Why capitalism? Because it is the "most libertarian" system of social production? Because it happens to be merely a fortuitous adjunct to adherence to the non-aggression principle and man's natural right to property?
For those of you who still think that, ask yourself this. If you were convinced that (A) complete adherence to the natural right of property happened to necessarily engender untold poverty, suffering, and death, but (B) the tiniest imaginable abrogation of the non-aggression principle, undertaken on a very infrequent basis necessarily engendered prosperity, happiness, and long life for virtually everybody, which would you choose, (A) or (B)?
As Henry Hazlitt wrote, "Justice was made for man, not man for justice." And as Ludwig von Mises wrote, "Law and legality, the moral code and social institutions... are of human origin, and the only yardstick that must be applied to them is that of expediency with regard to human welfare."
There can be no purposes other than individual human purposes. There can be no ends, other than individual human ends. There is no conceivable human standard by which to choose ends that would not by definition be an individual human end in itself.
Yet, it just so happens that social cooperation is the foremost means to virtually everybody's ends, and that, with regard to virtually all humans, capitalism (unbeknownst to nearly all of them) is the only form of social cooperation that can actually provide for their ends. Insofar as most of us are even alive, it is because of capitalism, however hampered it may be. With every impairment of capitalism, the interests of virtually any given individual are harmed. With every unburdening of capitalism, the interests of virtually any given individual are advanced. This is why.
The singular tendency of capitalism is to provide for individuals the satisfaction of their wants according to the extent of their contribution to the satisfaction of the wants of others.
Through the market process, the consumers tend to reward each producer according his contribution to consumer satisfaction: (1) the worker, through wages, according to the contribution of his labor, (2) the capitalist, through interest, according to the contribution of his providence, and to (3) the entrepreneur, through profit, according to the contribution of his judgment.
Capitalism thus encourages individuals to, in their own interest, ever adjust their choices of roles and actions so as to ever increase their contribution to the satisfaction of human wants.
The relative importance of some consumers’ wants are greater than that of others in this process. But the relative importance of any given consumer’s wants, insofar as that relative importance has been determined on the market, is a function of how much he contributed to satisfying the wants of other consumers in his role as a producer.
Thus, in a capitalist order, human choices, through their interplay, coordinate each other so as to provide for human welfare as bountifully as possible.
The business end of social philosophy is making it so that capitalism can flourish. To determine the legal/moral order that will allow capitalism to flourish, it is necessary to understand the capitalist order. The fastest way to truly understand the capitalist order is to carefully study Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, and at least the chapters on production theory (5-9) in Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard. I am actually embarrassed now that I used to hold forth about what the best legal/moral order is for society before studying those two books, and before learning to integrate their teachings in my political positions.
I know economics is hard, and that for many it's not as pleasurable (at least at first) as reading history, ethics, or political philosophy. But as Mises wrote, economics, "is the pith of civilization and of man’s human existence." Truly, if we really want to get down to business of solving all the various knotty problems regarding law, society, and political philosophy (and truly, it is up to us in the Misesian community to do so, because everyone else in the intellectual world is too hopelessly mired in fundamental fallacies to even begin to), we must first come to understand the market process. Any sweeping social proposal from one of the many whip-smart denizens of this forum that doesn't at least try to integrate such an understanding is a wasteful application of a keen mind.
Danny, thanks for an awesome OP. I have a question though. Do you think aggressive means are equally valid as non-aggressive means in the context of capitalism, economics, and/or praxeology? If not, doesn't that mean that capitalism, economics, and/or praxeology necessarily imply non-aggression over aggression, at least to you?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Favorited.
Aggression means a lot of things to a lot of different people, even among libertarians. Pro-IP libertarians think of violating intellectual property as aggression. Some left-libertarians think of exclusive ownership of land as aggression. The debates over valid and invalid definitions of "aggression" go round and round, usually devolving into each side just dismissing the other as "false-libertarians". It's all byplay.
The heart of the matter is to figure out the most efficacious legal/moral order to establish with regard to effective rights for human purposes. Then if you want to define aggression as a violation of those most efficacious rights, then fine. I believe intellectual property is destructive to the market order, and thus to human welfare, as I discuss here. And abolishing land ownership would also be destructive to the market order, and thus to human welfare, as I discuss here.
Danny Sanchez:Why capitalism?
