May 30, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:57:01
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| Okay, well, first of all, I wanted to, now that I'm speaking to you personally, really thank you for what you have done with Freedomain Radio. | |
| I think it has been one of the three main factors in my experiencing so much happiness right now, and I really couldn't have done that without you. | |
| Well, thank you very much. I'm very pleased that it's helpful for you. | |
| I have to be a little bit quiet because Kristina has a patient downstairs. | |
| There'll be no yelling. No, just kidding. | |
| But thank you very much. I can yell. | |
| That's basically the idea. | |
| Absolutely. Okay, cool. | |
| So, what I wanted to talk about were basically three things. | |
| I wanted to talk about the Ron Paul debate, because I think that some of your counter-arguments are, well, weak. | |
| And I think your positive view is very vague and abstract. | |
| And the other thing I wanted to talk about is behavior on the board with regards to argumentation, because I think there is a lot of Bad argumentation on the board, and also what I sense to be a hostile atmosphere, a negative hostile atmosphere. | |
| I think it is essential for something like free-domain radio to not have that, so it would be best if I can be convinced that there is no such hostile atmosphere. | |
| Or that we are able to talk about it and see what is up. | |
| Or I guess that the best steps are being taken, which may or may not be the case. | |
| I'm sorry, the sound is a bit worse now. | |
| Oh, really? I can't imagine why. | |
| I'll close down everything else that could possibly hit the internet. | |
| What's that? I have another computer on. | |
| Let me just try closing that down to make sure that it doesn't have anything to do with it. | |
| All right. | |
| Is that any better? | |
| Yeah, it sounds better. Okay, good. | |
| Sorry about that. Okay, and the third thing I wanted to talk about was Mutual psychologizing. | |
| I think if we've been through the Ron Paul debate and the board etiquette debate, there will be room for mutual psychologizing, which I think can be helpful. | |
| I have some theories about you, if you don't mind. | |
| One of the threads you posted that you had some theories about me, or at least you seem to say that. | |
| So I would be happy to learn those. | |
| Does that still sound okay with you, those three topics? | |
| Well, I'm not sure how much Justice will be able to do those three topics in a relatively short amount of time, but I'm certainly happy to give it a shot. | |
| Okay, well, I can always buy more time. | |
| Right, go ahead. One of the bad things about my feeling so incredibly well and enthusiastic and stuff is that I... Continually, we'll have the temptation to interrupt and to talk fast and to go on and on. | |
| A lot of people have experienced that the past few days. | |
| Nobody really seemed to mind, but I'm just warning you, and if it gets too annoying, then just really let me know. | |
| Will do. Okay, well, then let's start off. | |
| Well, it may also be a good thing to do when you sort of indicate when you have ten minutes left or so. | |
| Okay. Then I can sort of adjust my topics. | |
| Would that be okay? Sure. | |
| Okay. Well, I listened to the talk you had with David. | |
| I listened to it last night, and what struck me was that your basic argument against the pro-Ron Paul position entails your rejection of Austrian economics. | |
| Because Austrian economics, the methodology is praxeology. | |
| And you, in that conversation, said that if there's no possibility of empirical testing, that the proper methodology for deciding whether any political change can have any effect is looking back at history, so empirical testing. | |
| And what David was saying was that that is not the method you should apply, it is praxeology. | |
| And you rejected praxeology as saying Then there is no way to tell right from wrong, from truth and falsehood. | |
| Well, I mean, I certainly agree that... | |
| I mean, my graduate training is in history, so I certainly think that we can learn a lot from the past. | |
| I don't believe that what happened in the past is always necessarily what's going to happen in the future. | |
| That's why I do the dream analyses and some of the psychological work that I do on the board. | |
| So with sufficient self-knowledge, we can change the future. | |
| It does not have to be the same as the past, but I think that we need to figure out what is likely based on the past. | |
| I think that, on the other hand, though, we can also look at the logic of the systems in the present and say, well, has anyone had any luck trying to shrink the state through political means? | |
| And when we know that the answer is no, we can look at the past. | |
| But we can also look at the logic of the system in the present and say that since the government is around redistributing wealth, Thank you very much. | |
| And then there's the moral aspect as well. | |
| So there's understanding the logic of the system as it is, looking at the past to understand what's not been achieved, looking at the past to find out why, and then combining that with understanding the present system and a moral analysis from first principles as well. | |
| Okay, you also already made a distinction between the moral principles of non-aggression and the practical question whether Ron Paul would be able to decrease the size of government. | |
| Sure. And unlike Greg, you do not fully accept the principles position. | |
| So if it were possible for, for example, Ron Paul to make the state collapse, that's not even what he wants. | |
| But if that were possible, then you would support him. | |
| Well, I don't believe that it is possible because I think that the practical and the moral are the same thing. | |
| I mean, if it were possible for Ron Paul to shrink the state, I would have to change my moral theories completely. | |
| Because your point then is that the morally right actions will lead to the best practical consequences? | |
| Sure. Okay. | |
| And you don't, for example, consider a decrease in violence as morally better Oh, sure, I do. | |
| I absolutely believe that a decrease in violence is morally better. | |
| I just think that supporting Ron Paul will lead to an increase in violence. | |
| Okay, but then we're back to the practical question. | |
| I'm sorry? I don't understand. | |
| Then we're back to the practical question, because you think that supporting Ron Paul would not lead to a decrease. | |
| No, I think that supporting Ron Paul would lead to an increase in violence, and that's the effect of a wrong moral decision. | |
| Yeah, okay. Okay, so then, in essence, for you, there is no... | |
| Well, there is a strict distinction between the moral and the practical, but they go together, necessarily, because doing good will lead to the right practical consequences. | |
| Right. Okay. | |
| I am still not sure about your... | |
| Yeah, your rejection of praxeology, because what David says, that you cannot conclude on the basis of the past that future attempts will not work, because there is a lot of variables, and they may be different in new cases, and you cannot isolate those variables, so you would need a different kind of theory, namely a logical theory, praxeology, and that you reject. | |
| I'm sorry, I've worked out ethics from first principles that are universal and absolute without reference to history. | |
| And I have spent a lot of time specifically arguing against using what I call the argument from effect. | |
| So I'm not sure exactly how I'm opposed. | |
| I mean, I'm no expert on praxeology, but I'm not sure how I oppose it. | |
| I think that you look at, like if you're a scientist, you have to look at the phenomenon in the world, and then you come up with logical theories to explain that phenomenon. | |
| The phenomenon doesn't prove your logical theory, it merely supports it. | |
| And then, once you've got a good enough scientific theory based on logic and testing, then you can use it to predict future events. | |
| And that's really the scientific approach that I take. | |
| So I look and say, well, 150 years of political activism has ended up with the complete opposite of what everyone wants, who was involved in that libertarian political activism. | |
| And so there must be something wrong with what they did, right? | |
| I mean, if you say I want to drive to Chicago, but you keep ending up in New Orleans, then there's something wrong with your map, right? | |
| So that's how I know that something's wrong. | |
| And then I don't – I'm sorry. | |
| Well, and that doesn't mean that it is going to be forever. | |
| Repeated into the future. | |
| In the future, I agree with you. | |
| You can't take the past and predict the future with perfect accuracy. | |
| Even weathermen can't do that, right? | |
| But I do think that you look at that and say, well, that stuff doesn't work. | |
| And you say, well, why doesn't it work? | |
| And then, for me, you come up with a theory that is worked out from first principles that explains why it didn't work and also helps you predict the future if you don't change, right? | |
| If somebody doesn't change, then they will continue to repeat the past. | |
| Okay, and that is where the psychological and family theory comes into play. | |
| Not in this particular instance. | |
| I'm not saying that family stuff doesn't have a bearing on it, but for sure, if there's something fundamentally wrong with the theory and the practice of political activism to shrink the state, which there is, without a doubt, because it has achieved the opposite of what was intended, | |
| So when you achieve the exact opposite, like if you come to me and you're overweight and you say, help me to lose weight, and then for 150 years, every single time I try and help someone lose weight, they end up dying from obesity, then clearly as a nutritionist I need to examine my first principles, right? And not just keep doing the same thing. | |
| No, I understand. But the question is exactly whether... | |
| The method followed, whether participating in political stuff helps or not, and that question you cannot decide solely by referring to history, because you would need, for example, the point that you just made with that there must be something wrong with the map if you want to go to Chicago and you end up in New Orleans. | |
| It can also be that the roads were broken up. | |
| It can also be that your car was hijacked or whatever. | |
| It doesn't necessarily mean that there is something wrong with the map. | |
| And that is the same with the political processes. | |
| I mean, surely there have been a lot of political involvement by classical liberals and libertarians, and the state has tended to grow. | |
| I mean, there were some highs and lows and stuff, but it tended to grow. | |
| That does not at all mean that if they hadn't participated, that things would have been better. | |
| And then I think your point would be, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm almost forgetting what I had to say. | |
| I mean, I think I can agree with you. | |
| I certainly agree with you that the fact that political participation has been involved with... | |
| I'm not saying that I've made a causal argument just by saying, well, people have been involved in the political process, libertarians, and the government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. | |
| I'm not saying that that's a causal relationship, and I said that in the conversation with David. | |
| I can't prove that. It's impossible. | |
| To prove that, because there's far too many variables, right? | |
| So I fully agree with you that simply pointing out that 150 years of very, very intense and intelligent involvement in the political process has resulted in a hugely massive and violent state. | |
| I'm not saying that that has caused it. | |
| I'm not saying that I've proven that simply by pointing out. | |
| But it certainly is a correlation that if it's true, That political involvement can only do a small amount or some amount of slowing down the increase of the growth of the state, then we can't win. | |
| If everyone has done the best that they possibly could in terms of political involvement, then I'm gonna not bother doing what I'm doing because we can't conceivably win. | |
| If the strategies that have been put in place in the past are the best possible strategies, Then the movement has no hope whatsoever because the best we can hope for is to slow down the growth of the state. | |
| And given how fast the state is growing, there's no possibility of any action taken by anyone who wishes to reduce the growth of the state if the best strategies have been used in the past. | |
| And so I argue that the best strategies have not been used in the past and that's why we need to change. | |
| Okay, I understand that, but do you allow for the possibility that the variables involved are different now? | |
| For example, the flow of information throughout society these days is wholly different from what it was, say, 100 years ago with the Internet and all kinds of methods of communication. | |
| And perhaps those changed variables will be crucial in deciding the question whether political processes will do something good. | |
| Well, certainly the Internet, I mean, I'm not going to say that it's not a huge effect, but what I would say back is that if we look at, say, the American electorate 150 years ago, The American electorate, 150 years ago, had no experience of the welfare state, had no experience of public education, had no experience of a standing army or any sort of significant Department of Defense. | |
| They had no experience of the income tax or any of the other statist mechanisms, deficit financing, the government didn't run the money, there was no such thing. | |
| I mean, not universally, there was no such thing as the Federal Reserve. | |
| So, what I would say is that 150 years ago, the American electorate voted to increase the size of government even though they had no experience and no moral justifications for We're good to go. | |
| If we dismiss and dislike all of those, all we would be doing is resetting the clock back 150 years, at which point it would just come forward again, as it does in every single society because the state always grows. | |
| So, yeah, for sure, communication is better, but even if we could magically turn the clock back 150 years, the government would just start growing again, if we take a political solution. | |
| I don't understand that because you just said that in those times people didn't have experience of these things and they voted for it nevertheless, although I don't think they voted... | |
| Yeah, because they voted for politicians who increased the size of government over and over. | |
