Walter Block on the Mythical Pay Gap

Professor Walter Block on the mythical wage gap:

The second nail emerges when we consider the exotic implications of the employer discrimination hypothesis of the pay gap. If this analysis were true, one would expect to find a systematic and positive relationship between profit levels and the number of women in the firm or industry.

It the idea that, all things equal, men and women have a level of parity when compared equally is ine worth considering. If employer discrimination were an issue, any such firm would be driven out of the market by an entrepreneur willing to hire a worker discriminated against. Men and women are equal, but also quite different, in regards to abilities and specialities. If not for those differences, we may see female construction workers and firefighters. In reality, women are better at a great many things, men excellent in a few as well...

From the Mises Institute:

His thesis is that discrimination -- choosing one thing over another -- is an inevitable feature of the material world where scarcity of goods and time is the pervasive feature. There is no getting around it. You must discriminate, and therefore you must have the freedom to discriminate, which only means the freedom to choose. Without discrimination, there is no economizing taking place. It is chaos.

The market embeds institutions that assist people in making the wisest possible choices given the alternatives. In this sense, discrimination is rational and socially optimal. For the state to presume to criminalize it based on social and political priorities amounts to a subversion of the market and of human liberty that leads to social conflict.

More: http://mises.org/document/6078 (don't give me any poor excuse for turning down a free book)

Block reminds us that there was a time when discriminating meant having the desirable ability to make an educated, informed choice.

Nothing more.  

Negative discrimination is purged from the free market, yet promoted by the state. Minorities will prosper by firms willing to hire minorities at lower rates, undercutting gluttonous competitors and driving themfrom the market. If we are to rid the world of it's evils, we must give ourselves the chance to do so. Block's Case reminds us that a better future is worth the fight. Those discriminated against find friend in liberty, not disparity. 

There's no state like no state.

And I feel like a nerd-punk voluntaryist fanboy:

Parents, the State, and Collectivism

Something that has bothered me about involuntary societies since fully understanding the idea has been the inherent lack of choice, and the subsequent lack of learning from the act of making individual choices, be they positive or negative.

Life is an opportunity, not a guarantee, with the opportunity to fail also delivering the potential for cognitive growth. What life gives us in these opportunities is the chance to excel in a higher capacitive reasoning potential. By learning from failure today, we have the chance to succeed tomorrow. As parents, we are charged with raising our children to be the keepers of tomorrow's world, and without our knowledge, experience, and guidance, how can we expect to hold a legitimately optimistic view of what tomorrow's world will hold? 

I say this not only as a parent, but as inequality who teaches his children to respect others by respecting ourselves, but by trying to pass that understanding on to other parents. As George Carlin said, "don't just teach your children, teach them to question everything." How else can we make the future better than the present? 

One of the most malignant features of modernity since the French Revolution has been the attempt by the State—left or right, fascist, nationalist, socialist, or communist—to take over control of children's education from parents and local agencies—such as churches and municipalities—and direct that education in the interest of grandiose, intellectually neat, or more efficient plans and aims. The Philosophes and Jacobins of "Enlightenment" and Revolutionary France were the chief originators and evangelists of this program, but its subsequent development has had left-wing, right-wing, and even innocuous-seeming democratic or patriotic forms.

With the rise of the state in opposition to individuality, along with the learning experience facilitated by the consequences of bad choices, we see an erosion of natural rights, whereby individuals are discouraged from recognizing the failures of collectivism. There is hardly anything democrat about a society without an opt-out policy. Modern governments are more than willing to use violence against the peasants to show that the oligarchy shall not be questioned. By withdrawing consent to be governed, we effectively relegate laws against victims of victimless-crimes to the history books, a distant reminder of a world when common sense was anything but. I may disagree with the faithful on the origin of the effort, but the goals are not entirely dissimilar; an end to violence.

In the aftermath of World War II, after a century and a half of ultimately tragic and destructive attempts by left-wing, right-wing, or simply radically-secular states to wean children from their parents and local and religious loyalties and influences in the interest of state-directed education, many Western European nations and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (1948) clearly asserted that "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children," in the words of the Declaration. With the fall of Communism, after 1990 new national constitutions in eastern Europe affirmed the provision their Western neighbors had made in the preceding decades, a noble story told well by Charles L. Glenn in Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe (1995). This provision included forms of tax relief or support that would enable parents to make such choices.