Because it simply is. And not because intellectuals chose it as a system. It's entirely irrelevant whether someone wants or doesn't want capitalism as a whole, because capitalism exists because it is, not because it "ought to be".
The Soviet Union had to sell to markets abroad and buy from markets abroad and was still confined to capitalism. Its government ran on capital and it could only run its activities by providing them with capital. Even they were under capitalism. Their government also collapsed when it ran out of capital. It is just as true for all modern day social democracies, because they also run on capital and when they run out of capital and can not obtain more, their governments collapse, as happened in Argentina.
I went to the forest mountains of Uttarkhand, and even the hermits there have to live on division of labour. They may grow or hunt their own food, but they still sell something outside and still buy something from outside, since they can't do everything. Many anti-materialistic hippies from abroad try to live in sub-poverty conditions in religious places here that make the poor here look rich, and the result of their self-sustenance is near starvation and filth. And even then they use industrial manufactured stainless steel for their outdoor cooking.
Even government intervention falls to capitalism. Price controls, price supports, subsidies, nationalised industries, export controls, import controls, taxes, public works do not replace capitalism, but only depend on capitalism, since these things only exist insofar as they do not exhuast capital. They are not part of any other economic system, but are capitalism itself, only a chaotic mess of it that just aggravates any mess and makes it longer to correct.
Prateek,
I know what you're saying; I've written about what you're saying (as you know, because you read it and commented on it). If it wouldn't have made for an artless lead-in, I would have phrased it, "Why Maximally Unhampered Capitalism?".
Yes, I know you know, and you know I know you know, but I am just stating it for the record for all public viewing, as we do on forums. :D
Otherwise, for all the anti-establishment libertarians for whom this thread his made, I think the main thing required is to demonstrate to them that equality and democracy are not the same as liberty and capitalist order. What I would say to Messrs. ScottF, Epicurus,.etc is that any distribution of status in society, be it equality or superiority or inferiority, will lead to a total reduction in freedom of people. And democracy is just a means of forcing one preference on everybody while capitalist order is about everybody getting their preferences (Capitalism lets you use a PC or a Mac or both, while democracy forces everybody to accept the same medical care system, as we just saw in the US). In that sense, democracy is also just a distribution of status in society, and part of the same broader problem as equality. It's all about arbitrary preferences that serve nothing other than those arbitrary preferences, but the incidental result is often long lines at the grocery store, two-year waiting lists for cancer patients, blackmailing of bankers by federal prosecutors,.etc.
Prateek Sanjay:Otherwise, for all the anti-establishment libertarians for whom this thread his made, I think the main thing required is to demonstrate to them that equality and democracy are not the same as liberty and capitalist order. What I would say to Messrs. ScottF, Epicurus,.etc is
I didn't make this thread only for the left-libertarians. A large proportion of just about every libertarian camp has largely abandoned the approach I'm advocating (which was the approach of the historical liberal tradition as Mises defined it). Even many who DO understand the market process often seem to make many of their socio-political arguments and positions with very little reference to it, and seem to just treat it as one implement among many in their "libertarian toolkit".
So you are saying that the market and private property are no longer the central issue in the minds of libertarians, but just another issue? Yeah, I know what you mean.
I remember how Rothbard occasionally wrote about the "people in power" or how they don't surrender their power voluntarily or how they are "liars, crooks,..." Somehow, I found it very diversionary and totally divorced from issues of capitalism.
There has to be a kind of libertarianism made more for protection of capitalist order than hatred of elite.
Danny Sanchez:Aggression means a lot of things to a lot of different people, even among libertarians. Pro-IP libertarians think of violating intellectual property as aggression. Some left-libertarians think of exclusive ownership of land as aggression. The debates over valid and invalid definitions of "aggression" go round and round, usually devolving into each side just dismissing the other as "false-libertarians". It's all byplay.
Very good points. However, I'd argue that issues such as IP and exclusive land ownership aren't issues about how to define "aggression". Instead I'd say that they're issues about the applicability of the given (libertarian) definition. Maybe we're saying the same thing, just in different ways.
Danny Sanchez:The heart of the matter is to figure out the most efficacious legal/moral order to establish with regard to effective rights for human purposes. Then if you want to define aggression as a violation of those most efficacious rights, then fine. I believe intellectual property is destructive to the market order, and thus to human welfare, as I discuss here. And abolishing land ownership would also be destructive to the market order, and thus to human welfare, as I discuss here.
