Murray Rothbard and the Slaughter of the Gingers.

From Murray Rothbard's "For a New Liberty"
Does anyone else think this might be where Parker and Stone got their idea for the "ginger-kid" theme in some of their South Park episodes?

"Let us consider a stark example: Suppose a society which fervently considers all redheads to be agents of the Devil and therefore to be executed whenever found. Let us further assume that only a small number of redheads exist in any generation — so few as to be statistically insignificant. The utilitarian-libertarian might well reason: "While the murder of isolated redheads is deplorable, the executions are small in number; the vast majority of the public, as non-redheads, achieves enormous psychic satisfaction from the public execution of redheads. The social cost is negligible, the social, psychic benefit to the rest of society is great; therefore, it is right and proper for society to execute the redheads." The natural-rights libertarian, overwhelmingly concerned as he is for the justice of the act, will react in horror and staunchly and unequivocally oppose the executions as totally unjustified murder and aggression upon nonaggressive persons. The consequence of stopping the murders — depriving the bulk of society of great psychic pleasure — would not influence such a libertarian, the "absolutist" libertarian, in the slightest. Dedicated to justice and to logical consistency, the natural-rights libertarian cheerfully admits to being "doctrinaire," to being, in short, an unabashed follower of his own doctrines."

Thoughts on Pragmatarianism with Xero

Here is a short Mises.org discussion between me and Xerographica about tax-choice or pragmatism. It was a doctrine I was largeky unfamiliar with. It insists that people must pay taxes to the state but that they may choose to what government programs those taxes are spent. It differs from anarcho-capitalism in that it still believes in the coercive authority of the state. We ended up getting into a discussion on the implications of "the invisible hand" and Xero tried to convince me that the person who truly understands human fallibility would be the one who continues to support the coercive authority of the state to exist. I took issue with this and here is the conversation to date:

James Rick said 22 hours ago:

I like the idea, and I would certainly promote tax-choice in politics but I’d like you to tell me exactly what the real difference between anarcho-capitalism and pragmatarianinsm is. Is it only a conflict of means towards the same ends?
By my thinking, the U.S. government would exist in an anarchist society much the way the Catholic church exists now. The Church used to have crazy powers over a lot of things but now has almost no coercive power outside of the Vatican and is an institution capable of promoting social good. Could not the same happen with the institutions of government. In “Alongside Night” the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre says that government institutions will likely become workers syndicates in an anarcho-capitalistic society (agorism vs. ancaps aside).
Is the difference between this and pragmatism simply that pragmatist institutions would still claim some sort of official claim as representatives of the people rather the worker’s syndicates? Because I believe such pretentions to authority, even if people have the right to opt out, can be dangerous.

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Xerographica said 20 hours, 25 minutes ago:

Here’s the main difference…
Anarcho-capitalist: the state is not necessary
Statist: the state is necessary
Pragmatarian: the state may or may not be necessary
Buddha, Socrates, Smith, Bastiat, Hayek all argued that our perspectives are extremely limited. For example, if you came to me with a business plan…I could give you my opinion on your business plan but I couldn’t truly say whether your business was or wasn’t necessary. The only way to figure out if your business is necessary is to start it and see if anybody purchases your product/service.
Pragmatarianism sounds like a ridiculously good idea to me. But if nobody “buys” it then well…the markets have spoken. Ideas can always be ahead of their time.
There wouldn’t be any pragmatist institutions though. There would only be institutions in the private sector and institutions in the public sector. Given how limited my perspective is…there’s no way that I…or anybody else…can truly know which institutions would be in which sector. That would be up to the market to decide.
What would happen in an anarcho-capitalist system if you felt that an institution was becoming dangerous? All you could do was encourage people to boycott it and start up your own institution to try and compete with the dangerous institution. It’s the same exact thing in a pragmatarian system. If you felt the Dept of Defense was dangerous then you could encourage people to boycott it and then start up your own organization that had none of the same flaws as the Dept of Defense.
Call your organization the Bleeding Heart Militia and use it to stop genocide in Africa and I’m sure some people would donate money to your organization.