| Yeah, okay, so it does not necessarily mean that they voted for that increase. | |
| But okay, so the people back then didn't know what such a state would be like. | |
| People now do know and especially if the spread of ideas goes further and the immorality of the state is shown over and over again and a lot of the people would be against it. | |
| Then there is something else because then people do know and then people would likely not accept new increases in government and they would know that the ingenious ways in which politicians do increase the size of government So there's a difference. | |
| They know now the horrible effects of the welfare state and just the state in general and they know that politicians Sneakily, we'll try to increase it no matter what the people say. | |
| So that is a big difference with 150 years ago. | |
| Well, I think that's an excellent argument, except that I would say that the vast majority of the people in America were immigrants who had fled dictatorships that are much worse than anything we have in the West at the moment. | |
| So I don't think that it's true to say that they didn't know that the government was evil. | |
| They had in fact left most of their worldly possessions behind and fled to America because of the size of governments and It still grew in America. | |
| So, again, even if people that had direct experience of dictatorship had had to leave their friends and their extended family and their possessions behind, which is a huge thing to do, of course, in America they still ended up voting for... | |
| And that's just the logic of the government, right? | |
| Because you're not voting for the increase of government power, right? | |
| You're voting against the other guy, or you're voting to get a little bit more money, or you're voting to impose your will on someone else, right? | |
| I'm doing my civic duty. | |
| Right. You're doing your civic duty and, you know, I'm voting for Ron Paul and so on. | |
| People don't do it. I mean, none of the libertarians are voting for Ron Paul because they want the state to become bigger. | |
| And so I would say that the people 150 years ago in the United States had much more direct experience of the evils of government than we do even now. | |
| Oh, yes. That is absolutely sure. | |
| But those people came to America because they thought... | |
| The American government would be better because it was smaller and it would stay that way, they would have more chances. | |
| And now they know that governments don't stay small. | |
| So that added knowledge they do have, they now realize that there is no, if it had been the same immigrants, they now realize that there is no difference in principle between those dictatorships that they fled from and the American government. | |
| And that is a huge insight. | |
| Do you think they know that now, like in America in general? | |
| No, they don't know that now. | |
| But you just said, even if you're able to convince everybody of the immorality of the state and stuff, then it will just shrink back and then continue to rise again. | |
| And that won't happen, in my opinion, because they have this extra insight now. | |
| They would have this extra insight if they had been shown the immorality. | |
| And I think that's an interesting point. | |
| I mean, certainly we could go back and forth on that, but if you say that you don't think this will happen again, isn't that using the principles of the past to change, like to predict the future? | |
| I'm not sure. Again, maybe because I don't understand praxeology, but I'm not sure that, if I understood what you were saying earlier, I'm not sure that you can use the past to predict the future. | |
| Well, that is interesting, because what I just did is added a variable, namely that the people would know something extra. | |
| And then you can, if they have this knowledge and this disgust of government and stuff, then you can praxeologically create a theory that would show the changes in their interaction with the government. | |
| I mean, I'm not arguing from the past in a causal way. | |
| Like you're saying, if a meteor hits a city, a city is going to go and burst into flames or something. | |
| Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm fine with that, but to me that's purely theoretical and there's no evidence for that. | |
| Yes, but there's no evidence for the contrary either. | |
| Sure there is. There is evidence that the state continues to grow, that people with direct experience of dictatorship continue to vote for the growth of the state. | |
| There's evidence that the stated goals... | |
| I mean, I'm only comparing the libertarian activism of the past 150 years to their stated goals. | |
| Their stated goals were, well, we're going to end up with a massive state, but our goal is to try and slow it down by a couple of percentage points. | |
| That wasn't the stated goal of the libertarian movement. | |
| Yes, but you are now not addressing my argument that there is an added insight for the people if they were convinced that the state is immoral and stuff. | |
| Well, I'm not sure that saying there is an added insight in the minds of the people, I'm not sure that that insight that the government grows and is corrupt, I'm not sure that that insight in the present is going to be greater or more powerful or more personal than the insight of 150 years ago that led people to take dangerous sea voyages, leave all their possessions behind because they were fleeing a government in the past that had grown, right? | |
| Okay, well, I just tried to explain why it, in my opinion, would be, or at least could be. | |
| Sure, I agree with you. If everybody thought the state was evil, then things would change, for sure. | |
| I'm just not sure what evidence there is that that's the case. | |
| I'm sorry, you're not sure of the evidence that people are convinced that the state is immoral, or that once they think it's immoral, things will change? | |
| No, if everybody thought the state was immoral, for sure, then they would spoil their ballots and whenever they stopped paying, they would go on passive tax resistance and so on, and that whole problem would be underway. | |
| But I'm not sure that there's any evidence that that, as a whole, is becoming clear to people. | |
| No, no, of course, but in a point you made before, you had the assumption, suppose everybody knows, That the state is evil. | |
| So then they will vote to decrease the state and it will become very small again. | |
| But the only thing that will happen then is that it will continue to grow again. | |
| And that is the point I'm attacking by saying that they have now new knowledge that may prevent that. | |
| Right, and do you think, say, for instance, that when human beings are involved in their daily activities, even if they think that the government is immoral, like, for instance, do you think that the average voter understood what was being put in place when the Federal Reserve was voted in, right, in 1913? | |
| I mean, they have no clue. | |
| They have no clue about what it means for there to be a Federal Reserve. | |
| They just say, oh, well, I guess it's just another bank or, you know, the government's going to control the money, which is good, and everyone tells them that it's good and so on. | |
| So I think that for people to have a proactive and positive control over what the government is doing and to understand all of the ramifications of what the government does. | |
| I mean, the government grows, as you know, by increments, right? | |
| So the first time the income tax was put in, it was a tax of like 3% on the super rich, right? | |
| So your average voter is not going to care and is not going to spend weeks or months of his life campaigning against that, right? | |
| So there's all these people who are going to benefit from that tiny little tax on the super rich, and then there's all these people who are not, as they view it, going to be affected at all. | |
| The problem is the mismatch of incentives, just from a purely practical standpoint, is that the people who gain from an increase in government power are very specific. | |
| They're very small groups of individuals. | |
| It's the very large and diluted problem. | |
| From that standpoint, when you look at the mismatches of incentives, a small growth in government power makes millionaires out of a small group of people and costs everyone in the country two pennies. | |
| Then that mismatch of incentives means that the government is always going to grow. | |
| It doesn't matter what people know, they have a certain amount of time. | |
| But if they know this, if they know that the politicians have these ingenious ways and that they vote for some small thing that will not matter much to them but that will benefit them, but if they know that in the long run this will end up in hell for them, if they know that, and that is the assumption that you just made, if they know that, then why would it still grow? | |
| Well, it wouldn't because there would be no government. | |
| Once they understood that the mismatch of incentives was going to mean that the government was forever going to grow, then they would say, we can't have a government, right? | |
| They would say, there's no possible way to control this monster because of this mismatch of incentives and all the other reasons and so on. | |
| But they would simply say, well, then we can't have a government, right? | |
| Because I can't spend my life running around after politicians making sure that they're not doing the wrong thing, that they're not sneaking something through, that they're not passing a bill at three o'clock in the morning and It would be a heroic superhero role, though. | |
| It would be a heroic superhero role if you were the guy who did that. | |
| Well, it's impossible. It's impossible. | |
| You can't, as an individual, fight against the direct million-dollar economic interest of thousands of different groups who all want to pray off the public purse. | |
| I mean, it's completely impossible. | |
| You have no control of the government, fundamentally. | |
| I mean, you can vote, but that doesn't really mean that much, right? | |
| You get to choose who your slave master is. | |
| That doesn't mean that you're not a slave. | |
| So once people understand that the logic of the government is inevitably to grow, and there's nothing that the average citizen can do to prevent that, because they would have to become an expert in economics, in ethics, in public choice theory, they'd have to get into office, they'd have to, I mean, who knows, right? It's impossible to do it, right? | |
| You can't control a group of self-interested and violent people who have the power, the monopoly on coercion, right? | |
| I mean, you just can't, never been able to be done, it never will be able to be done. | |
| done. | |
| So once people understand that, then they can get rid of the government. | |
| But if they believe that the government can somehow be controlled by these, you know, caped crusader superhero people who can, through the force of will and eloquence, keep moneyed interests at bay and, you know, all that, if they believe that that's the case, then they'll put the government back in, which means that it'll start all over again because of this then they'll put the government back in, which means that it'll start all over again because of this mismatch | |
| So I think that political action to control the state or to reduce the state, if the goal is not to eliminate the state, then you're giving people an out that is going to destroy them eventually again in the long run. | |
| Oh yeah, but suppose Ron Paul's goal was to destroy the state and suppose that people were convinced of that. | |
| Then your argument still does not address the point that through political means the state can collapse. | |
| Your argument only addresses the question whether once it has collapsed or decreased to a very low level, it will start again. | |
| It will increase again. I'm just sorry, I just want to make sure I understand. | |
| So you're saying that if Ron Paul was an anarchist and openly stated that he was going to get in government to eliminate the government and everyone voted for him for that reason? | |
| I just want to make sure I understand the scenario. | |
| Yeah, I think this would be the Rothbardian approach that is compromise in practice but always state your principles and keep stating the principles and keep pointing out the immorality and horribleness of the government. | |
| Right, but I mean that's not what Ron Paul's position is, right? | |
| No, no, but you said that no political means can achieve the collapse of the state. | |
| Well, I'm going... | |
| Yeah, I mean, certainly there's no evidence for that. | |
| And in the question with Ron Paul, that's not Ron Paul's position. | |
| The question is, is it right or wrong to support Ron Paul? | |
| And, I mean, in the real world, Ron Paul's position is, yes, he would like to get rid of a lot of government, but he also wants to deport 10 million people at the point of a gun. | |
| Yeah, but... The question was more general than just Ron Paul, because you have repeatedly stated that no political action can achieve that. | |
| And if there would be a Rothbard who said that we oppose government in principle, it is immoral, it is disgusting and evil, and in order to get rid of it, we will work within it. | |
| We compromise on practice to achieve our goal, but we keep stating that government is evil and that we want to get rid of it as soon as possible. | |
| Then your argument would no longer apply. | |
| Well, so, okay, let's take the scenario, and that's an excellent scenario. | |
| I certainly appreciate you bringing it up. | |
| So let's take the scenario that everybody, universally within the voting region, everybody understands that the government is stone evil. | |
| Right? They totally understand that the government is stone evil. | |
| Ron Paul says... Well, that was a gradual process, of course. | |
| Yeah, yeah, sure. But, I mean, we're looking at the snapshot at some point in the future. | |
| That everyone believes that the government is evil... | |
| And that they, so they want to vote for someone to, Ron Paul's son, let's say, Bobby Paul. | |
| They want to vote for someone who is going to eliminate the government. | |
| But I would argue that by the time everybody believes or understands that the government is evil, there'll be no such thing as a government because people will just stop paying their taxes. | |
| My point is that if, for example, Rothbard were to run for office somewhere and only 10% of the people supported him, And he, through all sorts of shenanigans, was able to abolish the Department of Education so that education would be free from now on. | |
| That would mean that there's a lot more possibilities for the right ideas to come to life in society. | |
