“Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory,” Mises Daily (Jan. 3, 2011) was the introduction to my 2011 Mises Academy course on this topic: see KOL018 | “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society, Lecture 1: Libertarian Basics: Rights and Law” (Mises Academy, 2011).
January 4, 2011 at 5:04 am
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Looks very interesting. But here’s a conundrum. How do you deal with a race of savages who commit crimes at such appalling rates that applying an individualist standard to each instance of their criminality becomes most onerous for the law abiding members of other races?
Let’s consider American blacks (though we could consider black criminality across the planet; same behavior obtains everywhere). While not every black is a criminal, an inordinate (from a “white” standard of judgment) number of them are. Moreover, blacks must be the most racist race of all, they have no conception of individual rights, and everything they do (politically or ideologically) is accordingly based on their perception of what is good for their race, not what is abstractly good, just, proper, etc. We saw this with the OJ Simpson case, with the 96% of blacks who supported Obama in 08 (and continue to support him today), with the absolutely racist and perfectly predictable voting patterns of the Congressional Black Caucus (where, btw, is the Congressional WHITE Caucus?!), etc.
White America would be far better off in public order terms if we could remove blacks from US soil. This seems inarguable. Fewer blacks, safer streets. How does this fit into a libertarian legal framework, with its naive overemphasis on the rights of the individual?
My point is that that framework, like the Constitution and its protected liberties, was meant for whites only (literally, legally, at the time, but also metaphysically and morally). There is a world of anthropological fact underlying a libertarian society, which unfortunately, most libertarians are virtually congenitally incapable of recognizing. Liberty works -for white people, with their mostly (well, ideally, at their best) individual dignity-oriented outlook. It does not work in multiracial or nonwhite majoritarian environments (eg, the New South Africa, where very gentle white supremacy has given way, predictably, to horrific black savagery, endemic black corruption, and ever-worsening standards of civilization, first and foremost for our white brethren, but finally for the black majority itself).
Libertarian theorists have barely begun to incorporate sociobiological realities into their thinking.
January 4, 2011 at 5:49 am
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“How do you deal with a race of savages who commit crimes at such appalling rates”
Please explain the causal relationship between ‘race” and the “rate of crime” or something like “propensity for crime”. Just bear in mind that correlation does not imply causation.
January 4, 2011 at 10:06 am
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Correlation does not imply causation, of course, but you’re not seriously disputing the crime statistics, are you? The rate at which blacks commit *violent* crimes (I’m not talking about vices which should not be illegal) is something like eight times that of whites, and something like 20-30 times the rate of North Asians (I’m going on memory here, but I believe these numbers are accurate). How can you deny that biology plays some (certainly not an exclusive) role in explaining these discrepancies?
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While I do not dispute the crime statistics, I am questioning the claim that biology is the biggest determining factor. Frankly, it is the responsibility of those who make such a claim to establish it.
How does anyone who makes such a claim eliminate all the other factors that lead to a higher crime rate among blacks than among other races? Unless the makers of these claims provide solid explanations, their claims shall have to be deemed unjustified.
I am pretty surprised you (BTM) are making or even supporting this outrageous claim.
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Why is it any more outrageous than claiming biology plays a role in our actions? E.g., it’s not simply a matter of will that we get tired, hungry, horny, whatever.
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What’s a matter of will is how we react when we get tired, hungry, horny, whatever.
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Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is, the conditions of action can be (and often are) will-independent, and biological factors are just such conditions.
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“The point is, the conditions of action can be (and often are) will-independent, and biological factors are just such conditions.”
I just don’t get this. Please explain if you have the time and energy.
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I mean that the conditions confronting acting man often do not depend on his will. A hungry man confronts different conditions than a well-fed man. These conditions play a role in how acting man ranks the possible ends he can try to realize. It is probably true that by sheer will power a starving man can decide to try to write a symphony rather than seek out sustenance, but extremely unlikely. And the hungrier a man is, the less likely he is to think calmly and coherently about what to do next. We are rational beings, no doubt, but we do have partly an animal nature. There is an interplay there, complex for sure, but a purely binary position (rational only vs animalistic only) does not seem sensible to me.
Not just ends, but means too are often beyond our will. A low-IQ man has inferior means relative to a high-IQ man to be able to successfully attain his ends. One can surmise that groups with lower IQs will identify crime as a better way of acquiring goods than using intellect. This doesn’t mean they will act on this observation, only that it is an observation available for them to make. And as a sociological matter, inasmuch as cooperation under the division of labor is far more productive than isolated production, and the greater the extent of this division the more fruitful the results, we can also surmise that groups who value tribalism (and we all do to some extent, eg only an insane or evil person values the welfare of strangers over that of his own family) more than other groups will probably display less advanced economic development. (The Jews are an obvious exception here, but IQ doubtless explains a large part of their success, along with their well-established record of collaborating with the State.)
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“One can surmise that groups with lower IQs will identify crime as a better way of acquiring goods than using intellect.”
How?
“groups who value tribalism”
Are we talking of individuals or of collectives? I am getting confused.
“We are rational beings, no doubt, but we do have partly an animal nature.”
That’s why I always use the phrase “rational animal with a volitional consciousness” when I try to define the concept “man”. The “animal” part is already included. My approach is therefore not binary.
