Not only does Moldbug know such iron fists would rule best, allow emigration, not cheat their investors, and never ever accept manipulator payola, he apparently knows this deductively, as a noble philosopher, not like data-addicted corrupt pansy social scientists. And he has no interest in improvements in the status quo below his philosopher-deduced-best pinnacle.Moldbug responds, and in doing so demonstrates that Hanson is right.
What more can one say to such a person?
Just real quick...I ran into Robin Hanson the first time in '95/'96 when Jimmy Wales was just a stocks guy who ran an internet philosophy discussion list (MDOP). Back then, Larry Sanger (the other founder of Wikipedia) was starting up a philosophy discussion group dedicated to foundationalist philosophy...and I joined. Unless my memory is weaker than I think it is, over the course of a year or two, I became quite impressed with the insight and breadth of knowledge of one of the most insightful commentators on that list...Robin Hanson. (UPDATE: If I am wrong, I became a Hanson devotee a year or two later in '97/98, when I was focused on Extropianism )
Moldbug says:
It is small wonder that Professor Hanson has never learned any philosophy.
I'd be inclined to wager that if trading philosophy, Modbug is nowhere near qualified to talk to Hanson, much less make shit up about Hanson's expertise. Of course, Hanson is known for proposing ideas that no one else is talking about (prediction markets, which had never been tried before), while the main thrust of Moldbug's fame is a position is convincing Libertarians to accept a position indistinguishable from that of Hugo Chavez. "Let's get a strong enough leader."
Moldbug says:
Science and scientists are the eternal enemy of pseudoscience and pseudoscientists.Of course, as I look up Robin's CV, I see why he was on the Philosophy list I was on. He has a masters in philosophy of science, and a master's in Physics. I expect that means he knows more both about philosophy and about science than Moldbug ever will. Of course, Robin is too interested in the ideas to point out how absurd Moldbug is here, but I'm more focused on the high-strength fertilizer Moldbug is slinging, and would like to set the record straight.
Borrowing a phrase I read today, Moldbug continues casting about like a pyromaniac in a field of strawmen:
For instance, a lot of people (possibly even Professor Hanson) believe that the United States Government (USG) is "limited" by a historical document called "the Constitution." Nothing could possibly be farther from the truth.I became a libertarian formally, somewhere near '90...before I hadn't been overly focused on politics. By '94 (I'm kinda slow) I had been disabused of the notion that paper constitutions can restrain real governments. I can't imagine that someone who's been in the libertarian thought-stream for more than a few years could believe something so naive.
Of course a deeper analysis might notice that nothing thus far tried has EVER succeeded in keeping governments from steadily encroaching on their subjects liberties until such point as the subjects are thoroughly immiserated. Indeed, one cannot find any instances of ORGANIZATIONS, much less states, restraining themselves without external forces forcing them to do so. The US Government before 1913 was restrained NOT by the Supreme Court, but by the states who owned the economic power. The Swiss central government is not expanding...it is controlled by the cantons.
On the other hand, Moldbug does toss out an intelligent comment from time to time amongst his absurdities:
At the top, power is always a matter of social exclusion.Of course, Robin Hanson is among the best thinkers anywhere on the topic of people hiding behind nice words in order to gain status. Perhaps Moldbug, were he to listen, could learn something about it. Then he wouldn't make patently absurd statements earlier in his attempted rebuttal like this one:
This problem is certainly worth addressing. For instance, my answer is: a sovereign corporation will not tyrannize, for the same reason a sovereign restaurant would not poison its customers, butcher them, and put their chops on tomorrow's lunch menu. It would be bad for business.
Of course, if power is always a matter of social exclusion, this wishful thinking on Moldbug's part as to why and how government wouldn't do something is not part of the discussion. Perhaps if he took lessons from Hanson on how social status actually operates, he might understand this.
And then, this is the kind of sentence that makes Robin's critique perfect...and the one on which much of the rest of Moldbug critique rests:
Washington (a) does not change, and (b) does not change in a right-wing direction. Exceptions to (a) are rare, exceptions to (b) absurdly rare.This, according to an actual scientist like Robin Hanson, is most likely unfalsifiable...and thus a statement used only to bolster Moldbug's credibility, while have no content whatsoever. It's almost Neitzchean poetry. Unless we'd like to define the terms so that someone could go about falsifying?