| So then there would be a political action that resulted in more knowledge among people, and then the people can, for example, through non-political means, abolish the government. | |
| Okay, so if Rothbard gets in on a 10% vote, though, in the United States, he would never be able to get rid of the Department of Education, because his veto would just be overridden, right? | |
| So, because it takes a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto, so his veto would just be overridden. | |
| Sorry. If there were a political party involved with Rothbard, and they would be in Congress and stuff, then he would have bigger chances, and he could also say, Okay, I will grant this party this pork project if they support me with abolishing the Department of Education, and it's no big deal for them. | |
| So then, I mean, through political shenanigans, there may be such openings, and that abolishing of the Department of Education is a big one. | |
| What I'm saying is that through political processes, small things may be abolished that will, in turn, create an effect In the flow of ideas in society, and that may in turn help convince enough people so that the government can collapse from then on without political means. | |
| So I'm saying the two don't contradict each other. | |
| Just to look at the political realities of it, if Murray Rothbard were to run on a platform that said, I want to get rid of the Department of Education, then the public sector unions, particularly of course the teachers unions and the teachers themselves, Would fund anyone to run against him with like $10 billion if they thought he might win. | |
| They would simply buy the election, as has happened countless times in the past, because they have an economic state running into the tens of billions of dollars in the Department of Education. | |
| So there's no possibility that anybody running on a platform that said, I want to abolish the Department of Education... | |
| Would ever get anywhere near the presidency. | |
| I mean, there's just no possibility. | |
| The economic incentives are far too great. | |
| Now, if everybody wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, then they would be homeschooling their kids. | |
| There'd be nobody in the classroom, so that would be a situation where you wouldn't even need a political solution. | |
| So, what is your argument against In the 80s, for example, Margaret Thatcher abolished a lot of union power. | |
| She desocialized the industries, and I think she ran on that platform. | |
| So in your... | |
| Oh dear. | |
| Are you still around? Hello? | |
| I can't hear you. I'm sorry, can you go ahead? | |
| Are you back? Yeah. | |
| Okay, so... Okay. | |
| What was the last thing you heard me say? | |
| Oh, you were asking about Margaret Thatcher ran on a small government platform and was able to eliminate certain aspects. | |
| For sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. | |
| I mean, no question. And there have been people who've done that in American politics as well. | |
| But, of course, the issue is really that the government is like a farmer, right? | |
| I mean, and the taxpayers are like the livestock. | |
| So when the farmer puts the cows in too small a cage or an enclosure, the cows get sick and die, right? | |
| So obviously the farmer doesn't want to give a huge field for every single cow. | |
| So the farmer wants to be as efficient as possible in the milking of the cows, and the government wants to be as efficient as possible as it sees fit. | |
| In the short run, it wants to be as efficient as possible in getting the money from the taxpayers. | |
| So this certainly occurs within politics that when the tax base begins to seriously erode, and I grew up in England in the 1970s and it was a disaster. | |
| There were meat shortages. | |
| There were water shortages. | |
| I mean, everything was short. | |
| You couldn't even get a hamburger in England. | |
| I mean, it was a disaster. And the tax base was declining, and the public debt was out of control. | |
| And so basically, the farmers realized that they had put the cows into too small an enclosure, and the cows were dying. | |
| And so what they did was they made the enclosure a little bit bigger. | |
| But it wasn't because they wanted to set the cows free, they were just running out of milk. | |
| Okay, I understand your point, but this does go against the argument that you just made that it's impossible because of the power of the, for example, the education union. | |
| I mean, there were also industrial unions. | |
| And the politician, even if she did it for the wrong reasons, was able to stand up against those people. | |
| And you just said that with education stuff, it is impossible to stand up to those people. | |
| And I think something similar may be happening with education. | |
| It is incredibly deteriorating, and the disgust about public schools becomes bigger and bigger. | |
| So there may be something similar in the matter here, as it was in the industries in Britain in the 70s and 80s. | |
| It certainly could be the case, without a doubt. | |
| And I certainly do appreciate and understand your perspective and your position. | |
| And you're right. I should amend that prior statement. | |
| If people's immediate needs are... | |
| I mean, the problem with education, of course, it's such a long-term process, right? | |
| And, of course, parents who now have to work two jobs in particular need this daycare, babysitting. | |
| And so the problem with education is a really long-term problem. | |
| What happened in England was people just started running out of food. | |
| They ran out of coal. They ran out of water. | |
| And so it became a very immediate problem to deal with. | |
| And there was a very high degree of resentment against the unions, which everybody correctly identified as strangling. | |
| I mean, there were strikes all the time and people just couldn't get anything that they wanted. | |
| Yes, you're right. | |
| When there's popular resentment against particular groups and the moneyed classes find that they're facing a kind of revolt on their hands, then they will, for sure, loosen the reins in particular areas. | |
| The real question, of course, in England is, you know, Okay, so there were a couple of liberalizations in the 1980s and so on, but did the government shrink overall? | |
| Well, of course not right now, because now what happened is instead of there being public sector unions that are preventing people from getting food, There are now public sector unions called the Army that are out there stirring up violent resentment against British people and getting them blown up in buses. | |
| So I don't think that it's really solved the problem, even though there are particular areas where it shrinks, when it hits a lot of resistance and where the system is clearly broken down. | |
| But all that happens is they will shrink that area and grow some other area, right? | |
| I mean, it's not like the overall size of the state declined. | |
| But I mean, the Falklands War, I mean, there were some military apparatus back then as well. | |
| But I mean, education is like a different thing because with education the spread of ideas becomes wholly different. | |
| So if, for example, it was possible to establish free education through popular resentment and stuff, then things could be very different. | |
| I'm not saying that that won't necessarily happen if that were the case. | |
| I don't think you can dismiss it out of hand. | |
| Well, but what would have to happen, of course, is that the state educational apparatus would have to be eliminated and the taxes that paid for it have to be returned to the people. | |
| Because what would happen is the government will pass laws that reduce government spending in particular areas that are clearly not working. | |
| But they keep the money, right? | |
| Or if they return the money to the people, they just print more money. | |
| Which just causes inflation and takes more money away from the people, or they deficit finance, or whatever, right? | |
| So you would have to have the government not only eliminate the Department of Education, but return all of the taxes. | |
| Now, the problem is, of course, that the teachers would have to have enormous severance packages, like five-year salary. | |
| You'd have to bribe them like crazy. | |
| They also have enormous, enormous pension obligations to the teachers, right? | |
| I mean, in the tunes of tens of billions of dollars. | |
| And so, how would all of that be paid for? | |
| The government could sort of unilaterally just break all of those contracts, but then you would have, like, literally, you would have, like, Molotov cocktails in the street, you would have gunfire, people would just go nuts. | |
| So, you'd have to have armed put-downs of teachers. | |
| You'd have to shoot teachers in order to be able to do that. | |
| There's simply no way that the population would accept that. | |
| And so, if the government had the will to do all of that, it would be because the people fully supported getting rid of this stuff on principle. | |
| So, but how did that happen with the industrial unions? | |
| Did they get incredible packages and stuff? | |
| Oh yeah, there was lots and lots of bribery for the unions in the public sector and there was some violence as well, right? | |
| And that was relatively minor and for a very unpopular set of unions as well that were relatively new. | |
| I mean, those unions were created in... | |
| They had basically a 20-year span, maybe 25 years. | |
| So those unions in England were created in the post-war period during the great socialist experiment that went on under Clement Attlee. | |
| So they were relatively new. | |
| People could remember what life was like before those unions. | |
| And that's, of course, the George Orwell argument. | |
| and once people forget what life was like before, there's nothing for them to compare it to. | |
| So those unions were relatively new. | |
| The cause and effect was very clear. | |
| These unions came in, and these shortages started happening almost immediately, and people's taxes went up, and they could remember what it was like before. | |
| So when the government wanted to— it's like when the air traffic controllers were fired by Reagan. | |
| But so when the government wanted to, it's like when the air traffic controllers were fired by Reagan. | |
| Well, everybody remembered what it was like before these guys went on strike and they needed to fly places. | |
| And of course, the politicians need to fly places as well. | |
| The politicians don't fix education because it doesn't affect them personally. | |
| Most of them will send their kids to private schools or they live in a neighborhood which is so wealthy that the schools are better. | |
| And of course, the kids of the politicians get treated very well in school. | |
| Whereas in England, this was actually affecting the politicians' interests, right? | |
| The water shortages were to entire regions that included where the politicians lived. | |
| They also couldn't buy meat very easily, and they couldn't fly in the United States. | |
| So this is why nobody fixes the welfare state, because it doesn't affect the politicians directly. | |
| And so, you know, there's lots of things that go into that which make it very hard to reproduce at a more general level. | |
| I only wanted to make one more point about this, and then it may be a good idea to start turning to your positive position, because we've already spent quite some time. | |
| The thing is, even if... | |
| Okay, I wanted to make two more points, actually. | |
| Even if it would cost the taxpayers a lot of money, extra money, to abolish the Department of Education and then pay themselves for free education, you could also see that as an investment, because once they do have free education, then the resentment will become bigger. | |
| So it's a loss in the short term, but it can be a huge gain in the long term. | |
| So that doesn't necessarily mean that nothing good can come out of it. | |
| The other thing I wanted to say still was, what do you think about China? | |
| I mean, their government is hugely decreasing. | |
| Well, sure, but that's back to the argument of the fact that the government has realized that they can make money by liberalizing the economy and taxing the proceeds than they can from forcing everyone to work on socialist farms. | |
| It's better life than Canada. | |
| It's not freedom. Yeah, but you don't think that this relaxation of the stranglehold will create opportunities for the spread of ideas to become different and thus for the general people to look differently to their government? | |
| Sure, absolutely. | |
| But that's not the result of political action. | |
| I'm not saying that the government doesn't... | |
| It is the indirect result of it. | |
| I'm not sure how you can prove that. | |
| Well, I mean, if the stranglehold is loosened, That is a political action? | |
| No, that's a political action. | |
| That's the choice of the rulers. | |
| They didn't change things in China because they were going to get voted out. | |
| There's no real voting. | |
| They got better livestock management techniques from other people, and they've realized that they can make more money by allowing some economic liberalization. | |
| But this is not the result of political action. | |
| This is just the self-interest of the rulers. | |
| Yeah, okay, so by political action you mean that people are... | |
| Yeah, that you know what you're voting for. | |
| I'm not sure how this was then the case in India because that is a democracy and there was a big liberalization there as well. | |
| I don't know what arguments the politicians there put forward or whether they actually even put arguments forward. | |
| We can discuss that later if you like. | |
| I very much want to talk about your positive view. | |
| How do you think things will change in practice? | |
| Well, how I think things will change in practice is through philosophy and not through politics. | |
| I think that things will change in practice if things are going to change, right? | |
| I mean, first of all, we have to predict that this is going to be a disaster, right? | |
| And we have to keep repeatedly predicting it and that there's nothing that can be done within the political process. | |
| The reason for that is we're like a doctor and we've got a patient who's like... | |
| 100 pounds overweight who smokes like a chimney and who never exercises but that patient won't tell us won't listen to us when we say you need to change your diet you need to stop smoking you need to exercise otherwise you're going to have a heart attack right so that patient isn't listening to us but once the patient has the heart attack the patient is much more likely to listen to us so the first thing we do is we say this is a disaster there's nothing that can be done to change it because if something can be done to change it Then people will simply put another government in that they think they can control and the whole thing will start again. | |
