors) greater spiritual care, for they, likewise, have the greater need in this respect; each is our brother, our sister, whom we love unconditionally. Which is not to say it is truly "unconditional" love, as a thing must have conditions, but that the sole condition - that they feel, and we feel with them in our collective soul, for we know empathy - is eternally in effect; insofar as we do not feel them, we know it is the product of our insufficiency to feel, and that by acting as though we do we draw closer to what we know - we catch glimpse of the damsel, and oh the Joy!

This is how it is with all things - we know, but we doubt what we know by insufficiency. It is only by eliminating the doubt, or by acting in spite of it, that we progress to God.

It should come as no surprise that, in light of these conclusions, which bring me more joy than words can speak, my political and economic views as referenced on this blog have undergone substantial change. Those more familiar with my new position - left-anarchism - may have noticed its theme in some of the preceding paragraphs.

For those who would like to learn more about this philosophy, which will henceforth be discussed here, I invite you to read the article by Peter Kropotkin linked at the bottom of the article (designed for the youthful - at least in heart and mind).

--

"Experience-free" ... what does that mean for an opinion? Originally, it was an acknowledgment of my intellectual standing - I had completed no college, I've (still) been employed to no internships, I haven't written a book or received a degree or won a nifty prize for anything; in the world of the arbitrary - the world of the crowd - these are the things that matter, and I hadn't a thing.

That meaning is gone; I have no desire to gain this sort of "experience," save with exceeding caution.

But then, what is experience, really? It is the path to knowledge - the path that each must take, by themselves, for themselves, such that God can reveal all things and you can know them, even as you doubt them. It is the road we feel and choose that is self-reinforcing, that, when traveling in good courses, breaches the fog; it is the road to a truly beautiful damsel that is not a damsel, but something even greater we cannot imagine; it is the road we walk with a forever-insufficent motivation: a motivation we choose, for the real reward we cannot choose - yet. For it is the road that indirectly chooses it.

In that sense, while it is entirely incorrect to say I'm "experience-free", it's an excellent approximation in comparison to what I have yet to experience. And here I am still giving opinions.

Link

The Dismal Hypothesis

There's a very important question that has remained without answer in contemporary economic/political philosophy since its inception: why is it so underdeveloped?

More specifically, how is it possible that the intellectuals on either side of the spectrum can't find common ground?

In science, arguments are generally short-lived, and resolved. When there's an dispute, it's usually over a relatively minor seeming inconsistency. 

In economics, and in politics, disputes never die.

Perhaps the very simplest way to imagine the context of some of the thoughts of a being with superhuman intelligence is to imagine the conclusions it might draw after having established what is true in regards to economic and political controversy. "Ok, free markets work, now what?" or, for sake of balance, "ok, socialist economies can calculate, now what?" Humanity, even at its highest intellectual level, spends virtually all of its efforts arguing about the undecided basics.

Seemingly, someone of sufficiently high intelligence should be able to resolve the dispute internally, on their own, and start working "higher." Why so little discussion about the "higher?"

There's a few possibilities.

One is that certain traits that happen to correspond to intelligence also happen to deviate one from what are, in reality, truisms about economic and political philosophy. This is possible, perhaps likely, because the conclusions are personal. For example (and I pose this not as a truism, but as an example of what's possible), suppose free market economics really does work. Many of the free market types are usually big on saving money in their personal lives, especially in their later years. Very intelligent people, however, are very likely better off by not saving money at an early age - the age their parents consult them on money-handling practices - because they know, better than the market, that they will be rich in the future. The child, upon realizing this, discounts the parent's advice, and with it discards weight from the conclusion that free market economics works, even though it does.

But can this really account for the whole of it? I pose that virtually *no* discussion is had about anything sufficiently removed from the disputed basics. Perhaps it accounts for some of this lacking, but we need another explanation.

Another is that economic and political philosophy is simply too difficult. Perhaps we don't know enough about one of its core subjects - human behavior being a good candidate - to draw meaningful conclusions with our estimations in any way that accurately depicts reality. I'm inclined to think this is a major contributor (human behavior, indeed, being the mysterious subject).