“And the hungrier a man is, the less likely he is to think calmly and coherently about what to do next. ”
How does this say anything at all about any particular individual who is hungry? While it is possible that the rate of crime among the entire class of hungry men might be higher than that among the class of men who manage to eat well, it does not say anything at all about the individual hungry man. Are we mixing up class probability and case probability?
Finally, even if you are correct, how does it have any consequences for libertarian law and in particular for Leon’s statements on immigration?
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“How does this say anything at all about any particular individual who is hungry? ”
It says, absent *other* information about how this particular individual behaves (eg, knowledge of his overall temperment and character), that predicting he will seek out food is a superior prediction than, say, predicting he will play music. It’s a question of conditional information. We rarely have complete (or even thorough) knowledge of other individuals, we have to generalize to some extent. It’s simply unavoidable.
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“It says, absent *other* information about how this particular individual behaves (eg, knowledge of his overall temperment and character), that predicting he will seek out food is a superior prediction than, say, predicting he will play music.”
While this is true, the information does not tell us that he will have a higher propensity to engage in a criminal activity. That’s all I wish to say. Hence, it gives us no basis for preventive action like “removing all the blacks from US soil” (You didn’t suggest it. Leon did.)
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Talking as an Indian who has a fairly good idea of the circumstances under which my fellow Indians come to the US, their education levels, the purposes they come for, the economic and social strata they come from and into which they end up fitting, I would not be surprised if Indians are among the populations with the lowest crime rates (counting only real crimes) in the US.
I am just using an example I know to indicate that the propensity to engage in criminal activity is probably more related to socio-economic conditions than it is to genetics. I would in fact go on and say that it is very unlikely that genetics has a role to play at all.
January 4, 2011 at 10:37 am
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” I would not be surprised if Indians are among the populations with the lowest crime rates” Perhaps if you wish to ignore the Air India bombing or the fact 80% of the whiplash cases in British Columbia [Canada] happen to be East Indian when they only comprise 7% of the population!
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I doubt if you understand the background of the bombing of the Kanishka. That was done by Sikh separatists fighting for a separate nation called Khalistan. These were people who saw themselves as fighting the repressive Indian State and directed their attack on a symbol of the Indian State – the national air carrier. I am not justifying the bombing that killed innocents but just explaining that the people behind that act are not the people I referred to as migrating to the US from India.
January 4, 2011 at 11:01 am
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This puts blacks in a bad position. If all that is wrong with them is somebody else’s fault…
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“I am just using an example I know to indicate that the propensity to engage in criminal activity is probably more related to socio-economic conditions than it is to genetics.”
This begs the question: are the socio-economic conditions completely unrelated to biology? You seem to think so, but it’s clear there is some feedback here. Keep in mind the issue is not just crime as such, but various social pathologies that black display at differing rates from say whites. Crime is but one manifestation of present-orientedness. Do you doubt children, say, are more present-oriented than adults, and that biology plays a role in explainig why?
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I don’t have the data handy, but it should be pointed out that the crime gap does not disappear when adjusted for socio-economic status.
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Even if you had the data handy and even if that data showed the patterns that you claim it does, I don’t see how it proves anything at all, least of all your claims.
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It would prove that your claim, that the differential crime rate is primarily due to socio-economic factors, is false.
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You still miss my point. With no underlying theory except a fairy tale, the data cannot prove or disprove anything at all. At the very base of it, your hypothesis is that blacks aren’t human. That’s what makes it fairly preposterous.
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This is ridiculous; you are really going overboard here. If I point out to you that men commit far more crime than women, and attribute it primarily to biological factors, do you think I’m claiming that women are less human than men? C’mon.
But let me ask you: do you really doubt that biology explains why men commit more crime than women?
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There is nothing ridiculous in my argument. If you say that a man’s actions are primarily under the control of biological factors, you are essentially saying that man is not a rational animal with a volitional consciousness. On the other hand, if you insist that man is a rational animal with a volitional consciousness, then living beings whose actions are primarily under the control of biological factors cannot be men. My statement was just a logical deduction that led me to what I think are your basic premises. If those premises look plug ugly, that’s not my fault.
“do you really doubt that biology explains why men commit more crime than women?”
Could you please show how biology “explains” the phenomenon?
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I never said biology “primarily” explains actions, only that it plays a role. And at issue is not action as such, but why one group (blacks) displays greater social pathologies than another group (whites). The question concerns differential patterns of action, not action as such.
We can explain action in two ways: the Misesian, counterfactual approach (eg, I did this one thing instead of all the other possible things I *could have* done, every action has an associated [unseen] alternative), and a factual approach (eg, I ate this sandwich *because* I was hungry). You disagree?
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““do you really doubt that biology explains why men commit more crime than women?”
Could you please show how biology “explains” the phenomenon?”
You’ve never heard of testosterone?
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Frankly, I was about to mention testosterone, but thought I’ll wait for you to mention it. A testosterone-based explanation of human behaviour does not provide any justification for an immigration policy that prevents people belonging to particular races from entering a territory.
