Harvard professor Richard Pipes explores the history of property rights and their relationship to freedom. His thesis is that freedom is essentially defined as the ability to exercise property rights “What a man is, what he does, and what he owns are of a piece, so that the assault on his belongings is an assault also on his individuality and his right to life.” (p 210)
"Aristotle argues possessions enable men to rise to a higher ethical level by giving them the opportunity to be generous: 'liberality consists in the use which is made of property' " (p 8)
“[Communism] was born halfway through the mid eighteenth century…It was a pure intellectual construct, conceived in the imagination of thinkers who looked backward to a Golden Age. It held an irresistible attraction for those intellectuals who liked to blame their personal problems on the society in which they happened to live.” (p 43)
“Suffice it to say that in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, Marx and Engels asserted that ‘the theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property.’” (p 51)
“While acquisitiveness is natural, respect for the property – and the liberty – of others is not. It has to be inculcated until it sinks such deep roots in the people’s consciousness that it is able to withstand all efforts to crush it.” (p 208)
“Thus the modern government not only ‘redistributes’ the possessions of its citizens, it also regulates their use. It invokes environmental laws to limit the use of land and housing. It interferes with the freedom of contract by legislating minimum wages and enforcing ‘affirmative action’ hiring practices. It imposes rent controls. It interferes with virtually every aspect of business, punishing any action that looks like price fixing, setting rates for public utilities, preventing the formation of trusts, regulating communications and transport, pressuring banks to lend to designated neighborhoods, and so on. The Task Force on Reinventing Government appointed by President Clinton and chaired by Vice President Gore estimated in 1993 that the ‘cost to the private sector of complying with [external] regulations is at least $430 billion annually – 9 percent of our gross national product!’” (p 231)
“The American revolution was carried out for the protection of property, the bastion of liberty, because it was believed that by taxing the colonists without giving them the opportunity to assent to taxation amounted to confiscation. At every stage in the controversy to 1776 and beyond, Americans claimed to be defending property rights.” (p 240)
“In 1923 the Supreme Court nullified these state laws when it upheld the decision of a District of Columbia court in the case of Children’s Hospital v. Adkins that minimum wage laws represented ‘an unconstitutional interference with the freedom of contract included within the guarantees of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.” (In 1937 during the Depression the Court declared minimum wages to be constitutional) (p 262)
“The close relationship between property and prosperity is demonstrated by the course of history, which shows that one of the main reasons for the rise of the West to the position of global economic preeminence lies in the institution of property, which originated there and found there its fullest development. … countries that provide the firmest guarantees of economic independence, including private property rights, are virtually without exception the richest. They also enjoy the best civil services and judiciary institutions.” (p 286)
"Within a month of taking control of the German government, the Nazis suspended constitutional guarantees of the inviolability of private property." (p 221)
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Richard Feynman in "What Do YOU Care What Other People Think?"
"We are at the beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. but there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time. This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as we are. If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming "This is the answer, my friends, man is saved!" we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority confined to the limits of our present imagination. It has been done so many times before."
"It is our responsibility as scientists knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations."
"It is our responsibility as scientists knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations."
