Political Theory

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

Anenome — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 07:09:16 GMT

gotlucky:
@Anemone

Re floating cities: I looked into prices of floating homes, and it does seem that you could house a large number of people for $500 million. The problem with all of this is that it is forcing the issue. It is not spontaneous order. There has to be some sort of profit in the area, at least when the floating cities are founded, in order for it to last. Otherwise the results will be like the Chinese ghost cities.

Agreed. I'm looking into a number of options. First of all of algae-biofuel or even floating solar panels and wind. Secondly, anyone with a profession that can be remote-provided would qualify. This probably includes a lot of manufacturing and especially computer-based professions, like programming and writing of any sort, though it's not a trivial problem to get internet access on the open ocean.

gotlucky:
Anenome:
True, abolition would be better, despite the massive disruption. But, in the case of the state, we don't have the option of abolition like that, unfortunately.

Considering how much the state has atrophied important aspects of the market, this may not be an entirely bad thing that immediate abolition isn't politically possible. But we should always support immediate abolition if given the option.

I can't imagine a scenario where it will be an option, certainly not in the short term. Not even in the case of financial collapse.

gotlucky:
Anenome:
What if there were already a floating libertarian society off the California coast, how would that change your calculation on this issue? Wouldn't it rather become a tradeoff between hoping to influence the US versus the risks of living in a new and young and small libertarian society.

My profession requires a large and wealthy population. So, things would have to be so incredibly bad here for me to move to a new, young, and small libertarian society.

Granted. Such would come with time if everything works out.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

David B — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 06:52:44 GMT

gotlucky:

@David B

Disputes are when two or more parties have conflicting goals regarding the same object, and there is a resulting conflict. It's not enough for two people to have different ideas about how some object ought to be used, they also have to put their conflicting ideas into action.

I'm not arguing that what you are describing doesn't qualify as an instance of the common everyday use of the term conflict. In another thread, I was reading an argument where Adam pointed out that a lot of confusion is created when people argue one definition in one part of an argument, and another definition in another part of the argument. I think we're arguing past each other here. You keep pointing back at dispute as an ongoing series of actions by two different actors in which each is attempting to remove the obstacle (the other persons actions) to their own end.

And I keep pointing back at the necessary existence of incompatible intended actions as a precursor to any of the phenomena we call conflict or dispute in everyday language, and I keep trying to use one of the two words you are using (dispute or conflict) as a term for this other idea. My point is all of the phenomena you are describing in those two sentences originates in my category; more importantly which is what I've been trying to get across, the dispute and conflict as you're describing them don't even appear, unless my category exists first. And finally the category I'm pointing at is a priori. It is present without looking at reality and seeing a physical manifestation of conflict. And of course per my previous post, I'm also asserting that the category I'm referring to can only arise from scarcity, and additionally that scarcity inherently means that there is an instance of my definition of conflict, if we remove from the definition the necessity that the conflicting intentions inhabit different minds, and simply allow for metaphysically incompatible plans within a single human mind. Then colloquial uses of the term conflict, like "I feel conflicted" and "I have a conflict" makes sense.

Bam, the whole thing falls together, and property rights, fall out into reality under the guise of ANY socially constructed argument abotu what constitutes a legitimate use claim over a scarce resource.

The thing is, the concept of a dispute does not require experience. I am not challenging this concept. What I am challenging is the notion that we can know a priori that there will be disputes.

Ok, I was not arguing about the form that disputes will or won't take, or that one would not have to observe one in order to know that it had happened. The number of concepts that a man could possibly form is probably so large as to be effectively infinite, let alone to construct from these concepts argument, rationalization, and reasons for preferring one thing to another, then the number of possible techniques he might apply to produce technological devices to in turn use with additional newly designed techniques to attain his ends. Why then if I believe these things to be true, would I not also agree that the techniques and technologies that a man might design and use to resolve a perceived conflict between his own plan and anothers plan would be any smaller than these other spaces.

The interesing phenomena ought to be that these solutions converge in certain ways, and that the manner and nature of these convergences ought to give us some insight into some underlying theory that give rise to these various solutions.

I too understand the difference between theory and history :). So my point is what is a theoretical concept of conflict. Conflict is a behavior that's social in the context that you use it. Meaning it requires two human beings. Praxeology is the science of human action, and praxeology is a priori.

If there's not an a priori concept that sits at the root of the Political Realm, then somethings wrong. If disputes (here I mean your term) can't be described in terms of some abstract praxeological concepts derived from human action, then we ought to be looking for some theory outside of human action for an explanation. But if we find an explanation for conflict outside of praxeology, then somethings wrong with praxeology.