On the other hand, if you say that it justifies people discriminating on the basis of race and barring, for instance, blacks from entering their private property, I’m with you. Racial discrimination can at best be the basis for individual action, not for law. That’s all I was trying to say.
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“A testosterone-based explanation of human behaviour does not provide any justification for an immigration policy that prevents people belonging to particular races from entering a territory.”
I’m not sure I said it did. I was only making the point that biology does play a role in our actions. You appear to agree to a large extent, so it’s becoming a bit unclear what we’re arguing about.
“On the other hand, if you say that it justifies people discriminating on the basis of race and barring, for instance, blacks from entering their private property, I’m with you. Racial discrimination can at best be the basis for individual action, not for law. ”
Much of this I agree with, however I would say the objective should be to replace State law with private law. In which case, what is really wrong with discrimination as a public policy? Until we move to a purely private property society, the State must be run in *some* way. I think it should be run, as much as possible, in a manner consistent with how private property owners would operate it. We can dispute whether discrimination qualifies in this manner, but it’s certainly not inherently obvious that it doesn’t. In particular, it’s hard to see how the multiculturist ideology underlying Western immigration policy (fomented largely but not exclusively by Jewish liberals) can lead to social cohesion and peace. Biology can of course in good part explain why this lack of cohesion should persist, but of course not entirely. Sociologically, no one wants multiculturalism. Blacks certainly don’t; they support policies that grant them access to the property of whites they would be otherwise excluded from, but they certainly have no love for whites (again, see their actual statements, and not some theoretical construct of how they would behave if certain State laws were repealed).
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“so it’s becoming a bit unclear what we’re arguing about.”
I agree. That’s why at one point I said that I am surprised you were supporting Leon’s ideas. My objection was mainly to Leon’s painting individual blacks black based on statistics that pertains to the overall black population and to his claim that liberty is something only whites understand and support. That claim was what I found absolutely preposterous which was the reason I entered this discussion with the question I raised.
“Until we move to a purely private property society, the State must be run in *some* way.”
The State will be run in “some” way but no amount of explanation is going to get it around to work in a manner similar or even comparable to the working of a society based on private property. I therefore see such a discussion as a huge waste of precious time and energy.
“In particular, it’s hard to see how the multiculturist ideology underlying Western immigration policy (fomented largely but not exclusively by Jewish liberals) can lead to social cohesion and peace.”
There are 2 parts to this. On multiculturalism, I have to agree with you. There is no sense in saying that every culture has something to contribute. Some are advanced and worth learning from and some are just plain savagery (like I think Islamic culture is).
On immigration, however, all I would say is that any immigration policy other than a hands-off policy is a violation of the principle of liberty. The only way any policy other than the hands-off one can work is by engaging in aggression against peaceful people. Hence, i don’t think libertarians should be discussing anything other than an open-immigration policy.
January 4, 2011 at 2:06 pm
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I would not be surprised if Indians are among the populations with the lowest crime rates (counting only real crimes) in the US.
Clearly, it’s the curry.
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Maybe it’s the millions of gods they worship.
January 4, 2011 at 7:18 pm
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It has to be the curry.
I can tell you from personal experience that I am least in the mood to commit crimes when I’m eating delicious food, and Indian food is some of the best (though the very best thing you can eat is bahn-mi, which is a Vietnamese sandwich on french bread).
Another important food for peace is pork. It’s no accident that people are the angriest in places where they don’t eat pork. If I couldn’t eat pork, the dis-utility of wearing an exploding jacket would be just a little lower. On the margin, non-pork consumption is lethal.
January 4, 2011 at 9:35 am
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Sounds like you have no idea how libertarianism, liberty, individual freedom, society and class struggle works.
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Although Leon Haller’s tone is somewhat harsh, his statements are subtantially correct. Have any of his critics bothered to listen to actual, real-world blacks (not the kind that are supposed to exist if only minimum wage laws, drug laws, welfare, etc are repealed [don’t get me wrong, these things and many more *should* be repealed]) discuss politics? It almost always comes down to one thing: what is good for blacks. In other words, like other minorities in the West (hispanics, Jews especially) they are highly particularistic in moral outlook. How, exactly, are they to coexist in a libertarian society which by its very nature is universalistic in outlook? This is a very difficult question, but the shrieks of outrage over raising it will not sweep it under the rug.
January 4, 2011 at 12:15 pm
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Do “they” want to live in a libertarian society? Or are you going to force them? And who is “the black people”?
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Case in point.
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You make black people sound much like most white people I’ve ever heard talk about politics as well.
Sure, blacks in general may not be “compatible” with the libertarian view on society, but I don’t see how this is because of any racial feature since very few people in general, regardless of race, are “compatible” with libertarian society. (Ie, they don’t want it.)
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“You make black people sound much like most white people I’ve ever heard talk about politics as well.”
Since no white could ever talk publicly in a racially conscious manner (as blacks commonly do) without being demonized, and since most whites are sufficiently brain-washed that they wouldn’t do so privately anyway, I’m calling BS on your story here.
The point is that blacks don’t support libertarianism because they reject universalism, unlike whites who support universalism but reject libertarianism for other reasons (e.g., ignorance, they like govt goodies, etc).
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Well, I’m sure I can’t prove to your satisfaction that the whites I’ve known have been racists, that was not the point I was making in the story either.
