Gradualism vs Abolitionism

Economics Political Theory
41

gotlucky: “it seems that even with scarcity, we cannot know for certain that there will be dispute.”

I wanted to respond to this more directly. If I abstract the basic conflict concept to it’s ultimate base, then I assume that all scarcity issues are conflict issues and all conflict issues are scarcity issues. This scarcity/conflict fact is the source of value, preference, choice. The motive of action.

So, I’ll break it out separately. To act is to use a thing(or things) for a period of time in a specific place. The source of the event that appears in reality is the human mind. The quality that differentiates action from all other events is that the human mind thus attached could have chosen to not cause this event (as a negative description) or identically could have chosen to cause a different event (as an positive description).

There is a binding of human mind, matter, location and time as a locus of an event in reality that we describe as an action. The human mind is considered to be the cause or source of this event. Scarcity narrowly defined is “not having enough for all possible ends”. Meaning regardless of scope, global or individual, part of this action intersection is not infinitely applicable.

Each of the 4 domains, mind, matter, location, and time has scarce components to it. These components are related to both space and time. Meaning that moving matter through space takes time. Even without time there are real limitations to how matter can be arranged within any specifc location in space. Time is rate of change, and the natural laws of the universe dictate the rate at which specific types of changes can occur. In so far as man is able to find alternate ways to achieve a result within a specific amount of time, he is using the laws of the universe to enable these actions, but at no point in time will any event or change be able to occur in not time.

Scarcity forces man, even in his individual actions to pick an action to take, and he the amount of time it takes for him to complete this action is non-negotiable. Those limits are set by the universe itself. So even in the instance of a single man choosing an action, you see the archetype of a conflict. Do I fish for food or do I pick up and crack coconuts? We speak in terms of preference and choice as categories that explain this internal decision making that all man MUST engage in.

If scarcity, insufficient means for all desired ends, is the phenomena that necessitates and motivates choice, value, preference in action, then why would it be any less so at the social level?

In other words, if the concept of choice and preference necessitate two potential courses of action that an actor must differentiate between because both cannot happen in the present, then why wouldn’t ALL normative evaluation be caused by the same phenomena in a social setting. The differentiating property of a social conflict is the presence of incompatible plans in two different minds. An internal conflict within the same mind would be competing desires and the resolution is choice or preference as evidenced in the action chosen.

Choice is not possible without scarcity. Conflict is not possible without scarcity. Anything about reality that interferes with a man’s ability to order the world into a more satisfactory state in the present would be deemed scarcity.

I’d like to here comments on this logical construction.

42

@David B

Disputes are when two or more parties have conflicting goals regarding the same object, and there is a resulting conflict. It’s not enough for two people to have different ideas about how some object ought to be used, they also have to put their conflicting ideas into action.

The thing is, the concept of a dispute does not require experience. I am not challenging this concept. What I am challenging is the notion that we can know a priori that there will be disputes. What if I told you that:

This is certainly different from how we imagine disputes are typically settled. This tribe does not exist because it is not human. It is the bonobo. Sex as a consistent method for dispute resolution is probably entirely unique to this species. The point here is that there are just some things that have to be observed in order to know them.

Furthermore, why are some humans more socially cooperative instead of socially adversarial? Probably because of evolution. Humans that cooperated probably survived better and passed on their genes. Why aren’t we like lions who just kill their cubs so they can have more sex with their mates?

This is not knowledge that can be gained a priori. Humans could have evolved differently. We didn’t, but we could have. I understand that there are disputes. If certain conditions are met, then there is a dispute. What I am challenging is that this can be known a priori that there will exist disputes in the physical world, and not just in logical space. After all, I could imagine a human society having a culture similar to the bonobo, but there is not human society like the bonobo society. This sort of thing just has to be observed.

To repeat, disputes definitely occur. If certain conditions are met, there is a dispute. More specifically, if two or more parties desire to use the same object in different ways, and they act upon these desires, then there is a dispute. At best we can say that. It’s like the bachelor. We know a priori that a bachelor is an unmarried man. If there exists any man that is unmarried, then he is a bachelor. But we cannot know a priori that there are bachelors. We have to observe them. After all, there could be a society where upon reaching puberty, a boy (now a man) has to take a wife or be put to death. We know that there are not any such societies, but we do not know this a priori.

