I plan to debate an anarcho-capitalist, LiquidZulu, on Friday at 1530 EST; the debate will be streamed on his channel. This post is meant as a way for me to get familiar with his idea of Austrian economics, as I will be pitting parecon against it. Along with this, I will also view his opening statement in his debate against Pansabee.
My method of marking in regards to bolding and italics is fairly simple; bolded sentences are important and italicized sentences are secondarily important. The emphasis on these sentences, however, may differ in my notes.
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1
Praxeology is the study of human action, it provides a framework for understanding the purposeful behaviour of man. Any praxeological argument with sound logic and accepted axioms is necessarily true.
What evidence is shown that praxeological arguments are "necessarily true"? This is the 2nd sentence of the notes and we're already making claims that are supported by nothing.
This also assumes the idea that logic on its own makes a truth, which falls flat on its face with even a second of thinking. If one makes a sound argument that one could benefit from a smoking addiction, that doesn't necessarily then mean that it is true that one benefits from a smoking addiction; it stands against empirical evidence that shows that smoking can cause cancer.
2
Praxeology stands opposed to mainstream economic modelling in that it relies entirely on logical derivations from axioms to construct economic theories, not simply economic models. Moreover these theories may only be contested by discovery of a fault in ones line of reasoning, not by looking to historical examples — a praxeological argument can only be countered with another praxeological argument.
This is a fairly childish view of how economics should be developed. The idea that history cannot disprove empirical claims made by praxeologists strikes me as disingenuous at best; because you deal yourself within economics and economic policy, you inherently need to learn about the history of economic theory and policy in order to understand what works and what doesn't for the case you have. It is an imperative, then, to understand whether your predictions about economics at least fit within past experiences.
The line of reasoning here would make sense in something like a math equation that uses imaginary numbers, but like I mentioned, economics is far from something a priori like math.
It is also a concern that an argument made from praxeology can only seem to be refuted by more praxeology, despite saying previously that it must be contested by a line of reasoning. Must we only concern ourselves with disproving praxeology with more praxeology if we can instead address the underlying assumptions made within the field?
3
Praxeology relies on the assumption that humans act purposefully, which is the Axiom of Action. It implies the notion that value, wealth, profit, loss, and costs are all products of human thought, having no objective foundation — one cannot imagine their existence or conceive their alteration outside of a connection with acts of subjective valuation and choice.
This is a non-sequitur; although its supposed to be an argument in favor of the subjective theory of value (at least I assume), humans acting with a purpose doesn't then necessarily throw value into subjectivity.
4
...to refute a praxeological argument one must discover a fault in the
chain of reasoning employed by the praxeologist. Empirical evidence may
only serve to establish the appropriateness of a theory’s application to
a particular event.
Praxeology, instead of making theories that only apply to a "particular event", makes claims about society at a large extent (we are self-interested/rational, we overinvest at lower interest rates, markets are the only rational method of economic calculation, etc etc). If it cannot describe a particular event, i.e., if the Austrian business cycle theory cannot explain 2008, it must either be fixed in order to account for the situation or it must be disposed of, it cannot be considered a "special case" type of theory. Like I said before, it becomes important to consider the very thing LiquidZulu chooses to reject.
5
Why would you dedicate yourself to studying human action and not understand why humans act? Along with this, why would you not understand the content of preferences? What if a preference is more socially harmful than another? These are fairly important things to consider in regards to studying human action and yet its all brushed aside.Praxeology is distinct from psychology in that it simply wishes to describe subjective valuations and choices not to uncover the underlying motivations, thoughts, or ends from which they rose. Moreover, praxeological theories, as understood by Mises, are independent of the particular psychological makeup of individual — praxeology does not address the content of individual preferences or the particular motives that give rise to those preferences, it is solely concerned with the pure logic of choice.
6
The Action Axiom, “human action is purposeful behaviour,” describes mans conscious aiming at ends and selection of means to achieve those ends. This is distinct to unconscious behaviour such as involuntary reflexes.
How much action would this exclude if we want to exclude subconscious behavior? These behaviors take up a good majority of our actions, and so to exclude them seems peculiar.
7
This seems a bit nonsensical; what if the action the man does to try and satisfy himself doesn't work and yet he insists it will?Action is always necessarily rational, as an acting man is always aiming his action to satisfy some desire. The terms rational and irrational are meaningless with respect to the subjective goals of a man.
8
...let’s imagine that Steve actually wanted to go to the Beatles concert
but someone told him that it would be held in the park, when it actually
wasn’t, can Peter now call Steve’s decision irrational? Steve went to
the wrong location, but he was acting on the information available to
him — he did his best. Moreover, just because a man fails to achieve his
end does not mean that the means he employed were irrational — since no
one is in a position to substitute their own values for those of
another it is futile to pass judgements on the values of an acting man,
the only place where a praxeologist may pass judgement is on whether the
means chosen are fit for achieving the desired end. This means that, in
short, praxeology is value-free.
This assumes that the situation in question has obvious conclusions, which means that the situation is so simple that no values are needed. This gets complex once we introduce more moral situations; is a man justified in murder for a desire, even if he may be arrested or hunted down?
9
Meaningfully denying this axiom is difficult, denial of the axioms empirical validity involves a purposeful act on the sceptic's part. It therefore confronts them with the uncomfortable choice of either ceding the issue or proclaiming that their own disagreement is purposeless.
This reductio ad absurdum can only work for an individual; its hard to prove that others act without using something outside of empirical evidence. It has about as much applicability to others as "I think, therefore I am".
