If you seriously think you can be convincing then go for it, else feel free to outsource.
Alright I’ll do both. The materials I came across these arguments are almost all within the constructivist critques of neorealist international relations theory. This doesn’t mean that I think austro-libertarian ideas are the same as neorealism but both do utilize a form methodological individualism and the critiques apply fairly well.
Ashley, Richard K. (1984). “The Poverty of Neorealism.” International Organization. 38 (2): 225-286.
Ruggie, John Gerard. (1993). “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations”. International Organization. 47 (1): 139-174.
Wendt, Alexander. (1987). “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory”. International Organization. 41 (3): 335-370.
Wendt, Alex. (1999). Social Theory of International Relations. Cambridge University Press. Particularly part 1.
Essentially the argument is that methodological individualism (MI) cannot account for institutional factors. As opposed to providing an explanation MI can only make assumptions about them. Institutions lose all constitutive capacity and are reduced to purely instrumental apparatuses to be used by the agents assumed to exist within the theory a priori. In the case of neorealism this would be state actors, in liberal theory (libertarianism being a strand within the larger tradition) individuals.
Now obviously individuals exist, and this is not a claim about the independent existance of groups that can think or act as individual actors, but that factors that in part determine the actions of individuals are not reducible to the individuals themselves. Actions are informed by preferences, interests and the identity of the actor. MI provides no means by which to explain how any of these things are constituted. It can merely state that they exist and will take on some value.
When the goal is to explain action simply assuming the content of preferences and interests may not be a problem. However, if the goal to is explain identity formation and by extension insttutional and social change then simple assumption will not suffice, and MI ceases to be a viable methodology.
Something roughly along those lines.
I like that you criticised your own criticism of MI so that Hoppean PrivatepProperty Ethics remained unscathed, but I feel cheated by not seeing your presentation of your criticism of the criticism of materialism that you alluded to.
I guess I didn’t state it explicitly but it is implicit within the argument: ideational factors matter, materialism does not provide a sufficient explanation.
I’m not sure Hoppe’s argument is unscathed, either. It’s possible that AE is internaly consistent, but to claim that it provides an exposition of the only defendable system of ethics is not demonstrated at all. This is especially the case if MI does not provide a sufficient means for analyzing social arrangements. Even if MI is a useful method with valid applications, if it has wide open blind spots then valid alternative conceptions of justice can be made that do address those blind spots and without even needing to address AE because it misses the point (whatever that point may be from an opposing perspective).
Hoppe’s text is exactly that proof that you say is not demonstrated. Are you sure you are familiar with the text? The proof that alternatives to the private property ethic are self-refuting and so unjustifiable are given therein.
MI certainly provides sufficient methodological basis for analysing social arrangements, certainly to expel MI from ones analysis is a sure way to make for an appalling analysis in the social sphere, it is tantamount to denying reality. But this is actually in excess of whats needed to understand the Hoppean argument, you just need posit any two agents who might wish to argue ethics.
In case anyone wants to read about the richness of the Austrain concept of Methodological Individualism, I refer to:
http://www.libertarianismo.org/livros/PeterBoetke_HandbookOnContemporaryAustrianEconomics.pdf
Only individuals choose Anthony J. Evans
1.5 There is an institutional form of methodological individualism
features ome nice quotes from Mises in there.
The total effects of institutions are still not taken into account within that understanding of MI. Structures are not reducible to the purposeful actions of individuals. For example, by being collapsed into a category like “information” within MI frameworks. It also misses the constitutive capacity of institutions by presupposing individuality. Individual human beings may make choices but they often do not make those choices with the identity of an individual.
This has ramifications for Hoppe’s ethics. It is contingent upon assumptions which are not inherent nor natural but proposed and therefore disputable. The act of two people arguing certaintly does not prove his argument. At least not without assuming universalism, which is also contestable and not inherent or natural.
Structures are not reducible to the purposeful actions of individuals.
Oh rly? Maybe you are using a particular meaning of ‘reducible’, which could rescue your statement from ridicule, but I doubt this is relevant to such issues as economic theory and ethics.
It also misses the constitutive capacity of institutions by presupposing individuality
This is nonsense. How can you even begin to understand what an institution is if you presuppose that there are no ‘individual agents’ in your story. You can’t even get off the ground…
Individual human beings may make choices but they often do not make those choices with the identity of an individual.
This is reading more and more like post-modern nonsense.
The act of two people arguing certaintly does not prove his argument. At least not without assuming universalism, >>which is also contestable and not inherent or natural.
Hoppe.