It’s the same with disputes. We know that if there are two or more parties etc., then there is a dispute. But we have to observe in order to see if there are disputes. We cannot just say that they exist in the physical world. It’s like with unicorns. We can imagine them. We can say that if there is any animal that meets the conditions of being a horse-like animal with a horn on its head, then it’s a unicorn. That is what it means to be a unicorn. But we cannot say that these animals exist in physical space without observing them.

Take the platypus, “the unusual appearance of this egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate fraud.” We can imagine such an animal, but we need to actually observe it in order to know that it exists in physical space and not just logical space.

I was in a rush to type this, so hopefully my point gets across. Otherwise I’ll just have to retype it out later.

43

It seems you just invented that. I searched for gradual vs cold turkey and didn’t find any studies finding that one is more effective. The only thing that drug programs do in essence is try to convince the user to quit whilst replacing the illicit drug with prescription drugs.

44

I’m not arguing that what you are describing doesn’t qualify as an instance of the common everyday use of the term conflict. In another thread, I was reading an argument where Adam pointed out that a lot of confusion is created when people argue one definition in one part of an argument, and another definition in another part of the argument. I think we’re arguing past each other here. You keep pointing back at dispute as an ongoing series of actions by two different actors in which each is attempting to remove the obstacle (the other persons actions) to their own end.

And I keep pointing back at the necessary existence of incompatible intended actions as a precursor to any of the phenomena we call conflict or dispute in everyday language, and I keep trying to use one of the two words you are using (dispute or conflict) as a term for this other idea. My point is all of the phenomena you are describing in those two sentences originates in my category; more importantly which is what I’ve been trying to get across, the dispute and conflict as you’re describing them don’t even appear, unless my category exists first. And finally the category I’m pointing at is a priori. It is present without looking at reality and seeing a physical manifestation of conflict. And of course per my previous post, I’m also asserting that the category I’m referring to can only arise from scarcity, and additionally that scarcity inherently means that there is an instance of my definition of conflict, if we remove from the definition the necessity that the conflicting intentions inhabit different minds, and simply allow for metaphysically incompatible plans within a single human mind. Then colloquial uses of the term conflict, like “I feel conflicted” and “I have a conflict” makes sense.

Bam, the whole thing falls together, and property rights, fall out into reality under the guise of ANY socially constructed argument abotu what constitutes a legitimate use claim over a scarce resource.

Ok, I was not arguing about the form that disputes will or won’t take, or that one would not have to observe one in order to know that it had happened. The number of concepts that a man could possibly form is probably so large as to be effectively infinite, let alone to construct from these concepts argument, rationalization, and reasons for preferring one thing to another, then the number of possible techniques he might apply to produce technological devices to in turn use with additional newly designed techniques to attain his ends. Why then if I believe these things to be true, would I not also agree that the techniques and technologies that a man might design and use to resolve a perceived conflict between his own plan and anothers plan would be any smaller than these other spaces.

The interesing phenomena ought to be that these solutions converge in certain ways, and that the manner and nature of these convergences ought to give us some insight into some underlying theory that give rise to these various solutions.

I too understand the difference between theory and history :). So my point is what is a theoretical concept of conflict. Conflict is a behavior that’s social in the context that you use it. Meaning it requires two human beings. Praxeology is the science of human action, and praxeology is a priori.

If there’s not an a priori concept that sits at the root of the Political Realm, then somethings wrong. If disputes (here I mean your term) can’t be described in terms of some abstract praxeological concepts derived from human action, then we ought to be looking for some theory outside of human action for an explanation. But if we find an explanation for conflict outside of praxeology, then somethings wrong with praxeology.

Again, I think I’ve come up with such a concept, as I stated it even more specifically above as a much more abstact categorical definition than the one you’ve been describing (or more importantly interpreting when I say it). If I have not come up with a good abstract concept of conflict, then we need to keep looking, cause we’re missing something. Just like physicists looking for the Higgs Boson, their theory said there was a hole. So they kept looking. Well I’m saying it, as Mises did, if it’s a social science the political realm, conflict itself should fall within it’s purview. If praxeology is a science of human action, then it must hold true for all social phenomena.

45

Agreed. I’m looking into a number of options. First of all of algae-biofuel or even floating solar panels and wind. Secondly, anyone with a profession that can be remote-provided would qualify. This probably includes a lot of manufacturing and especially computer-based professions, like programming and writing of any sort, though it’s not a trivial problem to get internet access on the open ocean.

I can’t imagine a scenario where it will be an option, certainly not in the short term. Not even in the case of financial collapse.

Granted. Such would come with time if everything works out.