Again, I think I've come up with such a concept, as I stated it even more specifically above as a much more abstact categorical definition than the one you've been describing (or more importantly interpreting when I say it). If I have not come up with a good abstract concept of conflict, then we need to keep looking, cause we're missing something. Just like physicists looking for the Higgs Boson, their theory said there was a hole. So they kept looking. Well I'm saying it, as Mises did, if it's a social science the political realm, conflict itself should fall within it's purview. If praxeology is a science of human action, then it must hold true for all social phenomena.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

Caley McKibbin — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:59:03 GMT

Kinda like a drug addict, if you yank away the drugs and lock him in a cage, he will go through massive withdrawal symptoms, but with a gradual rehabilitation program it wont be as bad.

It seems you just invented that. I searched for gradual vs cold turkey and didn't find any studies finding that one is more effective. The only thing that drug programs do in essence is try to convince the user to quit whilst replacing the illicit drug with prescription drugs.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

gotlucky — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:31:05 GMT

@David B

Disputes are when two or more parties have conflicting goals regarding the same object, and there is a resulting conflict. It's not enough for two people to have different ideas about how some object ought to be used, they also have to put their conflicting ideas into action.

The thing is, the concept of a dispute does not require experience. I am not challenging this concept. What I am challenging is the notion that we can know a priori that there will be disputes. What if I told you that:

There is a tribe in the Congo that resolves disputes differently than other humans.The sexual activity happens within the immediate community and sometimes outside of it. Members of the tribe do not form permanent monogamous sexual relationships with individual partners. They also do not seem to discriminate in their sexual behavior by sex or age, with the possible exception of abstaining from sexual intercourse between mothers and their adult sons. When members of the tribe come upon a new food source or feeding ground, the increased excitement will usually lead to communal sexual activity, presumably decreasing tension and encouraging peaceful feeding.

This is certainly different from how we imagine disputes are typically settled. This tribe does not exist because it is not human. It is the bonobo. Sex as a consistent method for dispute resolution is probably entirely unique to this species. The point here is that there are just some things that have to be observed in order to know them.

Furthermore, why are some humans more socially cooperative instead of socially adversarial? Probably because of evolution. Humans that cooperated probably survived better and passed on their genes. Why aren't we like lions who just kill their cubs so they can have more sex with their mates?

This is not knowledge that can be gained a priori. Humans could have evolved differently. We didn't, but we could have. I understand that there are disputes. If certain conditions are met, then there is a dispute. What I am challenging is that this can be known a priori that there will exist disputes in the physical world, and not just in logical space. After all, I could imagine a human society having a culture similar to the bonobo, but there is not human society like the bonobo society. This sort of thing just has to be observed.

To repeat, disputes definitely occur. If certain conditions are met, there is a dispute. More specifically, if two or more parties desire to use the same object in different ways, and they act upon these desires, then there is a dispute. At best we can say that. It's like the bachelor. We know a priori that a bachelor is an unmarried man. If there exists any man that is unmarried, then he is a bachelor. But we cannot know a priori that there are bachelors. We have to observe them. After all, there could be a society where upon reaching puberty, a boy (now a man) has to take a wife or be put to death. We know that there are not any such societies, but we do not know this a priori.

It's the same with disputes. We know that if there are two or more parties etc., then there is a dispute. But we have to observe in order to see if there are disputes. We cannot just say that they exist in the physical world. It's like with unicorns. We can imagine them. We can say that if there is any animal that meets the conditions of being a horse-like animal with a horn on its head, then it's a unicorn. That is what it means to be a unicorn. But we cannot say that these animals exist in physical space without observing them.

Take the platypus, "the unusual appearance of this egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate fraud." We can imagine such an animal, but we need to actually observe it in order to know that it exists in physical space and not just logical space.

I was in a rush to type this, so hopefully my point gets across. Otherwise I'll just have to retype it out later.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

David B — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:47:39 GMT

gotlucky: "it seems that even with scarcity, we cannot know for certain that there will be dispute."

I wanted to respond to this more directly. If I abstract the basic conflict concept to it's ultimate base, then I assume that all scarcity issues are conflict issues and all conflict issues are scarcity issues. This scarcity/conflict fact is the source of value, preference, choice. The motive of action.

So, I'll break it out separately. To act is to use a thing(or things) for a period of time in a specific place. The source of the event that appears in reality is the human mind. The quality that differentiates action from all other events is that the human mind thus attached could have chosen to not cause this event (as a negative description) or identically could have chosen to cause a different event (as an positive description).

There is a binding of human mind, matter, location and time as a locus of an event in reality that we describe as an action. The human mind is considered to be the cause or source of this event. Scarcity narrowly defined is "not having enough for all possible ends". Meaning regardless of scope, global or individual, part of this action intersection is not infinitely applicable.