Unless his terms are FAR different than those of normal English speakers, Moldbug shows a remarkable lack of awareness of the history of the 20th century. The 4th quarter of the 20th Century is a rather continuous flow of governments getting the hell out of the economy...from the US/English deregulations starting in the late '70s to the massive top-rate tax cuts. But of course, we don't have a definition, so we can't point out that the position is absurd.
As to Moldbug's exercises:
One: write a reasonable response (a document that would be intelligible and convincing, given translation, to the author and his contemporary audience)...Absurd. Kuhn explained it well: Knowledge advances one funeral at a time. These folks have no access to some of the basic tools any reasonable modern uses as their basic understanding of the world: Mendel, Darwin, Ricardo, Coase, Hayek, von Neumann. Any of those ideas takes Months to Years to understand the implications of...and one should explain them to the author?
Two: watch the 20-minute film Detroit: City on the Move. Imagine explaining to the social scientists of 1960, seen on your screen with their blackboards (Detroit, as the film claims, was one of the most progressively-governed cities in America), what would happen to their city over the next 50 years. And why. The what would be easy to explain - but the why?Equally impossible. In 1960, the zeitgeist held that central planning could work. It wasn't until Hayek's critique permeated the economics profession, and the economics profession started colonizing other areas of social science that this could make sense. On the other hand, this year, I've read DeLong argue for the Hayekian impossibility of planning. The state of knowledge has advanced. We have learned what we cannot know.
He continues:
For anyone, any disaster is either inevitable, accidental, criminal or worthwhile. Either dispute that the fate of Detroit has been a disaster, or attribute it to one of these categories. Whichever your choose, please describe the relationship, if any, between "social science" and this outcome. Assume, again, the audience of 1960 - for which there is no cultural or language barrierHayek in the 40s and 50s was preaching the impossibility of central planning. No one understood him yet. Now they do. The explanation is, in 3 words: Hayek was right.
Exercise 3:
Clearly, Professor Hanson is not a ratheist, because - being an honest man - he (a) would have admitted it, and (b) might well have lost his job for it. Therefore, he must be either an egalist or a ragnostic. Since even the latter is dangerous, it is socially obligatory to assume that everyone is an egalist unless discovered to be the converse.
Here, Moldbug asks "do you still beat your wife?" The intelligent person, at this point ignores Moldbug's question. Of course, Moldbug hopes to use the fact that a meta-rational Hanson should shut up on this point to avoid further discussion...while making himself (falsely) look better because Moldbug has no public-facing job that requires him to shut up on the issue. I hesitate to use the word slimy, because it could just be stupidity on Moldbug's part...but barring idiocy, filth is probably a better guess.
UPDATE: As is usual, I had my share of typos in the original, and mid-sentence switches. I've cleaned it up a bit....but made no substantive changes.
UPDATE: As is usual, I had my share of typos in the original, and mid-sentence switches. I've cleaned it up a bit....but made no substantive changes.
Posts
26 comments:
You really need to stop pulling your punches...
But seriously I have never seen you write like that, impressive if a bit scary :)
Aretae:
"The 4th quarter of the 20th Century is a rather continuous flow of governments getting the hell out of the economy...from the US/English deregulations starting in the late '70s to the massive top-rate tax cuts."
Are you sure? I'm not convinced. Yes government by large degrees stopped owning and running the means of production but it was also clear that governments could no longer actually make money from such industries. Since continuing to run failed industries was bankrupting the state the state did the logical thing and allowed private industries to handle such functions.
This resulted in a moderate productivity increase until enough formalized regulation were created to force the means of production into the hand of only large corporations (often the ones writing the regulations) that could follow all the correct rules and dot all the i's and cross the Ts the thus keep the government happy. The size of government and more importantly the amount of regulation imposed by the government did not decrease and thus government never really got out of the economy.
A lot of functions were also pushed to the courts. There is a government regulation in the state of California that requires mirrors a certain height from the floor(For disabled people or some such BS). I read about a local business owner who had replaced a damaged mirror in his bathroom at his fast food place. The people who installed it placed it 6in higher than it had been before. Last I heard he was being sued for several million dollars for failing to place his mirror 6in lower. He was given no warnings he was simply sued. I'm sure this business owner would disagree with you about government getting out of the economy.
I work in a community college and even here the regulation grows day by day, year by year. It's an un-ending pile of bullshit that takes up 90% of our time. From my perspective our primary job should be educating people and making it easier to do so. The constant influx of new regulations make this job pretty much impossible.
