[ExI] Under the libertarian yoke

[Lee Corbin]

Rafal writes

> On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 1:22 AM, Damien Sullivan
> 
>> On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 12:19:12AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>>
>>  OTOH, apparently it *is* valid to threaten violence to anyone who
>>  doesn't accept the existing distribution of property rights.

Oh, I'm glad that we didn't let Damien S's excellent questions drop
off the radar. I was going to go back to them if no one else did.

Great question!  Even a 2-year-old has a strong concept of "mine"
and will resist with violence any attempted rival use by other toddlers.
This is probably a case where we had to start somewhere, and the
tradition, very likely even built into our genes, is to defend by
whatever means that which is "ours".

> ### It all depends on what you mean by "doesn't accept",
> and "valid", and how did the existing distribution of property
> rights arise....more below.

Good. I can't wait.

>>  The US Constitution was accepted by votes of the legislatures of all 13
>>  initial states, and by the request of the legislature or convention of
>>  each subsequent state.  A very literal social contract.  Of course,
>>  there were flaws in the process: non-unanimity (but that needn't matter
>>  if you contract to form a state government which can make majority vote
>>  decisions), lack of votes to women and blacks.  The fact that none of us
>>  were born back then seems less significant, since we're supposed to
>>  respect property distributions from before our birth -- despite their
>>  ultimate origins being equally flawed.

Hayek emphasizes the unbelievable complexity of social institutions
and culture. There is *so* much to absorb, that children do find it
absolutely necessary in terms of data-processing capacity to learn about
the present systems---present systems that do after a fashion work.

> ### While I may at times sound like deontologist, I am much more of a
> consequentialist, although paying a lot of attention to the methods of
> reaching said consequences.
> 
> I envision ethics as the science of understanding the ways of getting
> what you want, and as the art of changing what you want based on
> understanding what you can do. After some years of thinking about my
> feelings, and feeling about my thoughts, I developed a lot of respect
> for the intertwined notions of property, non-initiation of violence,
> and some other ideas, simply because as far as I can tell, punctilious
> observance of such rules leads to better outcomes in the functioning
> of a society.

Yes, it's where our cultures world-wide have seemed to
have evolved to. The novelty of me suddenly deciding
that Damien has really no more right to his car than I do
threatens more destruction than it promises enhanced
fairness.

> Yet, these rules are not complete. They don't fully
> encapsulate all recipes for getting things right under all possible
> circumstances. If a property distribution is flawed, it can and should
> be changed, even if its initial formation was done using appropriate
> methods. As I said, using the right methods does not guarantee the
> right consequences (although it makes them more likely).

But how do we "know" that a property distribution is
flawed? The only authorities we can appeal to, so far
as I know, are the ratiocinations of certain modern
social planners, e.g. the fine minds on this list, or the
tried and true ESS's of many hundreds of generations.
Hayek did suggest that one thing at a time can be
experimentally changed, so long as no entire system
is jettisoned. So those who are unhappy with the present
distribution of property are obligated, in my view, to
come up with realistic historical examples where forceful
redistribution seemed to be a good thing.  (I do know of
*one* example: the Gracchi brothers in ancient Rome
really do appear to have been trying to do what was best
for Rome.)

> So, if there is a social form of organization that consists of a huge,
> non-segmented network established a long time ago, using the best
> methods known at the time, I don't pay exclusive attention to the
> history of this organization. Instead also I look at the current
> functioning of the network, and compare it to what should be possible
> to build using modern methods and insights.
> 
> One of the insights that seems to be relatively new, at least in its
> fully self-conscious, generalized form, is the importance of network
> segmentation. The framers of the US constitution understood
> segmentation, which is why they built the three branches of
> government, instituted the separation of church and state, and the
> federal form of territorial organization. Yet, maybe they were not as
> insistent as they should have been, or maybe it was simply not
> possible to protect their segmentation measures from being subverted
> by the likes of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Bush. In any case, after some
> hundreds of years, their constitution is a hollow shell, its meaning
> frequently twisted into its very opposite, and the network is not
> sufficiently segmented anymore.
> 
> The core of my claims is that I don't see the state, any existing
> state, as legitimate, because it denies us the benefits of segmentation.

Legitimate?  Again, it seems very hard to argue against what
is clearly an ESS.  Pick up a globe, and in just a moment you
can appreciate that states are a natural phenomenon. They're
giant protection rackets, rackets that can be seen to spring up
in any ghetto where city power is weak. True, as we progress,
and as our memes allow us more possibilities, new modes of
being, e.g. individual rights, the rule of law, and private property
can indeed greatly improve upon what came before.

<snip>

> Stathis is smart, he knows how to build and maintain a segmented,
> non-violent society. You know it too, I am sure.

And I think that you are all three quite, quite wrong. Nobody
knows how to build and maintain any kind of society. This
sort of idealism always compares the real against the ideal
(and what-do-you-know, the real comes up short!). What is
necessary is to compare the ideal against the *real*, and ask
just what is *possible*.  And in order to know that, study history.
Only if you can find plausible examples either in the past or
present is much credence likely to be given to your arm-chair
social planning.

> To summarize this overlong post, my arguments for non-violence, and
> social network segmentation, are mostly consequentialist, even though
> through attention to methods they do have a deontological component.
> Your critique was thoughtful and stimulating but I don't think it
> addressed the core of my claims, namely the hypothesis that a
> segmented social network will eventually turn out, as a matter of
> empirical observation, to be better at serving our needs.
> 
> And therefore we ought to be anarchocapitalist.

I can't really argue with that except to remind you that whatever
a given society is capable of at a given time is a function of
their current culture and their history. In particular, are Americans
or Europeans ready for anarchocapitalism?  Hell, they're not
even ready to decrease the size of the state, much less start
granting new freedoms. The latter are only a *direction* that
we can urge upon our fellow citizens, and hope over time that
it becomes a road they're willing to take.

Lee