That begs the question: what are human purposes? Furthermore, where do human purposes come from and why are they the way they are?
On another note, economics (including Austrian Economics) seems to presuppose universal rights, regardless of what the rights actually are. Obviously, however, people can (and all too often do) act as though others don't have the same rights that they have. How does economics reconcile that with its apparent presupposition of universal rights?
Actually the interminable and fruitless debates over the valid definition of private property, or "just private property", are part of the problem (see what I said above about IP and landownership).
So when someone presents that as a contestable issue, how should we proceed?
Are you saying that we are just becoming too pedantic on certain issues? And need to reconsider the big picture again?
"Instead I'd say that they're issues about the applicability of the given (libertarian) definition."
That's my whole point. Whether something is libertarian (another term defined by many passionate advocates in innumerable ways, each of whom thinks they have cornered the "rational" definition) has become a pseudo-end in itself.
"That begs the question: what are human purposes? Furthermore, where do human purposes come from and why are they the way they are?"
Teleology is a category of the human mind. It's an ultimate given. You can't analyze it; you can only live it. Unless you are a bot, you know very well what human purposes are. To go further into your questions (regarding methodological dualism, the mind-body problems, etc) please see the epistemological chapters of Human Action or my debate with Neoclassical/StrangeLoop; this is not the space for that.
filc: So when someone presents that as a contestable issue, how should we proceed?
Bring the debate out of the muck and mire of semantic and deontological discourse, and onto the solid ground of discovering the most efficacious legal/moral order for the vast preponderance of human interests.
filc: Are you saying that we are just becoming too pedantic on certain issues? And need to reconsider the big picture again?
Pedantry is a matter of style, and I'm not talking about style. And rather than being about seeing the big picture, it's more about clearing out the semantic and deontological static to see the real picture.
Danny:discovering the most efficacious legal/moral
I hope I am not being to dense here in asking but, how can we promote accomplishing this? Via Economics and the promotion of markets? IE The market discovery for legal/moral code as the only praxeological method which keeps human individual ends and purposes in mind?
No, I'm not talking about entrepreneurs discovering the most efficacious legal/moral code on the market. I'm talking about social philosophers using their understanding OF the market to figure out the most efficacious legal/moral code (especially with regard to the best way to delineate effective property rights).
Autolykos:On another note, economics (including Austrian Economics) seems to presuppose universal rights, regardless of what the rights actually are. Obviously, however, people can (and all too often do) act as though others don't have the same rights that they have. How does economics reconcile that with its apparent presupposition of universal rights?
Sorry, missed this.
Praxeology/Economics does not presuppose universal rights. It can analyze a caste society, just as it can analyze a market society. It can unravel the idea of socialism just as it can unravel the idea of capitalism.
Danny Sanchez:That's my whole point. Whether something is libertarian (another term defined by many passionate advocates in innumerable ways, each of whom thinks they have cornered the "rational" definition) has become a pseudo-end in itself.
Fair enough, then.
Danny Sanchez:Teleology is a category of the human mind. It's an ultimate given. You can't analyze it; you can only live it.
What about neuroscience? It seems to contradict the above.
Danny Sanchez:Unless you are a bot, you know very well what human purposes are.
I don't quite understand what you mean here. Can you please clarify?
Danny Sanchez:To go further into your questions (regarding methodological dualism, the mind-body problems, etc) please see the epistemological chapters of Human Action or my debate with Neoclassical/StrangeLoop; this is not the space for that.
Why not? Are we not allowed to investigate, analyze, and/or attack (if we feel it's necessary) the apparent philosophical underpinnings of your OP?
Danny Sanchez: Autolykos:On another note, economics (including Austrian Economics) seems to presuppose universal rights, regardless of what the rights actually are. Obviously, however, people can (and all too often do) act as though others don't have the same rights that they have. How does economics reconcile that with its apparent presupposition of universal rights? Sorry, missed this. Praxeology/Economics does not presuppose universal rights. It can analyze a caste society, just as it can analyze a market society. It can unravel the idea of socialism just as it can unravel the idea of capitalism.
Okay, I stand corrected. :)
However, given this, along with the subjective theory of value, how can praxeology/economics demonstrate that people in a caste society or a socialist society are necessarily worse-off than people in a market society? Doesn't this come "dangerously" close to StrangeLoop's thesis in his "Government Is Efficient" thread?
"What about neuroscience? It seems to contradict the above."