Central planing caused Detroit to turn into a 3ed world city? Really?
What fixed New York then? If I remember right they had a central plan to knocked down the bad areas, regulate out the seedy shops and generally build places that people want to be around. It seems to have worked out well.
Why is New York a decent city and Detroit a hellhole? Hayek clearly can't be right about both cities.
Let's take three major points from Moldbug's essay for which I don't see an honest rebuttal in your response.
1) Philosophy. In pre-1960s philosophy, my money is on Moldbug's knowledge. Perhaps I'd give the nod to Hanson post-1960s. The bigger point is that Hanson has managed - as Moldbug suggests - to excise pre-1960s knowledge. This is a distinct failure. As Moldbug says "it allows [Professor Hanson] to excommunicate essentially all political thought before the 20th century. And even much of 20th-century thought. For instance, the Professor's social-science model is quite incapable of processing a book like Burnham's The Machiavellians, which to me is more or less the pons asinorum of 20th-century history."
2) Racism. Hanson's overall goal of "overcoming bias" is made a sham by his (implicit) belief in universal and absolute racial equality.
3) AGW. The same logic applies to global warmism.
2) and 3) relate back to 1). Modern social science is a pseudo-science.
Rob,
I play tit for 2 tats, as a proper game theoretician who is willing to free-ride off the punishers should. That's Moldbug's second bogus attack on Hanson.
Grim,
1. Continuous flow?
I think this is indeed a disputable statement. But it's a far more scientific statement than Moldbug's position, on which he founds his entire corpus.
If it is not true that there is an inexorable shift from Right to Left. If the Cthuloid beast is NOT foreordained to win...or worse, if the beast does not veer ever to the left...then Moldbug's case for stronger power vanishes in a puff of bull-smoke.
I'd be willing to argue the point...but I wasn't planning on it here. My first (and only for now) point. 1971 Nixon, the republican, put price controls on all sorts of stuff in order to make the economy better. Such a move is laughable today. Arch-liberal Krugman wouldn't support it today, as too idiotic to speak of. Looking at the 80s deregulations in the Anglosphere, the 90s deregulations in the Nordic countries...the economy is substantially free-er now (befoer Health care) than it has been since the 19-teens.
Community College? I always welcome fellow teachers. Two issues:
1. What is the purpose of education from the PoV of the state? I doubt seriously that it can properly be construed as educating people...That's what teachers like us want, not what the state wants.
2. Lack of competition will do that. Any organization that faces no competition grows an impenetrable thicket of regulations, eventually down to how you must brush your pubes. I work in a large, heavily regulated industry as well...and the regulation all but prohibits competition. Our regulations are almost as intrusive as those that I faced when I taught in the schools. Until there's REAL competition, with a danger of going out of business, there are no structural incentives to change.
Grim again,
Central planning caused Detroit's fall. Specifically Washington's
1. Planning and regulation of the auto industry
2. Support of the unions
3. Incentives towards buying houses.
4. Bailouts upon bailouts (1979?)
The government killed a productive industry by preventing it from being competitive via over-regulation (including Union power). In addition, Government did everything it could to prevent people from adjusting to new realities (Mortgage rules and bailouts).
I don't see where the problem is. The Feds killed Detroit's economy, not New York's. Cities in a state of decline are bad things.
"But it's a far more scientific statement than Moldbug's position"
Aretae, this statement from you, I think, proves Moldbug's point.
You - and Professor Hanson - are applying scientific standards to a non-scientific field. This is his criticism of you all for ignoring pre-1960s thought.
Science is the scientific method. This method cannot be applied to government. Therefore, science based theories of government are pseudo-science.
Foseti,
1. Philosophy. Western philosophy is MOSTLY the history of philosophy. Philosophy since 1960 is not well known by hardly anyone. In all philosophy programs everywhere, the big players are Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and sometimes some others...I think Neitzche belongs in the same category. Anyone who's studied philosophy is mostly an expert on the history of philosophy. As a philosopher of Science, I'd expect Hanson also to have read Popper who pointed out in The Open Society and Its Enemies how Plato argued a good number of Moldbug's points, somewhat disingenously.
I fear it is Moldbug who is tremendously confused here.
"The Professor's social-science model is quite incapable of processing a book like Burnham's The Machiavellians, which to me is more or less the pons asinorum of 20th-century history."