| I'm looking for the cure forever, like the 10,000-year cure. | |
| I'm not looking for getting rid of three regulations and lowering the taxes by one percentage point. | |
| I'm looking at the full long-term solution. | |
| And so I think that from the political action point, what we do is we say, government can never work, and this is an example of how government can never work. | |
| The getting involved in the government is only legitimizing it, and it's putting forward a solution that will never work. | |
| It's like saying to... | |
| Well, you've heard the debate, so I won't go into that metaphor again, but... | |
| The solution is through philosophy. | |
| So the solution is that we live freedom, we live a stateless society within our own life, which means no unchosen obligations. | |
| And we become powerful and strong and free. | |
| Within our own personal lives. | |
| And if we're enslaved to an illusion, and whether that illusion is my family is virtuous, or whether that illusion is political activism will solve the problem of the state, if we're enslaved to any illusions, then we are not free, and thus we have no right, really, I think. | |
| We will not have really any effect in talking about freedom, so we become free in our personal lives through therapy, through introspection, through personal understanding. | |
| It's the Socratic, know thyself first, right? | |
| And Then when we are free in our personal lives, we will have a lot more credibility when we talk about freedom with other people. | |
| And that's how it will spread. | |
| Yep, I completely agree with the fact that personal freedom is just by far, far, far the most important thing we can do right now. | |
| And I also think it is a requirement in order to convince other people. | |
| So I think you're right in that as well. | |
| What I'm not really sure of is whether you sort of await the collapse of the state first, like it's inevitable, as you may say, collapse because it's an incoherent system, and then come with the ideas, or whether you would come with the ideas before that, even. | |
| I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. | |
| Would you start spreading the ideas before the state collapses or after it collapses? | |
| Well, are you saying you don't know where I stand on that or you don't know where you stand on that? | |
| No, I'm not sure where you stand on that. | |
| Well, I put out 764 podcasts. | |
| I mean, that's spreading the ideas, isn't it? | |
| Yeah, yeah, but... | |
| Okay, I should have put it differently, I'm sorry. | |
| Do you think that the spread of ideas, when there still is a government, can bring that government down? | |
| Or whether it can only help in not creating a new government once the system has collapsed? | |
| Well, I mean, telling somebody that they need to exercise, if they don't exercise, it's not going to speed up or slow down their heart attack. | |
| But what it will do is it will give you credibility. | |
| Like if you say, I predicted this heart attack, And I told you what to do to prevent the heart attack and you didn't listen. | |
| That's the only chance, right? | |
| I mean, people have to go through hell to change, right? | |
| When you don't learn through philosophy, you have to learn through brutal experience, right? | |
| So, yeah, I don't know and I don't think it matters. | |
| I do think that the more people that are skeptical about the government, what it will do is have a ripple effect. | |
| My main concern is getting the word out that this system is doomed. | |
| That there's nothing we can do to save it, and that political action is worse than a waste of time. | |
| It's providing the illusion of change where there is no change possible. | |
| In my view, I'm not saying I've won that argument or anything, but for me, the key is just get as much out as humanly possible in order to be able to get people to understand, to communicate this, that the state is evil, that it's never going to work, so then when the state does collapse, at least we were the guys who said... | |
| I mean, that's how the Austrian school got its credibility back, right? | |
| Was it predicted... Do you think it has credibility? | |
| Well, it's got a lot more credibility than it did in the 1960s, and that's because it predicted stagflation, which according to the Keynesian model was impossible. | |
| And the Austrian business model is becoming a lot more accepted, in general, I mean, overall, relative to where it was, say, 30 years ago. | |
| Yeah, I would have to see the figures on that, because I don't know. | |
| And also the socialism thing. | |
| I'm not sure whether that really caused a... | |
| A great increase in the power of Austrian economics. | |
| It could be that you're right, but I would really have to see the figures. | |
| But I think my main point would be, okay, so you have started spreading the ideas, and you're doing a magnificent job, and other people will start spreading the ideas. | |
| What will the state do in the meantime when they see that there are groups that think they're immoral bastards? | |
| What does the state do when it sees that that group is becoming too big and possibly dangerous? | |
| Oh, it won't do anything. I mean, I have no fear whatsoever. | |
| And I do get pretty regular emails about people who fear for My life or my freedom or whatever. | |
| I have zero fear about that. | |
| Simply because philosophy is a perfect human shield. | |
| Because no one in power has any idea that we threaten their interests at all. | |
| Like if I went around counseling a tax revolt, then I would be directly threatening the interests of the leaders who are currently in power. | |
| Talking about a stateless society, they laugh, right? | |
| They think it's completely irrelevant. | |
| I mean, if they just roll their eyes, they think I'm some crazy kook on the internet who's not worth even swatting, and that's exactly what I want, right? | |
| They themselves have much more pressing concerns, right? | |
| How to fix the numbers for the next budget. | |
| How can they possibly get as much money out of the system before it collapses? | |
| I mean, that's what they're worrying about, right? | |
| But you will become bigger, and then they will start noticing. | |
| No, I mean, because... | |
| And then they start to regulate the internet on the basis of some terrorist attack or something. | |
| And that's fine, too, but that doesn't matter because the stuff's already out there. | |
| And, of course, there's just no way to regulate the internet fundamentally, right? | |
| I mean, it's too amorphous. | |
| But, I mean, that's why I'm trying to get as many podcasts out. | |
| Sure, they might shut the internet down tomorrow or something like that. | |
| But then we'll just go back to bulletin boards and spread it through summer stuff, right? | |
| I mean, the ideas, that's why I'm really focused on getting the ideas out as much as possible. | |
| possible. | |
| That's why I'm working so hard to get all these podcasts and videos out. | |
| But as far as, I mean, they're not going to care. | |
| They have much more pressing concerns, and they're not going to care about me. | |
| And of course, because I'm focusing on the family, right? | |
| I mean, the only time I'm ever going to get in trouble is when some politician's kid defoos with him because he's an evil bastard, and then he finds out that it's from me, right? | |
| I mean, that's what I'm more worried about than any political stuff. | |
| Or when the public school unions want more power, and the parents like that because you are attacking them so they collaborate, and the politicians as well, so that there will be more time spent in school. | |
| There are all sorts of ways in which governments can put obstacles on your way. | |
| And what I really don't understand is how you can reach critical mass. | |
| How you can unsuspectedly reach critical mass and so that when the government finally realizes what you're doing, that they're not able to do anything anymore. | |
| Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know either. | |
| I mean, that's the future. | |
| All I know is that I can try and put out as much quality and entertaining and insightful podcasts as possible. | |
| Yeah, okay, but you're saying that this is a better approach than a political approach. | |
| So then you would have to have some idea how feasible it is. | |
| I don't have any control over whether people like my podcasts or not, right? | |
| I mean, the only control I have is the effort and energy that I put into producing them. | |
| I know that we have to speak the truth. | |
| That's necessary. I don't know if it's sufficient, because I don't have control over any of that. | |
| But I do know that if we don't speak the truth. | |
| But I would say, if we look at the comparison of the freedom that people who work in the political process have brought to people's lives, and the freedom that I've brought to people's lives, I think, perfectly honestly, I think that I win hands down. | |
| I think I win hands down in terms of the tangible, real freedom that people get in their lives. | |
| I think that doing a lot of political activism and keeping bad people in your life, which may be the case, doesn't set you free. | |
| I think that getting the bad people out of your life sets you free. | |
| We can't get rid of the state, and it's very unlikely to happen in my lifetime, but we can get an enormous amount of freedom from philosophy regardless of the increasing power of the state. | |
| Yeah, I completely agree, but the argument that we're in discusses the collapse of the state, not the personal freedom. | |
| Right, and of course, I mean, statistically, it seems unlikely to last more than another decade, if that, just because, I mean, the baby boomers are hitting retirement age and there's just no money. | |
| The unfunded liabilities in the US are over $45 trillion at the moment. | |
| I mean, it's just simply no way. That it can continue. | |
| That's why it's important to get the ideas out right now, right? | |
| So that people don't say, well, freedom didn't work, so let's try more totalitarianism. | |
| They'll say, well, violence didn't work, and these guys were talking about it for years. | |
| They accurately predicted what was going to happen, so let's listen to them. | |
| But people like Mises, Bastian, all the others have said, like, the same things throughout the years, and people continue to, after collapse, after collapse, continue to support the state. | |
| So I'm not sure how your approach... | |
| Although you have the added benefit of the family and psychology and personal freedom stuff. | |
| How your approach has worked over the past 150 years? | |
| Well, because this is a new approach, I think. | |
| I mean, I think this is a synthesis of a number of different disciplines that gets the word out, right? | |
| So I think it's a new approach myself. | |
| And I think that the difference in saying, if I say political activism won't work, won't help, right? | |
| If I keep saying political activism won't work, won't help, And it doesn't work and doesn't help. | |
| That's the only way that I know. | |
| If people won't listen to the arguments from the ground up, then the only way that I know is to make predictions and have them come true. | |
| That's the only way. Then people, at least who are based on empirical stuff, will. | |
| So if everybody who's on the libertarian side throws their entire weight into Ron Paul and they find out that Ron Paul doesn't get elected, the state continues to grow asymptotically, Then maybe they'll say, well, okay, this guy said that political activism wasn't going to work, and it didn't. Now, of course, there will be some people who say, well, I'm going to imagine a universe wherein things would be even worse if I didn't do political activism. | |
| And that's fine, too. I mean, that's a religious approach, right? | |
| Why is that a religious approach? | |
| I mean, that is a scientific approach, and you can approach it with praxeology. | |
| Well, no, there's no evidence for that. | |
| You can't imagine... No, but there's no evidence to the contrary, either. | |
| Sure there is. No, there isn't. | |
| How can you prove that things would have been better if those people hadn't done it? | |
| Because you have one extra argument, namely that they're legitimizing the state. | |
| Because I'm looking at their objectives versus their results. | |
| I can only compare what people say they're going to do, what they say they want to achieve, with what they actually achieve. | |
| Yes, but you don't know whether it would have been worse. | |
| If they haven't done anything. | |
| There's no way you can tell. | |
| Well, I do know that it is worse, and that that's the exact opposite of what they wanted. | |
| Yes, but they would have wanted this more than an even worse situation. | |
| Yeah, but I mean, again, the evidence is they wanted to reduce the state, and the state has grown hugely. | |
| Right? So, they failed their stated objectives. | |
| Can we at least agree on that? | |
| I'm sorry, because I was interrupting you, I didn't hear the first part of your sentence, so I'm sorry. | |
| Libertarians and classical liberals have failed miserably relative to their stated objectives. | |
| Yes, if their stated objectives were to decrease the size of government, they have failed miserably. | |
| That's not an if. That was their stated objective. | |
| Okay, then they have failed miserably. | |
| They slowed the government down by a little bit. | |
| They said that we want to get rid of the government completely, or we at least want to shrink it back to... | |
| And they haven't even... | |
| I mean, it's hard to even imagine, though, it could be possible that they haven't even slowed down the growth of the state, let alone shrunk it. | |
| They certainly haven't shrunk it, and they haven't even made it stable, right? | |
| So, I feel like people say they want to do with what they do and say that that has failed. | |
| Relative to their stated goals, they completely... | |
| It's worse than a failure. | |
| I mean, it's the exact opposite of what they wanted. | |
| Yes, I completely agree. | |
| But you cannot draw the conclusion from that, that if they hadn't done anything, that things would have been better. | |
| And so there may have been some value in what they have been doing, in a sense that things could have been a whole lot worse, although it is pretty damn bad now as well. | |