In my homeland, we “southerners” are always in competition with the easterners, northerners and westerners, and when my white southerner friends talk about politics, they talk about it in the same framework as the blacks you described. Ie, how will this benefit “us southerners”. Because “we southerners” don’t want to produce all the wealth and see it blown on those damn easterners.
Now obviously this can’t be racially based because we’re more or less homogenously white. (Of course we don’t want to blow our cash on immigrants or foreigners either.)
Now, if the “southerners” vs “rest of them” situation isn’t racial preference then what is it? I’d say it’s cultural and class preferences.
I see no reason why it should be any different in the case of blacks.
January 6, 2011 at 6:59 am
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The real problem is this insistence that there is such thing as a race. There isn’t. Racism is a learned behavior. Libertarianism removes those cues to learn it.
Actions influence people in orders of magnitude more than words. We live in a legal system that may *SAY* things about being inclusive, but constantly goes out of its way to treat certain individuals as inferior. Our system is no different today than it was 100 years ago, the methods just changed. Instead of overtly telling everyone that people who look a little different are inferior, the system instead provides “help” through things like welfare and Equal Opportunity. It’s just a different way of saying everyone is inferior. All the various programs today created to “help” only tell everyone that those individuals are so incapable and incompetent that they’re unable to survive without the assistance of a superior “race”. That without the generosity of the “white man’s” welfare, the “black man” will go extinct. Only inferior people need a hand out or a hand up.
“Leveling the playing field” only reinforces the notion that there is such thing as a race and that one is better than the other.
All of these are government constructs. Just like how the Jim Crow laws forced on the South by the North during Reconstruction were put in place because the people were stubbornly refusing to be racist, and how segregation was a State-law because businesses weren’t segregating voluntarily, racism is a Government created concept in a mixed community.
Our family is the least influential part of growing up, the outside world in which we interact daily is the most important. Libertarianism removes the State-created imbalances that impress upon children that differences exist among the people they interact with on a daily basis. Would kids even grasp what racism was if it wasn’t for teachers teaching about it and seeing kids of a certain color populating the State subsidized lunch line?
“Blacks” are being taught this stuff through our own government. Our government gives them freebies for looking a certain way. Our government creates laws that force other entities to create special treatment. Our government creates policies that reward lesser importance because appearances are somehow important to the decision process of hiring. It teaches an entire subgroup of the nation that they’re different, inferior, and that it’s all because of some past wrong that other members of society must bear even though they’re not responsible for it.
No one wants Libertarianism because it’s bad for the existing government. And who teaches everyone in society? The existing government.
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” Libertarianism removes those cues to learn it.”
Spoken like a true liberal.
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Our family is the least influential part of growing up, the outside world in which we interact daily is the most important.
So we could take kids from their families and put them in a classroom eight hours a day, teach them the same subject matter, use the same pedagogy, administer the same tests, and we’d get equality of outcomes between different racial groups, right?
‘Race’ has become crimethink in our gnostic, politically correct society instead of what it really is: a very large, extended family, and one which has been around a lot longer than the secular, propositional State.
It is the State which insists “there’s no such thing as race” and that biological families don’t matter, and which passes hundreds of laws and spends billions of dollars to maintain the delusion. The day we wake up without the State, it’s back to Family faster than you can say blood is thicker than water. This is the trend globally, as the multicultural democracies collapse from fiscal and imperial overreach.
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Um, if the State insisted there was no such thing as race, then why are there hordes of laws and regulations concerning race, class, income, disability, gender, sexual preference, etc? The last entity on the planet to insist there is no race is the State. It thrives on people thinking there is a race becuase it has something to use to gain power. If the State thinks there is no race, then there wouldn’t be an Equal Employment Opportunity Council or Affirmative Action.
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All those laws are based on the premise that racial differences do not exist, i.e., that race is only about skin color. Therefore, the multicultural State is necessary to assure equality of outcomes rather than the disparate impact inflicted by the market.
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Take away the State and people have to sink or swim pretty quickly: no more compulsory association, no more ‘civil rights,’ no more public defenders and other socializing the cost of criminal behavior on the law-abiding. Restive minorities will adopt the mores of the market-dominant majority or find themselves in exile.
January 5, 2011 at 12:36 am
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Leon Haller,
OK, I get it. You’re playing troll. To embarass middle-aged, middle-right, middle-American white males. I’ll play along.
You wrote,
Let’s consider American blacks (though we could consider black criminality across the planet; same behavior obtains everywhere). While not every black is a criminal, an inordinate (from a “white” standard of judgment) number of them are…
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…with the absolutely racist and perfectly predictable voting patterns of the Congressional Black Caucus
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(where, btw, is the Congressional WHITE Caucus?!).ANSWER: The “Congressional WHITE Caucus” is almost everyone in Congress but the Congressional Black Caucus. The CWC is the causus responsible for nearly all of the socialism of the red (e.g. Marxism and immediate relatives), nearly all socialism of the brown (national socialism), nearly crony capitalism, and 50 titles of the U.S.C. with its thousands of pages of writing that are “all about limited government”.