More: Parents vs the State

I believe that to best serve our children, we need to foster in them a critical view of the world, every aspect, and hope that they can find the best in everything. 

By removing the ability to learn from our experiences (even failure), we are truly being teachers for our children. What happens in a society in which repercussions are suppressed (in both social and economic realms) is that we don't learn from our experiences. 

With problems like drug addiction, where historically abuse of a substance is statistically insignificant until the state see fit to enact regulatory prohibition of some sort, is that we see a spike in instances of such issue. As with a child, telling them not to do something and teaching them about the consequences of the same action have quite varying outcomes. When we tell our children not to smoke or drink alcohol, where teaching about the negative consequences of the same action result in caution and consideration. Historically, issues like drug usage and firearm violence rise with prohibition. 

If we expect our children to succeed, shouldn't we prepare rather than hindering them?

Solving the Black Pete problem

George Ought to Help focuses a critical mind on the idea that anything beyond individuals can be considered discriminatory, something I focus on in arguments against a variety of mainstream ideas in society and economics:

Supporters of the Black Pete tradition say that it does no harm. That it should be maintained as part of Dutch cultural heritage. That their personal attitude towards people with dark skin has not been affected by the tradition. That as children they never even read the blackfaces as representing black people. One of the more naive sounding defences is that the black is actually chimney soot.

In support of the pro-Pete public, I think it’s important to point out that the Black Pete tradition isn’t racist. Black Pete, the tradition, can’t be racist. No image or performance can be inherently racist. Racism is a belief that within humanity certain biological groups are inferior to others. Images or rituals don’t hold beliefs, people do. Images or rituals cannot be racist, only people can be.

Given that Dutch settlers created the state of South Africa and benefited from slavery, and then indentured servitude under Apartheid law, it's hard to understand how anyone engaging in the Black Pate tradition could be doing so sans discriminatory actions.The Dutch were responsible for the oppression of indigenous black populations in South Africa, but even with the end of apartheid there was hardly an end to the practice. It was only when the state was partially dismantled and the oppressed segments of society rose up to take hold of the government that the tide turned on those promoting aggression through the state. Legal slavery is no less immoral.

More: Solving the Black Pete problem

Individualism, Out of Step

People are first and foremost individualistic, no prone to collectivism without force being applied. It can also be called ethical egoism, when the goal of the individual is not to thrive at the expense of others (property, labor, liberty, etc.). Ayn Rand is often criticized for Objectivism for ethical reasons that self-interest is not conducive to Mutualism (the epistemological arguments are a bit beyond me unfortunately at this point), but more than anything these people are recognizing and acting upon the inherently individualistic choices we make in our daily lives through voluntary exchanges. Individuality is what drives progress and innovation, not regulation and collectivism. By homogenizing the population, we cull out those individual traits that drive progress. These positions and arguments are the reason that I have not been keen to allow myself to be labeled since I was a child. I can not associate everything I do with one group or culture, everything I am with a political ideology or religious theology. I'm more inclined to strive to be Out of Step than mold myself to fit a label. One of the failures of individualism within social ideologies (such as liberal or conservative), is that it is based upon the non-consensual submission to authority through the state, which is a form of oppression, and is hardly individualism in application.

Good is a Balance Between Opposite Evils

"For Aristotle, [...] virtue lay in the mean between two extremes. Good is always a balance between two opposite evils, the midpoint between excess and defect. Temperance is a mean between austerity and indulgence. Courage, a mean between cowardice and foolhardiness. Proper pride a mean between arrogance and abasement, and so forth. Such a mean can only be found in practice."

Richard Tarnas, from The Passion of the Western Mind

Wake Up

I sometimes feel like an observer in traffic, trying to figure out if its all nonsense, and slightly righting the wander, helping to point them in the proper direction. Sometimes, it is those slight interventions into the lives of individuals which helps away the majority population without effort. It is those small ideas which guide the soul, not fiat decrees which abuse the physical form.

