Governments are market institutions

Governments too are institutions which are constrained by this complicated system of incentives, competition, consumer sovereignty, and (summing up) spontaneous order which we usually call the market.

Governmental institution, in its productive activities, depends on the same praxeologic laws which apply to any other firm. A government which sells its products at more expensive prices than other governments or gives less quality in exchange for a given amount of money compared to others will receive less and less resources till it goes, sooner or later, to the bankruptcy; this is, to a situation of revolution in which governmental structure is fundamentally modified.

Governments open to competition (in the form of at least free migration in and out, access to information on the performance of foreign governments, and checks and balances) are more suitable to perform well and finally survive than those trying to impose barriers of entry to competition.

Although usually the epicenter of central planning of society, government is itself a sort of spontaneous ordering and, as such, it evolves in ways which can't be predictable but on the point that they will tend to survive if satisfy consumer sovereignty or disappear otherwise.

So, quoting Mises at length:
"A statesman can succeed only insofar as his plans are adjusted to the climate of opinion of his time, that is to the ideas that have got hold of his fellows' minds. He can become a leader only if he is prepared to guide people along the paths they want to walk and toward the goal they want to attain. A statesman who antagonizes public opinion is doomed to failure. No matter whether he is an autocrat or an officer of a democracy, the politician must give the people what they wish to get, very much as a businessman must supply the customers with the things they wish to acquire." Theory and History, page 187.

Cost-pushing and demand-pulling as monetary phenomena

So called cost-push inflation and demand-pull inflation don't have to be viewed as explanations contrary to the idea that inflation is a strictly monetary phenomenon. Increasing prices through cost-pushing and demand-pulling are indeed present in inflationary episodes and can validly be recognized from a monetary viewpoint. They have, however, to be viewed not only as manifestations or symptoms but as causes of inflation, via either money supply or money demand.

This is true even if you use the monetarist frame. For instance, remember of Friedman (1) setting down wages as a determinant of the velocity of money. According to this, a rise in wages (as in a policy of rising minimum wages) could not necessarily be reflected in unemployment but could rather put pressure on prices. In the extreme case, we would have:

(↑w)L+rK=
(↑v)M=
(↑P)Q

This is: we could have, following the necessary logic consequences of Friedman representation of v, a cost pushing on prices within the equation of exchange (or at least the Friedmanite version of it).

(1) Friedman, Milton. The Quantity Theory of Money−A Restatement. 1956 -University of Chicago Press, 1987-. Page 293. See particularly equation 13.

Gini as an envy coefficient

Gini coefficient of incomes can be interpreted as a measure of envy.

If it's high, people don't ask if there are some lazier and others more diligent. It's bad anyway because some earn more than others.

If it've risen, it doesn't matter if that occurred because some went farewell or the arriving of wealthy people. It' bad anyway because some earn more now than others.

In usual interpretations of the Gini coefficient, it doesn't matter poverty, it doesn't matter effort. The one thing it matters is inequality. And the more inequality there is the worse. What can be that but pure and blatant envy?

Le marché c'est moi

Some people complain about "market cruelty", "wild capitalism" and such terms.

As aesthetic judgements, this sort of terms can't be described as objetively wrong, but when using them we shouldn't forget that every time we buy a cheaper good leaving the producer of a more expensive one without a gain, every time we "betray" the firm we worked in by moving to another which pays us better, and in sum every single time we choose an option necessarily leaving others, we become part of that very cruelty and wilderness we are complaining of.

Coase Theorem of the use of resources re-expresed in terms of information

Even if you have the possession on some resource, it could be that the cost of using it be so valued by you that you prefer to leave it to other agent's control.

The more knowledge the other agent has on how to use the resource in order to give utility directly to you or to someone else which can pay something you value more than the resource itself, the more possible that you prefer to leave the resource to that other agent.

Professing to be wise, they shewed themselves fools

Holy Scriptures are full of parables and other metaphors because they have to reach people in very different places and times and levels of education.