So also is the “Congression WHITE Caucus” responsible for sending Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen, etc., hereafter to be referred to as “tools of an international crime syndicate”, throughout the world to stir up trouble, to destroy private property, and to give the thugs and goons of the Chicago PD an excuse to hassle the liberal when the liberal reminds the domestic thugs and goons with whom they are allied.
This “criminality across the planet” of the “Congressional WHITE Caucus” “obtains everywhere” and has been going on for centuries. Sure enough, just like any band “of savages who commit crimes at…appalling rates”, they have their excuses. I judge “from a ‘white’ standard of judgment”.
“While not every” member of the “Congressional WHITE Caucus” is a “criminal, an inordinate…number of them are.” “This seems inarguable.”
White America would be far better off in public order terms if we could remove blacks from US soil.
REPLY: White America would be far better off in private terms if the “Congressional WHITE Caucus” were removed from the USA, in the geographical sense of the term, perhaps by a garbage barge to depart from NYC. If nothing else, people would eventually stop buying Treasury bonds and bills, provided that no one were foolish enough to vote for new members to replace the “Congressional WHITE Caucus”. Why? Because there ‘d be no quorum.
“This seems inarguable.”
Since whites would not vote for new members of a new “Congressional WHITE Caucus” “who commit crimes at such appalling rates”, either all the “tools of an international crime syndicate” would have to come home when their supplies ran out or whites would have to vote for blacks. Maybe wannabe members of a new “Congressional WHITE Caucus” would pander to the black vote with promises that
Conservatism is all about limited government, peaceful cooperation, and the American Dream.
Now, Leon, wouldn’t you be a lot more comfortable Playing the Violence Card over at American Thinker?
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That makes no sense at all.
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Antiknowner,
“The ‘Congressional WHITE Caucus’ is almost everyone in Congress but the Congressional Black Caucus.” In fact, at one time the only “caucus” in Congress was the “Congressional WHITE Caucus”.
[Why get into the shark cage when all one needs to do is to rap it a few times with a fishing rod?]
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This “criminality across the planet” of the “Congressional WHITE Caucus” “obtains everywhere” and has been going on for centuries. Sure enough, just like any band “of savages who commit crimes at…appalling rates”, they have their excuses. I judge “from a ‘white’ standard of judgment”.
Yep, that, too, makes sense.
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“While not every” member of the “Congressional WHITE Caucus” is a “criminal, an inordinate…number of them are.” “This seems inarguable.”
Yep, that, too, makes sense, Antiknower.
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REPLY: White America would be far better off in private terms if the “Congressional WHITE Caucus” were removed from the USA, in the geographical sense of the term, perhaps by a garbage barge to depart from NYC.
Now, what sensible person person does not think that shipping the “Congressional WHITE Caucus” out to sea by barge would leave “white America…far better off in private terms”?
January 6, 2011 at 8:47 am
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“The fallacy of Leon Haller’s argument is in the application of libertarian legal theory, which is individualist by nature, for the purpose of collectivisation. Libertarianism recognizes no borders except those between private land owners and hence, there is no “country” to speak of except as a collection of plots of land. And the property owner has every right to restrict others’ use of his land.”
My views are far beyond this. I perfectly understand your point. Indeed, I helped formulate it in conversations with Hans Hoppe two decades ago. But, two responses. First, we do not live in the purely private society imagined by anarchocapitalists. I do have to walk public streets also open to violent minorities (esp blacks). Fear of being criminally victimised by them limits even my freedom, let alone that of my girlfriend and other women, the physically feeble, etc – any decent person who has to fear crime. Why should we? And, to whom do those public streets belong? Who decides who gets to use them, and under what conditions? (Open borders jackasses have no response to this, and never will. Open Borders = Open Invasion.)
(Another example is airports. Yes, they should be private, with their own security procedures. What if those procedures were maximally rational, and thus involved racial and ethnic profiling? I assume you and other liberals here would be indifferent to that? But, we do not have private airports – and still require security procedures. How things might be arranged without the State is not relevant to the existing situation.)
Second, I am concerned with Really Existing Liberty. You know, in America (my home), in the Real World. In the Real World, blacks, as both criminals (compared to whites), and as socialist voters, massively detract from my REAL liberty. My liberty, not to mention personal safety, would thus be enhanced by the removal of blacks from my country. My point is that a race which behaves in a racist / collectivist manner as blacks do, within a democracy, has a massive advantage over a race disproportionately committed to individualism. You people really haven’t understood this point, let alone offered any evidence for the proposition that racial integration and multiracialism do not negatively effect the amount of liberty enjoyed by whites (esp, white Americans). Our liberty is reduced as ‘diversity’ increases. If we were so assinine as actually to implement “open borders”, the liberties (and wealth) of whites would vanish in less than a single year. Deny this, and you reveal your ignorance and ideological fanaticism.
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Fear of being criminally victimised by them limits even my freedom, let alone that of my girlfriend and other women, the physically feeble, etc – any decent person who has to fear crime.
The fear exists in your head and only in your head. Well, in that and in your mind, too. It is nothing other than your own mental errors that limit your freedom. As for the remarks about “girlfriend…other women…the physically feeble”: you’re just rationalizating with a bit of posturing and, I have no doubt, intent to pander, mixed in for special efffect.
