On Competition as “Human Nature”
Egoists and other self-interested folks often bring up the notion of “human nature” as if it were some deducible characteristic.
The problem is that historical evidence cannot be used to argue human nature in a vacuum. If a few masters hold a hundred men in slavery, and the slaves compete to survive, this says nothing about the nature of humans.
It is understandable – though fallacious – to reason that competition and strife are natural; after all, it is the observable reality. However, there is no empirical basis with which to pursue the argument that it is human nature, as opposed to systemic factors – inequality, domination, exploitation, hierarchy – that produce this result.
When we talk about cooperation – collectivism, socialism, communism – viewing it against the existing statist, capitalist paradigm, in which one must compete to survive, is useless. If one arbitrarily limits himself to being kept in a cage, he will remain so. So when we talk about such revolutionary notions as cooperation – which transcend the arbitrary and baseless limits often set by so-called “human nature” – think big: upright-walking, tool-making, fire. In fact, think bigger. The way I see it, either social evolution is coming, or our species (and in many senses, the earth) may very well die off (among other somber scenarios). Surely, we wouldn’t be the first humanoids, nor the first homo species to pursue such paths.
Competition need not exist. It is simply a function of our incredibly barbaric society – a monument to the primitive state in which we find ourselves. Those ethical positions which argue in favor of self-interest as a guiding principle seek to perpetuate this.
Natural Rights: Easy as Pi to Refute
Brad Spangler, “anarcho”-capitalist and self-proclaimed “Rothbardian socialist”, recently revived the philosophically bankrupt notion of “natural rights”. In a blog titled “Natural rights: easy as pi”, he had this to say:
“Individual rights or natural rights are just as “real” as the number pi. It’s a concept that describes a fundamental aspect of reality – that among a collection of autonomous agents, specific boundaries to the scope of available actions are conducive to the flourishing of the entire collective.”
Since Brad raises some of the usual fallacies and logical deceptions employed by “natural law” theorists, I thought it would be a good idea to point them out for what they are.
Fallacy after fallacy
Firstly, Brad is committing the reverse is-ought fallacy (or the moralistic fallacy) by deriving an “is” from an “ought”. He is basically claiming that rights are conducive to flourishing; human collectives ought to flourish; therefore rights exist. The notion that this sort of circular reasoning holds any water philosophically is absurd.
Secondly, implicit in Brad’s argument is the ipse-dixitism – a plainly dogmatic assertion – that “to exist” is “to be natural”. If the notion of rights is “real” as Brad claims, what makes them “natural”? Surely, the argument is lacking in explanation for this assertion.
Thirdly, Brad’s analysis hinges on a variant of the bare assertion fallacy. Rather than describing reality (“fact”) as he claims to be doing, he has simply asserted and reasserted the supposed truth of a normative statement and the description derived from it. As such, his use of the words “describes” and “reality” are quite misleading and inappropriate; whatever corollaries are drawn from his analysis are purely within the realm of conjecture, having no logical or epistemic basis to be considered fact.
On the descriptive argument
Taken descriptively, the crux of the argument contains two assertions. Regarding the statement, “among a collection of autonomous agents, specific boundaries to the scope of available actions are conducive to the flourishing of the entire collective”, I think that to argue its validity as a truism – either in favor of it being true or not – would be to argue from ignorance; it is not something that can necessarily be known at present. [1] The aforementioned assertion may be true if interpreted ambiguously; that is to say, without normative conclusions derived from the subjectively defined “autonomous”, “specific boundaries”, “flourishing”, etc. [2] Regardless, the point is that this is a futile position from which to argue in favor of individual rights – and certainly of the existence of individual rights – in part because of the empirical impossibility of “natural rights”, and in part because of the empirical impossibility of objectively measuring the effects of individual rights (or of particular sets of individual rights compared to others) on the collective, at least under Brad’s proposed methodology. (More on both points below.)
Regarding the other assertion – “Individual rights or natural rights are just as ‘real’ as the number pi. It’s a concept that describes a fundamental aspect of reality” – I have already shown the reasoning for this contention to be fallacious. I will refute the substantive basis for “natural law” theory in the next section.