It is intriguing how western modern man, self-considered the wisest among those of all lands and epochs, is particularly shortsighted to these metaphors.

Take for instance the Creation Story. In which everybody else has always seen a metaphor about the unique dignity of human life, the modern man looks for endergonic nuclear reactions during the first supernovas.

Of course, the modern man finds the Holy Scriptures far more overcome and therefore futile than anybody else; but, to be sure, this is not because of a privileged education but due to a complex of superiority rooted in a mere engineering specialization.

Permission to freely interpret the Holy Scriptures is but a step away from taking them into account whatsoever. Today, more than ever, we must avoid to read the Holy Scriptures without the aid of tradition and authority as that embodied in the Church. Modern man, raised to see Holy Scriptures with the eyes of a haughty, wise, amender instead of a humble, ignorant, pupil, needs more than anybody else of a loving but severe guide from Clergy.

Rules structure

A rules structure is a set of divisions of rights which formally has internal coherence.

Coercion

Coercion is not a human action against someone else's will but against some specific rules structure.

Confront this against the assertion: "Coercion occurs when one man's actions are made to serve another man's will, not for his own but for the other's purpuse" (1). If we follow this definition, I could say that anytime you undertake a service for another you are suffering coercion. If a service is being sold, it would surely be argued, then you are not suffering coercion since you are serving no another man's will but yours. But I would counter-argue: so, since due to the human action axiom you undertake any action but to serve your own will, there cannot exist coercion whatsoever.

That's why I like much more the definition of coercion "as the invasive use of physical violence or the threat thereof against someone else's person or (just) property" (2).

(1) Hayek, Friedrich. The Constitution of Liberty. 1960 -paperback edition, 1978-. Page 133.

(2) Rothbard, Murray. The Ethics of Liberty. 1982 -New York University Press, 1998-. Page 219.

Nostalgia for taboo

There are no many tabooes nowadays. This, more than a triumph for knowlegde, seems to me a loss for aesthetics, for economy of information, and ultimately for civilization.

Morals

Morals is information used to choose final ends.

What the heck is constructivism?

One of the terms which most has troubled me to really catch in is constructivism.

I have been trying to collect all the necessary conditions which define a particular phenomenon as an instance of constructivism.

By now, this is my collection:

1. Coercion. Constructivism in order to be relevant as a social phenomenon has to imply the violation of formerly defined rights of property. Merely defining in my mind an utopia is not constructivism. It is not even if I establish a campaing to persuade other people to voluntarily adopt my utopia. It is not constructivism when I plan a Victorian styled village inside my land and convince other people to buy a house there. I am simply entrepreneurly guessing a demand for Victorian styled villages.

And that's all. If the presence of intention or planning would be the characteristic feature of constructivism, every single human action would have to be deemed constructivist. So, it should be clear that intentionality per se doesn't necessarily implies constructivism.

Neither give I a damn for the praxeologic pertinence of identifying either animism (purposes of the things themselves) or artificialism (purposes of the makers of the things) as influences of specific human actions. These categories are maybe interesting for the thymologist but certainly not for the praxeologist.

So, I don't see any relevance whatsoever in the use of the term constructivism as something essetially distinct from coercion. To me, constructivism is a quite useless concept.

Aesthetics of sex under the sacrament of matrimony

By taking the sacrament of matrimony, the male also becomes a priest. It is the altar which is changed. The woman is the living altar of the husband. The female flesh although, at difference of stone, is physically corruptible, has a soul more adamant than diamond.

In the sexual intercourse under the holy sacrament of matrimony, mass celebration follows the carnal liturgy of love. By it, full communion between priest and altar is achieved. This solemn act, by being open to life, actualizes immortality. Sex becomes therefore into a means to love instead of a selfish end, a social instead of autistic human action.

Priest and altar are the exclusive congregation of this mass. In it, the priest offers all his life to his altar as his supreme worship to God. If Eucharist is performed by the priest, he drinks from the the most sacred chalice, which is in the altar.