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James Rick said 20 hours, 6 minutes ago:

Right, and I’m a big fan of all those guys and thats the number one arguement I have with statist friends: “How do you know all this when the market doesn’t?” It’s funny because most of them will agree with Socrates that “all that I know is that I know nothing” but they will still insist that they are right on social issues like gay marriage and deny others the right to choose.
I’m just not sure you could call a pragmatarian idea “The State”. Do I have the right to opt out of it entirely and make no contributions to any sector of it, whatsoever?
Also, if I think an organization is dangerous I would boycott it, but if I have to chose between government organizations and the choice to opt out entirely is removed, then it isn’t a true choice.
I don’t know if youre saying I would or not be able to opt out entirely, thats why I’m asking, but your site’s by-line “make all governmental donations tax dedecutable” sounds like you have to donate to something.
From what I gather though, pragmatarianism sounds like a great “middle-way” or “golden-mean”. I can see why you brought the Greeks and Buddha into this. Of course Bastiat and Smith are there because, well, we are still libertarians, right?

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James Rick said 20 hours, 2 minutes ago:

I read the discussion again and I’m not sure you gave a satifactory answer to the question, “why be taxed at all?”
Do we have to put some money in, or is it okay to do nothing? It isn’t truly voluntary if I have to put a certain amount of money into at least one of a certain selection of organizations. The power to choose between two master does not make a slave free.

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Xerographica said 19 hours, 8 minutes ago:

Why be taxed at all?
If I said that taxes should be optional then I would be saying that the proper scope of government does not include forcing people to pay taxes. But if I said that then I would just be an anarcho-capitalist.
As a pragmatarian I say that the proper scope of government should be determined by taxpayers. So if taxpayers do not feel that forcing people to pay taxes is within the proper scope of government then they would just boycott the IRS out of existence.
If you get a chance you should check out my post on libertarianism and the free-rider problem….and my post on anarcho-capitalism vs civilization.

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James Rick said 18 hours, 51 minutes ago:

Right, thats what I thought and why I’m definately an ancap. If some people donate enough to the IRS to keep it in buisness, those people are exercising coercive power over me and are essentially filling the role of “the secretive band of robbers” which Lysander Spooner talks of in “no treason”. They are the voting class which controls the non-voting class, except its not by ballot anymore.
That is if you believe the ballot actually did anything, but thats not relevant here. What is relevant is that you’re still giving power to a coercive, large-scale democracy.

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James Rick said 18 hours, 38 minutes ago:

I like pragmatarianism as a stepping stone, but I don’t support the right of some people to fund the IRS. They may fund the IRS voluntarily but the IRS will be securing funds from others involuntarily. Even if they choose where in government those funds go.
Quick thought on your anarcho-capitalism vs civilization: I think you’re taking a bit of what might be called an ethnocentrist view of civilization. Alliegence to a tribe or religion rather than nation is in no way inferior to what you call “civilization” which is just about the most subjective term on the market. I agree with David Graeber in that sometimes we make this “us and them” distinction between “civilized” and “non-civilized”. Why would allegience to extended kinship relations, tempered with self-ownership and propert rights, be an undesireable thing. Compared to nationalism, it rocks.
I actually think of myself as a human being first, a Rick (my family) second, Cathagnostic (agnostic who supports the Catholic church for social justice and social solidarity) third, and a whole bunch of things after that. I’d say “American” (which to me is someone who who was born on either of the American continents) is pretty low. Involuntary member of the tax farm known as America might be up there, but that title would be gone in an ancap society.