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1
Anarcho-Capitalism is composed of two parts that are unsurprisingly, anarchism and capitalism. Anarchism as a philosophy advocates strict adherence to natural law, namely an anarchist asserts the truth of and says that one ought to abide by the non-aggression principle, or NAP. This NAP is a priori true for all acting men as it derives from the pure logic of conflict.
Anarchism does not advocate to follow "natural law"; I'm very unsure what actual anarchist literature that Zulu has read in order to believe this. Anarchism, above all else, is against hierarchy. The early anarchists, especially Stirner, likely would even reject the concept of "natural law", let alone the adherence to it.
You'd also have to prove (1) the existence of "natural law", and (2) that this "natural law" includes the NAP. Both of these, even if natural law exists, seem very unlikely to be done.
2
Austrians are unlike many other economists in that they do not attempt to model economics through mathematics like one would with more empirical sciences, rather [they make] long chains of logical deductions from apodictic truths are common in Austrian arguments making them in turn objectively true. These chains of logical deductions are done through praxeology, the general science of human action, and thus they can only be contended with either through a praxeologic counter-argument, or by rejecting praxeology all together. Such a rejection would imply that different groups have different ways of reasoning making it impossible to reason about reasoning in general, which is known as a polylogism, coming in a few main forms, including historicism, the belief that throughout the course of history the logic of human action changes, race polylogism asserting that each race has its own logic, and class polylogism, the contention that different classes have different ways of reasoning.
As I've addressed before, Zulu gives no argument to support the idea that praxeology is "objective" and only asserts the idea.
I also find the notion that everyone thinks exactly the same way is fairly ridiculous; the fact that I even object to your worldview is proof of this claim. It doesn't imply "polylogism", but rather that people have different lives and different experiences that develop their lines of reasoning; while dumpster-diving behind a GameStop may not make sense to one person, it will make sense to another as a trove of hidden gems.
I also also hope that I really shouldn't have to explain why my view on reasoning may also explain the differences in thinking when it comes to class, which is something that Albert and Hahnel expertly discuss.
3
This is a sore misreading of Proudhon and anarchism in general. First, it is important to note that hierarchy is never implied by consent, for if it required consent, then it wouldn't be a hierarchy since one could revoke consent and the structure is dissolved. The consent of hierarchy could only work in individual preferences like religion, and not in what I assume would be a traditional capitalist firm structure. Hierarchy also cannot simply mean imposing rules, for if it did, a rich person who spends no money on lobbying politicians would somehow not be considered higher on the hierarchy than a poor person.It is a common contention by those on the left that anarcho-capitalism is a fake anarchism, and that my summation above is not in keeping with the ontological history of anarchy. To refute this I cite Proudhon, the father of anarchism, in his “what is property:”
Neither heredity, nor election, nor universal suffrage, nor the excellence of the sovereign, nor the consecration of religion and of time, can make royalty legitimate. Whatever form it takes, — monarchic, oligarchic, or democratic, — royalty, or the government of man by man, is illegitimate and absurd.
It is from this that the oft-shortened definition of anarchism as “no-rulers” can be derived, i.e. if we define the government of man by man as rulership it is implicit. This is where leftists will attempt to be anti-hierarchy qua hierarchy by asserting that all hierarchies involve rulership, which is false. Hierarchy is implied by consent, i.e. the hierarchy of who gets a say over the use of my body is me on top and every other person below — a hierarchy, yet one that does not violate anyones consent. We can resolve this by saying that ruling someone isnt just being higher on a hierarchy than them, it is imposing rules on them, which is how we allow for consent and adherence to natural law, as a system of consent implies a system that is conflict avoiding.
This is all assuming that Zulu's interpretation of Proudhon is correct, which it sadly isn't; the most that Zulu does is provide the quote that shows that anarchism is against no rulers. Everything else afterwards is all Zulu's own ideas.
4
How is conflict being contradictory to no conflict make the NAP an "objectively correct" law? Pacifism reaches the same idea of being against conflict in a more succinct manner; aggression should be avoided because violence is morally bad. Does this make pacifism also "objectively correct"? If so, does this then imply that ancaps should be pacifists? If not, then why?Natural law theory is the area of philosophy that deals with the discovery of conflict avoiding and resolving norms, norms that can be objectively found given those two requirements. Aggression being the initiation of conflict is obviously illegal, as it is the negation of conflict avoidance, therefore the NAP is an objectively correct legal axiom.
5
This is, if it isn't obvious, a complete strawman of communism, as even Marx never advocated for "other-ownership" and at most advocated for proletarian state ownership; he spoke about how the individual would be able to perform whatever job and task he pleases under communism, as he would be freed from the limiting experiences of capitalism. Ain't saying Marx is good or anything, but he cared more about liberty than anyone dared to note.We can further justify self-ownership by considering the alternatives, as Rothbard explains:
…if each man is not entitled to full and 100% self ownership then what does this imply? It implies either one of two conditions: (1) the “communist” one of universal and equal other-ownership, or (2) partial ownership of one group by another - a system of rule by one class over another.
The problem with (1) is that it cannot make for a general ethic for humanity if we wish for humanity to continue surviving, which is the case for both myself and my interlocutor. One may not utilise property without the owners permission, so universal other-ownership would imply that one may not act without first seeking the permission of every other man, but such a seeking of permission would require action on the part of the man who wishes to act, and approval of such request would require yet more action on the part of the permission-givers who must each therefore ask permission ad infinitum.