| Yeah, I mean, worse could be that maybe the collapse would have happened a year ago. | |
| But see, even the collapse, I mean, who knows, right? | |
| But what I'm saying is that we can't say anything about that because we don't know. | |
| We can't make up a world wherein these people didn't act and see how it plays out. | |
| But what we can do is say, did they succeed relative to their stated goals? | |
| And no, it was worse than a failure. | |
| Yes, but that is not the question. | |
| The question is whether they have added something of value. | |
| And then you said, well, we cannot judge that because we cannot rerun history. | |
| But you can approach that question in terms of praxeology. | |
| And I'm not going to do that now. | |
| I haven't really given that much thought. | |
| But you can do that with a theory. | |
| That would be an addition to experiential evidence. | |
| Well, sure, and I do that, right? | |
| So I say political action makes things worse, right? | |
| So that's my theory, and I have lots of reasons. | |
| No, no, but you have to have a theory why it makes things worse. | |
| And I do. I have gone into that in about half a dozen podcasts. | |
| I've done articles on it. | |
| I've done a full debate. | |
| I'm doing another one. I've given tons of reasons as to why joining the Ku Klux Klan is never going to get rid of lynching. | |
| I think it's like the mafia argument, and the... | |
| The point is whether things would have been worse if that guy hadn't joined the Ku Klux Klan. | |
| Well, but it's like, I mean, would you do that in any other sphere? | |
| Like, would you join a church and become a priest and become a bishop in order to get rid of God? | |
| Of course not. Of course not. | |
| You can't get rid of God by joining the church, and you can't get rid of the government by joining the government. | |
| Okay, but now you're just repeating things. | |
| You're not putting forward arguments. | |
| With the Ku Klux Klan example, it is horribly bad. | |
| Any lynching would be horribly bad. | |
| And if the stated goal of the guy who went to join the Ku Klux Klan to stop all this, if the stated goal was, I'm only happy if I can decrease or abolish the lynching, then this actually would have been a failure. | |
| But if he's saying, I think my presence there would make things better than it would have otherwise been, Well, but that's an untestable hypothesis, right? | |
| Yes, but the negation of it is also an untestable hypothesis, and that is what you're not accepting. | |
| Well, sure. I completely agree that if you put forward the proposition that the government could be bigger if the classical liberals and libertarians had not had political action, It doesn't have any bearing on the debate, right? | |
| What I'm saying is that the evidence is that they failed relative to their stated goals, and there are good reasons as to why that may be the case, right? | |
| So saying, well, they could be better in this and that is a null hypothesis. | |
| It's not testable, whereas at least when I... Hello, did we drop? | |
| I'm just saying that when you argue with religious people, and they say, well, yes, it's true that God is irrational and illogical, but in some alternate dimension, God might exist. | |
| Well, there is no... | |
| I mean, you can't use... | |
| An alternate dimension argument doesn't hold any weight. | |
| It doesn't prove or disprove anything. | |
| It's a null hypothesis. And so, for me, when somebody says, well, I could, you know, in some alternate dimension, it may have been the most moral thing to do to oppose the state, even though the state continues to grow, it doesn't... | |
| I mean, you can't process that. | |
| Nobody can process that because it's a complete hypothesis, right? | |
| You could say that about anything. | |
| The thing is, you can approach it with the help of a praxeological theory, and that you cannot do with the existence of God, which is necessarily incoherent. | |
| So the analogy that you propose is not valid. | |
| Well, but I have approached it with a praxeological theory. | |
| And you rejected praxeology. | |
| Well, I don't believe that I've been convinced that I have rejected praxeology. | |
| I work from first principles all the time to validate the information that comes in through experience. | |
| To validate, to formalize, to organize and to predict. | |
| You have made the point that because the past hundred and fifty years there has been no decrease that shows that political action doesn't work. | |
| No, no, no, no. And that any theory... | |
| Sorry, can I interrupt you? Because I've never made that point. | |
| I have never said that it follows because it hasn't worked that it is never going to work. | |
| I'm saying the evidence is that it doesn't work and if we can come up with a rational and coherent explanation as to why, Then we can predict the future. | |
| But there's no... I mean, you wouldn't need any intelligence to simply say, well, it's never worked, so it's never going to work. | |
| My argument has never been that it is solely because it has never worked, that it never is going to work, right? | |
| I'm saying the evidence is that it has never worked, and if we can come up with a good theory as to why, then we can make a case why it's never going to work. | |
| Okay, well, I may have to re-listen to the discussion you had with David, because... | |
| Yeah, my memory of it is different, but I can be very wrong about that. | |
| And I understand the thing about traditional... | |
| I mean, this is a discussion that's been going on for months, so I have put forward, both in articles and podcasts, a number of reasons as to why political action won't work. | |
| The evidence is that it doesn't work, but that doesn't mean that it will never work. | |
| There is no such evidence. | |
| I'm sorry? There is no such evidence for that question. | |
| There is only evidence against the point that... | |
| Classical liberals and libertarians have made the state decrease. | |
| There is sufficient evidence against that, but there is no evidence, and there can be no empirical evidence, for the question whether things would not have been worse, whether any political involvement would have negative consequences. | |
| There you don't have any evidence for. | |
| Well, I think there are reasonable arguments as to why that is going to be the case. | |
| We can discuss those arguments then. | |
| Well, that's what we've been doing. | |
| At least that's what I've been doing. Yes, but then your confidence in sort of... | |
| Okay, the thing you just said about evidence, I heard you say that a lot of times, and what I just tried to counter, I have never heard you... | |
| Before this conversation, address those counterpoints. | |
| I'm sorry, which counterpoints? | |
| That the fact that in the past 150 years there has been no decrease does not mean that political action will make things worse than they otherwise would have been. | |
| You would say, okay, but there's a hypothetical universe. | |
| And then I say, no, you can approach it with a praxeological theory. | |
| And then you say, okay, I accept the theory, but then, from that point on, you're not putting forward the arguments anymore. | |
| So you don't think I've put forward any rational arguments as to why supporting a highly mismatched incentive system based on violence might not work? | |
| I remember the KKK argument, but that does not address this issue. | |
| What about the mismatch and incentives argument that we just had about ten minutes ago? | |
| Okay, well, that would be an argument. | |
| What about the fact that we can't have any more ability to control violence? | |
| Because we're pacifists, we're not going to have a great deal of ability to control violence relative to politicians who are totally for it. | |
| I mean, I must have put forward at least a dozen or 18 arguments as to why I think that... | |
| I mean, the evidence simply says that something may be wrong, right? | |
| The evidence simply says something may be wrong, and then you have to... | |
| Okay, I agree with that. Why? | |
| So, I mean, people keep telling me that I'm just repeating myself in terms of history, but I've put out at least a dozen arguments as to why the political process involvement won't work, right? | |
| I mean, according to a wide variety of criteria. | |
| And, yeah, maybe in some alternate dimension or some other alternate history it could work, which is fine, but then the arguments... | |
| Well, in this dimension as well. | |
| Yeah, you're right, sorry, in this dimension as well. | |
| Okay, but your point is that your approach will be better than the political approach. | |
| Absolutely. Yeah, again, I don't see why there would not be some sort of That wasn't my argument. | |
| My argument was that the people who are currently in power are pillaging the palace, right? | |
| They don't care. They've got war. | |
| They've got war. They've got the great problem of paying off everyone with a diminishing treasury. | |
| They've got the problem of the fact that most people are on to them now about the whole printing money and inflation scam. | |
| So they have bigger fish to fry. | |
| Nothing that I say is going to dislodge one person who is currently in power. | |
| I absolutely guarantee that. | |
| So what are they going to care? | |
| They've got much more pressing concerns than a philosophy that might take root in the next generation. | |
| Yes, but once you reach 10% of the people, then they will care. | |
| Well, only if it affects their interest directly, right? | |
| I mean, if those 10% of the people are working on their personal relationships for a couple of years, which I think is the right approach, then it's still not going to have any effect on whether they pay their taxes. | |
| So you're saying your basic point then is that because politicians are only interested about the very short term, the fact that a group of 10% or 20% of the people is violently opposed against the state will not worry them because they will be out of there before they will be the victim of that. | |
| Yeah, I don't know if you've read Lord of the Rings, but we're like the hobbits going in through the back door. | |
| I'm sorry, I haven't read it. | |
| Okay, well, it's, yeah, I mean, we are, we fly under the radar, right? | |
| So, I mean, if we had a big political movement and it started to work, we'd just get crushed. | |
| Like, if we started to convince people to stop paying their taxes, we'd just get crushed. | |
| But if we tell people to work on their personal relationships, to work on their self-knowledge, to work philosophically and psychologically, and then politically at some point, Then we're under the radar of everyone who's in power, and I think we build a much more powerful movement, right? | |
| You want to build a house, you need a good foundation, and we're working on the foundation, but we're no threat to anyone who's in power, and I don't imagine that we will be for an enormous amount of time. | |
| Yeah, okay, but I understand. | |
| But the chances of your being able to fly under the radar long enough so as not to get detected and destroyed, I am not sure about those chances. | |
| My chances of staying under the radar are far better if I don't have a political solution? | |
| Like a political activism solution? | |
| I mean, it seems to me that... Yes, they are far better than them. | |
| ...for my position, right? For my approach. | |
| Yes, they would be far better. | |
| Right. So, I mean, this is much less dangerous and much less likely to arouse opposition than a political approach. | |
| But with a political approach, you have the added benefit that you can already make some sort of changes within the government apparatus. | |
| Well, I don't see those as valid changes. | |
| I think that by trying to reform slavery rather than abolish slavery, that you are simply legitimizing slavery. | |
| I mean, that's what seems to occur. | |
| And of course, the people who, if you vote for Ron Paul, he doesn't know that you're an anarcho-capitalist who's only voting for him because you want to get rid of the state. | |
| For you, for him, it might be that you don't care about the income tax, but you really do care about getting rid of illegal immigrants, right? | |
| So he doesn't know, right? | |
| He's just going to take that as a mandate for everything that he does. | |
| There's no conceivable way that he would know what your vote is for. | |
| Yes, but we also discussed, for example, the Rothbardian candidate who would flat out say, okay, I hate the state, and we're going to take practical compromises, but I'm not legitimizing the state. | |
| And then that argument would not apply, although then you could say, well, if he is so fierce and firm, then he would be destroyed earlier before he could get into real political action. | |
| Right, and it would be like running for Pope, saying, I want to dismantle the Catholic Church, right? | |
| I mean, nobody would vote for you, because they're The only people who vote are the people who are interested in political solutions, right? | |
| So if you say, I want to get rid of the government, you're saying there's no possibility that a political solution will work, which is the same as running for the Pope as an atheist saying, I want to get rid of the church. | |
| Well, I mean, Catholics can leave the church if they want to. | |
| People cannot leave the state if they want to. | |
| That is a big difference. | |
| So the vote is by the people and not by the politicians themselves. | |
| Well, sure, but I mean the people are trained in state schools and the people are bribed state money and the people are told what to think by paid lobbyists. | |
| I mean, people aren't political philosophers any more than I'm a heart surgeon, right? | |
| So it's not very likely that they're going to be able to think for themselves in these areas. | |
| No, no, but I'm assuming that there has been some information campaign already so that some people will realize this and then a political candidate could do something. | |
| My approach I think would be a combination of your approach and the political approach. | |
| Well, no, from my approach... | |
| Then the people who pursue the political approach are drawing people away from what at least I would consider the truth, which is that there's no political solution and you need to work on yourself. | |
| So the people who are libertarians who are putting forward a political solution are, for me, working against. | |
| They're giving people an option or an out that I think is illusory and thus is more dangerous. | |
| If you think that slavery can be reformed, you're not going to be as much for abolishing slavery if you don't know much about the issue. | |
| Because abolishing slavery is a big step, a big change. | |
| So people will look for incrementalism because they feel uncomfortable with big change. | |