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Xerographica said 18 hours, 14 minutes ago:

It boils down to fallibilism. Having lived in a stateless society for a year my best guess is that a state is necessary. But I could be wrong. Are you willing to admit that there’s a chance that you might be wrong as well? If you’re not willing to admit that there’s a chance that you might be wrong…then how are you any different than a statist?
Again…here we see Hayek’s Conceit vs Humility and Buddha’s parable of the blind men touching different parts of the elephant. Rothbard said that if there was a button that would instantly and entirely abolish the state then he would push that button until his thumb blistered. But what if his theory was wrong? Do you think Hitler and Mao thought that their theories might be wrong?
Having studied International Development Studies at UCLA I can tell you for a fact that brilliant brilliant people have no idea why some countries develop and other countries do not. They have their theories…but time and time again their theories have been proved wrong. By saying that the state is not necessary you’re saying that you know better than all those brilliant brilliant minds.
Maybe you know something that none of us do. Maybe you can actually touch the entire elephant. Therefore, maybe you’re the only blind man that can actually “see”. But isn’t that what all the blind men think? Throughout history…the only people who could truly “see”….Buddha, Socrates, Smith, Bastiat, Hayek, etc…were the ones who fully understood just how little they could actually see.

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James Rick said 18 hours, 3 minutes ago:

You’re assigning some sort of confidence to me that I clearly don’t have. I don’t think my ideas are infallible, hell most of em can’t even be considered “my” ideas. But I don’t think democracy or a pragamtist idea of allowing people to essentially pick their poison is any less fallible. I admit my fallibility, in fact I’ll swear by it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take a stand on something I believe. After all, I could be wrong that murder is evil or genocide unacceptable, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stand against them with all I can.
In the same fashion I’ll stand against a coercion I think is wrong, though not to the extent that genocide is.
And the Rothbard, Hitler, Mao comparison is a little ridiculous. I get your point but try to use Hitler-relations sparingly.
Couldn’t we be wrong about “the invisible hand” anyway. Kevin Carson in “The Iron Fist Behind the Invisble Hand” how capitalism was largely a political change, resulting from the interests of the establishment, not a sponatneous market order. Sometimes libertarians do over-estimate our own liberal conceptions of the free-market and property rights or our ideas of “civilization”. Rothbard probably did. But couldn’t we be just a little wrong about how great the invisible hand really is. I mean Smith used the analogy like six times to mean six different things (I forget the exact number). Perhaps we shouldn’t base our entire moral philosophy on the idea that we are unworthy to have a moral philosophy?

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Xerographica said 17 hours, 12 minutes ago:

Saying that you’re an anarcho-capitalist is signalling that the state is unnecessary. If you’re not confident that the state is unnecessary then why call yourself an anarcho-capitalist?
Don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying that Rothbard was the same as Hitler and Mao. The difference is quite clear. Rothbard never had the opportunity to press the button while Hilter and Mao did have the opportunity. Maybe if Rothbard had had the opportunity then perhaps he would have thought twice about pressing the button.
You’re not quite catching my drift if you solely associate the invisible hand concept with Adam Smith. He just coined the term but the idea is really no different than Buddha talking about the blind men and the elephant. We all have different values and access to different information. Bastiat’s Seen vs Unseen covered the idea of different values and Hayek’s Conceit vs Humility covered the idea of different information.
So it’s all the same idea expressed in different ways from different angles. We all have extremely limited but unique perspectives… therefore.. .tolerance… cause there’s a really good chance that we might be wrong.
Now…personally I’m not smart enough to go down the path of being wrong about tolerance. I’m just smart enough to understand just how little we can truly know. That’s what makes me a pragmatarian.

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James Rick said 6 hours, 45 minutes ago:

I am fairly confident the State is unneccesary, and even if I wasn’t, it is possible to be a pessimistic anarcho-capitalist. See Kinsella:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kinsella/kinsella15.html
The difference between Hitler, Mao and Rothbard has absolutly nothing to do with the abilty to press the button. It has every thing to do with the application of violence. It’s about morals, not goals. Means, not ends.
I’d just like to bring up Popper’s “Paradox of Tolerance”.
I’d say we’re both pretty humble people who accept a basic idea of the invisible hand that certainly transends Adam Smith (The problem is that in modern thinking the phrase is almost exclusivly associated with Smith and markets. Mostly becasue niether Jesus or Buddha ever actually said anything about an invisible hand. The ideas are applicable and worthy of thought, but they are still an idea, as infallible as the rest. Bastiat is a different story, and “the seen and unseen” is important here, but either way the invisible hand is percieved by most as a sort of Gordon Gecko “Greed is Good” thing).
Popper theorised that tolerance cannot completely by accepted because to do so would be to tolerate intolerance and hence, tolerance dies. The difference between us right now is that you are willing to tolerate some coercion. You will allow the taxpayer to choose to whom he is enslaved but he is still a slave. Therefore, I would say, in your humility, you are tolerating intolerance.
You are essntially, asserting your right to say that all people MUST donate to the state. This does not sound very tolerant to me. I don’t think there is any arguement whatsoever in the idea that a form of minarchism (like Pragmatrainism) is “more tolerant” simply because it allows the state to exist. That would be saying it is more tolerant because it tolerates intolerance, hence, Popper’s paradox.
It isn’t about our infallibility to know whether or not the state is neccesary, it is about our infallibility to control our fellow man through force and his infallibility to control us through force. I accept that Man is too infallible to do so, I also accept that it is deontologically, not just consequentialistly, wrong. I will not tolerate slavery simply because I may be wrong about the neccesity of it. As Stephan Kinsella argues in the link above, “crime may never disapper, but that doesn’t mean I have to support it.” (Paraphrase). It also doesn’t mean I have to tolerate it, due to my own infallibility.

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James Rick said 5 hours, 58 minutes ago:

Just a quick relation with the blind men and the elephant: (Although I remembered it as being mostly about religious tolerance, I looked it up again and realised it could be applicable to political theory as well):
A pragmatist is essentially saying, that because I know not the whole elephant, I must contribute my effort to support alternate interpretations of it. They would force the man who believes it is a wall to contribute to the man who believes it is a pillar.
An anarcho-capitalist would be saying, You should support others’ views of things, but no one is going to force you to.
It is the application of force which shows the governmentalist to be doing wrong, not the fact that I believe his social theory to be flawed.

Why Noam Chomsky should vote for Ron Paul PART 1

The Competitive Mentality

What are dreams anyway? I thought I had those in my sleep.

                I recently listened to a speech given by a good friend of mine with the classic "Don't give up your dreams!" theme. I know, very cliché, but I don't hold that against him (compared to my aptitude for public address, cliché is good.) What I do hold against him is what that theme rolled into. After laying out some inspirational quotes from the Rocky movies and even one that I think was from "Hoosiers" but I'm not sure (I don't watch sports movies) he continued to say that everything from our current economic troubles to our lack of a cure for cancer exist because people didn't believe they had the ability to go into fields that could solve those problems and do so. He lamented the fact that retail sales-people and not super-heroes or astronauts hold the largest single percentage of the workforce.  We've all been confronted with this view of the world before. It usually causes us to lean back and say, "What's wrong with retail sales-people?" but when we take a step back we realize that the underlying emotion of the speech is something natural to capitalism itself.

                 No, it isn't the give-everyone-a-trophy egalitarianism of our youth soccer days; it is something far more insidious and elitist than that. For us young-folk it is a call to never give up on ourselves, but it isn't only with the young that this idea is popular. It is a very popular idea with those on top. Why? Because it gives an excuse which is culturally acceptable as to why some people are successful and others aren't.

                The defenders of capitalism often believe people's inequality of wealth is a result of economic performance (barring the state; we're talking about why some people are doctors and lawyers while others are retail salespeople). It is no longer popular with the upper-middle and even high class to believe that this is based on some sort of superior upbringing or genealogy. Instead we have substituted the idea of effort. When a successful man looks down and says, "How did I get here?" perhaps the most comforting answer is "I worked harder than everyone else and never gave up." The privileged rarely want to admit the existence of pure, dumb luck (or at least they'll never acknowledge that it may be more important that work ethic or determination). It makes a good substitute for social Darwinism as they successful no longer have to insist the poor deserve to be underprivileged but instead insist that the poor must believe in themselves. They blame society for keeping the individual down through ridicule of goals and disbelief in what the individual thinks he or she can do and advocate a kind of unadulterated ambition that I, personally, find terrifying in a secular world.    