Each of the 4 domains, mind, matter, location, and time has scarce components to it. These components are related to both space and time. Meaning that moving matter through space takes time. Even without time there are real limitations to how matter can be arranged within any specifc location in space. Time is rate of change, and the natural laws of the universe dictate the rate at which specific types of changes can occur. In so far as man is able to find alternate ways to achieve a result within a specific amount of time, he is using the laws of the universe to enable these actions, but at no point in time will any event or change be able to occur in not time.

Scarcity forces man, even in his individual actions to pick an action to take, and he the amount of time it takes for him to complete this action is non-negotiable. Those limits are set by the universe itself. So even in the instance of a single man choosing an action, you see the archetype of a conflict. Do I fish for food or do I pick up and crack coconuts? We speak in terms of preference and choice as categories that explain this internal decision making that all man MUST engage in.

If scarcity, insufficient means for all desired ends, is the phenomena that necessitates and motivates choice, value, preference in action, then why would it be any less so at the social level?

In other words, if the concept of choice and preference necessitate two potential courses of action that an actor must differentiate between because both cannot happen in the present, then why wouldn't ALL normative evaluation be caused by the same phenomena in a social setting. The differentiating property of a social conflict is the presence of incompatible plans in two different minds. An internal conflict within the same mind would be competing desires and the resolution is choice or preference as evidenced in the action chosen.

Choice is not possible without scarcity. Conflict is not possible without scarcity. Anything about reality that interferes with a man's ability to order the world into a more satisfactory state in the present would be deemed scarcity.

I'd like to here comments on this logical construction.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

David B — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:11:19 GMT

gotlucky:

It seems that we are using "dispute" differently. I do not consider conflict avoidance to be equivalent to dispute resolution. Conflict avoidance can occur without disputes. For example, if you see me build a house and claim it as my own, you would be avoiding conflict if you never contested that claim. So while there would be conflict avoidance, there would not have been a dispute. The dispute occurs when two or more people make a claim to the same object.

So, my question is: I know there is scarcity. I know that people do sometimes make claims to the same object. Is this really a priori knowledge that people sometimes make claims to the same object, or is this something that must be observed?

I suppose another way to put it: The knowledge that humans are omnivores is something that must be observed. Furthermore, there are some people who choose to not eat meat. This too must be observed. What is it about disputes that makes it that we know it without observation? Certainly I can imagine that people have disputes, just as I can imagine that pigs can fly. But these seem to be things that must be observed in order to know them.

To me, it seems that even with scarcity, we cannot know for certain that there will be a dispute. After all, parents will sometimes sacrifice themselves in order to save their children. But there could also be parents that don't sacrifice their lives for the children. But this seems to just be a case where we can imagine different possibilities. I don't quite see how this makes it a priori knowledge.

Great question, if I may I'll break this out as it's own discussion thread.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

gotlucky — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 17:36:44 GMT

It seems that we are using "dispute" differently. I do not consider conflict avoidance to be equivalent to dispute resolution. Conflict avoidance can occur without disputes. For example, if you see me build a house and claim it as my own, you would be avoiding conflict if you never contested that claim. So while there would be conflict avoidance, there would not have been a dispute. The dispute occurs when two or more people make a claim to the same object.

So, my question is: I know there is scarcity. I know that people do sometimes make claims to the same object. Is this really a priori knowledge that people sometimes make claims to the same object, or is this something that must be observed?

I suppose another way to put it: The knowledge that humans are omnivores is something that must be observed. Furthermore, there are some people who choose to not eat meat. This too must be observed. What is it about disputes that makes it that we know it without observation? Certainly I can imagine that people have disputes, just as I can imagine that pigs can fly. But these seem to be things that must be observed in order to know them.

To me, it seems that even with scarcity, we cannot know for certain that there will be a dispute. After all, parents will sometimes sacrifice themselves in order to save their children. But there could also be parents that don't sacrifice their lives for the children. But this seems to just be a case where we can imagine different possibilities. I don't quite see how this makes it a priori knowledge.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

David B — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:33:14 GMT

gotlucky:

David B,

I agree with much of what you said, but I'm still not convinced in one regard:

Suppose we have an alien observing Earth. First he looks at grass. Do grass have disputes? Certainly grass and trees compete with each other for nutrients. But do they have disputes? Next he looks at worms. Again, worms compete for food, but do worms have disputes with each other? Do birds have disputes with worms?

But the alien notices something funny, the bigger the brain on an animal, the more likely it is to get into disputes. He sees that rabbits generally don't fight other rabbits. But he sees wolves posturing and fighting. And then he sees humans, and well, we know full well what humans are capable of regarding disputes.