Saturday, September 22, 2007
More Consilience
Short of reproducing the last 100 pages of Wilson's book I will not be able to do it justice. A few juicy tidbits:
"As Kurt Voggegut, Jr. master fantasist once pointed out, the arts place humanity in the center of the universe, whether we belong there or not. ... In both the arts and sciences the programmed brain seeks elegance, which is the parsimonious and evocative description of pattern to make sense out of a confusion of detail." (p 239)
"Imitate, make it geometrical, intensify. That is not a bad three-part formula for the driving pulse of the arts as a whole." (p 241)
"As Louis Armstrong is reported to have said about jazz: If you have to ask, you'll never know. Scientists, in contrast, try to know." (p242)
"..every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals. The swiftest road to success has always been sponsorship by a conquering state." (p 267)
"A better life later on, either an earthly paradise or resurrection in heaven, is the promised reward that cultures invent to justify the subordinating imperative of social existence. Repeated from one generation to the next, submission to the group and its moral codes is solidified in official doctrine and personal belief. But it is not ordained by God or plucked from the air as self-evident truth. It evolves as a necessary device of survival in social organisms." (p 268)
"Meanwhile, the melanges of moral reasoning employed by modern societies are, to put the matter simply , a mess. They are chimeras, composed of odd parts stuch together. ... Little wonder then, that ethics is the most publicly contested of all philosophical enterprises. Or that political science, which at foundation is primarily the study of applied ethics, is so frequently problematic. Neither is informed by anything that would be recognizable as authentic theory in the natural sciences. " (p 278)
""Fear," as the Roman poet Lucretius said, "was the first thing on earth to make gods." ... If the religious mythos did not exist in culture, it would be quickly invented, and in fact it has been everywhere, thousands of times through history." (p 281)
"People need a sacred narrative. ... If the sacred narrative cannot be in the form of a religious cosmology, it will be taken from the material history of the universe and the human species." (p289)
"The central idea of the consilience world view is that all tangible phenomena, from the birth of stars to the workings of social institutions, are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible, however long and tortuous the sequences, to the laws of physics." (p 291)
"..most people ... respect science but are baffled by it. ... The productions of science, other than medical breakthroughs and the sporadic thrills of space exploration, are thought marginal." (p 293)
"Science, however, is not marginal. Like art, it is a universal possession of humanity... Thanks to science and technology, access to factual knowledge of all kinds is rising exponentially while dropping in unit cost. It is destined to become global and democratic. Soon it will be available everywhere on television and computer screens. What then? The answer is clear: synthesis. We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely." (p 294)
"As Kurt Voggegut, Jr. master fantasist once pointed out, the arts place humanity in the center of the universe, whether we belong there or not. ... In both the arts and sciences the programmed brain seeks elegance, which is the parsimonious and evocative description of pattern to make sense out of a confusion of detail." (p 239)
"Imitate, make it geometrical, intensify. That is not a bad three-part formula for the driving pulse of the arts as a whole." (p 241)
"As Louis Armstrong is reported to have said about jazz: If you have to ask, you'll never know. Scientists, in contrast, try to know." (p242)
"..every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals. The swiftest road to success has always been sponsorship by a conquering state." (p 267)
"A better life later on, either an earthly paradise or resurrection in heaven, is the promised reward that cultures invent to justify the subordinating imperative of social existence. Repeated from one generation to the next, submission to the group and its moral codes is solidified in official doctrine and personal belief. But it is not ordained by God or plucked from the air as self-evident truth. It evolves as a necessary device of survival in social organisms." (p 268)
"Meanwhile, the melanges of moral reasoning employed by modern societies are, to put the matter simply , a mess. They are chimeras, composed of odd parts stuch together. ... Little wonder then, that ethics is the most publicly contested of all philosophical enterprises. Or that political science, which at foundation is primarily the study of applied ethics, is so frequently problematic. Neither is informed by anything that would be recognizable as authentic theory in the natural sciences. " (p 278)
""Fear," as the Roman poet Lucretius said, "was the first thing on earth to make gods." ... If the religious mythos did not exist in culture, it would be quickly invented, and in fact it has been everywhere, thousands of times through history." (p 281)
"People need a sacred narrative. ... If the sacred narrative cannot be in the form of a religious cosmology, it will be taken from the material history of the universe and the human species." (p289)
"The central idea of the consilience world view is that all tangible phenomena, from the birth of stars to the workings of social institutions, are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible, however long and tortuous the sequences, to the laws of physics." (p 291)
"..most people ... respect science but are baffled by it. ... The productions of science, other than medical breakthroughs and the sporadic thrills of space exploration, are thought marginal." (p 293)
"Science, however, is not marginal. Like art, it is a universal possession of humanity... Thanks to science and technology, access to factual knowledge of all kinds is rising exponentially while dropping in unit cost. It is destined to become global and democratic. Soon it will be available everywhere on television and computer screens. What then? The answer is clear: synthesis. We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely." (p 294)
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Free to Choose
"A Personal Statement" says the subtitle, but this 1979 treatise on the workings and development of economic systems by Milton and Rose Friedman, is a celebration of laissez-faire capitalism and libertarian philosophy. The Friedmans explode numerous myths about the benefits of government, unions, Ralph Nader, and environmentalism, with abundant clear examples from history.