                I think that's part of the reason my father, who is about as dedicated and "brilliant" as me, is such a huge liberal. He knows that he is very successful due in large part to the luck of the draw. This is also I think why we see a huge liberal bias in actors. Many of them have a true talent and work very hard but they know that a lot of their success is dependent entirely on chance.

                As true free-marketers we must never forget that the luck of the draw has just as much, if not more, of an effect on the successes and failures of individuals as dedication. We can't allow ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking that the underprivileged are so for any reason other than chance. If we do, we try to legitimatize our station over them and trample all over the idea of basic human equality. If you are on the short end of the stick, don't subscribe to the competition mentality that you must struggle and struggle and if you don't make it there must be something wrong with you--not the system, but you. 

                People often complain about complacency or lack of work ethic but if you look to history you see that human beings are working harder and more often than we did before inequality reared its ugly head. In many pre-State societies egalitarianism reigned until a few "big-men" decided they would work harder than everyone else and eventually people began to fall into their control. Later they would look down and wonder what was wrong with those lazy people below them and reaffirm their right to rule and be respected as great men. This is an over-simplification of the process which occurred among many Native American and New Guinea peoples but I think the point stands. Inequality goes hand in hand with both liberty and tyranny; with liberty because it is necessary for self-determination and with tyranny because a tyrant always must secure and legitimatize his place over his fellow man.

                I'm not saying I think we should all stay at home and do nothing, nor am I saying that the profit motive is not a good way to get things done in human society. What I am saying is that if there is any hope for social unity under free-markets, we cannot keep telling the unsuccessful that they needed to work harder. We have to understand that because of the way our culture and society are currently structured there are only so many seats at the table and it is often the worst among us, not the best, who make it to those seat (As Hayek, an Austrian neoliberal economist, pointed out).

                The idea is about a society with opportunities for all and where all may find a place at one or two good tables that strike their fancy, not about a society that allows the "better-man", the "dedicated", or the Rocky Balboa to get on top. In a truly free society, the top won't mean nearly as much as it means now and hopefully we can stop complaining about how few astronauts and super-heroes there are around.   

I moved to Mises.

Hey! I've made a profile on the Mises.org community site and will be doing a lot of writing there in forums and comments. I'll still try to publish all my articles on this blogspot site. If you're a libertarian and want a good place to enter the blogosphere, check out Mises.org.

Androids and Ethics

I've been reading Kinsella recently on ethics. He seems to assert that property rights are what determine self-ownership rather than the other way around. He says that your body is property of your Self because you have direct control over it and had first control over it, making it homesteaded by you. I'm a bit confused on the origin of self-ownership in relation to property rights. In many other libertarian writings, including Hoppe, authors assert that self-ownership is true because to deny it is a performative contradiction and from this idea flows the basic moral system of property rights.

Kinsella, apparently, basis his ideas on Hoppe's argumentation ethics as do I (What you could call ideas) but I can't understand why they diverge on this particular subject.

 So who is correct, or more correct? Where do libertarian ethics begin?

You could make the utilitarian argument of Mises but right now I'm more concerned with the deontological arguments. Being more of an ethics-buff than an economics-buff, the guiding principles on which libertarianism is based interest me deeply and I accept the NAP, the Self-ownership principle, and extended property rights (as in more than just personal possession when it is in use) but I'm not entirely sure what leads to what and how.

My first argument against Kinsella stems from my sci-fi obsession, in the form of a completely outrageous but nonetheless interesting scenario.

So if we imagine a programmer builds a conscious android whose body can be controlled by the programmer at a computer. At some times, the android's Self has complete control over his actions and therefore qualifies for the self-ownership principle. But at other times, the programmer may take control of the android's body and he is powerless to stop it and the programmer has both direct and first use.

The programmer also has creative rights, which are invalid by Kinsellan ethics.

The programmer has indisputable first and direct use as he activated the android and used his cognitive and motor functions first (undoubtedly in tests) and can seize control of him at any time. Assuming he wants to hold onto these rights, he has control of the android's body and possibly even his mind without the android's consent.

Clearly this is a form of slavery but my understanding of Kinsella's argument leads me to believe that this scenario would be possible under his system. A consciousness is trapped, immovably, inside another's property which violates both basic freedom of movement and self-determination. This cannot be allowed to happen under any moral system.