In other threads I've been clarifying these points slightly. Competing for resources results in a might makes right or better action = better result, but in the natural world without brains, there's not really intention so much as serendipity, and not a "gosh how lucky type" of a 50/50 coin flip, but (for example) if a slight variation of a specific protein that's constructed by a slightly different strand of DNA on a chromosome in a grass leaf, means that the way it's roots grow gives it a higher probability of reaching deeper into the soil for water, AND the blade is in an arid location means that specific grass instance will survive. There is a "contention" between different members of the population, but it's not like ours.

I agree that as we get more advanced this "contention" between members takes on a more and more purposeful nature. I agree with all of this so far.

gotlucky:

So, not all life forms must have disputes, even if they compete with one another. Basically, we know why law emerges, and we can know this a priori. In other words, if there are disputes, we can see how a system of law emerges. But what happens if there are not disputes? It's not like there must necessarily be a dispute just because something is scarce.

Actually that's exactly what scarcity means at the human level. Scarcity of means to be used for ends. Meaning that if we have access to 5 gallons of water, and you need 4 for your productive endeavor, and I need 3 gallons, then we've got scarcity. You can't introduce ownership, because we have no reason for it to pre-exist. I may not engage in some behavior that is intended to "get my way", but there is a dispute. Avoidance is a mechanism for resolving a dispute. If I go off looking for my 3 gallons elsewhere, that might become part of the dispute or conflict resolution norms within our common social group, or in my social group, which may be separate from yours.

The point at which we're physically or verbally contending over a single resource(either mano y mano, OR through an intermediary) we've at that point selected a solution path after discarding a variety of other options, like avoidance or modification of the plan internally. Each of us has gone through a series of "thresholds" where we discarded various alternative mechanisms to resolve the epistemological conflict that one or both of us recognized.

gotlucky:

I'm not entirely sure of where I am going with this. Obviously, we know that people have disputes. It just doesn't seem like something we can necessarily predict. "You, sir, are going to have a dispute regarding road rage." "You, sir, are going to have a dispute regarding the terms of your divorce". Obviously, many, if not all men and women who get divorced have disputes as to who gets what. But is this really a priori knowledge that they must necessarily have a dispute? After all, isn't it possible that every so often we might have a man and woman who are able to just take their respective property and walk away?

I mean, I know this is incredibly rare (if it even happens at all). But I'm not disputing whether or not it occurs, just whether we can know that it will necessarily occur a priori.

No the a priori fact is that individual human minds in a social group will have plans for the use of matter in reality that are incompatible with each other. When such an incompatability occurs, what actually happens? Well, humans recognize these incompatibilities and have adopted various mechanisms for resolving them, our norms encapsulate general rules of thumb as to what one or both of us should do. Think of changing lanes on a crowded highway

gotlucky:

If a man and woman get divorced without having a dispute as to who gets what, is it still a priori knowledge? It really just seems that we must observe that a dispute has occurred, and then we can reason out the conclusions.

Maybe I'm wrong.

You misunderstand, and I think it's because I'm using a term to represent a more abstract concept, than how that term (dispute or conflict) is traditionally used or defined. It's not that those two people will enter into some type of formal dispute or conflict over the dissolution of the marriages shared assets, it's that no matter what on a very regular basis, you will engage in actions or plan actions which will not be compatible with someone elses plans, and will have to adjust your plan and your actions in order to make your plan compatible with their plan. Keeping it as broad as possible, when I say conflict resolution I mean ANY means used by either or both of the parties to resolve this incompatibility. Even if it's to simply keep my mouth shut because of cowardice and to completely modify or discard my plan.

I hope that helps clear things up. I appreciate the criticism.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

gotlucky — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:40:39 GMT

David B,

I agree with much of what you said, but I'm still not convinced in one regard:

Suppose we have an alien observing Earth. First he looks at grass. Do grass have disputes? Certainly grass and trees compete with each other for nutrients. But do they have disputes? Next he looks at worms. Again, worms compete for food, but do worms have disputes with each other? Do birds have disputes with worms?

But the alien notices something funny, the bigger the brain on an animal, the more likely it is to get into disputes. He sees that rabbits generally don't fight other rabbits. But he sees wolves posturing and fighting. And then he sees humans, and well, we know full well what humans are capable of regarding disputes.

So, not all life forms must have disputes, even if they compete with one another. Basically, we know why law emerges, and we can know this a priori. In other words, if there are disputes, we can see how a system of law emerges. But what happens if there are not disputes? It's not like there must necessarily be a dispute just because something is scarce.

I'm not entirely sure of where I am going with this. Obviously, we know that people have disputes. It just doesn't seem like something we can necessarily predict. "You, sir, are going to have a dispute regarding road rage." "You, sir, are going to have a dispute regarding the terms of your divorce". Obviously, many, if not all men and women who get divorced have disputes as to who gets what. But is this really a priori knowledge that they must necessarily have a dispute? After all, isn't it possible that every so often we might have a man and woman who are able to just take their respective property and walk away?