Voluntary Association

If my statist, law-enforcement neighbor can raise a teenager in a major metropolitan city-state, I think that he will become a friend to the liberty movement in terms of reluctance to enforce bad laws. In his system, this is a constitutional imperative. I have no reservations assuming this teenager I have watched grow for a few years has experienced marijuana, and that the father is quite aware of the situation, even when he wonders if that familiar smell coming from somewhere close might be from his child or his comrade. Maybe this is the seed we are meant to plant for the future, an investment, driving society forward without violence or coercion, but collectively and above all, voluntarily. That investment will pay returns sufficient in both monetary and morality realms. If ending prohibition is not at least a step in nullification in a collective manner, then why bother, for if we can make this work in a mutually beneficial way, should we not at least try?

deGrasse Tyson on Collapsitarians

I'm all for having a last supper at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but the skeptic in me also makes me question an unknown future. I need hard evidence, not speculation. Give me something substantiated.

Against Protectionism for Intellectual Property

If anyone was on the fence or in doubt about IP law, this case should help bring some logic an reason back into the discussions:

This week, at the behest of an anti-piracy group, police executed a search warrant against an alleged file-sharer. Not only did the police feel it was measured and appropriate to take action against an individual who downloaded a single album worth a few euros, but even carried on once they knew their target was a 9-year-old child. Of course there has been outcry, but let's look at this from a different angle for a moment. Isn't this some of the best news all year?

The news this week that Finnish police had seen fit to raid the home of a 9-year-old file-sharer has turned into one of the biggest stories of the year so far.

I'm not condoning an act if "theft," but this gross, disproportionate display of ignorance and force is just one more reason I believe the existence of the state is the greatest call for its prohibition. 

Ok, the event was hardly comparable to the military-style raid at the Dotcom mansion, but it was still an example of a disproportionate show of force by the police at the behest of copyright holders.

Of course, while Dotcom's children were undoubtedly affected by the action at their home in January, they weren't the prime targets. In contrast and quite unbelievably, in this week's debacle the unlucky daughter of Finland's Aki Nylund was. But despite being a common-sense disaster, this week's screw-up could be some of the best news we've had all year. And here's why.

If the police targeted the admins of one of the biggest torrent sites in the world this week or rounded up some heavy pre-releasers or similar, people might complain but it would hardly come as a surprise. The writing has been on the wall for a long time in that respect and the backlash from the public would be almost non-existent.

But in what kind of parallel universe does a professional, western police force think it's appropriate, proportionate and a good use of tax-payers' money to send officers to a citizen's home for a petty file-sharing issue, one involving the downloading of a single music album?

And worse still, Finland's police were only called in to deal with the issue when the father of the child refused to pay a cash demand of 600 euros sent by anti-piracy outfit CIAPC on behalf of Warner Music for what amounts to, at most, a civil offense. Rightsholders should be able to protect their interests, but using the police – and the public purse – to enforce an unofficial 'debt'? This just gets better.

When private parties are allowed to wield the force of the state in disputes, WTF?! That pretty much lays the idea of justice six feet under. 

But before we go any further, we should acknowledge the correct assumption by those attempting to protect the police that when the officers arrived at the house they had no idea that they would be targeting a child. Agreed, they had absolutely no clue. What they did have was 'evidence' collected by an anti-piracy group based on a simple IP address.

And the burden of proof is not even expected in a civil case this meager? Wait, Houston, we have a problem. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of just how useful this 'evidence' is.

If the evidence could actually identify an infringer it would seem likely that CIAPC would've seen the face of a 9-year-old child and thrown their 600 euro claim in the trash. Yes, anti-piracy groups do rely on a certain amount of public fear to make their strategies work, but we've spoken to CIAPC a number of times and they don't seem evil. This is the kind of publicity they can do without.

And they're not on their own.

Chisu, the artist cast into the middle of the scandal, has been forced to defend herself after she faced accusations that she was somehow involved in targeting the child. She wasn't – and this has been confirmed by her label Warner Music – but she herself said that she doesn't need this kind of attention and felt compelled to offer an apology to her young fans.

As public opinion shifts radically away from protectionist efforts for groups that heavily lobby the state for privilege, producers will likely shift away from large organizations such as big recording industry players. Hello self-publishing in all media fields. Goodbye monopolization, naturally, without (and actually despite of) intervention by government. 