I know this is an odd scenario but it touches on the very real issue of whether or not people who are not in complete control of their actions technically own themselves and the results of their actions. I know that if the android commits a crime while under the control of his programmer he is not responsible but this is not the same as his body being the property of his programmer just as a person is not responsible for murder if someone stole their gun and shot someone else.

So I come to a point of deduction really. I want to believe the android owns his body but I don't know exactly why. The only reasons I can think of for this is a subjective freedom ethic, which would be altogether too vague or an ethic which begins with the self-ownership principle. The use of the body is necessary to carry out the will of the mind; therefore a mind has ownership of its respective body. 

Property would then be an extension of freedom of mind and that opens up the path for the moralization of intellectual property, which has always rubbed me the wrong way even before I started reading Kinsella. Not to mention it sounds a lot like Rand and the last thing I want to do in my moral thinking is declare that government must exist because "Man is Man".

So again, I'm still a little lost on this one but Hoppe seems to have the best idea of the origin of libertarian ethics; one that is not based on vague or romanticized ideas but logic and that doesn't allow for the possibility of someone controlling someone else's body non-consensually. I've read that Kinsella accepts Hoppe's argumentation ethics but I don't understand how, if he believes that rights stem for self-ownership, he still claims that property rights precede self-ownership and that the homestead principle is therefore more basic than the self-ownership principle. 

When The Bear Becomes the Bee-Keeper

Franz Oppenheimer wrote a book called "The State" in which he defined the six-stage evolution of the state in society by the domination of one ethnic group by another. The two will eventually fuse, but Oppenheimer essentially believed that the principle cause of the State's existence was the subjugation of one people by another.

I wrote a short poem over the subject and but first here's a very brief outline of the stages.

Stage One: A group of people acts as a bear would to a bee-hive and invades another. Tyranny, rape, and pillage. They often return to the same group of people and pillage again.

Stage Two: The Bear becomes the Bee-Keeper. Dominates the hive for more money. A notion of right and wrong develops among the conquerors regarding the way in which they should treat the subjugated. Live subjects can produce more than dead.

Stage Three: Surpluses lead to more tribute-- Precursor to taxation.

Stage Four: Both ethnic groups become a union on one strip of land. Move from international to intranational relationship.

Stage Five: Conflicts between different peasants are put down by the leaders; leads to the court systems.

Stage Six: Interference in subjects' affairs increase. Stratification increases.

When The Bear Becomes The Bee-Keeper;

Wandering Herdsmen, out for a fight,

Come across a settled society at night,

And as the bear acts to the bee,

Or how the Viking acts on the Sea,

So these tyrants robbed and stole,

And became the great kings of old.

With authority established by the sword,

They rode to victory in monstrous hordes.

But a true nation did not come to be,

Until the tyrants came to see,

That a dead man cannot work the fields,

And an untended crop, little profit yields.

So the tyrant let the man stand and the tree grow,

Leaving him with his seeds to sow,

And let be the peaceful sleeper,

When the Bear became the Bee-Keeper.

So the notion of right and wrong,

Enter into our present song.

For what is good to the Peasant is profitable to the king.

"Praise to his Virtue," the Peasants sing.

When prosperity came to all,

And Gold decorated the tyrant's hall,

He made the Peasants feel accepted,

And their tribute was never rejected.

So the Law of the land was made,

By Methods no less cruel than De' Sade's.

The hegemons can stay or go anywhere,

But if they return, the land is theirs.

If a few rivalrous Peasants,

Make everyone else's day unpleasant,

With their quarreling amongst each other,

The tyrant must now be an elder brother,

And find a solution, equitable and fair.

To mend the dividing tear,

Which ripped its way so maliciously,

Into his people and their productivity.

By now the invaders have chosen to stay,

And have chosen women with whom to lay.

On this strip of land, they will build a new nation,

And secure domestic relations.

The Peasants now greet their captors,

Not as wolves, hawks, or raptors,

But as protectors of the realm,

And steersmen at the ship's great helm.