I grew up in Detroit. White. Was born there not long after the riots. Was raised on Bedford, in a neighborhood that transformed itself in just a few years from a haven for the naive children of city employees to a place where you get knives held up to your face and your friend knocked off his bike while he’s right in front of you. (We were riding on the sidewalks.)
Now, why don’t you stop making excuses for your malice? C’mon on now, it’s time for leon to grow up. And find yourself a woman with a pair. Ask her to loan you one of that pair.
How things might be arranged without the State is not relevant to the existing situation.
Kvatch. Half of your mind is half-trapped in a parallel universe where “your ignorance and ideological fanaticism” have trapped that half. First, there is no such thing in physical space as “the State”, as you put it without deliberate intent to be pretentious. Second, there exists in this world individuals. Political theorizing is about how they ought to interact with one another. Political theorizing is about ethics.
In your imagination, however, ethics is about making up excuses for lashing out violently at every hobgoblin and boogeyman, even the ones that pose to you no immediate danger and which never would if you’d mind your business, zip your mouth, and turn off your computer. When you can’t identify a hobgoblin or boogeyman near to you, you project your [ahem] ethics as needed on to whatever persons you do find nearby in order to imagine that you have evidence to continue believing as you already do.
You’re the twenty-five y.o. punk who goes to the bar [e.g. Harrington’s, on N. Halsted St.] with a chip on its shoulder, gets into a staredown with some other guy there, and then, sure enough, ends up in a fight outside, in the middle of the street. (You banged the other guy’s head on the pavement in self-defense.) Of course, like the scar on the corner of your mouth, the conflict wasn’t your fault, not even when you baited him by shouting and pointing at him while he was getting into a cab. You see, “leon”, that other guy is bascially just you, and I lived with your for nearly a year and have known you for many more than that afterwards.
So also are you the niggers, barbarous blacks, with whom you are so eager to get into a fight. Between you and them is about foreskin’s worth of differnce. Of course, not all blacks are barbarous, as you claim yourself.
Now that you’re in middle age, or later, you drive around at night with a gun in your lap fancying yourself a savior of “girlfriend and other women, the physically feeble, etc – any decent person who has to fear crime”. You remind me of a kook in a movie with Sean Connery. (Connery wasn’t the kook, who while out on patrol encountered two people having a swordfight in an alley.)
Now, why don’t you stop making excuses for your malice? C’mon on now, it’s time for leon to grow up. And find yourself a woman with a pair. Ask her to loan you one of that pair.
My point is that a race which behaves in a racist / collectivist manner as blacks do, within a democracy, has a massive advantage over a race disproportionately committed to individualism.
There you go again, leon, revealing “your ignorance and ideological fanaticism.” A race is a term for which could be substituted set without loss of meaning, and so long as the context is clear, we can use “set” to refer to “blacks”, by which you mean Africans, although in N. American those called blacks frequently have fairer skin than those in India.
Now, the members of the set exist in physical space. Not so the set. This is how liberals know that your expression “a race which behaves” is just a crude a setup for the fig leaves with which you offer to hide your shameful motives, which include assault, battery, enslavement, homicide, etc.
If Hans Hoppe shared in your forumulation, then he, too, needs to be discredited.
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Detroit? Here is a discussion with pictures of its ruins (caused by government, or too many blacks?):
January 4, 2011 at 4:57 pm
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Can someone give me their opinion on a definition that I don’t think makes sense?
In Chapter 4 of HA, Mises starts the second paragraph with
“A means is what serves to the attainment of any end, goal or aim. Means are not in the given universe; in this universe there exist only things….”
And goes on in more detail. Then the 5th paragraph is
“Means are necessarily always limited ie. scarce with regard to the services for which man wants to use them. If this were not the case, there would not be any action with regard to them. Where man is not restrained by the insufficient quantity of things available, there is no need for any action.”
These two paragraphs together don’t make sense to me – I don’t understand why you get “Means are necessarily always limited” from the earlier description of what a means is. It is the goal or end itself which must be limited (and therefore require human action) – i don’t see why we conclude from this that the means itself (a thing that “serves to the attainment of any end, goal or aim”) must be limited also.
January 4, 2011 at 5:58 pm
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Kid, enjoy reading your posts, nice to see a thoughtful mind at work on this
site. In answer to your question, if the means were unlimited then by extension
those unlimited means would be employed to satisfy all ends desired.Yours Truly, the heretic and poor lost soul,
Sy Akhplart-
I can also say that I very much enjoyed your check-kiting scenario post and the various replies.
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Kid Salami,
Substitute ‘air’ for means, and other places as appropriate:
“Air is necessarily always limited ie. scarce with regard to the services for which man wants to use air. If this were not the case, there would not be any action with regard to air. Where man is not restrained by the insufficient quantity of air available, there is no need for any action.”
Now, recall the passage you quoted:
In Chapter 4 of HA, Mises starts the second paragraph with
“A means is what serves to the attainment of any end, goal or aim. Means are not in the given universe; in this universe there exist only things….”
Well, now, let’s think about that. If “[m]eans are not in the given universe”, then how could it be the case that…
Means are necessarily always limited ie. scarce with regard to the services for which man wants to use them.