Another is that people have incentive to lie about the correctness or incorrectness of conclusions in economic and political philosophy. No one benefits by claiming the sun revolves around the Earth (except when they did, namely the Catholic church, and, surprise, they stifled discussion to the contrary), but select farmers and politicians benefit - at the expense of everyone else - from the claim that agricultural subsidies are essential to our society. I think this, too, is a major factor.

Another is that discussions at higher levels *do* go on, but only between select groups. That is, the free marketers discuss with the free marketers, and the socialists with the socialists, because they wish to explore the higher levels outside disputing the basics. There are many possible reasons why we might not hear about these discussions. Higher level conclusions are irrelevant to a public that is undecided on the basics. Half-formulated ideas, given freely to others, may sacrifice one's potential to claim a fully-formulated idea for their own. The founders of higher level conclusions are likely to be much less sure about the truthfulness of those conclusions than of lower level conclusions; if the higher ones happened to be disproved by newfound empirical evidence, the public might discount other conclusions espoused by the same people.

There is another, more dismal possibility.

The Dismal Hypothesis: any mind sufficiently advanced as to consider the implications of economic and political philosophy to a degree sufficiently removed from its basics discovers that life is abhorrent. They discuss it not, because they are immediately driven to kill themselves.

Is the Dismal Hypothesis wrong? Almost certainly. There is no evidence whatsoever that studiers of economic and political philosophy are more likely to commit suicide, as there would need to be; there are no suicide notes of lengthy economic discourse, &c. But was the dismal hypothesis always wrong?

There is a law: the law of mystery minimization. That is, if two things are mysterious, perhaps they have a common source.

It happens there is another mystery that I propose is closely related to this one: the mystery of the wealth creation "hockey stick." It's discussed in a book by economist Dierdre McCloskey, and summarized nicely in a blogpost by my favorite intellectual, son-of-Milton-Friedman, in his recent post: The Puzzle of the Other Hockey Stick.

The basic question concerns the shape of the rate at which humanity produced wealth over the course of its existence. Recently (over the past two centuries), that rate has curved sharply upward. Before then, it remained largely stagnant. So, why was it stagnant?

My answer: The Dismal Hypothesis.

When the political state of society was such that those not born to privilege would live their lives in relative misery - both as compared to us, and, more relevantly, as compared to those born into royalty - perhaps anyone who was inclined to political thinking would discover only that he was damned. He would not aid society toward progression, because hope was nowhere in sight, and people are less willing to aid their ancestors than they are willing to aid themselves. With the death of those who think politically comes also the death of those who "think" in general, and so we lose out on humanity's cream of the crop. As information begins to spread more quickly, it only increases the number who recognize their damnation, and so the typical progress-builds-on-progress becomes counter-acted by a larger and larger portion of thinkers choosing to sleep with the fishes. Thus, hockey stick.

Just a thought I had.

An Addendum to Private Law Creation

I had something of an epiphany the other day, which spawned out of a discussion on externalities; I'm not sure if it's been suggested by an economist already, though in my somewhat-extensive reading of Block, Hoppe, Rothbard, Murphy and Friedman-- likely the five greatest contributors to propertarian anarchist thinking, certainly within both the Austrian and Chicago schools, I've never come across it: that law could persist on private property above and beyond the capabilities of its very owner.

First I'll define a term which is not exactly defined by consensus:

Understanding Anarcho Capitalism: A Simplified Case (Part 3)

If you haven't read it already, here's part two.

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Amendments
Prescript: The author's opinion on the ethical case against government has changed since the construction of the series's first part- although it should be noted that, as an objective description not, per se, of the author's opinions, but of the opinions of Anarcho Capitalists generally, the ethical case portrayed is not an inaccurate representation of relevant and widely-held beliefs. That said, with regard to the NAP, there are at least two major schools of thought within the Anarcho Capitalist community, and being that one of them was omitted- indeed, the one to which the author himself now ascribes- it will be described briefly here, and then annexed to part one. The author keeps in mind that, despite its length, this is intended as a simplified description of complex ideas, which will be tailored to an audience largely unfamiliar with libertarianism as a whole, and Anarcho Capitalism specifically. 