First, I would like to address Brad’s claim that praxeology serves as an objective framework to empirically measure collective goal attainment (and therefore the “flourishing of the entire collective”). This assertion can be refuted on the basis that praxeology cannot objectively value the goals of two beings relative to one another since it rejects the notion of collective rationality. There is no ordinal scheme with which to measure the goals of more than one individual in praxeological thought; there is no empirical basis by which to measure the degree of uneasiness removed by one individual relative to another, or relative to the collective.
Further, individuals inevitably begin from different degrees of uneasiness. As such, self-interested, egoistic goals cannot be said to be “equal” to one another, so qualitative measurements thereof are of no use empirically. The notion that one man’s primary goal of filling his empty stomach is equal to another man’s primary goal, to find a tasty port wine to top off a gluttonous feast, is absurd. How could one measure this as a function of total goal attainment within the group – which is always in flux, and which cannot be objectively measured between individuals? One might claim that one goal is equal to another of the same ordinal rank, prima facie, but that would be to subject the supposedly empirical measurements of goal maximization to the egoist value system, nullifying any supposed objectivity. This is obviously not an issue of “fact”, as Brad would like to claim, but rather an issue of normative judgments.
Finally, even if one were to concede that praxeological methodology could objectively measure collective goal attainment, how could one attribute such functions to the existence of rights, considering the fact that such experience is irreproducible and uncontrolled? Attempts to employ such baseless methodologies to situations of collective rationality must inevitably fail.
On appeals to nature
“Natural rights” and “natural law” are often represented as truisms about reality, but they are actually derived a priori from fixed and often misleading definitions. Proponents of “natural law” have always invented definitions in order to derive from them “truths” about reality, and accordingly normative conclusions. A telling instance of this bankrupt methodology can be seen in Murray Rothbard’s attempts to prove so-called axiomatic knowledge. As the AFAQ notes, Rothbard in The Ethics of Liberty remarks that “[a]n apple, let fall, will drop to the ground; this we all observe and acknowledge to be in the nature of the apple.” Rather than applying our a posteriori knowledge of gravity, Rothbard aprioristically attributes the action of falling to the “nature” (essence) of the apple, rather than to “nature” (the physical world) – deriving illogical conclusions from his own invented definition. In short, “natural law” theorists and praxeologists generally derive propositions from premises that are simply assumed to be true, but are themselves never subject to logical or empirical proofs. The implication should be clear: “inventing” reality and “describing” reality are quite different things.
Further, since “natural laws” hinge on immutable definitions, they – unlike physical laws – cannot be revised based on empirical reality, and are therefore nothing more than rigid dogma, perpetuated by their supposed status as “law”. The very notion of characterizing such aprioristic logic on the plane of physical laws is an intentional fallacy of equivocation on the part of “natural law” theorists, used to imbue their theories with the empirical foundation of physical laws of nature – which, of course, they have no relevance to. [3] As the AFAQ points out, how can one make the argument that any set of supposed “natural rights” exists if it can be violated in nature, and therefore must be enforced? In other words, “natural law” theory can be refuted a posteriori.
As such, Brad’s assertion of the existence of “natural rights” fails; it cannot stand up to empirical knowledge. As for the secondary concern of normative conclusions derived from the premises of Brad’s argument, I am more so addressing the prescriptive tactics of “natural law” theorists than specific conclusions made here. Brad postured his argument so as to be as ambiguous as possible; there is the possibility that he did not intend to draw any meaningful conclusions from the subjectively defined terms that compose his premises. [4] Regardless, he has still failed to prove the existence of “natural rights”.
(As a side note, I can only presume what Brad is getting at, per usual, by his choice in terms. For example, I imagine “autonomous agents”, similar to the egoist “moral agents”, is termed to indicate the human species or similar level, based on the notion that thresholds of sentience determine the value of life; completely arbitrary and out of touch with basic scientific and epistemic principles, I know. The problems that stem from this sort of arbitrary and illogical analysis – dehumanization, carnivorism, animal cruelty, environmental destruction and injustice, etc. – are numerous, but I will leave that for another blog.)
