I decided to make this to show someone what their logic looks like when they suddenly find a slight procedural flaw in an AnCap system (which is not set in stone anyway):
Start from "The State" and follow the arrows:
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/9936/flowchartq.jpg
You reject that society can have free will and then go on to use society as a collective noun. Sloppy word choice perhaps?
Hm, possibly.
What the opponent means by "will of society" is some "law of goodness and social prosperity" which magically arises to direct our actions in a way that maximize societal good. I say that this doesn't exist. What does exist is a society in which people interact and can convince each other of what is good and may act as groups to affect the structure of the free market.
Maybe a slightly sloppy word choice.
To be fair, you even say that maybe by 'society' people mean 'the majority,' which you seem to be appealing to now, that the majority of society can act in such and such a way in a free market.
Yes, and here's the thing:
In a democracy if 75% of people want to get Perry, they can. In a free market, they can as well.
Difference?
In democracy it's institutionalized. You have created a system whereby you can do anything to anyone. And in the current democracy people don't realize that taxes are aggression.
Birthday Pony, the resident sophist.
Wheylous, I think you're oversimplifying a little bit. Is the market really free from institutions, and are compulsory taxes a necessary part of democracy simply defined as majority rule?
Institutions exist, yet, but what is an institution bigger than the government? What I mean by institutionalized aggression is that it is the monopoly on psychology at the moment. To achieve anarchy you need to educate about the NAP to have people see that government is coercive in nature.
No taxes = no government. Simple democracy not = government. Democracy is a system to come to some decision. But when you talk about democracy, you usually mean institution of government through democracy, which is bad.
I take it that you reject the concept of emergence? You take a reductionist view of society correct?
Sorry, can you elaborate?
On another note, why am I getting mostly non-AnCaps flocking to this thread :P
It's more fun when people disagree.
This is one of the reasons I am uncertain about the belief that markets will provide stability. whether or not markets are the only option available is another issue, but certainly they do not necessarily produce results beneficial to people. The results of markets are beyond individual choice. What do you mean by 'stability'? You mean a perfect situation in which no resources are misallocated ever? You can't get there. One just ends up trying to plan and impose what one thinks and hopes nature would do if left to its own devices, without having any idea. As you say, no individual can possibly know how the entire system is actually working, so no individuals can plan for how the system should work. Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro | Post Points: 20
These phenomena would be almost impossible to predict in precise terms ... The results of markets are beyond individual choice.
Alrighty, no one can know of these patterns then. This means we should have government, which magically obtains the ability to predict these patterns?
It means we should embrace aggression?
Even if AnCap is to somehow send us hundreds of years backwards in technology, it should be adopted, as it is the system which maximizes individual freedom.
it is inevitable that emergent phenomena would occur.
Ok. 1) Are we gonna need to manipulate all of them? 2) Didn't we discover how the traffic system worked?
predict in precise terms
Nirvana.
So your options are 1) a society with a government which cannot (supposedly) predict these phenomena 2) A society without a government which cannot (supposedly) predict these phenomena
Crap! Neither can (supposedly) predict the phenomena!
Your argument appears to be a general "life sucks and we can't predict everything" argument, which is irrelevant as it applies to any societal system.
TL; DR - Nirvana.
Regardless, the picture I drew was more of a generic flow chart showing that a slight technicality doesn't suddenly disprove a whole system and embrace aggression. I was not highlighting the specific argument.
Plus, I challenge your assumption that these phenomena are as impossible to model as a whole economy (which is the basis of Austrian economics). You seem to be taking an argument ("you can't model system x") and using it to apply to many more systems without proof that the same conditions exist in these other systems as exist in X.
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing from the standpoint of a statist. The inconsistency I'm referring to is your assertion that society has no will and then you're saying that society can do things like decide, speak, etc. You qualify that perhaps a statist means majority rule when they reference the will of society.
My question is, what do you mean when you say society that enables it to have will and action and how is it so different from any other notion of society in which it has a will?
What do you mean by 'stability'? You mean a perfect situation in which no resources are misallocated ever?
Essentially yes.
I find it odd that you decided to remove the following part of my post;
"These phenomena would be almost impossible to predict in precise terms (from an Austrian perspective this would provide backup of the critique of planned economies), and very difficult to control."
Maybe I was just communicating badly. So no, I do not believe that government can predict (and therefore plan) the patterns, but it can learn what the possible states are in which the system can operate. No planning is possible, but manipulation of variables to bring an economy into something resembling and equilibrium might be.
1) No, just some of them
2) Yes, I concede on this point. Like I say above, prediction is not possible but manipulation might be.
Correct, neither can predict the exact course of variables, but the boundaries within which variables operate can be discovered. So prediction is a no-no, but understanding the dynamics of the system is possible.
Nope. Life is what it is. I just disagree with AnCaps that life would necessarily improve if the state dissappeared and left everything to the market. It seems unlikely to me that this would happen.