Hanson's model is scientific, in a sense that Moldbug has never been. Let's run an experiment. However, for your experiment to work, you must (a) propose a testable hypothesis relating to something that you don't already know the answer to, and (b) run the experiment, and (c) update your bayesian probabilities based on the outcomes. Moldbug pontificates...he doesn't propose experiments. Since most pontification is wrong, intelligent folks like Hanson suggest trying stuff before making colossal mistakes...which Moldbug states he has very little interest in.
Hanson, contrarily, is not into the kind of sanctimonious preaching that Moldbug likes, and would rather test his ideas. It's why the best of the best companies in Technology are already using Hanson's ideas (prediction markets). Because they've been tested in small scales and they work. Moldbug is painting a lovely picture, much like JRR Tolkein. Only there's NO decent way to know what's correct and what's not without trying. Of course, only a scientist (like Hanson), or a serious philosopher of science (like Hanson) would suggest that pontification, looking backwards, and making up explanations to fit your prejudices isn't actually much of a way to gain knowledge.
2) AFAIK, Neither you nor Moldbug nor I have any clue what Hanson believes. As a meta-rational, his only reasonable response is to be quiet on the topic, as it impacts his job. You and I and Moldbug hide behind pseudonyms in order to speak our minds. Hanson has no such luxury, blogging openly. Would you care to change your blog to use your name and title at work? It's a filthy trick by Moldbug.
3) I've written extensively on AGW. I don't buy it. The fact that Hanson, who I've watched thinking for 15 years is more than a little troubling to me, because he's so damn smart that it increases the odds that I'm wrong more than it increases the chance that he's wrong.
4) Science is based off predictivity. If it doesn't predict, it isn't science. Social science (outside of micro-econ, and some parts of psychology) seems awfully weak on predictivity, I agree. Hanson's work that made him world-famous is primarily in how to create better truth-finding mechanisms than the weak ones we have now. At the same time, his suggestion that modern social science is more scientific than most of Moldbug's pontifications also is worth looking at.
"Hanson's model is scientific, in a sense that Moldbug has never been."
If one truly understood ancient philosophy one would not see this as a virtue.
Copying the square methods of experimental physics and forcing them into the round whole of political science does not result in a "scientific" outcome. It results in precisely the opposite.
As Moldbug said: "The system of government I prescribe is by no means perfect, because it is not a perpetual-motion machine. Rather, it is only the peddlers of perpetual-motion machines who are obliged to defend the perfection of their products - a subject they almost never mention. Those who are not quacks know that man is always governed by man, and always dependent on the justice and good will of his governors."
Much like Burnham's work, this statement will be almost incomprehensible to a person only versed in modern political philosophy. Hanson is baffled by Moldbug's willingness to admit that he doesn't have reams of data and regression equations to back up his positions (of course, neither did Aristotle).
Again, I couldn't disagree more strongly with you on AGW and universal and absolute racial equality. Hanson is part of the modern truth-finding mechanism. He is a high priest of this mechanism. The mechanism is broken. The best examples of its broken-ness are AGW and racial equality. Asking a representative of the broken system to explain the broken-ness is not a "filthy trick." Better truth-finding systems will not be forthcoming if we're not even allowed to question the current one.
Aretae,
I'd be curious to know /why/ you think AGW "science" is wrong?
The processes of science are followed to a T. The results are rubbish. How is this so in your opinion?
In my opinion, the processes of science have been applied to a field that is not amenable to said processes.
Similarly, governance is not amenable to scientific processes. Thus, the application of said processes to governance will result in gibberish.
I wasn't quite a philosophy major, but I was awful close. I certainly spent more time on philosophy, including ancient, than on my major (math) and in particular I was fond of the pre-Socratics more than I was of Plato. Heraclitus and Parmenides are my personal favorites. And Popper's response to Plato is beautiful.
Ancient Philosophy was beautiful, and wrong an awful lot. Plato founded a metaphysics that makes little sense...and Aristotle categorized things, and made shit up that sounded good to go along with it. While that's all fine and good...one shouldn't ascribe truth-values to the statements.
Hume pointed this out, and the rest of philosophy (since) is a response to Hume, attempting to recapture the magic after Hume called Bullshit on the endeavor. Kant was the most successful response, and Neitzche was the best response (ok, but so what).