Quite normally it has been observed that argu-
mentation implies that a proposition claims universal acceptability or
should it be a norm proposal, that it be “universalizable.” Applied to
norm proposals, this is the idea, as formulated in the Golden Rule of
ethics or in the Kantian Categorical Imperative, that only those
norms can be justified that can be formulated as general principles
which without exception are valid for everyone.19 Indeed as it is
implied in argumentation that everyone who can understand an argu-
ment must in principle be able to be convinced by it simply because
of its argumentative force, the universalization principle of ethics can
now be understood and explained as implied in the wider a priori of
communication and argumentation.20
When individuals make decisions the vast majority of the content of that decision is made up of pre-existing relations, understandings and information. The actual purposive aspect constitutes a very small portion of the action. Most of it is non-purposive in terms of the agency of the individual with regard to that particular decision.
I never claimed individuals weren’t the agents. They are. However, the identity of individuals can vary considerably and the presupposition that they act as individuals is unfounded. Individuality meaning the general approximate equality of individuals as socially relevant actors (i.e. as consumers within a market, or voters within a democracy).
I am not denying the agency of individuals. I am simply making the case that there is agency and structure and that structure cannot be reduced to agency as agency cannot be independent of structure.
And I’m sorry but Hoppe’s argument simply does not follow. There is not an inherent logic to argumentation in itself. Even if there was how that then justifies the univeralization of ethics and declaration that all individuals must logically be subject to the same rules of justice is not demonstrated.
I give up, vis MI, everything you say as an apparent critique, when you are asked to flesh out your ambigious overly reductive statements, amounts to the mainstream austrian economics view, which perfectly understands that agents find themselves within contexts.
As far as Hoppe goes, are you claiming that argumentation does not come bundled with necessary presuppositions?. You think that when people talk at furniture they are having meaningful arguments? You think that if I bring a gun to the discussion and threaten you there can be no doubt that Im a acting as a truth seeker?
Even if there was how that then justifies the univeralization of ethics and declaration that all individuals must logically >>be subject to the same rules of justice is not demonstrated.
Well, we are down to ‘yes it does’ ‘no it doesnt’, at least I have a book I can refer to that spells out my ‘yes it does’, you are just pointing at the book (I’m assuming you read it?) and are saying “no it doesn’t” . So we should probably stop there.
They understand that there are contexts, yes. But they don’t (much like yourself) grasp the implications of the affect of structure. That is, not everything can be reduced to the purposive action of individuals. They only understand one side of the equation. Merely mentioning the other side doesn’t mean they comprehend it. That punches a decently sized hole in the argument for the normative priority of individuals, especially if that argument is made from an essentialist perspective.
The only way argumentation has a “logic” to it (the only way anything can have a logic to it) is that there are assumptions made prior to the logical analysis, since logic is not self contained and requires givens to produce conclusions. You absolutely can devise “logics” of argumentation that make conversations with inanimate objects meaningful and that do not require restrictions on violence. Hoppe assumes the normative status of individuals to derive a conclusion about the normative priority of individuals. He hasn’t proved anything. At least, not about anything beyond his own system of logic.
I guess when push comes to shove a good ole fashion appeal to authority always works.
Are you implying that, if an assumption is contestable, then any conclusion from it does not follow? If so, then since all assumptions are contestable (i.e. one is not obligated to hold to any given assumption), no conclusions ever follow.
Or are you instead simply implying that the same conclusions do not necessarily follow from different assumptions?
Property has no nature. It’s a mental construct. Or is that your point here?
What do you mean by “institutional factors”, exactly? I’m inclined to say that MI can account for them, as I think they exist entirely within the mind, but that may not jive with your definition.
The Hoppean argument for property rights tries to establish that property is an inherent aspect of nature and logically necessary. If the assumptions within this form of argument are contested then it does not follow. He is trying to claim that it is apodictically true. If it is contested it is not true in that sense and therefore does not follow.
On second point, yes, I am saying that property is constructed.
You can define an institution as a set of stable relations between actors that can functionally be taken for granted.
Complex social interaction between large numbers of individuals and groups requires complexes of common understandings that provide the identities, interests, and preferences of the relevant actors as well as the role relations and power structure between those actors. The coordination of the actions and behavior of largely strangers is possible because there are ways to act that are deemed appropriate within certain contexts. There is a confluence of what ‘the right thing to do’ is between certain identities. We can think of the usual routine encountered when one patronizes a restaurant. Most likely none of the staff were even aware that you existed prior to your entering the establishment, much less know who you are, yet everyone involved knows exactly what to do. An understanding exists that you will make your order, they will prepare and serve it to you and then you will pay for your meal and service. This familiar and consistent pattern of behavior most likely does not arise due to participants repeatedly producing nearly the exact same set of calculations over and over again. There is a ‘script’ or ‘plan’ that everyone is cognizant of and follows that specifies the roles and appropriate behaviors of the participants.