The reader may recall that explained in part one was the Non-Agression Principle (NAP), a central characteristic of the ethical case against government. However, the validity of this claim is dependent on the partisan's acceptance of ethical norms. According to- as Anarcho Capitalist Murray Rothbard once labeled them- "natural rightsers" (himself a natural rightser), it is unethical to violate certain rights- framed in the context of property rights- with which all human beings are naturally endowed. According to the theory- mostly derived from a Lockean interpretation of ethics- people have ownership over themselves, and things that they homestead, i.e., unowned land that they work, or unowned resources that they use- given selective definitions of "work" and "use" upon which we will not elaborate here. By this standard, members of government cannot claim to ethically own a country whose economic elements they themselves did not make productive, and, as no government has ever done so, it is therefore unethical for government to tax (or likewise support itself and exist).

Those who do not ascribe to this theory- that is, the non-natural rightsers- tend to be ethical consequentialists of some form, usually egoist or utilitarian. In either case, these partisans are concerned only with the ultimate effect of a given action on the welfare of people. So, if government "steals", we cannot claim- by these ethics- that it does so in an inherently unethical manner, as it is only unethical if the result, on net, hurts people. Thus, the Anarcho Capitalist consequentialist maintains that government should be disposed of because its actions have a net-negative effect on human welfare. Consequentialists may still maintain a rule-of-thumb closely resembling the NAP, i.e., they may conclude that actions which violate the NAP tend to be unethical. That said, the economic argument against government adequately describes- in and of itself- the entirety of the consequentialist position.
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A continuation of 'Why roles that shouldn't exist shouldn't exist'
Sub-category: Corporate Regulation

We are Not the Government

The president made a largely overlooked statement today that I'd like to shed light on.

"You hear some of these folks: ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government. We can’t do background checks because the government’s going to come take my guns away.’ The government’s us. These officials are elected by you"

Pay attention to one particular sentence, if you will: "The government's us." And the reason he gives? Because we elect the officials. 

Can we not conclude, by his reasoning, that in the case of all democracies "the people are the government?"

The Unpopular, Logical Answer to the Gay Marriage Question

Get government out of the marriage business.

"Equality," as usual, is completely and entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Government sanctioning particular groups of persons as "married" is merely a form of subsidization-- in this case, entitlements for the wedded couple.

If we recognize, as the sensible tend to do, that subsidization in its many forms is merely a reflection of democracy's failures, we can reject it as the appropriate answer. It's pandering to a particular group at the expense of others, and, more importantly, costing wasted resources in the form of government bureaucrats and managers to get an unneeded job accomplished.

While I reject government sanctioning opposite-sex marriages, I would loathe the situation yet further should government *also* sanction same-sex marriages. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Everyone comparing this to the torments of slavery needs to seriously re-think how they approach this issue.

No, I don't think this because the bible told me so.

No, I'm not a homophobe.

It's just not that hard, people.

Global Warming-- The Problem with no Solution?

Firstly, I'm not convinced global warming is an issue. Man-made or not, the evidence seems rather inconclusive that the various impacts of raising Earth's temperature by a few degrees in a hundred years will have a net-negative effect on humanity. Certainly some things would be negative, like rising sea levels and heat strokes, but other things would be positive, such as newly-inhabitable land north of Canada and increased crop yield.

That said, if it *were* a problem, is there any conceivable "solution"-- government or otherwise?

Global warming, in theory, is an economist's absolute nightmare. It's the public good problem on a massive scale-- where absolutely no one has an incentive to change their behavior, and together they burn to death.

Liberals and interventionists are quick to point to the government as an answer, but this is rather unconvincing. Creating a government that solves global warming requires a citizenry that votes the "right" politicians in and the "wrong" ones out. Since the impact of one vote to aid this process means virtually nothing, we are faced with another public good problem-- no one cares to learn what solves global warming, nor which bureaucrats plan to enact that solution.