Every society has dissatisfaction and must find someone to blame:
"In every society, however it is organized, there is always dissatisfaction with the distribution of income. ... In a command system envy and dissatisfaction are directed at the rulers. In a free market system they are directed at the market." (p 22)
The Tragedy of the Common:
"When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition." (p 24)
Who's to blame for inflation?:
"The recogition that substantial inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon is only the beginning of an understanding of the cause and cure of inflation." (p 254)
What caused the Depression?:
"We now know, as few knew then, that the Depression was not produced by a failure of private enterprise, but rather by a failure of governmet in an area in which the government had from the first been assigned responsibility - To coin money, regulate the Value therof, and of foreign Coin, in the words of Section 8, Article 1 of the U. S. Constitution." (p 71)
Is government regulation of drugs a benefit to the public?
"..it is desirable that the public be protected from unsafe and useless drugs. However, it is also desirable that new drug development should be stimulated, and that new drugs should be made available to those who can benefit from them as soon as possible. As is so often the case, one good objective conflicts with other good objectives. Safety and caution in one direction can mean death in another. The crucial questions are whether FDA regulation has been effective... By now, considerable evidence has accumulated that indicates that FDA regulation is counterproductive, that it has done more harm by retarding progress in the production and distribution of valuable drugs than it has done good by preventing the distribution of harmful or ineffective drugs.
Put yourself in the position of an FDA official charged with approving or disapproving a new drug. You can make two very different mistakes:
1. Approve a drug that turns out to have unanticipated side effects resulting in the death or serious impairment of a sizable number of persons.
2. Refuse approval of a drug that is capable of saving many lives or relieving great distress and that has no untoward side effects.
If you make the first mistake--approve a thalidomide--your name will be spread over the front page of every newspaper. You will be in deep disgrace. If you make the second mistake, who will know it? ....is there any doubt which mistake you will be more anxious to avoid?"
...for these reasons the FDA should be abolished..."(p 205)
Every society has dissatisfaction and must find someone to blame:
"In every society, however it is organized, there is always dissatisfaction with the distribution of income. ... In a command system envy and dissatisfaction are directed at the rulers. In a free market system they are directed at the market." (p 22)
The Tragedy of the Common:
"When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition." (p 24)
Who's to blame for inflation?:
"The recogition that substantial inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon is only the beginning of an understanding of the cause and cure of inflation." (p 254)
What caused the Depression?:
"We now know, as few knew then, that the Depression was not produced by a failure of private enterprise, but rather by a failure of governmet in an area in which the government had from the first been assigned responsibility - To coin money, regulate the Value therof, and of foreign Coin, in the words of Section 8, Article 1 of the U. S. Constitution." (p 71)
Is government regulation of drugs a benefit to the public?
"..it is desirable that the public be protected from unsafe and useless drugs. However, it is also desirable that new drug development should be stimulated, and that new drugs should be made available to those who can benefit from them as soon as possible. As is so often the case, one good objective conflicts with other good objectives. Safety and caution in one direction can mean death in another. The crucial questions are whether FDA regulation has been effective... By now, considerable evidence has accumulated that indicates that FDA regulation is counterproductive, that it has done more harm by retarding progress in the production and distribution of valuable drugs than it has done good by preventing the distribution of harmful or ineffective drugs.
Put yourself in the position of an FDA official charged with approving or disapproving a new drug. You can make two very different mistakes:
1. Approve a drug that turns out to have unanticipated side effects resulting in the death or serious impairment of a sizable number of persons.
2. Refuse approval of a drug that is capable of saving many lives or relieving great distress and that has no untoward side effects.
If you make the first mistake--approve a thalidomide--your name will be spread over the front page of every newspaper. You will be in deep disgrace. If you make the second mistake, who will know it? ....is there any doubt which mistake you will be more anxious to avoid?"