Of course, groups like CIAPC and others like them are trying to positively influence the younger generation. With their taste for popular music they are the customers of tomorrow, but scaring them into submission isn't going to work.

More good news: https://torrentfreak.com/raided-pirate-bay-kid-came-to-save-us-all-121125/

Don't Volunteer This Holiday Season

 

Here's the hard truth: soup kitchens don't need you on Thanksgiving. They don't need you on Christmas. They've got those days covered. They need you those other 363 days of the year. They need a dedicated corps of volunteers to spread out that spirit of service through the entire calendar and for a true culture of volunteerism to take hold.

More

Walking Away from Omelas

I was introduced to Le Guin’s fantasy fiction books through friends, but can see how some can be caught off guard, not expecting morality through fiction with the collection of non-fiction articles introduced in this course. It’s an allegory presenting the moral perspective of walking away from “utopia.” The question is whether the happiness of a society can exist at the expense of the freedom and happiness of an individual, innocent child.

Kyes:

"After the narrator has the reader thinking that this city couldn't possibly exist because of all of the "smiles, bells" and "parades," (Le Guin 951) the narrator asks the reader if they believe in the city and in the joy. The narrator suspects the reader will say no, so she decides to describe one more thing that will cause the reader to question the believability of the city. By describing the child who is locked in the dark cellar, the author is telling the reader that this town has its dark secrets too."

I view society from a voluntaryist position, so I see the moral vacuum created by building a utopia on the suffering of an innocent, that the society can not be said to be moral as a result. Rather than continue to be a part of the society, those who see the moral deficiency of the society choose to walk away from it. They choose to withdraw their consent and their support for that society. It’s an evil that can only be allowed to persist if society chooses to ignore it, to force it into the shadows where the atrocity can not be seen.

A society such as that is quite backwards. Can we live in a society at the expense of others? I think that this ties in to the area of positive liberty, where society promotes “equality” through forced redistribution and strong laws by a representative body, rather than through consensual or voluntary interactions and exchanges. This relies on the presence of a state which has the power (and often uses it to the detriment of society) to infringe upon natural, individual rights. If we know that our neighbor is being robbed to provide for services which we want, yet we choose to take advantage of those services anyway, we place ourselves in the position of being both the members of Le Guin’s Omelas as well as the innocent child in the dark cellar.

Ursula Le Guin - The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (PDF download)

I believe that many readers miss the moral of the story by focusing on the effects on the innocent child, which is also an intention of the story. I suspect that many readers are unable to get past this initial shock to start to dissect how Le Guin's story applies to society in general, rather than to this fictional town. The underlying idea is that how can a society be just when it's happiness is provided at the expense of others.

From my perspective, I see the social criticism being focused on the lack of voluntaryism in society. We are forced to provide tribute to the state (Taxation is Theft), with which wars are waged against innocents around the world (Nixon's enabling of the Cambodian Genocide Program during the Vietnam war, for example). How anyone could continue to participate in a society at the expense of others without their consent is beyond me.

Walking away from such an immoral system is the only real choice, for continuing to thrive at the expense of others is no better than being directly responsible for the oppression. Being once removed through a system of government no less lays the responsibility of that government on the heads of it's willing participants, even those who simply contribute their tribute in order to maintain the system itself. This is the social criticism that Le Guin likely intended, hoping the reader would see the parallels between the fictional society and the one we live in today.

It's not about walking away from those in need, but from those who support such oppression. Many of us have been in the position of the innocent child, exploited by the utopian society, rather than one of those benefiting from the exploit itself. In that regard, I believe that many of us are actually on both sides of the exchange; we are both the innocent child and the parasitic society. We benefit from our own exploitation, yet most can not see it for what it is. A society that functions in that manner brings me great sadness. Omelas is not the exploited child, but the society that thrives on the exploitation. Only when we can see the exploitation for what is it do we give ourselves the opportunity to walk away from Omelas.