There is a lesson here for “anarcho”-capitalists: stop using the fallacious justifications used by kings, slave-owners and priests to rationalize their own perverted actions and prejudices. They don’t work, except to draw attention to the philosophical and moral bankruptcy of the theories they are used to defend. Rights ought to exist as functions of morality, not as fabricated descriptive truth – where “natural law” theorists hope to place them out of reach of logical discourse. To advocate the latter is to advocate dogma.
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[1] Although my gut reaction is to agree, I must think, at the least, that the notion of “autonomy” in this context is an unnecessary requisite that arbitrarily limits the ethical reach of the argument to humans, or similar. Regardless, the proposition rests on unproven premises.
[2] Obviously, “anarcho”-capitalists, anarchists, pacifists, vegans, environmentalists, etc., combinations thereof, and all other shades of society will define these terms differently, therefore coming to differing conclusions as to what represents “reality” or “nature”, under such logic. Albeit, Brad is being fairly ambiguous (purposefully, I assume), perhaps to imply some sort of a panarchist position. The problem therein lies in the ancient issue of certain sets of individual rights in one society contradicting those of another (itself, an empirical refutation of the existence of “natural rights”). In such a situation, a right of exit is insufficient where one group of individuals may – by virtue of one society’s accepted norms (property, for instance) – impose authority over another (in effect, nullifying any supposed right of exit).
[3] This relates to the fallacious use of equivocation on Brad’s part when he uses the term “fundamental aspect of reality” to imply that “natural rights” are associated with the “fundamental laws of reality” (or physical laws, as I have used in this article).
[4] See [2]
A Life Sentence for Petty Theft
California’s three-strikes law, doing what it does best:
According to Yolo County prosecutors, a man should serve life in prison for “swiping a woman’s wallet from a convenience store counter” and “stealing $3.99 worth of shredded cheese”.
“They say 22 years in prison failed to teach [Robert] Ferguson” — a repeat burglar — “to obey the law.”
Okay, in other words: Disregard the fact that prisons do not deter crime; forget the disproportionate imprisonment of impoverished minorities relative to the general population; never mind the utter lack of regard for prisoner welfare and safety, nor the corrupting nature of prisons. Do these things, so that you won’t notice the crimes against humanity being committed.
The prison system is a blight on human society in which the impoverished and alienated classes are systematically targeted and abused. Once having been imprisoned, individuals are most often condemned to a life of crime — barred from the normal wage slave or public sector jobs and naturally lacking the access to capital or productive means. We must treat those branded “criminals” and terrorized by the police, courts, and prison systems as they are: human beings.
The first duty of the revolution will be to abolish prisons — those monuments of human hypocrisy and cowardice. Anti-social acts need not be feared in a society of equals, in the midst of a free people, all of whom have acquired a healthy education and the habit of mutually aiding one another.
Next month Robert Ferguson will be sentenced, possibly to life in prison for mere petty theft. Perhaps such an extreme case of the unethical treatment of so-called “criminals” can serve as a starting point for those that doubt that there are better ways to deal with anti-social behavior.
“Thanksgiving,” “Black Friday” and Other Worthless Traditions
Well, it’s been another eventful Thanksgiving season. The world has 270 million turkeys less than it did before, America’s collective waistband is a great deal more snug, and the perhaps decade-old tradition of “Black Friday” consumerism is once again behind us.
I haven’t kept up with the news (nor did I engage in the “turkey dinner” or the “buy-something-day” mentality that followed as over-excited and gassy shoppers showcased how unenlightened our species is), so I’m not sure how shameful and/or violent this year’s behavior was. But I wanted to recall a few highlights from last year.
A death by trampling in a New York Wal Mart as insane shoppers commence in insanity:
An argument between two shoppers in a Toys R Us ends in a shooting murder:
While it may be too late this year to rethink the stupidity and cruelty of the Thanksgiving traditions that you likely partook in this year, perhaps you can get a head start on thinking about next year — so that we’ll have at least a handful less people gorging themselves with turkey and shitty deals from corporate chain stores.