I inquired with economist David Friedman on the issue-- who believes governments would be a hindrance to solving global warming-- and proposed an option in the following exchange:

"Undoubtedly much cheaper" [than fossil fuel reduction]

One thing David doesn't touch on in his brief analysis is whether or not geo-engineering could solve the problem in a society where government was too limited to have a say in the matter, though I'm not sure I or he knows enough about the details to make that argument convincingly.

To reiterate, I don't believe the evidence suggests that global warming will have even a net-negative effect on humanity-- much less that it will cause us all to burn and die. Humans have lived through many kinds of temperatures throughout the history of their race, and we don't have reason to assume that the present climate is exactly optimum for society.

However, should new evidence come to suggest otherwise, I'm not sure human nature is apt to stop it.

Understanding Anarcho Capitalism: A Simplified Case (Part 2)

If you haven't already read it, here's part one.


A continuation of 'Why roles that shouldn't exist shouldn't exist'

Corporate Regulation
Most notably, we're concerned with organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration-- noting its regulation of food sale, its ban on drugs and its restrictions on some other drugs. Other relevant regulations include mandates on the level of safety of automobiles, requirements for business to pay at a minimum wage, prohibition of prostitution and restrictions on firearms sale.

So, to outline the big ones:
1. Government food quality inspection
2. Drug prohibition and drug restriction
3. Various safety mandates
4. Minimum Wage
5. Gun Control

I'll tackle these from the top down.

Government food quality inspection
For most of US history, the FDA has decided to take pointers from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and perhaps also the science-fiction movie Soylent Green. The rationale goes: 'bad' food is cheaper to produce than 'good' food; producers desire to lower costs, and will therefore produce 'bad' food; people are better off with 'good' food than they are with 'bad' food; the government should mandate and ensure that producers produce 'good' food.

This reasoning is flawed-- while producers may desire to lower costs, they also won't be able to sell food that poisons their customers. Every time there's even a moderate suspicion that business x is selling unsanitary meat, the media- without government enforcement- immediately latches on. In virtually every case their claim is unfounded, but the fact that they're always checking is reason enough for it never to occur. Imagine the damage to a company's reputation should further investigation prove their food *is* harmful-- they'd be lucky to ever do business again.

Thus, any government mandate to "ensure food quality" is either superfluous- and therefore a waste of money and labor- or else unnecessary to actual food quality, making it harmful both in wasted money and labor, and also in needlessly raising the price of food. The latter of these two scenarios has a particularly negative effect on the poor, who spend a much larger percentage of their income on food than do richer persons.

Drug Prohibition and Drug Restriction
First- on the subject of prohibited drugs. Marijuana, Cocaine, Meth, . . . are considered dangerous for consumption, by one reason or another, and on these grounds are made illegal for sale (with the exception of medicinal marijuana, and also recent amendments that allow limited recreational marijuana use in certain states). The rationale is never exactly stated more than it is somehow implied, but any reasoning must follow the key assumptions that 1. some individuals don't know what's best for themselves, and 2. government intervention will improve their decisions.

On the first part, it should be recognized that the exact conditions of individuals cannot be verified, nor can their preference be determined by anyone other than themselves. Even if it's true that the vast majority of all people- were they to use meth- would ultimately suffer negative consequences, it cannot be said that this is true for all persons. Perhaps a man is in such poor conditions that he wishes death, and he would prefer a stimulated overdose to a bullet (for fairly obvious reasons. Remember that these arguments are made on a Utilitarian basis, and are also made secularly). The mere fact that most people would likely suffer negatively from cocaine use based on past actions and inferred (though inexact) preference does not imply that cocaine users use cocaine as an irrational means to attain their ends. Their ends, being inherently rational, may coincide- perhaps obviously- with cocaine use.

Furthermore, the argument becomes increasingly weak with regard to "weaker" substances such as marijuana, against which there is little evidence that even a majority would suffer negatively as a result of its consumption. With regard to drugs that serve medicinal roles, which is virtually every drug to one extent or another, the more applicable the role the yet weaker this pro-restriction contention.

The most fatal blow to drug restriction arguments however lies in the second assumption-- that government intervention generally improves decisions/conditions. As we've seen with the United States infamous and never-ending 'war on drugs,' the monetary expense alone is reason enough to shatter the prohibition case. Current estimates place the cost in 2010 at $15 billion, with the rate of expense annually growing larger since that time, and still the "war" goes on. At this point, we can practically assume such expenses are, and will always be, the cost of enforcement.