ANSWER: Equivocation.
Human Action will give your mind a thorough workout. It will also help you to develop your thinking. Others, too, have struggled with it. For example, see Bryan Caplan’s autobiography in Walter Block’s new book, I Choose Liberty, which just became available for download.
Yuri M., do you recall what I said on that Friday evening late in April of 2010 about electronic constrictor devices being installed in the throats of humans? That would stop the tragedy of the commons, wouldn’t it? But who will manage the constrictor devices in event of someone not paying for his or her share of air?
Neither I nor any friend of mine.
January 5, 2011 at 12:07 pm
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Human Action will give your mind a thorough workout? so it isnt really true???
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Perhaps I undersold it. It would have been a little better to write, “it will help you to develop and to improve your thinking, esp. about the study of human action and the science of exchanges”.
Now, what does it mean to say that Human Action “isn’t really true???”. Consider the following two statements.
(1) Human Action is true.
(2) Human Action is not true.One of these must be correct, where “is true” means that every statement in the book is true; that every argument construed as valid is indeed valid; that every inference is logical, asf. To agree that it “is true” is to affirm that there’s nothing in there that ought not to be. So, if there is in Human Action so much as a single error of the type I’ve mentioned, then how could it be that “Human Action is “really true”?
Wouldn’t it be astonishing to find such a book? And what should one do if an error is found in Human Action or if someone else shows you that it has an error? Cast it aside, then begin a new search for an errorless book or collection of papers? If you did so, I think you’d be searching for a very long time if not also for a very short book.
January 5, 2011 at 4:59 am
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Hi Kid Salami,
I don’t understand why you get “Means are necessarily always limited” from the earlier description of what a means is.
I can’t be completely sure what Mises thought, but I think the point he was making earlier here:
Means are not in the given universe; in this universe there exist only things….
is that means is an interpretation of a “thing”, not something separate from the “thing”. Things are, based on previous analysis, scarce. Means are therefore scarce too. Exercising some means (changing states of some things) results in other means becoming unavailable (other states of some things becoming unavailable).
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Thanks for the replies. I have to think about this a bit more….. there appears to me to be something circular about the reasoning, but I can’t pinpoint what it is.
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I’m still not quite sure about this. Rather than try to explain, let me ask: can we reasonably refer to a unit of fiat currency that I use (via my debit card) to buy a bottle of milk as a “means” in this sense? It is, essentially, an entry on a spreadsheet and theoretically unlimited – limited by potential insolvency or whatever yes, but not by any physical scarcity.
It “serves to the attainment of [my] end, goal or aim” of a bottle of milk. And it is “not in the given universe; in this universe there exist only things” eg. cows and milk and wallets and debit cards and bankers (and politicians and thieves). But in what sense is it limited? I’m looking for the vocabulary to describe this non-physical concept which is clearly something people use to obtain things.
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A shipwrecked man in a lifeboat wouldn’t trade a loaf of bread for a bucketfull of seawater.
Money is an end only insofar as it is useful. When money is unlimited, attaining it is as easy as breathing.
In such a case noone will want trade a loaf of bread for a bucketful of seawater.Every time I try to explain it further than that I end up saying everything three times in order to be precise, which is a problem I’ve been having with the Human Action audio book.
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I don’t think you are addressing the problem, although this could at least partly be because I’ve not sufficiently clear. You say “When money is unlimited, attaining it is as easy as breathing.” In what sense is money “limited” now? The Fed is doing its best to prove that there is no limit. You might be talking about a limit on the “rate” of increase, not in the final amount?
Fine – but Mises doesn’t go into this. If he meant this, why didn’t he say it? Before I think Mises made a mistake, I’d rather assume I made one and understand exactly what he IS saying.
To me, the concept “unit of fiat currency” has a function – it is one of a number of such “entities” whose existence is essential for the chain of events which are connected causally which, taken as a whole, are the “action” of me buying a bottle of milk (I can think of many other examples as well but let’s stick with this one).
So, if the concept of “unit of fiat currency” was removed then I would have to act in a different way. It seems reasonable that this concept “unit of fiat currency” has something in common with, say, the physical coin – they are both required for the transaction to take place and for me to obtain the milk. What is the word that describes all such essential “entities” in an action? Mises elaborates on “means” a lot but appears to say that “unit of fiat currency” is not a “means” as it is unlimited, so we can’t use that can we?
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For the fed, it isn’t limited. For you it is. You can’t create unlimited amounts of dollars. The Fed can. (As long as noone finds out.)
Now, the problem as I understand it is that you don’t understand how means must necessarily be limited.
Ie: your understanding is thus:
1. Ends must be limited in order for us to want them.
2. Means have no need to be limited.Am I correct in this?
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Kid, sorry, left something out; ends, goals and aims are not limited. Humans
always have unsatisfied desires, that is why unemployment in a free market is
transitory.Yours Truly, the heretic and poor lost soul, Sy Akhplart
January 5, 2011 at 11:59 am
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The fallacy of Leon Haller’s argument is in the application of libertarian legal theory, which is individualist by nature, for the purpose of collectivisation. Libertarianism recognizes no borders except those between private land owners and hence, there is no “country” to speak of except as a collection of plots of land. And the property owner has every right to restrict others’ use of his land.