...for these reasons the FDA should be abolished..."(p 205)
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Ain't Nobody's Business
Peter McWilliams' 1993 treatise on consensual crimes such as prostitution, gambling, drug use, etc. has aged well. A veritable treasure trove of pithy quotes from ancient Greek philosophers to Milton Friedman and Jimmy Durante (!), and useful facts and statistics make this an all-time favorite. McWilliams philosphy boils down to: You should be free to do whatever you damn well please as long as it doesn't harm the person or property of another.
"Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?" - Jimmy Durante
"That which we call sin in others is experiment for us" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues" - Abraham Lincoln
Ironically, or perhaps prophetically, McWilliams contracted AIDS and was growing his own weed to help combat the effects of his AIDS meds, like nausea etc. Our benevolent Federal government raided his home and held his mother's house as collateral for his bail. If McWilliams were to fail a weekly urine test she would lose the house!
Tragically on June 14, 2000 this champion of liberty, confined to a wheelchair due to the advance of AIDS, choked to death on his own nausea-induced vomit while attempting to take a simple bath.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0931580587/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added/103-0862137-1671034
"Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?" - Jimmy Durante
"That which we call sin in others is experiment for us" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues" - Abraham Lincoln
Ironically, or perhaps prophetically, McWilliams contracted AIDS and was growing his own weed to help combat the effects of his AIDS meds, like nausea etc. Our benevolent Federal government raided his home and held his mother's house as collateral for his bail. If McWilliams were to fail a weekly urine test she would lose the house!
Tragically on June 14, 2000 this champion of liberty, confined to a wheelchair due to the advance of AIDS, choked to death on his own nausea-induced vomit while attempting to take a simple bath.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0931580587/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added/103-0862137-1671034
Consilience - E. O. Wilson
E. O. Wilson, renowned entomologist, covers a broad range of subjects with the aim of developing a unifying knowledge system. His prime focus is human intellect, its development, limits, influences, and relationship to the biosphere.
On creativity, quoting Herbert Simon:
" "What chiefly characterizes creative thinking from more mundane forms are (i) willingness to accept vaguely defined problem statements and gradually structure them, (ii) continuing preoccupation with problems over a considerable period of time, and (iii) extensive background knowledge in background and potentially relevant areas." To put that in a nutshell: knowledge, obsession, daring." (p70)
On society:
"In mammals, social life is a contrivance to enhance personal survival and reproductive success."
On the direction of scientific funding:
"Science, like art, and as always through history, follows patronage." (p 101)
"For the immediate future the genetics of human behavior will travel behind two spearheads. The first is research on mental disorders, and the second is research on gender difference and sexual preference. ... They fit a cardinal rule in the conduct of scientific research. Find a paradigm for which you can raise money and attack it with every method of analysis at your disposal." (p170)
How often have we seen that played out! Through the 60's with cancer and space, the 70's and 80's with alternate energy, artificial intelligence, and cold fusion, the 90's with nanotechnology and genome research, and now with 'global warming/climate change', stem cells, energy independence, biofuels, etc. In one sense this is the ideal of a market- or needs-driven process, in another sense that market is woefully uninformed and hijacked by political hacks exploiting societal whims.
On creativity, quoting Herbert Simon:
" "What chiefly characterizes creative thinking from more mundane forms are (i) willingness to accept vaguely defined problem statements and gradually structure them, (ii) continuing preoccupation with problems over a considerable period of time, and (iii) extensive background knowledge in background and potentially relevant areas." To put that in a nutshell: knowledge, obsession, daring." (p70)
On society:
"In mammals, social life is a contrivance to enhance personal survival and reproductive success."
On the direction of scientific funding:
"Science, like art, and as always through history, follows patronage." (p 101)
"For the immediate future the genetics of human behavior will travel behind two spearheads. The first is research on mental disorders, and the second is research on gender difference and sexual preference. ... They fit a cardinal rule in the conduct of scientific research. Find a paradigm for which you can raise money and attack it with every method of analysis at your disposal." (p170)
How often have we seen that played out! Through the 60's with cancer and space, the 70's and 80's with alternate energy, artificial intelligence, and cold fusion, the 90's with nanotechnology and genome research, and now with 'global warming/climate change', stem cells, energy independence, biofuels, etc. In one sense this is the ideal of a market- or needs-driven process, in another sense that market is woefully uninformed and hijacked by political hacks exploiting societal whims.
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