If we're equating Moldbug to Neitzche, who was more interested in the poetry than in the truth-value of his statements, I suppose we could agree...but if you're interested in truth...I think ancient philosophy fails badly.
Moldbug's line " not a perpetual-motion machine" is irrelevant. It is non-obvious that it would be better than what we have now. And there is NO evidence. This is a great deal of a larger oversight than is suggested by his prose.
I suppose that we could rest our argument here:
"Hanson is baffled by Moldbug's willingness to admit that he doesn't have reams of data and regression equations to back up his positions (of course, neither did Aristotle)."
Aristotle has since been shown to be wrong, if thoughtful, about damn near everything. If you are suggesting we should assume Moldbug's approach is as good...I might be willing to agree.
Foseti,
"
Similarly, governance is not amenable to scientific processes. Thus, the application of said processes to governance will result in gibberish.
"
Is this science, or opinion? I don't find it obvious.
"
I'd be curious to know /why/ you think AGW "science" is wrong?
"
I've written extensively on the topic, most notably here.
Mostly it comes down to: people are monkeys, and people mostly act like monkeys, whether they be legislatures, leaders, or scientists.
Overall AGW turned into a tribal game, and status/$ were available for supporting positions that corresponded with the interests of governments who all want more power. Scientists, being monkeys, followed the $/status, and not the truth, just like everyone should have expected them to.
Current state...I think that we have no clue what's going on, except that the earth is now on average somewhat warmer than it was 150 years ago. Most of the reasons to believe in AGW are pontifications, not science.
You guys might enjoy Paul Graham's essay on philosophy, if you haven't already read it.
Isegoria,
The essay is excellent. Thanks.
"Is this science, or opinion? I don't find it obvious."
This was the point of Moldbug's entire essay. Either you agree that governance is not scientific and therefore that applying scientific methods will fail (pseudo-science) - i.e. you're in the camp of pre-'60s political philosophers.
Or you believe that governance is scientific. We can /know/ what works. We can solve the problem . . . utopia has not arrived because we've yet to try to precisely correct variables yet. (Post-'60s political philosophy).
So, to be clear, it was just unlucky for AGW that it fell victim to the human/monkey problem with federal funding?
Unless I'm misunderstanding, your view of the situation would suggest that the same problems that have impacted AGW could just as easily have befallen electromagnetics.
In this case, we have a pretty fundamental disagreement.
Foseti,
Insofar as Hume and Bayes are taken into account, I'm not how much we can "know" anything.
But if Moldbug is playing in the Neitzche space of poetry and power, without pretensions to truth, I can accept his writings as such. If you're talking truth, you have to hit epistemology, and standards for judging truth, and the philosophy of science is a good place to look.
As to AGW, I maybe wasn't clear enough. All people in power want more power, monotonically. AGW is a path towards more power for the people in power. I expect all governments rich enough to afford anti-AGW activities, and in the science-funding business would fund it...The people in power benefit and the people in science act like monkeys.
No, I expect this would be true of all government systems where the government is involved with science funding for questions that bear on what government should do. Except that the stronger the government, the less likely the opposition PoV would be to get out.
Aretae-
Keep in mind that the point of moldbug's blog is to entertain, provoke, hyperbolate, and mindfsck. It's not a collection of carefully vetted factual statements. As moldbug once said, "Readers are expected to bring their own salt".
So while you're free to do a line-by-line fisking of moldbug, it's not really the most productive way to read his blog. What I usually find valuable are the links and sources he digs up, and the interpretation he provides. In most posts he cites and links to a collection of obscure but remarkable sources, and then provides an overall, mindfscking interpretation. It is up to the reader to then follow the sources, keeping the question in the head, "to what extent is moldbug's reactionary interpretation a better explanation of events than my standard explanation"?
This post of moldbug's was far from his best, as it had too much mud slinging and not enough good sources.
Central planning caused Detroit's fall.
Now you're commit the same fallacy you just denounced in your "science + monkeys" post. You are instantly reaching for the stock libertarian answer, without thoroughly researching or thinking through the answer. Just a little bit of research will show that blaming "central planning" is on the border between inadequate and wrong. It's like find a victim with multiple stab wounds, gun shot wounds, and a noose around his neck, and saying "knives caused this man to die".
a) plenty of cities had central planning from ancient Alexandria to modern Philadelphia have made use of central planning, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Few attempts at central planning resulted in the complete devastation of a city.
b) the decline of the auto industry is a separate issue from the decline of Detroit city proper. Most of the devastation of the city itself happened in the years 1965 to 1995, but during this time the metro-region population was stable and there was no blight. The decline of the auto industry cannot explain why the city proper was utterly and completely destroyed while the metro-region and suburbs were doing much, much better.