| And so if somebody puts forward that incrementalism is going to work, then people will flock to that and not flock to the big change scenario. | |
| And so I think it's very dangerous. | |
| I don't think it's neutral. I don't think that the disagreement that you and I have It's neutral. | |
| I think it's absolutely crucial about whether or not what we're doing is going to work or not. | |
| Yes, and I think that is why I'm trying to convince you that the two need not exclude each other, because then we could team up. | |
| But what you... | |
| Sorry, now I forgot the metaphor that you just made that I wanted to say something about. | |
| Well, there was the Pope and the Catholic one, but that was... | |
| Yeah, but after that still. | |
| I don't know that I used a metaphor in the last one. | |
| I was certainly saying that Oh yeah, the slavery thing, right? | |
| If you think that slavery is reform, then it doesn't have to be abolished, then people aren't going to want to abolish slavery. | |
| Yes, but again, the Rothbardian candidate would say, slavery should be abolished, and I'm willing to make practical compromises, for example, that slaves currently will have to stay one more year so that their masters can, I don't know, make the transition more currently, but it must be abolished. | |
| Right, and my argument is that once somebody is up there saying the state is evil and must be abolished and there are enough people to vote for him, two-thirds of the people would have to vote for a president like that, the state is already gone anyway because people have just stopped paying their taxes. | |
| But then you're sort of disregarding the smaller measures that can be taken by either presidents or a majority in Congress or something. | |
| For example, abolishing the Department of Education. | |
| Yeah, but which doesn't work, as we've sort of talked about before, right? | |
| Well, which you haven't showed. | |
| I mean, we still disagree about that. | |
| Why don't we do this, because we're kind of going in circles here. | |
| Why don't you tell me what criteria I would have to satisfy in order to change your mind? | |
| What is your criteria for proof? | |
| I think you would have to convince me that you can reach critical mass without being detected by the government, so that once they find out what you're doing, it is too late for them. | |
| And I would be convinced that your approach would be better than the political approach. | |
| I got it. And how could I prove that to you? | |
| What objective criteria would you accept as proof of that? | |
| Better arguments than the ones you just put forward. | |
| No, but you have to give me a criteria for proof, right? | |
| Because, I mean, if I'm just making arguments and you're dismissing them, then I need to know what arguments you would accept as a criteria for changing your mind. | |
| Yes, but I don't think the way I dismissed your arguments was invalid. | |
| So the fact that I'm dismissing your arguments... | |
| Rather than me swinging wildly and hoping to connect with something that would mean something to you, I need to know what criteria I need to satisfy in order to change your mind. | |
| Because, I mean, there's not much point with me just coming up with a bunch of arguments that you already think are false. | |
| You need to tell me what arguments would satisfy you, or what evidence or what reasoning or what would satisfy you. | |
| I think it would be... | |
| Well, I mean, I cannot come up with the practical theory as to how you would go about creating a bigger and bigger group, reaching critical mass, if you can make a convincing theory, but I don't know what that would look like, so I cannot say in advance, this is what the theory should look like, and then I would be happy. So there's no criteria that you know of by which I could change your mind? | |
| I cannot specify the practical conditions of that theory, because that would be saying in... | |
| I don't know, physics or something, that you pretty much have to think of the theory before you can specify the criteria that the theory would satisfy. | |
| So, as far as I understand what you're saying, is that I have no possibility of changing your mind. | |
| Like, there's no conditions... | |
| But I cannot already invent the arguments you would have to make. | |
| It would be empirical arguments, praxeological arguments... | |
| Okay, but tell me what evidence I need to look for and tell me what arguments, what approach I need to take in order to satisfy your criteria for changing our mind. | |
| Well, for example, if you can give an example of an underground movement that stayed underground long enough without being detected and then making a radical change, then I would be very interested in hearing that because then you would have a good point. | |
| But would you then accept that that would be causal? | |
| Like if I said, well, there was a Samastatt movement that got an enormous amount of Ayn Rand's literature and other types of free market literature into Russia during the 1970s and that those things were passed around in manuscript form and so on. | |
| And then they stayed underground and they weren't thrown into gulags, at least not too many of them. | |
| And then the Russian state collapsed and they went to a more free market system. | |
| But if I put that together, that argument together, what you would say is that I can't prove causality, right? | |
| Yes. So then, again, you would need to add a theory that would make it clear why those actions result within that. | |
| And what criteria would you accept? | |
| I think that would be a praxicological theory, but I am not going to think of the theory for you. | |
| I mean, I will... | |
| No, but every time I bring up historical examples, You tell me that I can't prove causality, right? | |
| So I'm not sure how, if I went and researched the Samistat movement in Russia, that you would not simply say to me, but you can't prove causality. | |
| And would you agree that it's really not at all possible in that situation to prove causality? | |
| It is possible because you can make a praxeological argument. | |
| That is a logical argument. | |
| I've been making praxeological arguments Around how participation in state politics does not... | |
| Yes, but it would be a good thing for you to do to apply the same praxeology to your own position. | |
| No, no, but if you won't accept the praxeological arguments that I've put forward, right, based on state participation, I'm not sure why any other praxe... | |
| Because you can always say that I can't prove causality, which is entirely true. | |
| I can't prove causality. | |
| I can prove at least correlation that they said they wanted to do this and the exact opposite has happened for a number of generations. | |
| But I'm not sure, like I'm not going to bother with the argument if I have no idea what criteria you would accept for proof. | |
| It would have to be a theory that would, in praxeology, it says if you raise the minimum wage, then unemployment, if all else stays equal, will be the same or higher than before. | |
| That is a logical theory. | |
| There's no possibility in this situation of all other things being equal, because they never are. | |
| No, but that is the point of praxeology, that you cannot isolate them. | |
| And so you have to start from logic, from self-evident principles, and work from there. | |
| And that is a method you apply in the social sciences. | |
| Right, and that's the method that I have worked with, and I've tried to put those arguments forward in a whole variety of podcasts and articles about why it doesn't work, right? | |
| But the praxeological arguments that I'm putting forward don't satisfy you. | |
| Because I also put forward praxeological arguments and they didn't satisfy you. | |
| Right. Right. Absolutely. | |
| Right. For sure. For sure. | |
| And we can talk about what my criteria for proof would be. | |
| But first, I do need to understand what your criteria for proof would be, because if there's no point in changing your mind, then there's not much point having the debate, right? | |
| But I just told you, it would have to be a practical logical theory, which means that you start from self-evident axioms. | |
| And work from there and then be able to apply that praxeological theory in reality. | |
| So if you can think of a praxeological theory for ideology change, perfect! | |
| Then I can either dispute the axioms, which is impossible because they're self-evident, or the logical steps you make. | |
| So if you present that theory... | |
| I find contrary evidence, right? | |
| Because of free will. So if I say... | |
| There is no contrary evidence because it is a logical theory. | |
| But it has to do with an effect in the world, right? | |
| It's not a sustained, isolated logic. | |
| It's not like a mathematical theorem. | |
| This is something which is claiming to explain an effect in the world, right? | |
| So you can always find contrary examples in the world, right? | |
| So I say government grows, and people always say, well, in this particular instance in Austria in 1920, it shrunk a little bit, right? | |
| So your theory is invalid. The moment of theory If it touches upon and explains historical evidence and makes predictions about future behavior, then automatically it can't be proven, at least according to, as far as I understand it, according to the praxeological theory. | |
| Because you can always find contrary evidence and you can't directly prove causality. | |
| It can be proven in a different way, though. | |
| It can be proven logically. Let me give the minimum wage example again. | |
| If the minimum wage was raised, then praxeology says it will either, if all else is equal, it will either stay the same or become higher. | |
| But if at the same time that the minimum wage was raised, there was an enormous discovery of gold somewhere, so all the unemployed people ran there and started working there, then minimum wage would not result in bigger unemployment. | |
| But that doesn't invalidate the praxeological theory that minimum wage results in either the same unemployment or higher unemployment. | |
| Sure, I mean, I fully understand that, but there's a couple of differences between that and what we're talking about, right? | |
| That is a specific action with a measurable result, and the measurable result is employment, right? | |
| It doesn't matter that it's measurable. | |
| It matters that it's logical. | |
| Praxeology is a logical theory. | |
| It cannot be invalidated by experience. | |
| Okay, so you don't need to measure unemployment. | |
| So you can actually just put the theory forward and assume that it was true without ever measuring unemployment. | |
| Yep, and that is exactly what Mises and Rothbard and all the others are doing. | |
| So if you reject that, then you have to reject the Austrian School of Economics. | |
| And then you would need some more arguments than what you just presented. | |
| Right, okay. So if I say that if you agree that violence should be used, but it should be used in a different manner, that you are fundamentally agreeing with the principle that violence has validity, that you're not going to be able to logically oppose the use of violence. | |
| That's not a praxeological theory for you. | |
| I would agree with that point. | |
| I'm still in doubt whether that is a praxeological theory, because that goes to argumentation ethics. | |
| But I would agree with that. | |
| Well, then, aren't we on the same page as far as supporting a political process? | |
| Because a political process is saying that violence should be used less or in a different kind of way, which means that you can't oppose the use of violence on principle. | |
| Like I just said with the Rothbard example, you oppose it in principle, and you say this is Stone evil and horrible and all that. | |
| But in order to get where we want to go, namely the stateless society, we have to do it in compromises. | |
| And I think, for example, with slavery, I'm not sure exactly how slavery was abolished, whether it was, like, one decree that one day there were slaves and one day there weren't. | |
| I mean, I can imagine that there were some measures, some compromises, that sort of mediated between the state of slavery and the state of total freedom. | |
| And I don't think the abolitionists... | |
| I think they kept pointing out that slavery is evil, but I don't think they were unwilling to accept compromised steps that they deemed necessary to achieve that. | |
| Well, but there's a difference, though, which is that our slavery is the state. | |
| So it would be like I'm owning slaves in order to get rid of slavery, but I'm owning fewer slaves than I would have owned under whatever, right? | |
| But the difference is that you can't use the weapons of your enemy to vanquish your enemy. | |
| You can't morally and logically own slaves and then say that slavery is a moral abomination. | |
| Similarly, you can't say that violence is wrong, but I want to use violence to reduce violence, right? | |
| Then you're saying violence is partly right. | |
| And so that's the praxeological argument, if you'd like, which I would put forward. | |
| I don't see how you cannot oppose it in principle while you accept that, for example, other people will still have to use lesser violence for a while. | |
| You say it is wrong, but this is the best way to get to that final stage. | |
| Well, because it's a formative contradiction. | |
| It's a logical contradiction. To say that violence is wrong and I want to use violence to achieve my ends is a logical contradiction. | |
| Either violence is right or it's wrong. | |
| It can't be wrong now and right later. | |
| It can't be wrong when the state is big but then right when the state is small. | |
| It's either right or it's wrong. | |
| Now, if it's right, but kind of right and sort of right at times and right sometimes and wrong sometimes, then that's relativism and that's exactly what the government preys on, right? | |
| Which is to say that violence is right if we're pursuing the education of children or if we're pursuing... | |
| The welfare of the poor or helping the old pay for prescription drugs, then they're saying violence is legitimized by the end that it is in pursuit of, which is good. | |
| And that is the abolition of that violence. | |
| If violence can be used to shrink the state, then violence becomes good. | |
| Participation in violence, voting for somebody who's going to use violence, is good if it gets the end that you want. | |
| And I'm saying that that's exactly the argument that the state uses. | |
| So if you accept the principles or the premises of the enemy that you're fighting, you'll never win. | |
| But, I mean, you have, like, said that if somehow it were possible to do it through political means, then you would be all for it? | |