Leading softly, through the night,

As arbitrators of wrong and right.

"The State is all and we are none,"

They cry, as patiently, they await the sun.

   

Who Cares What Other People Think?

Who Cares What Other People Think?


He does too.





So I'm reading through Hodgskin's "An Essay on naval Discipline" and within the first few chapters he discusses what exactly "Fame" is. He defines it as a pursuit of the praise of other to such an extent that the recipient of that praise becomes conscious of his superiority of others and, because man is naturally disposed to seek praise, it is one of the principle motivators of people to action.



Adam Smith in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" stated similar ideas and given the two thinker's close proximity to each other in time and theory (Hodgkins was a follower of Ricardo whose ideas on the Labour Theory of Value) are often lumped together with Smith's, although there are distinctions).



I can easily think of many Americans who have that mentality of "Keeping up with the Joneses" which so influenced the song "Grand Illusion" by Styx,



"Welcome to the Grand illusion
Come on in and see what's happening
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show
The stage is set, the band starts playing
Suddenly your heart is pounding
Wishing secretly you were a star.



But don't be fooled by the radio
The TV or the magazines
They show you photographs of how your life should be
But they're just someone else's fantasy
So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because you never win the game
Just remember that it's a Grand illusion
And deep inside we're all the same.
We're all the same...



So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because your neighbours got it made
Just remember that it's a Grand illusion
And deep inside we're all the same.
We're all the same...



America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Get yourself a brand new motor car
Someday soon we'll stop to ponder what on Earth's this spell we're under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are."



Sometimes, capitalism is criticised for inspiring a pursuit of wealth with little to no self reflection, an obsession with the material that takes hold of our lives and destroys social solidarity and leaves the great majority of us feeling unfulfilled and left behind.



But, by my observation, it is instead the pursuit of the praise and admiration of our fellows that we seek material wealth so vehemently, only to squander it on things we would be perfectly happy without (as long as the Joneses didn't get one).



Why then do human beings seek praise so much? The raw pursuit of admiration doesn't seem to have any immediate benefit to either the individual or collective (particularly when that admiration is derived exclusively from the acquisition of material wealth and the squander thereof). Sacred cows, unholy pigs, love of pigs, the obnoxiously fierce concept of masculinity; all of these can be at least partially explained by what might be called materialistic theories but I cannot see a materialist reason for the rise of our obsession with each other's praise (besides the basic need of humans to work together, which can be solved much more easily than a devotion to spending and wasting more than anyone else).

Marvin Harris, one of the leading anthropologists in America argues in his book "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches" that all human culture stems originally from some concrete place or need. For instance, those societies that would need some sort of redistribution of wealth, but do not have the appropriate social structure to maintain it, may have some sort of a potlatch. During this the individual gives away as much food as possible, for the perceived reason of making everybody love him. The answer is evolutionary in nature; those societies full of affable people willing to give food away and receive love will survive while those that aren't will not.

While I accept Harris's solution for the Native Americans who practice the potlatch, I'm not sure how well it applies to modern America. Perhaps it is simply left-over from before, when a voluntary redistribution of wealth was more necessary (though I would argue it is very necessary now). The problem is that our pursuit of admiration doesn't always lead us towards altruistic pursuits but often selfish ones (Is this because of the "invisible hand, Mr. Smith?).

This question is one that has always peeked my interest and my own emotions as I, like anyone, pursue the good opinion of my peers. I will no doubt consider to ponder this question, but for now I am left in mystery as to the origin of our obsession with proving ourselves worthy of extravagance. I only know that for our society to advance into a more equal, free, and voluntary form we must overcome it.    

Polygamy and other victimless crimes.

Law, Custom, and Taboo

There are many different theories on how exactly the concept of a "law" came to be. Was it the arbitrary dictations of an aggressor on his victims? In many cases, yes. Was it a strengthening of the position of simply a local custom into a taboo with force to back it up? In many other cases, yes.