Some good sources on the urban problems in Detroit and other cities: "The Slaughter of the cities", "Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism", "Bridging the River of Hatred". Banfield is also a great source, and his books are free online. Check out the chapter in The Unheavenly City, "Rioting mainly for fun and profit". What is the libertarian response to Banfield?
The 4th quarter of the 20th Century is a rather continuous flow of governments getting the hell out of the economy...from the US/English deregulations starting in the late '70s to the massive top-rate tax cuts.
This is just utterly false. We could stage another death match just debating this point, but I don't have time this week.
Devin,
I like Moldbug's blog. I don't like ANYONE picking on folks who are both brilliant and actually acting to change the world. I have particular soft spots for Hanson and Romer due to an extensive perusal of their work, and a noticing of HOW smart they really are, and Patri has been a friend (mostly 1 step-removed) for several years. Occasionally, someone steps over the line from disagreement into personal attack, and I need to point out the absurdity of the attack, which is game theoretically (and monkey-instict) done in a not-nice fashion after the 2nd offense.
I tried (not perfectly successfully) to confine my response to ripping up the attack in such a way that it pointed out Moldbug's buffoonery there...while not addressing too much of Moldbug's core, very useful/interesting position.
I overstate the case on deregulation, but not much more than Moldbug overstates the case on the inevitable leftward tilt. Intellectual opinion has swung massively to the anti-state, decentralization position as compared with anytime since 1920. Is it monotonic or uniform, no. Take a look at popular intellectual discourse in 1960 (or 1940), and compare it to now. We're FAR better off.
And yes, I substantially overstated Detroit's issue too...though I think that my point is the one most overlooked by the formalists. Dying cities suck, and cities die for economics. Thriving (economically) cities don't have that kind of problem. It may be that the formalists have a solution for AFTER the government has already broken things. But my line is that the formalist line is only useful/necessary AFTER things were broken. Detroit's decline is fundamentally an economic story.
Detroit's decline is fundamentally an economic story.
This just is simply not true. Read some of the sources I pointed you to.
Devin,
I read at least the chapter you had suggested by Banfield. As a public-choice median-voter theorem kinda guy...his line was mostly standard. But he pointed out that police were unable to do their jobs.
Which tells me that public police forces are hopeless (over time, once the citizens are wealthy)...and that private forces are the only path forward.
On the other hand, the drug war shows us that the decrease in police ability to use judgement/force is not uniform.
Which tells me that public police forces are hopeless (over time, once the citizens are wealthy)...and that private forces are the only path forward.
To the formalist, this a meaningless statement. The distinction between "private" and "public" is an orwellian product of our political system. For instance, why is an NSA building considered "public" but a corporate owned mall "private"?
Detroit is a municipal corporation. The corporation owns the streets, waterworks, etc. It delegates control over specific lots of territory as fee simple estates. These fee simple estate owners have the right to hire security guards with police powers that report to the owner (mall security, etc). The municipal corporation owns the streets, and hires policemen as security guards to keep order on the streets and to help prevent the fee simple tenants from being robbed. Unfortunately, these security guards failed at this task.
When you say, "private forces are the only path forward." I can interpret you to mean one of three things:
1) the way forward is to subdivide ownership of the streets even further, so instead of having one municipal corporation own all the streets, we'd have smaller co-ops running smaller sets of streets. If this is your suggestion, I fail to see how this would result in any improvement. The mob was city-wide, the larger force that can be arrayed against the mob the better. Fragmenting ownership would make arraying a combined force harder.
2) the way forward it to put ownership of the streets, and responsibility for street security into an association of property owners. The association already existed - it was called the Detroit government. But this association was not run by the property owners. So the change you are suggesting is to put the Detroit government in the hands of the property owners. In other words, you are suggesting that Detroit should be converted from a democracy into a timocracy. I approve of this solution. While perhaps not the optimal solution, I think that a timocratic government would have prevented the fall of Detroit.
3) the way forward is to put ownership of street security into the hands of a for-profit corporation, rather a corporation that is run as a co-op (democracy). If this is what you mean, than I agree. That is basically the formalist position.