Fair enough. I agree that any theory has to be understood as a whole. You are correct in saying that slight technicalities cannot destroy a theory in one foul swoop.
I see that I did not explain myself very well on the prediction point, so I'm sorry about that. Essentially, yes it is possible to model systems to understand the dynamics. Predictive models are the ones I have a problem with. I'm not sure many Austrians would disagree with me on this point. I'm pretty much on the same page.
Manipulate variables
So force people to do what's "good" for them even if they don't want it?
Also, again, in a voluntary society you can have these uber economists say "if we do not do X we will see a dip in the economy 2.37 years from now" and society (or, if BP will, an informed general spontaneous agreement) can decide (as individuals seeing that experts might know better than them) to follow the advice of the economist.
The difference with government is that you must follow the ideas.
I don't want doctors operating on me if I disapprove of what they're doing even if they claim it's beneficial.
"It's for your own good *Chain saw sounds in the background* "
Again, we come to the idea of aggression. If you accept institutionalized aggression, you reject self-ownership outright. Without self-ownership, you live the life of someone else, the (baldy-)optimized function out of someone's idea of what society should be like.
There is no "natural order" where people have natural entitlements to the lives of other people.
Now, @ BP:
The inconsistency I'm referring to is your assertion that society has no will and then you're saying that society can do things like decide, speak, etc
Society's will can be defined as you like, so if you define it as majority will, then fine, it is majority will. There is a societal will. This point doesn't affect the conclusion reached from it, though. The conclusion is that the "will" of society is anyway tempered by the biased, favoritist, and non-universal opinion of the person you're talking to.
Now, could "society decide" to take down Perry in a free society? Yes. But as I said, the difference is in the institutionalization of violence. That is why anarchy has to come about as a general education of the public in violence.
No government is a law of physics. The best we can do is affect people's psychologies and hope they will see that non-aggression is best and fundamental.
Or we could reject self-ownership and live out our megalomaniacal dreams at the expense of everyone else (which would still require psychology, mind you). As much as I'd like that, I believe in self-ownership, so an aggressive takeover of the world is out of the question (though I could possibly get people hooked on some really delicious donuts, what do you think?)
Wheylous, you're dodging the question. And to say that this doesn't effect the conclusion you reached is, for one, not how flow charts work. If there's an inconsistency at the beginning the entire thing falls apart.
You have yet to effectively differentiate institutionalized violence that occurs by "society's will" in the market and institutionalized violence that occurs by "society's will" in the contex of society meaning a majority. Moreover, in this thread, and outside of the flowchart, you've equated the society that you disdain (the majoritarian one, that supposedly has no will outside of the will of the majority) and the one you like (the market, which you've said could be just the same majoritarian rule).
Saying society has no will is a pretty broad statement, especially when you go on to talk about society as if it does. And once again, aggression is not a neutral term.
Right. If by society one means something like - the customs/ culture you are in that most people get the "gist" of the expectations (AKA: laws/justice, institutions, and expectations exist in some form or another) - there is sense to what you bring up. I think Foucault (perhaps one of the few sane French philosophers) would look at it in a way akin to this?
The fact that you are able to trade, buy, sell, vote, not expect to get murdered on the street or whatever is because people generally accept the institutions in place - and form at least somewhat of an expectation that we can speak of to various structures that exist.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
I don't think you read what I wrote, BP:
The conclusion is that the "will" of society is anyway tempered by the biased, favoritist, and non-universal opinion of the person you're talking to.
So regardless of whether or not society has will, my opponent is not arguing for the will of society but for his own will. Hence, the question of societal will is irrelevant.
We're arguing semantics, but to go over the term again:
"Will of society" - since society is not a coherent organism, it has no "one will" as my opponent had proposed that all of it adopts.
What I mean when I say "society does X" is a spontaneous aggregate decision. As in people discuss things and most of them agree, and these most people decide to pursue some action, hence making it appear as if "society" is acting in a certain unified way (while it is in fact spontaneous voluntary order).
And once again, aggression is not a neutral term.
I'm on home turf here, so I assume aggression is violation of property.
There is not societal will. Remember what society means: organization, above and beyond individuals. However, organization itself in not anything "alive." To say it is is mysticism and anthropomorphism in any way shape or form you parse that statement.
The "more" in "whole" above "parts" is organization. Whole is not merely aggregate of parts. However, only parts can be living individuals. Organization is simply congifuration of things, whatever they may be. Socialists confuse fact that whole is more than sum of parts with myth that "more" in whole above and beyond parts is itself something more important than parts, and that if parts are alive, then organization independent of parts must be animate somehow.
"Socal feelings" or "social will" raises eyebrows of physiologists, who deny that neural networks not connected physically are any kind of single neural network. If they are not connected physically, they are not connected at all, and so, organization of people is not itself living mind indepenedent of minds that comprise.
[edit: In initial post, I attached long excerp from an essay of mine on topic. Actually, you know what, I'll post whole paper I circulated on this question, written for some businessmen, in sometime today or tommorrow on arxiv. I'll put link here.]