Standing in blood…
I wanted to post this video from Freedomain Radio that was posted a little while back. Though I may not agree with all of his views, kudos to Stefan Molyneux for what he does.
“Shema: September 12, 2001,” a poem by Aurora Levins Morales
I recently dug out a book I had read in high school entitled September 11 and the U.S. War: Beyond the Curtain of Smoke, a collection of essays released a year after 9/11 which explores the dark reality of U.S. foreign policy, and puts the “war on terror” into the rightful context of American imperialism. Years later, some of the works have a far greater impact on me than they once did; one of which is entitled Shema: September 12, 2001, a poem which I am posting here for others to appreciate. Emphasis added at times by me, not the original author.
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Hear this: while the generals, panting, peruse their lists of countries to bomb
in the sacred cause of reestablishing that their collective dick is bigger
than that of any pissant, terrorist-wielding, dark-faced dictator in a tent;
while the same men who have plotted invasion after invasion of sovereign lands
bombed cities into rubble on every inhabited continent, called the deaths of children
an acceptable sacrifice, kidnapped killed and replaced the leaders of other countries
with nothing but admiration for their own maneuvers,
Hear this! While these men diagram the next war into which they will drag us
using our fear as gasoline, using our grief as lubricant—
wake up!
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Read the rest here.
A Few Remarks on Protests of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh
I commend all my comrades engaged in the struggles against corporatism and capitalism that took place yesterday, and will continue throughout today, in the streets of Pittsburgh.
It has been documented that for the first time in history, sonic weapons such as LRADs were deployed against US civilians. There were reports of police utilizing tear gas, smoke bombs, percussion grenades, and rubber / beanbag bullets, among other weapons.
Violation of Posse Comitatus is nothing new, but is always good to note as we watch our society further devolve into violent tyranny. US Soldiers and Pittsburgh police have arrested at least 66 individuals. The Pittsburgh Police Department claimed that because protesters had not previously obtained a “permit” to assemble, that they would be dispersed and arrested as an “illegal assembly”. It really is high time that constitutionalists stop hiding behind that meaningless piece of paper, don’t you think?
I had been following tweets and police scanner throughout the day; this one in particular stuck out for me: “KDKA Radio: Police are instigating crowds, shooting at anyone. A reporter was hit with a rubber bullet.”
Update: “More than 175 people were arrested over two days.“
Here are a couple videos and pictures captured yesterday. Keep in mind the questions: Who and what are they protecting?
National Guard soldiers snatch a protester into an unmarked car and drive off:
Subsequent arrest of seemingly peaceful protester:
Officer bludgeons a girl from behind; she responds by throwing her bike at officers; the officers beat her to the ground and arrest her:
There is much more to be said about the heinous police state actions that took place in Pittsburgh yesterday, just as there will be after the protests today. Despite all the mainstream propaganda “coverage” of the protests—blaming anarchists for all of the world’s problems and calling for more police violence—I think that a particular question ought to be present in the minds of anyone who takes an interest:
Is an economic system justifiable, prima facie, if it requires a police state to maintain its existence?
The Miami Model
A look at what the corporate welfare model is doing to communities at home and abroad, and who the police / corporate media protect and work for.
Crimethinc / IndyMedia’s “The Miami Model”:
Watch the rest here.
Dose of Police Violence, Volume Three
Here is a video from May of last year. Fifteen to eighteen Philadelphia police officers brutally stomped, punched, and nightsticked three suspects at a traffic stop. The three victims were exonerated of any criminal charges. Fifteen of the officers involved were suspended. Over a year later, “twelve out of the eighteen officers in the video were disciplined, four fired; many are fighting back” to get back on the street, ostensibly to unleash more violence on the community.
Dose of Police Violence, Volume Two
“High Five!”
Here is a video from May of this year. A man surrenders to El Monte police officers, yet he is kicked in the head by one officer and struck several times by another with a baton. The officers then proceed to celebrate.