Again, see my debate with Neoclassical/StrangeLoop. I spell it all out in there.
I know the reality of purpose, because I live it with every passing moment. I recognize in other beings a likeness to me in behavior, and so I infer in them purpose too. If I infer correctly regarding you, and you are indeed like me, then you know the reality of purpose too. If I infer wrong, and you are not in fact like me (perhaps you are a simple computer program), then you may not know the reality of purpose. As Mises wrote, I cannot hope to demonstrate what the reality of purpose is to a being who does not live the reality of purpose.
Again, I went over this in the above mentioned debate, and it shouldn't be hard to find. This is more elementary than I wish to go, because most Austrians here already agree with me regarding methodological dualism, but disagree with me regarding my fundamental point. So I don't want to have to repeat everything I wrote in that other thread, only to distract from the purpose of this one with a tangential topic that generally goes on and on.
What does this form of libertarian capitalism has to say about human basic psychology??
Its evil nature to exploit others to his own benefit??
How does this capitalism applies to different cultures and religions??
Does it has has limitations?? A dark side?? Or a proper way to use??
Corporatism is using state means to enhance market share and profitability of a few favored firms, at the expense of the citizen.
Economics can only show that socialism means discoordination and capital consumption to an extreme degree. Add what we know about physiology, and we can know it also means mass famine and starvation. Add what we any semi-competent student of his fellow man know thymologically about him (meaning our informed judgment regarding his ends) and we know that most men prefer not to sicken and die. Thus we can conclude that people would be worse off. We can take the same approach to the caste society, with simply somewhat less extreme results.
With that, it's 3:15 am in Taipei, so I'm off to bed.
Danny,
I completed my political science degree without a scrap of economic knowledge, and got a decent grade to boot. Looking back ten years later, I can say with some conviction that the beliefs of a political philosopher who is not well grounded in economics, are highly likely to be fecal matter of the gloopiest kind. The two cannot and should not be separated.
Then to turn to your other thoughts, you base your argument for the importance of economics on consequentialist/utilitarian grounds, and as much as I appreciate the common sense and pragmatic nature of this line of reasoning, the objectivity of it worries me. It brings to mind Rothbard's argument in 'Ethics of Liberty' where he derides a customary law order for being potentially unlibertarian, but what could possibly be more libertarian than a free market in law?
So to follow that same logic, what could possibly be more libertarian than a free market in economic systems? Or in other words, let the people choose their economic system. If that is not capitalism then so be it, those people at that time were not ready for it. I hope, for the sake of humanity that we slowly become more rational and reasonable, and that capitalism does triumph.
Danny Sanchez: I didn't make this thread only for the left-libertarians. A large proportion of just about every libertarian camp has largely abandoned the approach I'm advocating (which was the approach of the historical liberal tradition as Mises defined it). Even many who DO understand the market process often seem to make many of their socio-political arguments and positions with very little reference to it, and seem to just treat it as one implement among many in their "libertarian toolkit".
Although I respect Mises with my entire hart and soul, Mises was entirely wrong with stating that 'the' classical tradition of liberalism was a utilitarian tradition. There are only a few classical liberals with a utilitarian perspective and even than; the ones most famous (mill, bentham) were actually quite statist and the others (hume, Smith) weren't exactly utilitarians pur sang.
How do you see this relation?
The state is not the enemy. The idea of the state is.
Danny Sanchez: Why capitalism? Because it is the "most libertarian" system of social production? Because it happens to be merely a fortuitous adjunct to adherence to the non-aggression principle and man's natural right to property? For those of you who still think that, ask yourself this. If you were convinced that (A) complete adherence to the natural right of property happened to necessarily engender untold poverty, suffering, and death, but (B) the tiniest imaginable abrogation of the non-aggression principle, undertaken on a very infrequent basis necessarily engendered prosperity, happiness, and long life for virtually everybody, which would you choose, (A) or (B)?
Why the dichotomy? Why excluded the possibility of an interconnection, as Roderik Long argues.
"There can be no purposes other than individual human purposes. There can be no ends, other than individual human ends. There is no conceivable human standard by which to choose ends that would not by definition be an individual human end in itself."