One thing we can be very sure about however is that the modern conception of "law" did not originally exist to stop people from infringing on each other's natural rights. In truth, the concept of natural rights was largely a product of the peasantry or subjugated class of a State, which Franz Oppenheimer illustrates very clearly in his classic, "Der Staat" or "The State". Law, Oppenheimer claims, was preceded by the moment that the "bear became the beekeeper" or when conquerors realized that a man alive is worth more than a man dead and a tree tended too is worth more than a neglected stump. He is not claiming that they had an epiphany but instead that, by evolutionary model and natural selection, those hegemons who did treat their subjects with some semblence of decency were more likely to survive.

Not all laws, however, protect one individual from another. For that matter, not all cultural taboos, in any culture, exclusively protect the individual. I had a conversation recently with someone convinced that things like polygamy or sexual activities amongst children are tabooed because they must be unhealthy or directly hurt someone. I tried to explain that polygamous cultures in the past have provided more rights to women in many cases but they continued to insist that because the Mormons in America did not that no polygamous culture ever could. I don't try to make claims to absolute objectivity but if we can't open our frame of vision beyond only those things recorded in our own culture we are lost from an anthropological standpoint.

Beyond the issue of polygamy is the issue of sexual activity amongst children (only child to child--Adult to child is a completely different and often head 'splodeing issue). In our culture it is severely frowned upon although it seems to directly harm absolutely no one. Forgetting religious concerns for the moment, why would such things be prohibited? Some claim because it would be unhealthy for the child. Perhaps in our culture this is true but the only unhealthy aspects of it would be the psychological problems that accompany the violation of a taboo, which must be blamed more on the taboo itself than the act if the act has no other discernable consequence. Among the !Kung people in the Kalahari, it is common practice for children to do this and is perceived as normal and healthy. You can look at the causes of such practices among different societies but, while that is a fascinating subject, I am, at this time, more concerned with the question of morality. The !Kung children grow up fine and perfectly adapted to their culture.

On the other hand, the !Kung have a strict taboo against speaking the name of the dead, who they fear will cause them physical harm if they do. They also have a taboo on telling dirty jokes in the company of your sister. While this may be good advice, most would not consider it to be immoral and it causes direct harm to know individual.

The !Kung may wonder at how we speak the names of our dead or make sexual references in the immediate vicinity of female relatives and we may wonder why they allow children to fondle each other. In each instance no one is being hurt but we still perceive wrong being done.

I'm not trying to denounce all taboo, many of which have utilitarian purposes and are a important part of group identity and solidarity, I am only insisting that to exist in a multicultural world we must make no claim to being a "Christian" or "Muslim" nation and must allow people to do what they will. All people are free to harbor their own feelings about certain acts, harmful or otherwise, but I would recommend that we analyze to roots and effects of our own traditions before condemning others and, above all, that we try to keep open minds and big hearts.   

The Welfare State and Recipient

Libertarians are often disdainful of the Welfare recipient. Not the system, which I agree to be a social evil, but of the recipients themselves. Single parent homes and other situations involving childcare contribute to the bulk of Welfare recipients and libertarians often view these people who were imprudent in their lives and are paying the price now. Some contribute this to libertarian demographics, claiming that libertarianism is "the rich man's anarchy" or "liberalism for old white men".

Is this true? Are libertarians demographically more likely to be rich than their liberal counterparts? The answer is no if you go by a study done by the PEW research center in 2006. In fact libertarians were shown to be slightly poorer, on average, than their liberal counterparts.

What then am I missing? Am I wrong about most libertarians? Are very few actually disdainful of those who live off the State at the bottom of the pyramid? Certainly the State is a broken system but it sits upon the backs of the poor and always has. Since the days of Aryan invasions and classes based on ethnicity, the State has existed to serve and preserve an upper class. Why shouldn't the poor and powerless take back what they can get?

As a character in Mario Puzo's "The Fortunate Pilgrim" says,

"Take whatever you can get because the accursed State will steal it back from you five times over!"

The fact that these people even need help is a symptom of the disease which includes government as one of its many causes. Perhaps we should focus our attention on the elite and ally ourselves with those who are being oppressed. That is the only way these social evils will ever be truly cured.