Omelas is the physical town in the story, but I believe that it refers to a social system. Walking away could also mean simply withdrawing from an immoral social or political system, without moving physically. Looking back in history, think of the fascistic and tyrannical states which rose up and oppressed their populations. As the people themselves rose up in opposition and threw off that oppression, I see that as walking away without moving. If they were able to move to a more free society without actually leaving their homes and families, by simply withdrawing consent to be governed by despots and tyrants, did they any less walk away from Omelas in a metaphoric sense. Staying in Omelas might be a metaphor for consenting to tyranny.

I am a Voluntaryist. I see a possibility for a free society without regulation or laws, where individuals choose to respect the rights of others for the better of society. I'm a bit idealistic, but as they say, "aim for the moon, if you miss, you'll still be amongst the stars." I've focused much of my independent studies on economics, philosophy, and psychology to better understand Human Action. By walking away from one thing, we are walking toward something else, something potentially better.

The metaphor actually reminds me of an example Richard Tarnas' The Passion of the Western Mind, where he introduces Plato's Allegory of the Cave through dialog. Plato's Socrates presents the idea of a prisoner in a cave, chained to a wall, their gaze fixed on an opposite, empty wall. A source of light projects shadows in front of them, which they misinterpret to be actual forms, rather than representations of actual forms. The prisoners can not see the objects creating the shadows themselves. The shadows are the closest thing to the real world that the prisoners see. The philosopher is one who sees the shadows for what they are. He frees his mind by having the ability to differentiate between reality and illusion.

Willfully ignoring the despair of the child on which the utopian society is dependent is rather similar to the prisoner compelled to view only the shadow of reality. When the member of Omelas takes leave from the town in protest to the moral deficiency on which the society is based, they are viewing the reality, not just the shadow of reality. When the viewer awakes, they are presented with the choice of continuing to live at the expense of others, or walk away from Omelas.

Happy War Day

Veteran's Day, the third leg of the statist tripod of holidays; Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, and 9/11. Celebration of these "holidays" is little more than worship at the altar or the American Empire. The Empire Never Ended, yet it's collapse is imminent. 

Formerly Armistice Day, is a holiday observed on November 11 in honour of all those, living and dead, who served with U.S. armed forces in wartime. Armistice Day, the forerunner of Veterans Day, was proclaimed to commemorate the termination of World War I

Proclaimed by whom? surely not the people. Less than one on five support Obama (just the latest American emperor), which should be a stark reminder of the massive withdraw of consent of the population to be governed. I see this as a great step away from the state toward a voluntary society sans government. For what is government but a legitimization of the act of aggression toward others through the act of voting. Don't vote, it only encourages them. 

Self-evident Truths

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That famous quote sounds good, but in real world conversations, I have found few things that are less self-evident than 'self-evident truths' about Rights.

The quote, itself, immediately raises questions. Do we have only God-Given Rights? Are there Human Rights, Moral Rights, Natural Rights, Legal Rights? Would those be different things, or the same things coming from different sources?

And any detailed discussion of Rights typically gets less self-evident from there.

So, let's see if I can offer you a simple view of Rights using the lens of Voluntaryism.

More @ Veresapiens

FEMA, Hurricane Sandy, and the Non-aggression Principle

The sad reality is that to oppose forced redistribution, people like me are seen as opposing helping those in need. 

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has placed a rush order of two million meals to be delivered to Floyd Bennett New York Harbor Parks, and Lakehurst New Jersey.

Efforts to help our community during times of tragedy are to be commended, but is it moral to offer assistance to the needy through the theft from others?

The solicitation was amended less than four hours later for providers to provide a quote of four million meals, preferably of the self-heating variety.

Read More @ Activist Post

Helping our community during natural disasters is, well, a natural response. When we see our neighbors suffering unnecessarily, we step up to help however we can. What we should never tolerate is a mob-like organization which legally-plunders us to offer "charity" through violence. Applying a term of legality to the act of plunder makes that effort no less morally deficient. 

Slavery and/or Liberty

Political ideologies aside, the ownership of another human is unconscionable, yet has been with our species for thousands of years, with the abolition of such practices only constituting a narrow range of recent years. I don't expect that history can be swept aside so quickly, but that slavers simply move to new methods of control. During the post-abolition years, free men were still excluded from opportunity and full realization of their natural rights, but government itself infringes upon natural rights significantly more than individuals ever have.