<= Well, it's awesome to argue with Mises, but that is not what natural law thinkers claim. Nobody is saying 'well, natural law is an end outside the realm of human action'. Mises is correct in saying that there can't be an _economic_ analysis of what ought to be. If you want social cooperation - which is an economic concept - than let's see what economic system fits it. But where did the impossibility to apply the logic of action to a science of law come from? Is there actually an argument, or is it an assertion by lack of knowledge of any possibility? 'Proving that something is impossible' is not the same as 'I can't proof that it is possible'. I belief you are doing the second, not the first in this post. Could you actually give an argument, or is it a proof out of lack of knowledge of any real possibility of doing so?
Do you accept logical positivism? If not, why? If so, why?
Because that is the only alternative: natural law or logical positivism. Tertium non datur.
Edit: as far as I see it. 'Natural law' doesn't necessarily mean 'libertarian law', though. But still: either differences between humans can be decided - and the human relevant for law is the praxeological man - based upon an analysis of the world or differences ought to be created by an agency.
Thanks for starting this thread. As you might have realized, I'm very interested in this debate and especially your opinion. I don't know anyway who is so Misesian, so it ought to be interesting.
Any sweeping social proposal from one of the many whip-smart denizens of this forum that doesn't at least try to integrate such an understanding is a wasteful application of a keen mind.
I'm a contractarian. I lay rights out and leave them to others to pick up or not. I don't care about sweeping social proposals. If people want to advocate bad acts against me, I'm happy to return the favour. So, you like to pay taxes, eh? That's cool. You can find me on the receiving end. Feel free to pay even more if you want. I could always use the money. I protect only those that agree to acceptable terms. I already live in a libertarian society; it's only confusing because there are many environmental hazards that look like people.
This would be a good point. At first I was floored.
But capitalism has a long history of intellectual thought. Just, it's earliest thinkers didn't call it capitalism.
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Does that mean that you are no longer a ethical subjectivist (or was it moral subjectivist or emotional subjectivist) (I know it had something to do with subjectivism)?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
Capitalism is competitive. It drives all other modes of production out of the market.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
my question is "why capitalism"? why continue to use a word that has many different meanings for different people, some quite the opposite of what is intended, and why use an -ism word that implies a system, when what is being advocated is the lack of any system? laissez-faire seems to me to be infinitely preferable to the word capitalism. it means "let it be" which precisely defines the free market, it's a word that hasn't been vilified, and its new to most people, it doesn't have unwanted or unearned connotations. why "Capitalism" indeed!
wolfman: What does this form of libertarian capitalism has to say about human basic psychology?? Its evil nature to exploit others to his own benefit?? How does this capitalism applies to different cultures and religions?? Does it has has limitations?? A dark side?? Or a proper way to use??
There's no such thing as "libertarian capitalism". There is capitalism. And there is liberalism which is a political doctrine that recognizes the efficacy of capitalism. Liberalism also sees that man has the capacity to recognize the general superiority, in terms of want satisfaction, of mutual exchange over hegemonic relations. Under conditions in which men recognize that, his propensity to exploit others to his benefit is a boon to those he exploits.
Insofar as cultures and religions speak not to the social system of production, capitalism has little to do with them. Insofar as they do, and insofar as they conflict, humans have to simply choose between their folkways and their livelihood. Yet, folkways too are means (which, through habit, become pseudo-ends), so eventually they too will yield, should its adherents become sufficiently cognizant of the bounty of capitalism.
Capitalism is not perfect. No human thing is. It is simply better than all the alternatives.
"For those of you who still think that, ask yourself this. If you were convinced that (A) complete adherence to the natural right of property happened to necessarily engender untold poverty, suffering, and death, but (B) the tiniest imaginable abrogation of the non-aggression principle, undertaken on a very infrequent basis necessarily engendered prosperity, happiness, and long life for virtually everybody, which would you choose, (A) or (B)?"
I've generally supported laissez-faire capitalism for what is, admittedly, a very materialistic reason. While my studies in economics and political philosophy are embarrasingly limited compared to my peers on this forum, I have held the (possibly incorrect?) view that private property rights are means to an end, the end being physical prosperity and an improved standard of living for myself, my family, and my friends. I have always told my more statist friends that if their goals are human poverty and unhappiness then they are free to cast off private property and embrace communism, since that economic system is the one most in harmony with those goals.
But going back to your question, in the bizarre world where interventionism and statism improves human welfare rather than retards it, I would certainly support that system and encourage others to embrace it as well. However, I still hold that this system should be completely voluntary. If, for example, the setting of wages by a government board improved economic organizing and the general standard of living, I believe that it should still be up to the individual whether or not they choose to patronize said government. So, to answer your question, I would choose "(B)" as long as it included the caveat I previously mentioned.