Re: Michael Hudson on Iceland and Latvia
Michael Hudson had an interesting piece on Counterpunch last week that a friend posted, entitled “Why Iceland and Latvia Won’t (and Can’t) Pay for the Kleptocrats’ Ripoffs.”
I have mixed feelings about Counterpunch, and this article is a case in point for why I do not read it regularly. While it is a fine alternative to the corporate media, and fervently opposes corporatism and the lobbyist machine in Washington (rightly so), I feel the commentators chosen are often guilty of “missing the forest for the trees,” so to speak. This is not always true by any means; why, just last week, they put out an excellent article by Paul Craig Roberts, “Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs.”
Back to Hudson’s article, where hilarity ensues. As the title implies, the bailout debt bondage was imposed by kleptocrats—the British and Dutch governments that are pressuring less-developed debtor nations to pony up for their banks’ intentionally rampant and irresponsible credit inflation, and the ensuing mass insolvency. However, Hudson makes the tragic mistake of therefore absolving the responsibility for the kleptocratic and plutocratic actions of the governments of debtor nations themselves. As if there was no incentive for public officials, such as in Iceland, to fully privatize the banking infrastructure to the very state-created and state-maintained corporate banking cartels that have been washing taxpayer money into their pockets for years!
I believe by the time I got to this gem— “The neoliberal foreign advisors and creditors pressured these governments to sell off the banks and public infrastructure to insiders”—I stopped taking the article seriously. PRESSURED!? What kind of imbeciles are we talking about here? We all know how where “pressure” on politicians come from—the lining of their pockets with the profits of corruption. Does Hudson think we are really so absurdly stupid so as to believe that governments were somehow “forced” or “pressured” (coercively?) to allow this? Politicians allowed the bubble economy to come to be because they profited from it, and continue to profit from it through allegiances gained as a result of this bank-made economic crisis.
While Hudson rightfully points out the predatory nature of the debts in question, he attempts to strawman the “free market” by dishonestly and erroneously conflating it with neoliberalism —as often is the case, unfortunately, on Counterpunch, as well as in the corporate media.
He, thus, erroneously conflates the consequences of mixed economic theory with his perverted conception of a free market. This is not to say that neoliberalism—the “free market” as Hudson sees it—is sustainable or ethical, but it is worth mentioning, as he appears to believe that neoliberalism and the “free market” are the same thing. Nothing could be further from the truth; neoliberalism is about as close to a free market as Stalinism. But what do you expect from a Keynesian? It’s always the same types of arguments—we need governments to intervene, to solve the structural problems wrought by previous government interventions. “Everything is the free market’s fault! Now we need the governments — those same governments which collectively propped up insolvent financial structures and institutions in favor of finance oligarchs — to graciously ‘save’ their population from those very same fraudsters!”
The situation at hand has nothing to do with free markets. Big banks (certainly in the UK and the Netherlands) exist as uniquely privileged cartels. Think about it: licenses, capital reserve requirements, legal fees, specified corporate and capital structures, regulatory reporting, accounting compliance, audit compliance, etc. Our admittedly neoliberal governments inherently bar entry into the banking (or virtually any other) industry for the vast majority of citizens, while allowing a few highly privileged corporations to run hog-wild in the ensuing monopolistic paradise of economic rent. And this is on top of capitalism’s natural barriers to market entry — grounded in the legitimization of theft from the commons in favor of the landowning class.
So, to Hudson, “the ideology of free markets…turns out to be a junk economics favorable to banks and global creditors.” And he leaves it at that. Oh, because it was the banks, not governments, who collectively bailed out the banks and submitted their future populations to debt bondage by those very bankers, right? As if governments should not be held accountable to their citizens for not only allowing, but colluding with central banks to artificially incentivise the guarantee of massive debts.