There is a good essay on the abolition of slavery by Lysander Spooner (A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery), in which Spooner promotes the ideas of self-ownership and property rights (in which a person can not be considered property of another). The history of slavery was undoubtedly a black mark on society, rightly so, but it's promotion through the state is a reminder that evil men will always use the force of the state to promote their will against that of the common man. Some believe that by enacting laws we can realize a just and fruitful society, but slavery existed in America despite it's conflict with the laws of this nation. The black Jamaican culture has historically been victimized through law by Anglos using the state to continue oppression against them post-abolition, but aspects of slavery persist.

A decade before his essay on abolition, Spooner went into great detail on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery. As a specialist in the field of contract law, he was able to refute many ideas and practices that were in direct conflict with the law, yet practices such as slavery persisted. In The Law, by Frederic Bastiat, the author describes the state's monopoly on the use of force as legal plunder, and applying it to slavery; "in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them."

There is a paradoxical belief that the state can promote peace and equality through force. Enabling violence to prevent violence is not a path to promote social equality and liberty. Slavery may have been abolished in it's traditional sense, but aspects of it continue today. As Spooner said, "A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years." Often, those we see garner support from minorities to promote minority causes tend to use the same system of plunder to either defend or aggress through the state, and many of the policies they support tend to have negative consequences for those minorities they are supposed to be defending.

Election Time, HOA Edition

I found a message in my inbox from a member of my local homeowners association board who is running for re-election:

Hello Neighbors,

Early voting starts today and your vote counts! I am asking for your support in putting me back on the Block House MUD Board. I am also asking that each of you tell 10 of your neighbors to vote for me. This is a crucial election and every vote counts.

After a 2 year break from my last term on the MUD Board, I am ready to get back to work representing YOU and your best interest. During my first 4 years on the Board, I fought to keep the taxes low while maintaining the services that were offered to our residents the previous year. My record will show that the tax rate did not increase one time while I was on Board. I plan to continue this record because I know that, in this economy, every dollar counts.

With 4 people running for 2 seats, I need and want your support. I am pleased to have this opportunity and I look forward to the challenges that it presents.

While I hold no ill will against anyone on the homeowners association board, but this is a good time to discuss an idea that has been circulating in my head for some time. Could engaging in the act of voting, whereby the result is a situation where those who have not voted to support those who were elected, are forced or coerced to comply with the will of those in elected positions? I believe there is a moral deficiency here. One that is not unfounded. The opposition to this system of representative democracy goes back to the Romans, but more recently was supported by the likes of Frédéric Bastiat and Lysander Spooner.

In The Law, Bastiat offers this which he calls legal plunder, by which voters either use their vote to plunder others, or to defend themselves preemptively against plunder:

But on the other hand, imagine that this fatal principle has been introduced: Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few — whether farmers, manufacturers, ship owners, artists, or comedians. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so.

The excluded classes will furiously demand their right to vote — and will overthrow society rather than not to obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will then prove to you that they also have an incontestable title to vote. They will say to you:

"We cannot buy wine, tobacco, or salt without paying the tax. And a part of the tax that we pay is given by law — in privileges and subsidies — to men who are richer than we are. Others use the law to raise the prices of bread, meat, iron, or cloth. Thus, since everyone else uses the law for his own profit, we also would like to use the law for our own profit. We demand from the law the right to relief, which is the poor man's plunder. To obtain this right, we also should be voters and legislators in order that we may organize Beggary on a grand scale for our own class, as you have organized Protection on a grand scale for your class. Now don't tell us beggars that you will act for us, and then toss us, as Mr. Mimerel proposes, 600,000 francs to keep us quiet, like throwing us a bone to gnaw. We have other claims. And anyway, we wish to bargain for ourselves as other classes have bargained for themselves!"

Spooner goes a bit further in No Treason to present the idea that we are not bound by contracts that we have no entered into ourselves voluntarily:

If, then, those who established the Constitution, had no power to bind, and did not attempt to bind, their posterity, the question arises, whether their posterity have bound themselves. If they have done so, they can have done so in only one or both of these two ways, viz., by voting, and paying taxes.