I mean, I know this is incredibly rare (if it even happens at all). But I'm not disputing whether or not it occurs, just whether we can know that it will necessarily occur a priori.

If a man and woman get divorced without having a dispute as to who gets what, is it still a priori knowledge? It really just seems that we must observe that a dispute has occurred, and then we can reason out the conclusions.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

Marko — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 10:52:20 GMT

What sort of crises, and how does one break free?

Primarily a crisis of morale. When many people in the employ of the state start to have doubts they have the right to imprison and ultimately kill you simply for not cooperating with it. It is then when we can make a move at ignoring it.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

Minarchist — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:20:49 GMT

@gotlucky

....the origin of property is not consequentialist.

I want to firstly distinguish between the property ethic and what I'll name the "gimme factor." The "gimme factor" is the purely selfish desire to have the things one wants, and therefore to prevent others from having those things. Everyone, including aggressors, exhibit the "gimme factor." The property ethic is something else entirely. If there were one man on Earth, he would exhibit the gimme factor, but not the property ethic: or any ethic for that matter. Ethics are by nature universalizable, they are rules for society. Why do people who are all essentially selfish (who exhibit the gimme factor) believe in the property ethic? Why does a man who wants, say, a car, recognize that he should not take the car because it belongs to someone else? It's not because of altruism, or because of a dogmatic veneration of the property ethic, it is because he realizes that - ultimately - it is in his own best interest to respect the property of others (so then they will respect his). In other words, people believe in the property ethic for consequentialist reasons. The property ethic is not good in itself, it is good because of the good consequences its adoption yields.

If you say that respect for property is simply intuitive for most people, that they don't reason out the consequences and therefore choose to respect property in any given instance, that is true, but only because such reasoning has become habit. By way of analogy, why do people look both ways before crossing the street? Obviously, to avoid being hit by cars. But, when people actually look both ways before crossing the street, do they reason things out (i.e. "well I better do this or I will probably be hit by a car...") each time? No, they do it out of habit, unthinkingly. But the reason this habit exists is because of consequentialist reasoning. It didn't just pop into man's mind ready-made as an article of faith. The same is true of the property ethic (and, I would argue, all ethics).

Mutual respect for property. This is sufficient for the vast majority of a population, as the vast majority of people prefer social cooperation in their own life.

Isn't mutual respect for property synonymous with the property ethic? So what does it mean to say that mutual respect for property is the origin of the property ethic?

Law, or dispute resolution. This is necessary for the part of the population that engages in aggressive interactions with others. It is also necessary for when 2 parties have a dispute regarding some piece of property, but neither party considers himself to have acted criminally.

Certainly the existence of disputes between individuals living in a society is a conditio sine qua non for the property ethic. But this goes to my point, that the property ethic has consequentialist origins. Namely, people believe in the property ethic in order to avoid conflict (or, more precisely, in order to avoid losing conflicts, i.e. to protect their own selfish interests) - not because of an innate intuition that property is just. Though as I said above, the consequentialist reasoning behind the property ethic has become superfluous in most cases, as adherence to the property ethic has become mindless habit.

(Tangentially, note that this "mindless habit" is not a bad thing. In fact, the ability of human beings to use their reasoning to reach conclusions and then forget the reasoning and just act in accordance with the conclusions is of great value. Can you imagine if people had to walk around reasoning out everything they did? Nothing would ever get done. Of course it has its drawbacks too. The initial reasoning can be incorrect, in which case you have incorrect conclusions which are held as dogma (people having forgotten the reasoning behind it), and of which it is difficult to dissuade people. Or the original reasoning and conclusion can be correct, but can become corrupted over time without people noticing [because they don't remember the reasoning behind the conclusion], with the same result of having difficultly convincing people to abandon what has become dogma.)

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

David B — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:12:09 GMT

gotlucky:

But why do we have disputes? I don't see how that is a priori.

It's simple, and it is a priori, IMO.

It's scarcity. Scarcity creates conflict because you have intentional systems in play competing for the use of resources. As you point out throughtout the animal kingdom, there are a variety of emergent solutions to this scarcity issue that different organisms have evolved, to either a) help them beat out competitors, or b) help them cooperate with other organisms to their mutual benefit and, most likely, some other individuals or populations detriment.

In acting, man acts into the future to attain a state of reality that he prefers to the current one. Two people can have actions which are metaphysically incompatible: two cars in the same intersection at the same time, or the same car at two different locations at the same time. However, while both intended actions are incompatible, reality has no issue. Every dispute can be reduced to some version of this. Give me one that can't, I'll show how it is.