What is conservatism to me

This post is about definition. Therefore, in the core it can't be judged as right or wrong from a scientific view point although it can be assessed from a logic perspective, especially in order to analyze its utility. Agreeing with its assertions only could ultimately achieve a convention but not, per se, to find the truth.

In his essay Why I am not a Conservative, Friedrich Hayek supplies reasons for not to regard himself as a conservative. This way, he was attempting to refute the perception which many had about him. Nevertheless, even after the publication of the essay in 1960, conservatives as conspicuous as Robert Nisbet continued considering him a conservative. There are reasons for this: Hayek was a declared foe of coercion; this is: of changing the distribution of rights. (As a matter of anecdote, I became a conservative thanks to Hayek.)

Conservatism of rights can collide with the fundamental classical liberal dogma of freedom only in a society allowing for legal slavery. In that unique scenario, the liberal would fight for changing the distribution of rights while a coherent conservative would defend the current distribution of rights.

What does a conservative conserve
There are several kinds of conservatism because there are several issues which may be desired to conserve. Two main kinds of conservatism are norms conservatism and moral conservatism.

A norms conservative pursues to conserve rights (or being redundant: property rights). Obviously, the existence of such rights has to have a refference to a concrete rules structure.

A moral conservative wants to conserve moral values: specific uses of freedom (i.e. property on oneself) and after all advices on how not to use freedom which transgression does not imply coercion (this is: violation of another's property). It is important to take into account, nevertheless, that to a norms conservative this conservation only can be done through moral means and not through coercion.

Conservatism as political ideology
Conservatism is an political ideology (an ideology which can be used by, say, a political party in order to guide its program) consisting in defending rights legitimately established in a concrete rules structure.

In the parliament, the conservative congressman radically defends the current rules structure and fiercely attacks bills looking for changing the rights frontiers but only fixing new frontiers where there were not. The conservative congressman typically proposes few laws and makes a lot of political control. In particular, this person never will propose a bill to re-distribute rights and will always analyze carefully bills which he presents to discard such re-distributions. Bills developed by him will pursue sanctioning and clarifying frontiers already draft.

In the executive branch, the conservative administration follows a tame obedience to the parliament. If it offers a bill will be exclusively to fine tune the State management.

The judiciary is called to be the most conservative of all political powers.

What's the role of data in praxeology

Praxeology is a purely logic discipline. As such is aprioristic: its content is completly alien to facts of reality. Nevertheless, it is not totally disentangled from them. Some roles which data can perform in praxeology are:

1. Helping leading the specific fields in which praxeology must be developed.

2. Accompanying praxeology in the solution of problems, which usually requieres not of mere praxeology, but of other sciences.

Science of money versus science of value

The essence of difference in such dichotomic terms as producer-consumer, income-expenditure, and the like has its very core in the use of (objetive) money. Such dichotomies cannot be valid in a science of (subjetive) value.

Maybe the most common and general false dichotomy in this sense is between "economic" and "non-economic". Assertions such as "Man has not just economic interests but he has social, politic, moral, sensual, and affectional ones." bluntly neglects the meaning of "economic" which the economist gives (or rather: should ideally give) to the term.

Given the particular realm of economics and its method, the qualificative "economic" can be validly given to any volitive action. The fact that you aren't choosing between an amount of money and a peach, but between saving your father from a fire or securing your life to watch over your baby son is beside the point from an economic point of view. The economist qua economist must acknowledge the same pattern of behavior in both phenomena and their susceptibility to be analized with economic theory.

Although there is a valid and huge domain of non-economic phenomena (including everything in which no volitive action is being analyzed), usually the qualificative "non-economic" is used for non-monetary, ultimately economic, phenomena.