Furthermore, the black market of drug sale allows for very little means of ensuring quality or honesty by the sellers, as transactions necessarily happen in secret and go unscrutinized by media attention. Not even the FDA has the means to interfere. Thus, buyers are often tricked into purchasing weaker drugs laced by stronger, more addictive substances, ensuring continual business at little or no cost.

Being inherently criminal organizations, drug sellers lose incentive to coincide with other, important legal regulations, thereby causing them to resolve disputes in brutal fashions and eliminate competition by force (note that the non-existence of strong private defense agencies to solve these problems is due to their being unfairly out-competed by a monopolizing government. Once again, the private sector cannot compete with that which an entire country is forced to pay for). Annihilating opposing drug-sellers in this fashion exacerbates the problem, as newly-formed cartels become more profitable without competition, granting them more incentive to proceed with war-like activities. This has resulted in numerous needless casualties from the United States to Mexico, from cartel gunman to police.

Safety Mandates
Similar in nature to food inspection, safety mandates by government are equivalent to the restriction of an otherwise viable goods market. Under "normal" circumstances, firms will supply any and all products that have x demand, and cost no more than y to produce (with the value of y being dependent on that of x), provided there does not exist another product of similar function that is overwhelmingly preferred by consumers (given both its quality and price). A safety mandate is the means by which government either eliminates an otherwise available good from the marketplace, or trades a market good for its widely-unpreffered substitute.

As example, let us consider the seat belt mandate.

US automobiles first entered production in 1913*-- they were not produced before this time because the costs of building such a thing were too great. Henry Ford's genius, manifested in the creation of the conveyer belt assembly line (along with the steady march of technology by the genius of some others), reduced costs to such a level that- given the demand for automobiles- there became a market for their production. The automobile was relatively expensive when it first entered the market because it was produced as soon as costs were low enough relative to demands of some group, any group; it follows logically that the first to meet this prerequisite as costs fall are 'the rich.'
*- I do not guarantee the correctness of this historical claim, the accuracy of which is not relevant to my arguments.

Parts that make up the product "automobile" are great in number and complex in effect, so much so that few else besides those who designed it understand what they do. The question "what to include?" is not easily answered. Reducing risk for the driver is important to the company's reputation as dead customers tends not to make for good business, but reducing costs of production is essential to keep the product on the market. With regard to how much risk a given part reduces, and at what cost, there are complicated calculations that car manufacturers will need to make to ensure an affordable, quality product that isn't drowned out by competitors.

Suppose an automobile company is considering the inclusion of seat belts. First they'd need to consider the speed of the car-- at its outset, the automobile did not move particularly fast. Automobiles were also expensive, so maybe traffic was expected to be light. How complicated is it to operate the car? How likely are drivers to focus their attention on the road? Are public roads well maintained? What about the car's headlights and other sources of light on the road? All of these are factors that must be considered in a risk analysis, and then these must be compared with the cost of seat belts. Suggesting, then, that seat belts are always necessary to produce the optimum car at any given point in the history of automobiles is pretentious and absurd.

Fortunately, automobile producers have all the right incentives to make these calculations and decide accordingly. As the car becomes yet cheaper, perhaps it becomes wise to sell some cars with seat belts and some without, appealing to the differing desires of consumers at varying levels of income. If incomes rise and costs fall yet further, perhaps there's no longer a market for cars without seat belts. All the same, these are complex considerations for producers to address.

The government's mandate that cars should have seat belts ruthlessly ignores the complexity of the matter. It forced the market to provide consumers with a less-preffered substitute- cars with seat belts at a higher price to cars without seat belts at a lower price- and simultaneously applied the newfound burden disproportionately to the poor, some of which could previously have afforded a car and now cannot. If people had desired the seat belts government forcefully mandated more than the money they lost as a result of added costs, it would already have been so.


CONCLUSION OF PART TWO.

THERE WILL BE MANY MORE THAN TWO PARTS.