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“The fallacy of Leon Haller’s argument is in the application of libertarian legal theory, which is individualist by nature, for the purpose of collectivisation. Libertarianism recognizes no borders except those between private land owners and hence, there is no “country” to speak of except as a collection of plots of land. And the property owner has every right to restrict others’ use of his land.”
I perfectly understand your point. Indeed, I helped formulate it in conversations with Hans Hoppe two decades ago. But, two responses. First, we do not live in the purely private society imagined by anarchocapitalists. I do have to walk public streets also open to violent minorities (esp blacks). Fear of being criminally victimised by them limits even my freedom, let alone that of my girlfriend and other women, the physically feeble, etc – any decent person who has to fear crime. Why should we? And, to whom do those public streets belong? Who decides who gets to use them, and under what conditions? (Open borders jackasses have no response to this, and never will. Open Borders = Open Invasion.)
(Another example is airports. Yes, they should be private, with their own security procedures. What if those procedures were maximally rational, and thus involved racial and ethnic profiling? I assume you and other liberals here would be indifferent to that? But, we do not have private airports – and still require security procedures. How things might be arranged without the State is not relevant to the existing situation.)
Second, I am concerned with Really Existing Liberty. You know, in America (my home), in the Real World. In the Real World, blacks, as both criminals (compared to whites), and as socialist voters, massively detract from my REAL liberty. My liberty, not to mention personal safety, would thus be enhanced by the removal of blacks from my country. My point is that a race which behaves in a racist / collectivist manner as blacks do, within a democracy, has a massive advantage over a race disproportionately committed to individualism. You people really haven’t understood this point, let alone offered any evidence for the proposition that racial integration and multiracialism do not negatively effect the amount of liberty enjoyed by whites (esp, white Americans). Our liberty is reduced as ‘diversity’ increases. If we were so assinine as actually to implement “open borders”, the liberties (and wealth) of whites would vanish in less than a single year. Deny this, and you reveal your ignorance and ideological fanaticism.
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Note: my comments are not getting posted now. What happened to free speech on this website? Apparently, the Mises Institute has succumbed to political correctness. Do you censor Marxists, socialists, Keynesians, etc – or only racial realists? Shameful!
Leon Haller
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As far as I’ve been able to discern, only Leon Haller and other “racial realists” are censored here.
When the webmaster figures out how to construct a db index on the name and IP of Leon Haller, a racial realist, he’ll be frozen out for good.
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When trying to make sense of a legal theory advocated for adoption by many persons, many problems can be solved by remembering to ask just one question.
QUESTION: In what way does a corporation do its “existing”?
Now, Blaise Pascal was on to something important when he made his remarks about clarifying concepts and the words and symbols used to indicate them. You can find some of those remarks on method in W. Stanley Jevons’ Elementary Lessons in Logic, available for free from the LvMI. At the end of “Lesson XIII, PASCAL AND DESCARTES ON METHOD.”, Jevons suggests,
Read Locke’s brief Essay on the Conduct of the Un-
derstanding, which contains admirable remarks on
the acquirement of exact and logical habits of
thought.”So, how can this advice be applied to answer my question, “in what way does a corporation do its ‘existing’?”. My Latin dictionary has a quote which will yield good fruit if that defintion is borne in mind always while discussing the word “corporation”.
corpore*us -a -um adj. physical, of the body; corporeal, substantial; of the flesh
Feminists, you might wish to arrange your dictionaries consistent with the following:
corpore*a -us -um adj. physical, of the body; corporeal, substantial; of the flesh
Surely the relatively minor revision, mostly a matter of housekeeping, would reduce the confusion experienced by beginners. Further, it would be more consistent with the tables of declension endings one finds in a guide to Latin grammar, hence the reduction of confusion among beginners.
To be continued…
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Leon, ” First, we do not live in the purely private society imagined by anarchocapitalists. I do have to walk public streets also open to violent minorities (esp blacks). Fear of being criminally victimised by them limits even my freedom”
Having to walk public streets in itself both limits and extends your freedom. If that street were private property, you may not have the freedom to walk there. Since this is now a part of the commons, you have a right to walk there, as do others who share in the same commons by virtue of their citizenship.
Your argument that “My liberty, not to mention personal safety, would thus be enhanced by the removal of blacks from my country” is not just racist, but positively despotic. To achieve an enhancement of your liberty would entail using the coercive powers of the state machinery, followed by a backlash against civil society, more simmering hatred, and more loss of freedom for everyone.
Even advocating such a stand would mean that you have to disavow your belief in libertarianism and embrace authoritarian government as the fixer of all society’s evils. And once such an argument is used to unleash a monster, variations of that same argument will be used effectively by other groups to exile all sorts of so-called races.
It is with such arguments, which gain the sanction of the voters, that dictators are unleashed. And once they taste power, there’s no way to stop them except for more violence. In the real world, such actions as you advocate would therefore result in a loss of liberty, go against the grain of anarchocapitalism and liberalism, and strengthen state control over society.
A liberal in lakeview,
Ad hominem attacks are unbecoming, and reveal your inadequacy to argue your position logically. You’ve spewed quite a lot of horse manure with your inane comments.
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