| But then you said that... I'm giving you one, right? | |
| There's no point going back to something I said in the past, which, for me, was a pure theory, right, which would never be the case. | |
| If you say that violence is right, At some times, but wrong at other times, then that is a statist argument. | |
| Because then you just get to define what the ends are, right? | |
| And the government defines it as protecting the poor or educating the children. | |
| And you say, well, it's trying to diminish the state or whatever. | |
| But you're still saying that violence is right at times and wrong at other times. | |
| You're saying that the The gradual decrease of violence is a good thing, and the ultimate abolition of violence is the ultimate thing. | |
| Right, but I don't advocate the use of violence to achieve that. | |
| That's the difference. Okay, but let me then get back to the slavery question. | |
| Do you have more information about... | |
| We just want to work with the praxeological argument that is self-contained, right? | |
| That's what you said was a criteria for proof. | |
| I don't advocate the use of violence to reduce violence. | |
| I don't think it's ever going to work. I think it's a total abolition of principle. | |
| I don't advocate the use of violence to reduce violence. | |
| You do, if you believe that there's a political solution. | |
| Okay, so how was slavery abolished? | |
| Was it from one day to the next? | |
| If you ask me for praxeological arguments, you can't then go back for evidence. | |
| I'm trying to use the analogy here. | |
| You asked me for a self-contained argument. | |
| Right? Now, violence is either right or it's wrong. | |
| You and I would both agree, I'm sure, that violence, except in an immediate and extremity of self-defense, is wrong. | |
| Can we agree on that? | |
| Yes. Okay. | |
| So violence is always wrong except in an extremity of self-defense. | |
| So a political solution is using violence, supporting violence, approving of violence, not in an extremity of self-defense. | |
| So it's saying that violence is right if the end is what you want, which is a reduction of violence or whatever. | |
| So violence is no longer defined as something that is wrong. | |
| Violence is now defined as something that is right. | |
| I think they would still say that violence is wrong, but we have to accept the wrong now for practical reasons. | |
| And with my analogy with the slave... | |
| Then it's not wrong. Then it's right. | |
| Something can't be useful, practical and positive and wrong. | |
| If something's morally wrong, then it's morally wrong. | |
| Okay, so that is why I'm getting back to the slavery example. | |
| No, no, let's stay within this self-contained... | |
| Yes, but I have to make my point in this thing by way of the slavery example. | |
| So if you can allow me that, that would help and then you can demolish that if you don't agree with it. | |
| Okay. Okay. | |
| Do you have more information about how slavery was abolished? | |
| What the process was like? | |
| I have some more information about it, but the major issue is that the slavery that we're trying to get rid of is the state. | |
| The violence that we're trying to get rid of is violence. | |
| So the fact that there was some political involvement, and actually mostly it came from people just thundering that it was immoral, that it was immoral, that it was immoral, that it was immoral, and we want no part of it. | |
| The people who wanted to get rid of slaves didn't have slaves, didn't own slaves. | |
| People who wanted to get rid of slavery didn't participate in the slave trade. | |
| And in the same way, people who want to get rid of the state can't participate in the state. | |
| Slavery was legal, so the system that made it possible was the political system. | |
| The abolitionists were part of the political system. | |
| For sure, absolutely. There were some aspects of that that were part of the political system, without a doubt. | |
| Okay. So were they saying that slavery is okay because they accepted the political system? | |
| No, but they weren't fighting against violence as a principle. | |
| They were fighting against slavery as a principle. | |
| We're fighting against violence as a principle, and the state is an embodiment of violence. | |
| Okay, but then you agree that you cannot use the slavery metaphor anymore. | |
| Well, sure I can, because I can say that you can't, the parallel metaphor is you can't own slaves and be against slavery. | |
| And you can't use violence and be against violence. . | |
| But if the point is to... | |
| I understand the difference that you make between Becoming a politician and being a politician to abolish slavery. | |
| So becoming a politician in order to abolish politics and becoming a politician in order to abolish slavery. | |
| Because in the first sense, you would be destroying yourself. | |
| And that would, in the case of the slavery example, not be, because you were yourself not a slave owner. | |
| Am I correct so far? | |
| Well, I don't agree with the metaphor that you can become a politician to get rid of slavery, but that doesn't apply to us, because that's not a cancellation of the initial premise. | |
| You can't own slaves and be against slavery. | |
| Yeah, that's what I said. I mean, I was summarizing your argument. | |
| Yeah, but you said a politician to get rid of slavery, and that's not part of the metaphor that we're working with. | |
| But it's no biggie. Keep going. No, but I'm saying that I acknowledge that there was a difference between the politician trying to abolish slavery and the politician trying to abolish the political system itself. | |
| Got it. Okay, sorry. My mistake. | |
| Okay. Basically, your argument then goes back to... | |
| The idea that ethical principles will always, if you follow them absolutely, will always result in good consequences. | |
| No, that's not my argument. | |
| This is entirely a self-contained argument that if you say that something is wrong, you don't get to use it. | |
| If you say that violence is wrong, but I use violence, then violence is not wrong. | |
| It's just a self-contradictory statement. | |
| That's really all I'm saying. It's not about consequences. | |
| It's not about any of that. | |
| It's just that, I mean, from the praxeological standpoint, you want something that's pure logic that is not involved in material consequences in any way, which I'm perfectly happy to stay with. | |
| And that was the criteria you put forward to say that if there's a contradiction in the logic, then the argument falls, right? | |
| So if somebody says violence is wrong, but we need to use violence, then violence is not wrong. | |
| And then you would be... | |
| Indifferent to the practical consequences of that theory? | |
| You're the one who said that we need an argument that is self-contained, logically. | |
| So you can't bring consequences in. | |
| I mean, you can. You can do whatever you want. | |
| But I said, what's the criteria for proof? | |
| And you said a self-contained logical argument, praxeological argument. | |
| Okay, this is an ethical argument. | |
| Consequences, right? You said that the criteria for proof was a self-contained logical argument. | |
| Mm-hmm. So we're just looking at the logic of this. | |
| The consequences, by your own desire, have been excluded. | |
| Measurement, as you said, we don't ever have to measure whether inflation goes up and down. | |
| The consequences, according to your approach, don't matter. | |
| You don't even need to measure whether unemployment goes up or down if you raise the minimum wage. | |
| But aren't we exactly talking about the consequences? | |
| I mean, that is what the whole argument is about. | |
| It contains logical argument, and you said that the consequences are irrelevant. | |
| That's why I asked you... | |
| No, no, no, no, no. I think you're mixing up things now. | |
| You said that if you can prove that raising the minimum wage is going to raise unemployment, you don't need to measure any consequences, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. So you can't bring consequences in now if I say that there's a logical contradiction in saying that violence is good, but we need to use violence. | |
| I understand your point. | |
| The argument that you just made, that you cannot say that violence is bad if you support the use of violence to abolish violence, I could accept that argument. | |
| But what we were talking about was I said that I would need a praxeological theory as to why your approach to abolishing violence would in practice work. | |
| So that is different from the principle point that you just rightly made. | |
| So you need a praxeological theory about how that would work in practice. | |
| But that's not scientific, right? | |
| If you put forward a mathematical theory that says this bridge will stand, right, and you make an error in your calculations, which says that I only need steel with one tenth the tensile strength that I actually need, I don't need to build that bridge and have it fall down in order to disprove the logic of your mathematics. | |
| But that would be a physical theory, a theory of physics, not mathematics. | |
| Sorry, yeah, you're right. It's engineering. | |
| But if there's an error in the theory, then I don't need to prove consequences, right? | |
| So if violence is both right and wrong, that's clearly a contradiction, a logical problem in the theory. | |
| And I don't need to prove consequences. | |
| Okay. I think I can accept with you that you then cannot universally say violence is bad if you are willing to accept the use of violence in order to abolish it. | |
| I think I can agree with that. | |
| But that is a different point from my question as to how your approach would work in practice And that is a praxeological question, similarly to how a free economy would work, compared to how an interventionist economy would work. | |
| And there you have to start from self-evident principles again, and then build your praxeological case as to why the practical consequences would be bad. | |
| And then it could be that in reality there are other variables in place that would Create situations that you would not expect. | |
| I mean, then it would no longer satisfy the all-else-being-equal clause. | |
| So that the experimental evidence still does not invalidate the theory. | |
| But you do need a practical theory to explain why your approach would result in The abolition of the state. | |
| And you can say, well, it is self-contradictory to say that violence is bad, but then using violence to destroy the violence. | |
| I mean, that is perfectly correct. | |
| I think I can now agree with that, and I think I didn't used to. | |
| But that is a different question from the practical question as to how the state would collapse in your scenario. | |
| Well, the state collapses because of its own overspending, because economic reality always reasserts itself. | |
| But I think I can sort of point out an issue here, if you don't mind, and this is where I think that the fundamental contradiction may lie, in terms of practice, right? | |
| So, if the Rothmartian approach is to say, and I don't know, I'm just using his name, and I apologize if I've got it wrong, if the Rothmartian approach is to say that to reduce violence, we need to use violence, and thus we need to involve ourselves in the political process, It seems to me that the government says, well, if we cut the welfare state, there will be rioting in the streets, which will be an increase in violence. | |
| Therefore, we need to tax people in order to fund people on welfare so that they don't take the street to the streets in some Los Angeles nightmare scenario and kill and rape and pillage and burn. | |
| And similarly, we can't get rid of the Department of Education because the unions are very militant and they will use violence. | |
| So we need to use the violence of taxation in order to reduce the violence of the social response to cutting social programs. | |
| And so it seems to me that that's the same argument that could be used from the status side. | |
| I may have misunderstood the point you were trying to make with this. | |
| I'll try it again. If we say that we must use violence to reduce violence, then the government could say, I must use the violence of taxation, which is only violent in a... | |
| I mean, people just pay their taxes, right? | |
| There's no one... Very few people get shot over taxation. | |
| People just pay their taxes. But the government could say, if I get rid of the welfare state, Then the poor people who are currently dependent upon welfare and who've made all of their life decisions on the continued presence of welfare will grab one of the 300 million guns in the United States and take to the streets in an orgy of violence. | |
| That could be a conceivable scenario, right? | |
| And so I need to use violence, i.e. | |
| taxation, in order to reduce overt violence, i.e. | |
| millions of people rioting in the streets with guns. | |
| So it seems to me that the Rothbardian argument is to say we need to use violence to get rid of violence, i.e. | |
| we need to use the political process to get rid of the welfare state. | |
| But the argument could very easily be made that that is an exact argument for supporting the welfare state. | |
| So here you have an argument which can be used both to abolish the welfare state and to defend the welfare state, which is again another contradiction. | |
| Yes, but I think I already acknowledged the logical contradiction. | |
| But now we're talking about consequences, right? | |
| So if you say that violence can be used to reduce violence, then you're actually handing over a justification for the continued existence and growth of the state. | |
| We're not talking about morals anymore. | |
| We're talking about whether there could be a difference between... | |
| I agree with you that that is logically self-contradictory, and that is the ethical argument. | |
| But then you'd have to have an extra argument to show that adhering to the ethical consistency will also result in your approach being successful. | |
| Well, first of all, we were just talking about the Ron Paul thing. | |
| I don't know that the agenda of the conversation was for me to logically prove that my approach is the only one that will work. | |
| That would seem fair, because you can criticize the Ron Paul people, but they can't criticize you if you don't put forward your point. | |
| You are saying that your approach is better than the Ron Paul approach. | |
| The Ron Paul people are putting forward a proposition for positive action. | |
| They're the ones who are saying we should go and support the political process and use violence to try and control violence. | |