Therein lies the essence of dispute, it's part of competition. And the solution we adopt, over and over and over, is to come up with what we call social norms, about which of two people has the right of way. There will be either a location or physical matter that is being contested, and it will contain a time component, and the conflict will be the result of 2 or more human actors objecting to each others intended uses (or past use which violates established norms and rules). That's the essence of conflict. There are a variety of ways in which we can peacefully find ways to slightly alter each plan to enable us to both achieve our desired ends. When push comes to shove and the resources are sufficiently scarce, someone gets the right of way. This intersection of human mind, matter, time, and space is IMO the essential intersection that leads to a priori categories which I believe bring out the ideas of owner, property, and dispute. Now, in any society ownership has boundary conditions, in particular what constitutes a valid claim of ownership, time constraints for the duration of the claim, and transfer conditions which constitute a transfer of a valid claim which remains a valid claim.

All of this arises out of the essential components of human action.

And this phenomena of conflict or dispute is present as soon as you have two people. Because satisfying mans discomfort requires action, and in particular action that requires the use of matter, at some location, for some period of time! At minimum you start with the human body which lives for a specific duration of time, and must occupy some space in this world. We live peacably in that we resolve these incompatible intended realities in mutually beneficial ways the majority of the time. Societies which did not, would not survive. Individuals in societies that evolve norms which are destructive to the individuals and to production will end up marginalized, extinct, or swallowed by the ones that are more effective at this battle of the human mind to overcome the limitations imposed by reality that we perceive as scarcity.

In fact, I would argue that this same fundamental phenomena arises very early in biological evolution, cooperative mutually beneficial behaviors breed success for certain biological entities and thus the group is able to "win" the fight over scarce resources vs. other entities or populations.

I would argue that your examples point to the success of life generically at producing ever more complex and ever more effective organisms, which are able to thrive in the face of scarce resources. There was a time when organisms had nascent feedback mechanisms, these would eventually become more complex nervous systems, brains appear and become decision making engines with very rudimentary intelligence, and the process continues to grow as the plasticity and adaptability of the organisms grows.

We jumped the gap to become self-aware in a way no other organism on earth has done. One would expect to find emergent systems from our evolution which gave us huge advantages in the battle for survival. I doubt a non-social animal could develop the level of intelligence we have, simply because the communication and sharing of knowledge which forms the basis for all of our progress would not have given a selection advantage to animals which don't have a heavily social existence. But inherent in communication and cooperation is this need to coordinate our plans. Plans which may or may not be compatible. Even in this most basic concept of coordinating a hunt, you find the need to search through the proposed behaviors of the individuals to find a way to coordinate the actions of the members of a group to achieve a result that the group has chosen to go after, like hunting a wild animal, or constructing a shelter. Members will propose behaviors for themselves and for others, even here you find the need to modify each others actions so that the emergent group action achieves the "group goal". Yes cooperation is built in, and differences in the way each members sees the world and values the different goals they could pursue will lead to conflict at this most basic of levels. Survival will favor those who can coordinate and cooperate through communication. We're just better than any other species on earth.

By jumping the gap, we've bootstrapped beyond he level of "accidental" design, and become slightly (only slightly) better at accumulating knowledge and improvements in our technology. Why do we have norms? We're social, we find that all social groups (animal and human) have basic rulesets that are adhered to, and mechanisms for removing those that violate the rules.

But our rules while emergent, can also be reflected on and analyzed and modified. Ants and bees cannot simply change the ruleset and see what happens. They don't know the rules, they simply follow the rules.

So, my counter question would be, are you sure conflict and dispute resolution aren't an a priori basis for property as a concept? I think it's blatantly obvious that they are a priori. They must occur as concepts, because intelligent acting man, will form the categories no matter what. If he doesn't have some version of the category, he hasn't encountered a scarcity issue to resolve.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

Jargon — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:42:00 GMT

@ Minarchist

This sounds like a cool idea and appeals to me infinitely more than seasteading, which I imagine might be a dreadfully close-ended life despite the freedom. But it also seems like it would basically be a war: going over there, setting up camp and then waiting for some African taxman to come. Anyways if you have anything more to say on the subject I hope you'll keep posting on it.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

gotlucky — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 21:54:44 GMT

David B:

We ought to be able to construct the same kind of logical understanding of Property from the same Acting Man in the same Environment (scarce resources and time) + other people. I'm still to this day a little disconcerted by Austrian Economists/Philosophers not attacking this problem with the same type of rigor that they were able to attack the more fundamental Economic issues.