Now it’s possible to try and understand this purely in terms of individual purposive action, but when you do that you have to claim that there are a large number of calculations that either happen automatically or without any consideration whatsoever, which would seem to run contrary to what purposive action (the conscious choosing of means in pursuit of particular ends) is.
When you walk into Starbucks you’re not determining whether or not the barista is a threat, if they’re trust worthy or what their intentions are. You can take for granted their identity as a barista and the behavior that implies as appropriate, and your identity as a customer along with its associated behavior. This allows your purposive action to focus on whether or not you want a green tea frappocino or a double chocolate chip frappocino, as opposed to your fight or flight response.
Institutions allow for these higher order decisions to be made by creating the conditions to take certain information for granted (i.e. taking it off the purpsive action table) and when institutions and social relations break down (think Iraq 2003) those higher order decision are no longer possible as people literally do not know how to interact with one another anymore as their previous identities have been destroyed. New ones must be created and generally this is a violent process.
By the same token, the alternative set of assumptions can also be “contested” (i.e. rejected). So where does this get us? As I see it, it just gets us talking past each other.
Then you agree that property, as a mental construct, has no external nature (i.e. a nature outside of the mind).
Those relations exist within the actors’ minds. As I see it, they can’t exist anywhere else.
Following the “script” or “plan” takes conscious effort, does it not? Hence there’s never any actual guarantee that a given “script” or “plan” will be followed by a given person. Aside from that, what do you mean by “power structure”? Also, I wouldn’t call understanding of what’s expected of someone “knowing what ‘the right thing to do’ is”. Regardless, I don’t see how any of this goes against methodological individualism. You seem to misunderstand what methodological individualism is.
Indeed, one could say that market phenomena, such as the existence of money and prices, are institutional factors. Yet Austrian-school economics uses methodological individualism as the basis for describing them and why they exist. By your reasoning, the Austrian school of economics shouldn’t even exist, because you assert that methodological individualism can’t take into account institutional factors.
Taking something for granted is the result of a prior conscious process, is it not? Where does Austrian-school economics or even methdological individualism itself say that it’s impossible for individuals to take things for granted?
Again, I think all of this fits quite comfortably not only within methodological individualism, but also within Austrian-school economics. You yourself implicitly concede that these institutions only “exist” inasmuch as “enough” people follow them.
If you enter into a contract, you’re complying with a certain format of property transfer. That is, you automatically agree that the space delineated by the contract is what you’re paying for, and you have the right to that space, and that space only, per the terms and per the existing laws of that locality. If you don’t believe in the idea of the process, why are you engaging in that specific type of transaction but demanding that it supply you with more rights than it actually specifies?
Maybe you should make your investment in a locality with some kind of property owners’ association instead.
You can’t buy a hill if no one lives there? Are you saying there is land in America that hasn’t been claimed by private owners or governments, who can be negotiated with? I am unaware of such land.
You sound frustrated, and I get that. But short of buying up all the land within line of sight, I can think of no way you can control a view in a free society.
Now, try telling that to a home owner’s association… but fortunately, I don’t have to deal with one. 
Everyone in here seems to be assuming a particular property system and then taking that system as somehow inherent to nature…
Property rights do not have to be constrcuted around an individualistic and/or materialist framework. Its entirely possible that rights could be established over views or other “non-entities”
It is entirely possible that individuals could adopt any concept of property whatsoever.
Why do I favor the libertarian concept of property? For purely consequentialist reasons. The question to be asked is: the universal adoption of which concept of property yields the kind of world in which we want to live? The universal adoption of the libertarian concept of property yields the kind of world in which I want to live. This statement has two components: (1) a subjective valuation on my part about what kind of world I prefer to live in, and (2) a non-ethical claim about objective reality, namely that the adoption of the libertarian concept of property will yield certain results (independently of how one may value those results).
It is not that the libertarian concept of property is “inherent to nature.” Rather, the libertarian concept of property is the concept of property which one should advocate if one shares my subjective valuation: i.e. agrees that the world which the universal adoption of the libertarian concept of property would yield is the preferred world.
My arguments in other posts against counting “the view” et al as property were not about proving that a concept of property which includes such things as the view is incorrect: in the sense of being objectively false. Rather, my aim was to show what the consequences of adopting such a concept of property would be, expecting that most people would share my negative valuation of those consequences: e.g. that prosecuting people as tortfeasors for causing others to experience unwelcome thoughts is unacceptable because it would in effect make social interaction itself illegal, in which case society could either (a) collapse, or (b) leave this absurd concept of property a dead letter.