| They're putting forward the positive claim. | |
| The fact that they put forward a positive claim It makes them open to questioning and criticism, right? | |
| Now, I don't think that I've put forward a positive claim that says that only my approach is the only conceivable way that we can overthrow the state. | |
| Well, they don't say theirs is only the only possible way. | |
| I'm sorry? They're not saying either that their approach is the only possible way. | |
| Right. But I haven't put forward even a theory of action, I think, which says that my way will get rid of the state. | |
| I mean, as far as I can remember. | |
| Okay, so then we can agree on that, that you can criticize them, but you cannot say that your approach would be better because you have not so far put forward a theory to demonstrate that. | |
| I can absolutely and with full confidence completely and openly state that my approach is better because I don't have the logical contradiction at the root of it which says violence is good and violence is bad. | |
| So if their theory is illogical and my theory is consistent, it is automatically better. | |
| No, because then you would need the added theory that shows that an ethical contradiction results in practical chaos. | |
| Well, no, no, no, no. An illogical theory, can we at least agree that an illogical and self-contradictory theory is not as good as a consistent illogical theory? | |
| Mm-hmm. Okay, so it's better. | |
| Mm-hmm. But that is the ethical theory. | |
| That is not the practical theory. | |
| So you would need something to connect the ethical theory, where yours is consistent and theirs is not, With the practical approach to abolishing the state. | |
| So if you can do that, if you can provide that theory, then I would also be convinced. | |
| And what criteria would you accept as that theory being proven? | |
| If you can show that absolute adherence to principles will necessarily logically lead to the best possible results, whereas it is hard to say what the best possible results would be. | |
| Then you can prove your point. | |
| How would I do that? | |
| I have no idea. That task is up to you. | |
| Sounds like an impossible task to me because you can't predict the future. | |
| But then you cannot so confidently say that your theory is better because your ethical theory is better. | |
| A logical theory is better than an illogical theory. | |
| That was my only point. Yes, but you also connected that with the practical thing, and I'm saying you need a connection between the ethical and the practical in order for you to say that because your ethical theory is better, it will also ensure that your practical approach will result in better things than theirs. | |
| Well, I don't, but I don't use the argument from a fact, right? | |
| The argument from a fact, to me, is not... | |
| That is what we're discussing now. | |
| Right. I mean, I understand. | |
| I can accept the ethical principles, but I am also interested in the argument from the fact. | |
| And I think what you have said before, I think you just said that your approach would be better because it doesn't contain a contradiction. | |
| Well, no, the theory is better because it's not self-contradictory. | |
| Okay, but then you are not willing to say at this point that your practical approach will be better. | |
| Well, I think I've spent 750 podcasts trying to say that, but what I'm not sure about is what your criteria for proof is. | |
| And of course, to me, just my untutored non-praxeological mind, it sounds like the criteria is something that is impossible, right? | |
| So I don't want to pursue a criteria for proof. | |
| And I really do appreciate, I mean, I'm not trying to be cynical here, I really do appreciate that you can give me a criteria by which I can work to prove this. | |
| I mean, to me, that would be... I think I've said that. | |
| I think I gave that criteria. | |
| But I don't understand it in a practical way. | |
| You would need a praxeological theory of social change, of change in ideology. | |
| And you just gave what you can't possibly call a praxeological theory about the ethics, that it would lead to a contradiction, so that's perfect. | |
| But what you would also need is a praxeological theory that would show that the way to achieve ethical change will be I think I can provide one, and you can tell me if it makes sense to you or not. | |
| Ethics is really around the decisions and the actions of an individual, right? | |
| There's no such thing as the ethics of a tree, and there's no such thing as the ethics of a crowd. | |
| Ethics are around the decisions and the actions of an individual. | |
| Would that be fairly fair to say? | |
| Yep. Okay. | |
| Now, when somebody wants to become more ethical, then, because ethics is also related to reality, right? | |
| Because the reason that we believe that a logical theory This is a crucial point. | |
| Sorry? Because now you are connecting the ethical theory with the practical. | |
| Well, sure. You can just like that make that step. | |
| Well, why is a logical theory better than an illogical theory? | |
| In ethics. That is like evident. | |
| Any theory. Mathematics, ethics, science, doesn't matter. | |
| Why is a logical theory better than an illogical theory? | |
| Because an illogical theory doesn't say anything. | |
| I'm sorry? Because an illogical theory doesn't say anything. | |
| Yes, it does. It says that contradiction is valid. | |
| Yes, but you cannot legitimately say that. | |
| We can't say that because contradiction is not valid, and we know that contradiction is not valid because of reality. | |
| Contradictions don't exist in reality. | |
| That's Aristotelian, right? | |
| That's A is A, three laws of logic. | |
| Sorry? It's also a Wittgensteinian hero to Trappato's Logico Philosophicus about that. | |
| Right, right. So, clearly, logic is something that is derived from the actions of reality, right? | |
| Well, then you'd have to get into the realism debate, and that exactly is what my dissertation is about. | |
| And that will take us way too far, because you can see it as a precondition or as a fact. | |
| And I would be willing to see it as a precondition, but not as a fact. | |
| But we cannot go into that, because that will take us days. | |
| Okay, well, we... We can try if you like, but... | |
| Well, I mean, I think that if you're right, I mean, you know more about this because you're studying it, so I'm not going to try and teach the Master. | |
| Not anymore. You know, we've certainly established some useful things, I think, so far, and we can perhaps have that conversation another time. | |
| So, you know, I mean, that's fine with me to take a pause there. | |
| Okay. Yeah, because we've been going on for about two hours now. | |
| I don't know how long you have time. | |
| Well, if you wanted to, we can take a very short swing, if you'd like, like no more than 15 minutes at the question of the board issues. | |
| Okay. I think the goal of being on the board, for most people, the stated goal will be the pursuit of truth. | |
| And you can also make jokes and laugh and do silly things and stuff, but not at the expense of truth. | |
| Would you agree with that? | |
| I'm sorry, can you repeat that? | |
| I just got distracted by the idea of laughing, but if you could just repeat that, I'd appreciate it. | |
| The goal of our behavior on the board is the pursuit of truth. | |
| Sure, yeah, absolutely. | |
| And of course we can laugh and do silly things, but not at the expense of truth. | |
| Right. Furthermore, there is a definite methodology to reaching the truth in the argumentation process. | |
| If somebody makes a point, then you investigate that point, and you put four counter-arguments, and then the other person can listen to those again and do something about those things. | |
| And you use logic and facts in argumentation. | |
| So that would seem to be the... | |
| The main way of arguing on the board, that they would have to satisfy those criteria. | |
| Right. But what I've started to observe on the board is that, I would even say in the great majority of cases, if somebody puts forth an argument, then the reactions to that point are not based on what the person wrote, but based on what the responder thought the person wrote or perceived. | |
| Or they Intentionally all of a sudden take a step to the side and begin about something else without either acknowledging or refuting the point the other person made while they still continue to hold on to their belief. | |
| And this happens so many times and also intentional misrepresenting of people's positions that I think something else than the pursuit of truth is going on on the board. | |
| Okay. And, I mean, that's not my experience of the board, but of course, I mean, everybody has. | |
| I mean, I can't follow every thread or anything like that, but... | |
| I understand, but, well, then it would be helpful if I also... | |
| Because I think you also exhibit this behavior. | |
| So, perhaps you... | |
| Sorry. You can't see it because it is all around you or something. | |
| For example, there are a lot of threads where there's a discussion going on and somebody makes a post. | |
| and you were not very involved in the discussion but then all of a sudden you come by and you pick like one remark from a post and reply to that and quite often not even reply to that but answer a question nobody asked and then you disappear again and then the other person is left wondering okay, my other points, did he accept them or did he refute them? | |
| Does he have arguments against them? | |
| You don't know Right, right. | |
| Well, look, I mean, I think that that's certainly a valid criticism insofar as there are times when, you know, I could come up with all the stuff about time pressure and so on. | |
| There are certainly times when I don't read an entire seven-page thread, but if I think that somebody is putting forward an erroneous statement, I will point that out, and not necessarily, because, you know, if there is an erroneous statement, that certainly needs to be cleared up, or at least if I perceive there is an erroneous statement, that needs to be cleared up. | |
| I don't need to look at all your mathematical reasoning if you say 2 plus 2 is 5. | |
| That's what I need to point out. I understand that. | |
| For example, I remember one post that I made where I addressed arguments that the position that you also subscribed to had and I addressed those points and I think I made valid points about them. | |
| And then your response was to single out one remark Misrepresent that and then refute that. | |
| And then you left the discussion again. | |
| This happens for so many people the whole time. | |
| And then I wonder if you're not, I mean, you are smart enough to realize that this is not a good way to reach truth. | |
| So what are you doing then? | |
| What then is your goal? | |
| Well, I wouldn't say that. I can give you examples. | |
| Yeah, I mean, certainly if you can email me the examples, but I mean, the key thing is that if I'm doing something that you consider to be wrong, and I certainly do appreciate that you're bringing it up now, you know, I mean, everybody, I mean, it's a resource issue, right? | |
| I mean, A lot of people on the board have a more personal relationship with me just because of the 830 members and, you know, whatever, hundreds of emails than I have with them, right? | |
| So there's a mismatch of attention focus, right? | |
| So if you have a post going on with me, then you're interested in whatever may be about my response. | |
| But if I have, like, 30 arguments going on at the same time, I can't necessarily, and it's not an excuse, to me it's just a fact of resources, I can't necessarily devote my full attention to each one, right? | |
| But I think that I try and put something positive in at least. | |
| But, of course, if I've done something completely wrong, then you can tell me, right? | |
| I mean, obviously, and I appreciate you telling me this now, and if you can provide or send me an email with an example, I will certainly have a look at that in more detail and absolutely and completely and totally apologize if I have done something malicious or destructive or negative in that way. | |
| Okay, that's fine. I will send you some examples, but I don't agree with the resources argument because... | |
| You are the one who chooses to respond in so many threats. | |
| You can also say, okay, well, I'm going to stick to four threats and argue really well there. | |
| What you are doing is you're active on 20 different threats, and then necessarily you don't have the resources to do that, but then you're not engaged in the pursuit of truth. | |
| They're just like being places. | |
| Hang on just a sec. I think that you may be going a little bit far there because this is the first complaint that I've had directly about this issue. | |
| So I can't limit my own behavior. | |
| Because of the possibility that I might be overstretching myself, right? | |
| I can do what I consider to be valid, and then if there are problems with it, then somebody can tell me. | |
| But I can't limit my own behavior because there may be a problem, right? | |
| So if it turns out that at this point I have overstretched myself, then I certainly appreciate that feedback, and that's something that I need to do a course correction on. | |
| But I can't do that ahead of feedback. | |
| Okay, I understand. So then we would only be able to talk about it after I send some examples, because then you know what I'm talking about. | |
| Yes, I think so. Okay. | |
| Well, okay, then that would pretty much end this topic. | |
| Okay, well, thanks very much. | |
| I certainly appreciate this. | |
| It was a very interesting conversation. | |
| Do you feel you learned anything significant? | |
| And I asked this for some practical reasons. | |
| Right. Well, for me, I don't feel that I have changed my opinions from when I started. | |
| Which, again, I'm not going to make you... | |
| I mean, just for those who don't know, you kindly offered to pay me some cash. | |
| If I didn't, so I'll listen to it again, and I'll mull it over, but I certainly do appreciate that offer, but I can't sort of make a call on it just now. | |
| Well, I mean, becoming clearer about certain things would also be learning something, or knowing where the differences are. | |
| Yeah, I mean, that certainly could be the case. | |
| I mean, I'm not sure that, I mean, what I have to do, I'll listen to this again, and I'm not sure that I've used arguments that I haven't used before, but I'm certainly going to have a listen and see. | |
| Okay, then you can let me know then. | |
| I sure will. Thank you so much. | |
| I appreciate it. Okay, thank you for the response. |
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