So, what is this "Mutual Respect for Property"? I agree that it exists, but I think it's hard thing to quantify. More specifically shouldn't it make sense as an emergent phenomena from the nature of acting man in his environment? Since resources are scarce, as man works to convert resources into capital he would reasonably view it as an investment of time and energy that he expects to see a return from over time. That's what motivates his time investment. In a wooded area, sticks aren't really scarce, but long straight sticks with a sharp point are scarce. The work that one puts into making a spear doesn't make sense if you won't see some direct result from the investment of time and energy. Now if we're sharing the results of the hunt in our tribe, it's reasonable for one guy (perhaps older and slower and unable to participate in a hunt), to specialize in making these "spears".

The origin of property is a tricky area. You can't apply the a priori method, and you can't really rely on Crusoe meeting Friday to explain it either. It is important to realize that animals in general make claims to objects (usually just territorially claims). Even ants go to war against other ants. Bees will attack for the hive. I don't know if ants or bees mark their territory, or if other animals just learn to stay away from bees (or ants to stay away from other colonies). But we do know that wolves mark their territory. Other wolves invade at their own risk. Chimpanzees do the same thing (though I don't think they mark with urine, but they do go attack chimps of other groups).

Wolves and chimps have means of resolving disputes in their own group. Both have a hierarchy. In the case of wolves, we know that there is the alpha wolf, there are many beta wolves, and there are omega wolves (I believe there may be other ranks, but this isn't an article on wolves). We know that wolves will settle their disputes, which are typically related to who is the alpha wolf, by either violent conflict or posturing.

Humans do not have to do this in order to resolve disputes. We can argue. While there are some other animals that have hierachies and "rules" (maybe they really are rules), none of these rules are even close to being as comphrensive as human norms and laws. But though we can create a vastly more complex system of resolving disputes, don't let that fool you into thinking that the origin of property is any different for humans than the origin of territory for other animals.

David B:

Anyway, a mutual respect for property would arise naturally out of the sheer fact that societies which respect, reward, and perhaps venerate productive effort would thrive and advance in comparison to other social groups. This doesn't establish it as the "right" way. In fact, my issue with the way Natural Property Rights constructions work, is that they attempt to bridge the unbridgable IOP problem. The normative "right/wrong" dichotomy is a subjective phenomena.

To follow on, once you see this Mutual Respect of Property as you described it, I believe the second of your two scenarios for dispute resolution is the primary reason for it. We would all recognize theft and aggression as violations of this basic concept, but the real issue is for the edge conditions. Property rights become THE only way to resolve the issue. When two people have acted in ways that they each believe follows the Mutual Respect issue is to have an arbitration of the result, or to continue escalating the actions which spoils the productive efforts of each. The arbitrative solution will establish some form of a property right. The nature of that right will have a big impact on the society through it's broader implications.

I agree with much of this, but I just want to emphasize that the reason Mutual Respect (it does look good when capitalized, doesn't it?) can only work is because the tendencies of humans is towards social cooperation. Even wolves prefer to posture most of the time instead of actually fighting, as many injuries are life threatening when in the wild. But for the most part, most people don't have disputes with others that need to be raised to the realm of law. Norms in general are typically sufficient. But, people in general just prefer social cooperation. This isn't something that can be discovered a priori. After all, even if humans tended towards violence a lot, we could still see how dispute resolution would counteract that tendency. But if the tendency towards violence was so strong that people could only resolve disputes through fights to the death, then we would have gone extinct a long time ago.

So, I don't think that the a priori method is appropriate for the origin of property. It can be applied to law, as Clayton did so wonderfully in his posts on the subject. At best, the closest you can get to the origin of property through the a priori method is through law. But why do we have disputes? I don't see how that is a priori. Maybe it is, but I don't see it.

David B:

So to bring this all to the gradualism vs. abolitionism. Abolition would leave a void, dispute resolution and aggression would still be problems. Some solution will slide into that vacuum. The solution will emerge out of the ideals and the memes that are present, and would most likely carry over some features of the previous system, since that's "what we know."

Yes, the state has atrophied many important sectors of the market. But I don't think immediate abolition would turn to chaos. It would probably be worse than it is now until the market for law stabilizes. But America already has a pretty decent property ethic. It's incredibly flawed in many ways, but the fundamental understanding is better here than in many other parts of the world. So, maybe you'll see some teenagers trying to vandalize shops, but the shop owners would quickly arm themselves, and then they would start paying others for protection.

A common argument against the bailouts of the auto industry is, "Let them fail. Let more productive people buy up the capital so that it can be put to good use instead of letting the same people fail again." Well, what do you think is going to happen to all the police stations, police cars, guns, police officers, and the rest of the capital. I mean, really, are we supposed to believe that all this capital is just going to disappear? Sure, maybe not all the cops will help and try to stop crime until they get their paycheck. But someone is going to want to put that capital to good use and get paid for it.