Why doesn't economics limits itself to monetary phenomena? First of all: if you have a method (praxeology) which effectively allows you analyzing some sort of phenomena why should you reject ad portas such field of analysis? Second, and most important it's an argument due to the fact that much of the critique to free markets is based in the suposition that market only means fighting for exclusively and madly hoarding money in spite of love, peace of mind, etc. To reveal the inaccuracy of this critique, it's basic for economics to clearly explain that free markets are about better ways to pursue your goals, notwithstanding wheter they are more time with your family, enjoying the beauty of a dusk in the hills, or happiness for helping others.

It's a shame that even so prestigious (and deservedly so) as James Buchanan fall in the error of thinking that "economic motivation is not pervasive over all human behavior" (1). They don't seem to have understood Kirzner's essay (2) on what economics is about.

(1) Buchanan, James. What should Economists Do? 1979 -Liberty Press-. Page 66.
(2) Kirzner, Israel. The Economic Point of View. 1960 -Institute for Humane Studies, 1976-.

Six questions to an anarcho-capitalist

1. Are you a constructivist?

2. Why, at the beginning of society, did emerge proto-state governed arrangements instead of something akin to anarcho-capitalism?

3. Why are governments omni-present in every single society but haven't there ever existed a sustained case of anarcho-capitalism?

4. Does have anarcho-capitalism to be triggered through legal reforms, an anarcho-capitalist revolution, or should we just wait for it to spontaneously happen?

5. What, in case of anarcho-capitalism being attained, would prevent from state to emerge once again?

6. Is not the one logical fate of an anarcho-capitalist society that one particular firm of services or police begins to gain power, being by that very feature more demanded so increasing its power, until it becomes alone, turning itself in a usual government?

The Church versus social justice

In a world without the so-called "social justice", there would be many people who couldn't survive without the help of others. At difference of our current interventionist world, values like compassion, generosity, and solidarity would be unavoidable. In such a world, the Church would have the responsibility of uniquely teaching those values and organizing the core of charities, v. g. gratis food, health, clothing, dwelling, and education.

By claiming for more government intervention, clergy begs for being substituted in its major roles in society. By praising "social justice", the Church erodes itself. The day the government have complete dominion in matters of redistribution, the Church can be disposed of.

Atheism as mere semantics

An atheist is someone who decides not to fill the term "God" with any meaning while a theist is someone who fills the term with some meaning whatsoever. The difference between a theist and an atheist is not usually a matter of morals or science but, especially among people raised in a culturally similar environment, of mere semantics.

A theist which knows scientific theories about, say, the origin of life which differ from an apparently respective, literally understood, biblical account does not need to find useless religion as a whole. Religion has a fundamental and irreplaceable role as:

1. An economizer of previously required knowledge and/or shortcut to information needed in order to morally act in specific cases.

2. An aesthetic, more palatable way of transmitting moral advice (this is: advice on final goals, as different of engeneering advice or advice on means to achieve a previously determined end).

What kind of academic freedom must public universities have?

At least in Costa Rica, teachers working in public universities claim for academic freedom.

According to them, academic freedom is receiving funds from government without having to be accountable for their use, this idea expressed of course in much more suave ways.

It is not surprising therefore the conclusion reached by Rogge and Goodrich: "We simply do not believe in academic freedom." (1)

(1) Rogge, Benjamin, and Pierre Goodrich. Education in a Free Society. Liberty Fund, 1973. Page 82.

Market unionism

The worst unionists' error is not being conversant with praxeology. It's understandable that, due to its historic development, unions discourse are mostly based on marxism, but if unionism is to survive it has to urgently turn into market unionism.

Market unionism would be more motley. Free employees associations to fight for collective gains vis-à-vis employers are expected to be so diverse according to particular institutions that although some of those assoctiations would be more similar to current unions, others would be akin to Costa Rican asociaciones solidaristas, shareholders boards or not paradigms not thought of up to now.

I don't know if employees associated under unions would someday stop fighting for barriers against entry, but even so, unionist leaders should pay more attention to the science of praxeology in order to understand the world better and by this being more able to design strategies.