I'm not quite sure I explained my thoughts very well, so I apologize if this isn't entirely coherent.
(Emphasis added.)
JohnnyFive: Danny, I completed my political science degree without a scrap of economic knowledge, and got a decent grade to boot. Looking back ten years later, I can say with some conviction that the beliefs of a political philosopher who is not well grounded in economics, are highly likely to be fecal matter of the gloopiest kind. The two cannot and should not be separated. Then to turn to your other thoughts, you base your argument for the importance of economics on consequentialist/utilitarian grounds, and as much as I appreciate the common sense and pragmatic nature of this line of reasoning, the objectivity of it worries me. It brings to mind Rothbard's argument in 'Ethics of Liberty' where he derides a customary law order for being potentially unlibertarian, but what could possibly be more libertarian than a free market in law? So to follow that same logic, what could possibly be more libertarian than a free market in economic systems? Or in other words, let the people choose their economic system. If that is not capitalism then so be it, those people at that time were not ready for it. I hope, for the sake of humanity that we slowly become more rational and reasonable, and that capitalism does triumph.
This whole approach fetishizes libertarianism. Is libertarianism a religion for you? Like I asked in the OP, honestly would you advocate it, even if you were convinced it would necessarily lead to worldwide suffering and death, and that just a modicum of non-libertarianism would necessarily lead to worldwide happiness and prosperity? Are you a man, who recognizes that social cooperation is the foremost means to all your ends, including those that relate to your own material well-being and that of your loved ones, as well as those that relate to your good-will toward your fellow men? Or are you a would-be cypher, who pretends to subsume his ends in a deontological heteronomous doctrine? Because of your last sentence, I believe that deep-down you (as well as most libertarians) are the former. But because of the criteria of your earlier sentences, it seems that you are, to an extent, adopting the latter approach because of a confusion of means and ends. Let us abandon this confused approach.
Think of it this way. Isn't it a striking coincidence that the most expedient legal/moral order also happens to be the one founded on the property-rights conception that is most "objectively" just and righteous in the eyes of deontological libertarians? Is that indeed just a coincidence? Or are the two characteristics of the one legal/moral order somehow causally related?
Do they stem from the same cause? Does some god reward those who act righteously in his eyes by also making it so those actions happen to create the most well-being?
Does the latter cause the former? Is capitalism only effective, because otherwise people will stomp around with indignation about the self-evident wickedness of the legal order, and thus not manage to get any production accomplished?
Or does the former cause the latter? Have we come to think of the property rights order that is associated with capitalism as "just" and "righteous" (and even concocted rationalizations for why it is "objectively" so), because we prefer life to death, health to sickness, and prosperity to destitution both for ourselves and our fellow man, and that we therefore ardently want the legal/moral order that is harmonious with those preferences?
First, you say that people should read Human Action and Man, Economy, and State to gain a better understanding of economics. Supposedly because this will somehow effect their knowledge of ethics (a completely separate science). Then you make a quasi-utilitarian statement like this:
Danny Sanchez:The heart of the matter is to figure out the most efficacious legal/moral order to establish with regard to effective rights for human purposes.
For one, you're being unclear. What exact ethical system you propose? Just whatever is a "best fit" for man? (Best fit according to whom?) Just whatever increases utility the most? (Why should utility or welfare or happiness be considered as ethical benchmarks?) Rule utilitarianism? (Why not act utilitarianism, since it's more consistent?)
And how do you square your statement to read HA and MES with all of your quasi-utilitarian statements made in this thread? Though Mises was a utilitarian of sorts (I wouldn't say he was a very strong one; his main concern was just straight economics), Rothbard was an outspoken proponent of natural rights. Obviously, Rothbard knew a thing or two about economics, but he wasn't concerned with welfare as an end-all be-all goal.
For anyone interested in a kinda Randian, kinda Rothbardian approach to ethics, I suggest Rasmussen's A Groundwork for Rights.
EDIT: And another point I'd like to make is that a Rothbardian would argue that a system of natural rights/law is "the most efficacious legal/moral order to establish with regard to effective rights for human purposes." After all, which system would be most efficacious for human purposes besides the one which establishes an order which is natural for humanity?
Political Atheists Blog
Fantastic discussion.