Re: Gradualism vs Abolitionism

David B — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:23:51 GMT

gotlucky:

Any one person may support the idea of property for consequentialist reasons, but the origin of property is not consequentialist. There are two origins:

1) Mutual respect for property. This is sufficient for the vast majority of a population, as the vast majority of people prefer social cooperation in their own life.

2) Law, or dispute resolution. This is necessary for the part of the population that engages in aggressive interactions with others. It is also necessary for when 2 parties have a dispute regarding some piece of property, but neither party considers himself to have acted criminally.

To say that you support your claim to own your bed for consequentialist reasons seems quite off to me. It's your bed because you have claimed it as your own, and other people recognize this claim as legitimate. Why do you claim it as your own? Why not give it to your neighbor? Or to a homeless (and bedless) man?

Property originates from the 2 reasons I mentioned above. If you consider those two options to be compatible with your concept of consequentialism, then you can probably disregard most of this post. But considering how upset people get when stuff is stolen from them, I suspect that most people support property for more intuitive reasons than well though out consequentialist reasons. That and most people don't think about this stuff, so it probably never crosses their mind.

@Gotlucky

One of my favorite things about Austrian Economics as laid out by Rothbard and Mises in their various books is the logical construction from a priori principles. Expanding on the idea of acting man into the full range of economic phenomena via logic.

We ought to be able to construct the same kind of logical understanding of Property from the same Acting Man in the same Environment (scarce resources and time) + other people. I'm still to this day a little disconcerted by Austrian Economists/Philosophers not attacking this problem with the same type of rigor that they were able to attack the more fundamental Economic issues.

So, what is this "Mutual Respect for Property"? I agree that it exists, but I think it's hard thing to quantify. More specifically shouldn't it make sense as an emergent phenomena from the nature of acting man in his environment? Since resources are scarce, as man works to convert resources into capital he would reasonably view it as an investment of time and energy that he expects to see a return from over time. That's what motivates his time investment. In a wooded area, sticks aren't really scarce, but long straight sticks with a sharp point are scarce. The work that one puts into making a spear doesn't make sense if you won't see some direct result from the investment of time and energy. Now if we're sharing the results of the hunt in our tribe, it's reasonable for one guy (perhaps older and slower and unable to participate in a hunt), to specialize in making these "spears".

Anyway, a mutual respect for property would arise naturally out of the sheer fact that societies which respect, reward, and perhaps venerate productive effort would thrive and advance in comparison to other social groups. This doesn't establish it as the "right" way. In fact, my issue with the way Natural Property Rights constructions work, is that they attempt to bridge the unbridgable IOP problem. The normative "right/wrong" dichotomy is a subjective phenomena.

To follow on, once you see this Mutual Respect of Property as you described it, I believe the second of your two scenarios for dispute resolution is the primary reason for it. We would all recognize theft and aggression as violations of this basic concept, but the real issue is for the edge conditions. Property rights become THE only way to resolve the issue. When two people have acted in ways that they each believe follows the Mutual Respect issue is to have an arbitration of the result, or to continue escalating the actions which spoils the productive efforts of each. The arbitrative solution will establish some form of a property right. The nature of that right will have a big impact on the society through it's broader implications.

From this one can make sense of normalization, formalization, iteration of norms, laws,and the formation of the ideas of legal and illegal. To me it's an obviously emergent phenomena. The key to understanding and analyzing the whole sphere of politics is in logical analysis of acting man, his environment, and how the right of way is derived and enacted. The ways in which this happens is part of the social ecosystem in which all of mans behaviors, art, economic, etc. happen, and the bottom line is there's a darwinian survival of the fittest at the societal level, and at the "knowledge" level. Fitter memes will result in fitter social organizations.

So to bring this all to the gradualism vs. abolitionism. Abolition would leave a void, dispute resolution and aggression would still be problems. Some solution will slide into that vacuum. The solution will emerge out of the ideals and the memes that are present, and would most likely carry over some features of the previous system, since that's "what we know."

I think it boils down to advancing the social sciences. Even abolition would not be abolition. It would end up being a version of gradualism, unless it arises as a consequence of a fundamental change in the way we view economics and politics. The key to getting a real substantive change, is to change hearts and minds, and that's the advancement of social science, particularly political theory. Economics is still a bit in the dark ages, Austrian Economics shows the way, but we still have junk economic theory that is being used to justify interference via political systems which are in and of themselves archaic remnants of tribal/patriarchal systems. I think we're waiting on the equivalent of a copernican revolution in the social sciences and in political theory. Maybe it happened with Austrian Economics in the late 1800s through the late 1900s and now we're just seeing the leading edge of the acceptance necessary to push it over the edge. Libertarian theory may also be the same thing. Time will tell. I'm not sure if we've reached that tipping point yet intellectually, and if we haven't we're going to get more of the same even if we do have systemic collapses.