Or you might believe in some combination of 1) and 3) or 1) and 2). In which case I still maintain that 1) will be counter-productive towards preventing large scale riots and 2) and 3) will be helpful.
Which tells me that public police forces are hopeless (over time, once the citizens are wealthy)...and that private forces are the only path forward.
To the formalist, this a meaningless statement. The distinction between "private" and "public" is an orwellian product of our political system. For instance, why is an NSA building considered "public" but a corporate owned mall "private"?
Detroit is a municipal corporation. The corporation owns the streets, waterworks, etc. It delegates control over specific lots of territory as fee simple estates. These fee simple estate owners have the right to hire security guards with police powers that report to the owner (mall security, etc). The municipal corporation owns the streets, and hires policemen as security guards to keep order on the streets and to help prevent the fee simple tenants from being robbed. Unfortunately, these security guards failed at this task.
When you say, "private forces are the only path forward." I can interpret you to mean one of three things:
1) the way forward is to subdivide ownership of the streets even further, so instead of having one municipal corporation own all the streets, we'd have smaller co-ops running smaller sets of streets. If this is your suggestion, I fail to see how this would result in any improvement. The mob was city-wide, the larger force that can be arrayed against the mob the better. Fragmenting ownership would make arraying a combined force harder.
2) the way forward it to put ownership of the streets, and responsibility for street security into an association of property owners. The association already existed - it was called the Detroit government. But this association was not run by the property owners. So the change you are suggesting is to put the Detroit government in the hands of the property owners. In other words, you are suggesting that Detroit should be converted from a democracy into a timocracy. I approve of this solution. While perhaps not the optimal solution, I think that a timocratic government would have prevented the fall of Detroit.
3) the way forward is to put ownership of street security into the hands of a for-profit corporation, rather a corporation that is run as a co-op (democracy). If this is what you mean, than I agree. That is basically the formalist position.
Or you might believe in some combination of 1) and 3) or 1) and 2). In which case I still maintain that 1) will be counter-productive towards preventing large scale riots and 2) and 3) will be helpful.
Devin,
I actually mean #4 -- A monopoly on the use of force in a geographic area has no good solutions, only crappy ones.
The solution I was pushing was standard AnCap theory of multiple competing protection agencies (like insurance companies.)
My position is that concentrations of power are necessarily bad (over time) for individual liberty...I'm trying to figure out how to diminish the concentration of power so as to increase human liberty, wealth, and well-being.
I believe you think that concentrations of power can, sometimes, somehow, over time not be bad for individual liberty, wealth, and well-being. I think that's a lovely wish, and can I have a unicorn too.
I trust folks with guns ONLY when their interests make it highly inadvisable for them to use them first. And I'm of the opinion that groups in structural opposition is the best/only way to do that.
Thanks for helping to think about this.
I actually mean #4 -- A monopoly on the use of force in a geographic area has no good solutions, only crappy ones.
Saying #4 does not obviate an answer to my question.
Who owns the streets? Your options:
a) a single, for-profit organization owns all the streets
b) multiple, for-profit organizations own separate streets
c) an association controlled by the property owners owns all the streets
d) an association controlled by the property owners of a given neighborhood owns the streets for that neighborhood
e) a consumer co-op (universal suffrage democracy) owns all the streets
f) small co-ops own small sets of streets.
Which do you choose? Our problem is that we had a tremendous amount of violence on a given piece of property ( the city streets), that then spilled over to adjacent properties (storefronts).
Detroit of the 1960's had multiple protection agencies. Lots of businesses hired security guards. But the security guards that were hired by the owner of the streets were not doing their job, and thus violence grew out of control and spilled over onto smaller stores and homes in a way that no one individual could stop.
So in your system who owns the street? Who is responsible for hiring the security guards for a street?
I believe you think that concentrations of power can, sometimes, somehow, over time not be bad for individual liberty, wealth, and well-being. I think that's a lovely wish, and can I have a unicorn too.
We're talking about a single city, controlling a tiny fragment of the territory of the continent. That's hardly a concentration of power. Why would we gain in liberty/quality of governance if we went from 1,000 city-state-protection-agency corporations (like in my ideal plan) to 100,000 protection agencies? Would we gain a great improvement in search engine quality if we broke Google into 10,000 pieces? Would we
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