Why isn't this a front-page article? It makes Long's extensive article "Why Does Justice Have Good Consequences?" seem like so much wasted breath, like a floundering defense of a broken idea: objective ethics. To paraphrase Hazlitt, Ethics were made for man, not man for ethics. Given that, it is perfectly obvious why justice/capitalism/liberty has good consequences: the rules governing each were chosen for precisely that purpose, and stuck as custom because they worked for that purpose.
With that in mind, I would like to add as an aside that such systems are not one-size-fits-all, and different societies will require somewhat different rules to be upheld in order to "provide for human welfare as bountifully as possible." This is a side point from the main thrust of article, which I think is to extricate ourselves from the muck of deontology and other semantic games, but here is some insight I hope is not lost.
(from my perpetual favorite article on customary law: http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/Obvious.pdf)
Uniformity Supporters of government claim that government is necessary to ensure that there is one law for all and that the law applies equally to all citizens. If the government does not make the law, they contend, there would be no uniform code of laws. People in different locations or with different cultural backgrounds or levels of wealth would be subject to different rules of law. The proper response to this is probably the one Woody Allen made to Diane Keaton in Annie Hall when she complained that her apartment had bad plumbing and bugs, which was: “You say that as though it is a negative thing.” How persuasive is the following argument? Government is necessary to ensure that there is one style of dress for all and that all citizens are equally clothed. If the government does not provide clothes, there would be no uniform mode of dress. People in different locations or with different cultural backgrounds or levels of wealth would be clothed in garments of different styles and quality. Why would anyone think that uniformity in law is any more desirable than uniformity in dress? The quest for uniformity leads us to treat the loving husband who kills his terminally ill wife to relieve her suffering the same way we treat Charles Manson, to apply the same rules of contracting to sophisticated business executives purchasing corporations and semi-literate consumers entering into installment contracts, and to act as though the slum lord in the Bronx and the family letting their spare room in Utica should be governed by the same rules of property law. There are, of course, certain rules that must apply to all people; those that provide the basic conditions that make cooperative behavior possible. Thus, rules prohibiting murder, assault, theft, and other forms of coercion must be equally binding on all members of a society. But we hardly need government to ensure that this is the case. These rules always evolve first in any community; you would not even have a community if this were not the case. The idea that we need government to ensure a uniform rule of law is especially crazy in the United States, in which the federal structure of the state and national governments is designed to permit legal diversity. To the extent that the law of the United States can claim any superiority to that produced by other nations, it is at least partially due the fact that it was generated by the common law process in the “laboratory of the states.” Allowing the development of different rules in different states teaches us which rules most effectively resolve disputes. To the extent that the conditions that give rise to disputes are the same across the country, the successful rules tend to be copied by other jurisdictions and spread. This creates a fairly uniform body of law.10 To the extent that the conditions that give rise to disputes are peculiar to a particular location or milieu, they do not spread. This creates a patchwork of rules that are useful where applied, but would be irrelevant or disruptive if applied in other settings. One of the beauties of the common law process is that it creates a body of law that is uniform where uniformity is useful and diverse where it is not. This is the optimal outcome. Government legislation, in contrast, creates uniformity by imposing ill-fitting, one-size-fits-all rules upon a geographically and ethnically diverse population. Once again, not only is government not necessary to the creation of a well-functioning body of law, it is a significant impediment to it. Please consider this the next time you find yourself wondering why all businesses must be closed on Sunday in the Orthodox Jewish sections of Brooklyn. 10Fairly, but not fetishistically. The law against homicide functions quite effectively despite the fact that the definitions of first and second degree murder and voluntary and involuntary manslaughter differ from state to state.
Why anarchy fails
AdrianHealey:Because that is the only alternative: natural law or logical positivism. Tertium non datur.
You must have quite a precise definition of logical positivism for you to make such a tight logical claim, so what is it? I see no unified or easy-to-pin-down definition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism
Good link. As much as I think defederalization/ customary law goes together with market theory it should probably be mentioned that one has the stronger argument when able to use market science (as opposed to the practiced art of legalism). It is also important to always seperate the arguments when they are being leveled against you. That is, economics can only speak in economic language and legal theory can only speak the language of legal theory - they are different "language games" and to get them tangled is going to lead to unfruitful dialogue. You can not level a charge of "injustice" against an economic proposition, and an economic proposition can not tell what is just or unjust.