AynCrap

I reserve the right to be wrong. Humans act to satisfy present desires. Are humans rational in seeking ways to satisfy their desires? Well, they do rationalise, but this rationalisation takes place in a context. That context is; people respond to incentives. This means our choices of what actions to take will vary depending on the consequences of each possible action. Mainstream economics, dealing with human action to satisfy present desires using scarce resources, includes the actions of collectives of people. This is a gigantic fallacy in the mainstream approach to rational action. This is a problem with people - including me in the near past - misunderstanding what it means to act. Rational action to satisfy present desires can only be undertaken by a moral agent, one who actually has desires. A company, bowling club, or government no more desires anything than a forest or a building. These are associations of people and so exist only as ideas in our minds, rega...

I reserve the right to be wrong. I feel obliged to link to this . It's a nifty explanation of why government laws are not contracts. Put simply, if your signature ain't on the piece of paper then it's not a contract. It's not an agreement of any sort in fact. It's just an exercise in tax farming or livestock regulation. Hope you enjoy being livestock as much as I do.

I might be wrong, you know. The Austrian School is that school of study (-logia) that uses the methods of praxeology and catallactics to arrive at statements of fact about human action in response to the incentives and disincentives that the world puts in front of us in the course of our many various lives. This makes the Austrian school one of philosophy as much as economics, not to mention sociology and political science. So we have one school that takes in both the Humanities and the Social Sciences! So why not try to describe the various things about Austrianism that make it different from say, Keynesianism or the Chicago School? Chocks away! PRAXEOLOGY Praxis means action in Latin. So, study of action. This is a method used to explain only the action of humans. You are doing praxeology if you assert that humans act - that is, do something in the present to achieve a goal in the future, whether immediate or remote. You are methodical in hashing out how a cour...

I might be wrong here... warn me if I am. Striding eager and brave Roderick Long pleads with the world to... Consider a village near a lake. It is common for the villagers to walk down to the lake to go fishing. In the early days of the community it's hard to get to the lake because of all the bushes and fallen branches in the way. But over time the way is cleared and a path forms – not through any coordinated efforts, but simply as a result of all the individuals walking by that way day after day. The cleared path is the product of labor –not any individual's labor, but all of them together. If one villager decided to take advantage of the now-created path by setting up a gate and charging tolls, he would be violating the collective property right that the villagers together have earned I have some reservations about the above interpretation of the homestead principle. Since there won't be a government to turn to, people will sign up to DRO's / Arbiters...

I reserve the right to be wrong. Dunno if he does. Is taxing BitCoin good, bad, expedient, problematic? This video neatly sums up some basic economic realities, such as why we use money. However you feel, comment below, let me know!

I reserve the right to be wrong. If you mix your time and labour with something that nobody owns you gain ownership of it. This process starts in the womb and in the first couple of years after birth as you homestead your body while learning to move, speak, think and so act* 1 . Later on in life, one can homestead anything that isn't owned. Sadly this does not usually include squatting, as whatever edifice is being squatted usually has an owner. If it is owned, you are trespassing. Your right to property is the exclusive right to use whatever the thing is that is your property; whether your house, clothes, furniture, computer. This right can be argued to exist because we have free will, desires, and a world that we act in, both alone and in concert with others. You smash all that together and people need clear lines to tell who gets to use what and where, and what land they can claim. Humans don't like conflict and violence because it introduces them to the risk of h...

Wrong! FEET Humans vote with their feet. It is the single most important, and most egalitarian of realities confronting us today or in any age. But the single biggest exercise in voting with one's feet is also the most literal; moving from one home to a new one, for whatever reason - job, safety, the view, anything. If your move takes you out of one nation state / tax farm and into another one then congratulations! You're a migrant! In general the vote with one's feet is at work when you choose what interests to pursue, since by making any serious choice in life you are removing the chance to do something else, time being limited by your own mortality. We vote with our feet not to listen to the ravings of conspiracy theorists, except for a laugh. WALLET We vote with every purchasing decision we make, including a decision not to purchase anything just now. This vote, voting with our wallets, tells those we trade with what we will and will not abide, and if th...

I reserve the right to be wrong. Progress in the human civilisation sense is the progress from primitive pastoralism to modern relative affluence and onwards to absolute affluence in the future, a time that will resemble The Jetsons or Star Trek. Let's look today at some ways in which anarchy has always been with us, and some encroaching ways in which we are discovering its fruits and its merits. First, let's lean out... LEAN AS ANARCHIC BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT So, Lean . It's a way of organising an enterprise to eliminate waste, and redefines waste to mean anything that doesn't add value for the end user / customer. By funny coincidence the condition it creates, that of increasing business responsiveness to changing demands, makes the lean enterprise just a little more anarchic than the non-lean enterprise. Responsiveness is an anarchic quality, as evidenced by the yawning gap in responsiveness between, say, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs on the ...