In the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nobody but the actual voters. But owing to the property qualifications required, it is probable that, during the first twenty or thirty years under the Constitution, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or perhaps twentieth of the whole population (black and white, men, women, and minors) were permitted to vote. Consequently, so far as voting was concerned, not more than one-tenth, fifteenth, or twentieth of those then existing, could have incurred any obligation to support the Constitution.

No one, by voting, can be said to pledge himself for any longer period than that for which he votes. If, for example, I vote for an officer who is to hold his office for only a year, I cannot be said to have thereby pledged myself to support the government beyond that term. Therefore, on the ground of actual voting, it probably cannot be said that more than one-ninth or one-eighth, of the whole population are usually under any pledge to support the Constitution. [In recent years, since 1940, the number of voters in elections has usually fluctuated between one-third and two-fifths of the populace.]

It cannot be said that, by voting, a man pledges himself to support the Constitution, unless the act of voting be a perfectly voluntary one on his part. Yet the act of voting cannot properly be called a voluntary one on the part of any very large number of those who do vote. It is rather a measure of necessity imposed upon them by others, than one of their own choice.

While this has little bearing on the institution of the homeowners association, Spooner's ideas on the unintended (intended) consequences of a representative government hold more weight in any argument defending the movement toward a voluntary society. It is time to Stop Voting, and I have cast my last vote; no confidence. What if they had an election and nobody came?

FDR2228 Taxes, Statism and Families

 

 

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, discusses the challenges of modern families. Freedomain Radio is the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web - http://www.freedomainradio.com

FDR2225 Ethics Unsucked! A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics

"You can get roses out of fertilizer but you can't get virtue out of the shit of the state." - Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, reviews Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, using audience participation at the Capitalism and Morality seminar in Vancouver, summer 2012. Freedomain Radio is the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web - http://www.freedomainradio.com

V for Voluntary, Motherfucker

I recently noticed that Lysander Spooner lived until just one year shy of the abolition of slavery in Brazil, not that he was as focused on issues outside of the United States as he was in his critical words and actions at home, doing his damnedest to promote liberty through education where it was considered utmost for a healthy, voluntary society. I'd like to think that his works (and those of his peers; Mises, Bastiat, Rothbard, Hazlitt, Hayek, Woods, Block, and many others) continue to be influential on the necessity for economic and civil liberty To maintain a free society. 

It's a conspiracy! Let's leave each other alone and promote respect in a voluntary society. We could do it in a few days, if we'd just let go of the false Left-Right dichotomy of separation and control (Divide et Impera, as the Romans called what we still see today), and just give in to morality and reason. Continuing to do the same thing while expecting differing results is how Einstein defined insanity. Rather acute, no?

People are born with natural rights, and many of America's own founding fathers recognized this (yet sadly abandoned those principles shortly thereafter) in their framing of a document which  intended to restrict state infringement upon those natural rights, yet none of signed nor are bound to who do not hold public office or civil position. If it were a contract, all those who signed it are long dead. Yet our collective pockets are plundered against our will to fund various immoral activities in our name. Yet we consent to this? I can not with a clear conscience. 

And to those who do? How is statism working out for us? Maybe it's finally time to try something different. I promise you'll like it, if you understand morality. 

Voting is nothing more than a tug of war, pushing on others to relieve our own burden, swinging back and forth on a pendulum, never really getting anywhere. Yet, over time, our collective burden increases gradually, and our liberties suffer. We harm ourselves in our attempt to harm others. Beware the double edged sword. Legal plunder is nothing to tolerate at any level. It is masturbation without pleasure. 

As Mises said, "economics is far too important to be left to the economists." In his worldview, government only decreases economic efficiency as its intervention and scope of government increase. And without economic liberty, civil liberties suffer greatly beside their counterpart. 

Imagine that...

How to Protect Against the Evil Eye

In large parts of the oldest civilized region of the world, you will find in nearly every room a pretty blue charm that looks like an eye. It's in the front entrance of homes, somewhere in every room, on boats, in airports, in restaurants, and built into the designs of everything from wallpaper to grocery bags. It's on jewelry, wind chimes, and serving plates.