Wheylous, considering that, what if someone you're arguing with is using the term societial will in the same manner you are? You seem to be fine with majority rule as long as it supports your position.
Studying neural networks currently, I slightly disagree with your statement, though I generally agree with your conclusion, with some small tweaks:
Any individual units which make their decisions and in some way communicate with others, affecting the others' decisions, is a neural network. Physical connections are not necessary for it to be a neural network (for what are physical connections but electrical signals, which are not far from light signals we see when others communicate with us). So this far I disagree with you.
However, neural networks typically have a set decision process established in them. For example, in artificial intelligence we minimize the square error, which essentially optimizes a function.
The problem with this as it relates to society is that society has no set function to maximize that is a "natural law" like the decisions in neural networks are. Since there is no "natural order" in society which dictates what function must be optimized, the neural network of society is unlike most conventional neural networks. So here, I agree with you, as a mind must have a way of coming to a consensus through a natural law or order of things, which society doesn't have.
Ultimately, "societal will" as something whole assumes a natural function to optimize, which doesn't actually exist. Hence, societal will in the sense of individual will doesn't exist.
"Societal action", however, for convenience, is a general equilibrium of opinion that a group of interacting individuals reach and then implement individually (perhaps with communal purposes).
You seem to be fine with majority rule as long as it supports your position.
That is what I accuse my opponent of doing. Their system is non-universal, as it ultimately relies on their own will, not "society's will" (whatever that might be). The forceful implementation of a perceived "societal will" disregards the fact that society is not an organism, and that when "society acts" in a free society, it's not society acting as a big blob, but actually the convenient description of individuals acting on their own will.
And how does your proposed system escape the same criticism? How does any society escape the same criticism?
Can you be more specific? I find that your answers are a bit nebulous and do not quote specific parts of what I said, making me have to guess at what you mean.
"That is what I accuse my opponent of doing. Their system is non-universal, as it ultimately relies on their own will, not "society's will" (whatever that might be). The forceful implementation of a perceived "societal will" disregards the fact that society is not an organism, and that when "society acts" in a free society, it's not society acting as a big blob, but actually the convenient description of individuals acting on their own will."
How is it that you're not doing the same thing when you use the term 'society'? How does anyone for that matter?
I would like to point several physiological perspectives, however.
It's not merely electrical connections which make neural net, its also patchy holography, periodically estabilished and collapsing. That is, all part of single wave-function.
See Karl Pribram's papers, which he has finally put all online for free (www.karlhpribram.org). He's probably most influential physiologist in US over last 60 years in terms of people citing his data work. Or see Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff's work (or many other Japanese researchers who collaborated with the above named.)
Coherence is thermodynamically interrupted.
People's preferences cannot be made into one neural network ("social preferences), because physically not possible for seperated neural networks of different people to be connected in way that actually generates "mind."
Warren McCulluch's claim in 1956 that mind and preferences is merely Turing machine with maximum two negative feedback loops has been falsified to many times to count.
McCulluch in Rashevsky's Bulletin of Mathemical Biology tried to tackle preferences as circuits, but argues that all economics is wrong because valuation is not hierarchy (he claimed economics is falsified because A can be preferred to B, B to C, and C to A, without any issues).
Mises responded to this issue back in 1912, however, that any such preferences can actualyl be represented hierarchically by talking about concrete quantites being ranked, so that X of A can be preferred to Y of C, but Z of C preferred to L of A.
What I mean is, classical neural network people, e.g., Lettvin, Pitts, Neumann, McCulluch, Turing are not the best people to be taking economic advice from. (Neumann still thought with Morgenstern that preferences are cardinal!) Lettvin and Pitts thoughts Wiener had disproved subjectivist economics with his behaviorism ("dog which looks alive = alive, because brain is black box.")
Porco Rosso:Birthday Pony, the resident sophist socialist.
fixed that for you
@Wheylous
All I'm getting at is that when anyone (including you) says something about "society" they're either projecting a personal view that they feel is popular or reflecting on how they view society.
Since this is Mises, best to make sure everyonbe is on the same page here when it comes to society, here's the chapter and "home field" definiton and outlook one ought start from:
http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=b416306b-1dba-4c7e-9104-a9d624ade319
Consumariat:You can't get there. One just ends up trying to plan and impose what one thinks and hopes nature would do if left to its own devices, without having any idea. As you say, no individual can possibly know how the entire system is actually working, so no individuals can plan for how the system should work. I agree. No overall 'plan' can be put into action as the economy in unplannable - on this point I agree with Austrian Econ 100%. I do believe however, that it is possible for stability to be induced via the control of certain variables. Bassically a mixed-economy.
I agree. No overall 'plan' can be put into action as the economy in unplannable - on this point I agree with Austrian Econ 100%. I do believe however, that it is possible for stability to be induced via the control of certain variables. Bassically a mixed-economy.
Translation: The economy is unplannable, but it can be planned.
Tell me exactly how that makes sense.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
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