Let me tell you something that may blow your mind: Central banks can have no monopoly (this is maintained by state governments), nor could they exist as they are (currency monopolies), in a free market. It is only in the kleptocratic and collusive venue of government and big business wherein banks are capable of such massive theft and fraud. As Max Keiser pointed out on France24 a couple weeks ago, it’s simply called money laundering. People need to stop deluding themselves, foolishly thinking that the same kleptocrats and plutocrats that are robbing them blind are magically going to “save” them by 1) bailing out insolvent banks and publicly taking on trillions in insolvent assets, and 2) feining this disgusting charade that they are going to “stand up” to the very banks, the very lions, that they’ve already thrown their people to.
What, now that the Icelandic government is “standing up to the banks” (see how long that lasts, and who benefits in the end), they are no longer “kleptocrats,” but heroes? This is my problem with a lot of writers that appear on Counterpunch. What begins as sound rationale inevitably ends as simply straw-manning right-wing ideology (and nothing more), rather than saying anything meaningful. To what ends? To rile up a bunch of progressive fascists against a bunch of neoconservative and neoliberal fascists? Great, because the government Hudson would like to see imposed on the people is a far better alternative. Hudson, of all people, who understands the destructive nature of bubble economies, continues to operate on historically unfounded fallacies—how he can absolve responsibility for the actions of government on either side of the equation is beyond me.
In this way, the ideas often espoused on Counterpunch—and certainly by Hudson—in one form or another, are simply models that will inevitably perpetuate the status quo. While the post-Bretton Woods financial system in many ways is transforming, you would have to be foolish to believe (regarding GATT, the IMF, the World Bank) that the governments that willfully engaged in such rampant exploitation and imperialism are not rebuilding (or have not rebuilt) the infrastructure to do so again. Saying, “Praise the government for standing up to the IMF”—especially at this point in history—is about as silly as saying, “Praise America’s imperialism because they voted in a black president.” Readers of publications like Counterpunch need to look a lot deeper than the ideas offered therein to understand the nature of globalization and the international banking cartels.
Too many people continue to operate under the fallacy that more government intervention into banking institutions and more government interventions via monetary policy will solve this economic crisis. You must realize, the state-provided regulations and state-provided bailout funds that characterize the banking system—and maintain it at taxpayer expense—could not exist, obviously, without the corrupt public officials now sought out to be saviors of the public good. Hudson is right—the British and Dutch governments are kleptocracies—but he is very wrong when he suggests that the Icelandic and Latvian governments are not.
Dose of Police Violence, Volume One
The internet is flooded with videos and other documentary evidence of police violence and other blatant abuses of power by law enforcement officials.
As such – and as our law enforcement system becomes increasingly violent and militarized – I thought it worthwhile to begin posting them, in hope that just a few more people might realize just who police are protecting, and why we, as citizens, are in perpetual danger as a result.
That said, here is a telling video from earlier this year. Two officers throw a fifteen year old girl against the wall of a jail cell, body slam her on the ground, punch her in the head, and drag her by the hair.
The Largest Street Gang in America
When you have a free hour…
BoilingFrog101′s “America’s Largest Street Gang” truly sheds light on the totalitarian nature of our police culture.
US Court of Appeals Circuit Judge Promotes Ban on Internet Linking to Media Content
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge, Richard Posner: "The bloggers are parasitical on the conventional media."
Richard Posner, a well-received conservative judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, recently proposed a new copyright law: a ban on linking to online media content without explicit permission. He claims such a ban is necessary in order to prevent bloggers and feed aggregators from linking to news websites without paying for the privelege to do so.
An essay Posner wrote for the New York Times Book Review in 2005 entitled “Bad News,” sheds light on his position. He wrote, “The bloggers are parasitical on the conventional media. They copy the news and opinion generated by the conventional media, often at considerable expense, without picking up any of the tab. The degree of parasitism is striking in the case of those blogs that provide their readers with links to newspaper articles. The links enable the audience to read the articles without buying the newspaper.”
Posner ignores the fact that linking for the most part drives traffic to news websites, thereby boosting their dwindling ad revenues in a crumbling industry.
Thankfully, this will not become a reality in the immediate future. Such a ban would require a new law – an amendment to the present copyright law. But the proposal, sure to fall on a few opportunistic ears among corporate lobbyists and their congressional cheerleaders, is certainly something to keep an eye on.