It is common in the Aegean Sea region but encompasses all countries and religious traditions. Though it's never received endorsement from any clerical body — they consider it a silly superstition — it is found in the histories of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In Turkey, from where I just returned, it's called the nazar boncugu. That's Turkish, but in Arabic it isayn al-hasud. In Hebrew it is ayn ha-r a. In Greek, it is το µΆτι, and in Spanish, it is mal de ojo.

Its purpose is to ward off the evil eye. What is that? Americans imagine that it is some ancient myth that has no relevance to modernity. Actually, the evil eye is right now destroying prosperity in the United States. The more it is doing this, the less we hear about it. Far from being some primitive idea, the evil eye is summed up in a wicked vice we don't hear about anymore: envy.

The evil eye looks for success and wishes for its destruction. It is different from jealousy in that sense. It doesn't desire the wealth or happiness of another. It wants the other to suffer because of the other's wealth, fame, success, or happiness. People since the ancient world have feared this impulse more than any other. It is more dangerous to persons and society than any natural disaster. It is a greater threat day to day than floods, hurricanes, or wild beasts.

In other words, the concept of the evil eye grows out of a very real conviction that the greatest threat to human flourishing is the malice of human beings who resent success. And that is actually a very keen insight! No wonder it's had such traction in all religions for so long.

Further, the charm here looks like an eye too, though its purpose is to fight the evil eye. The best way to fight the evil eye, in this tradition, is to look straight back at it. That's what the nazar does. It's an eye for an eye.

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More: http://lfb.org/today/how-to-protect-against-the-evil-eye/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-protect-against-the-evil-eye

Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich Hayek was born in Vienna in 1899 into a family steeped in academic life and scientific research. He worked as a statistician from 1927–31, became a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Vienna in 1929, then moved to the University of London in 1931, the University of Chicago in 1950, and the University of Freiburg in 1962, retiring in 1967. He continued writing into the late 1980s, dying in 1992.

Hayek worked in the areas of philosophy of science, political philosophy, the free will problem, and epistemology. For all that, Hayek was more hedgehog than fox. His life's work, for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1974, illuminated the nature and significance of spontaneous order. The concept seems simple, yet Hayek spent six decades refining his idea, evidently finding elusive the goal of being as clear about it as he aspired to be.

This essay concentrates on this enduring theme of Hayek's work, and a question: why would the scholar who did more than anyone in the twentieth century to advance our understanding of price signals and the emergence of spontaneous orders also be driven to claim that social justice is a mirage?

More: Friedrich Hayek (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Innateness and Contemporary Theories of Cognition

Nativism is experiencing a resurgence. Up until some sixty years ago, there were no active research programs that were looking for the innate factors in knowledge and cognition that had been hypothesized and argued for by Nativist thinkers since Plato. It was widely agreed that the centuries-old battles between Empiricists and Nativists were over, and that the Empiricists had decisively won. The Nativist situation was actually worse than that: innateness claims were seen as not only wrong, but as ultimately unscientific approaches to mind and perhaps incoherent as well. The prevailing research agenda for scientists and philosophers interested in how the mind works was to show how our knowledge and abilities could be fully accounted for on the basis of our sensory experiences and the general learning mechanisms that operate on them.

I expect that as humans advance or evolve, as their cognitive abilities expand and increase, the opportunity to see previous philosophical views in a more critical manner becomes easier for a wider scope of the population. I wonder if this expansion is fast enough...

A number of developments led to a change in this situation, but most significant was Chomsky's revolutionary work in linguistics in the 1950's and 1960's. Today the cognitive sciences are teeming with multi-disciplinary approaches to mind that are very much open to the idea that the character of our mental lives owes a great deal more to our innate endowments than Empiricists have supposed. It is also teeming with work that is more in line with Empiricist commitments, so it is hard to determine whether, all things considered, the tide has turned in favor of Nativism. But there is no question that the Nativist approach is once again a live and very lively option.

More: Innateness and Contemporary Theories of Cognition (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I've been following various schools of thought regarding liberty and economics for a while, most of which apply a heavy dose of philosophy to the science of various fields. I suppose I need an outlet to focus on the ideas rather than their application. I am not sure that mental capacity is entirely innate, only that I see an overall increase in the knowledge that can be acquired by individuals in a society.

Welcome to my mind.