Hume, Property, and Government
April 26 marks the 1711 birth of Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, termed "The most important philosopher ever to write in English," by The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Unfortunately, his wide-ranging contributions have overshadowed his contributions to economics. They included empirical arguments against mercantilism, one basis of classical economics; essays on money and international trade which influenced Adam Smith (a close friend, who was actually present at Hume's death); and the idea that economic freedom is a necessary condition for political freedom.
Of particular importance now, however, given the massive expansion of government power that is being implemented in America, with far more being proposed, is Hume's understanding of the central importance of stable property rights to society. In his words, private property rights are necessary, because otherwise, people are "exposed to the violence of others," the threat behind every expansion of government's reach, which contracts individuals' rights to control their own property. In contrast, Hume recognized that "[under] a government of Laws, not of Men… Property is there secure…"
Consider some of Hume's insights on property:
As the improvement, therefore, of … goods is the chief advantage of society, so the instability of their possession, along with their scarcity, is the chief impediment.
The remedy … to bestow stability on the possession of those external goods, and leave every one in the peaceable enjoyment of what he may acquire by his fortune and industry. By this means, every one knows what he may safely possess … abstaining from the possessions of others … it is by that means we maintain society…
[I]t will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods, provided he will act in the same manner with regard to me.
[M]en's happiness consists not so much in an abundance of [commodities], as in the peace and security with which they possess them…
A man's property is some object related to him. This relation is not natural, but moral, and founded on justice… The origin of justice explains that of property.
[P]roperty is nothing but a stable possession, derived from the rules of justice…
No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstances the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.
[R]ender men fit members of society, by making them abstain from the possessions of others…
[I]t is to restrain this selfishness, that men have been obliged to … distinguish between their own goods and those of others.
It follows therefore, that … possession must be stable, is not applied by particular judgments, but by other general rules, which must extend to the whole society, and be inflexible either by spite or favor.
Property must be stable, and must be fixed by general rules … by the steady prosecution of the rule, and by the peace and order which it establishes in society. And even every individual person must find himself a gainer…
[Ideas of perfect equality] are really, at bottom, impracticable; and were they not so, would be extremely pernicious to human society. Render possessions ever so equal, men's different degrees of art, care and industry will immediately break that equality. Or if you check these virtues, you reduce society to the most extreme indigence; and instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community.
[T]he establishment of the rule, concerning the stability of possession … [is] absolutely necessary to human society… The convention concerning the stability of possession is entered into, in order to cut off all occasions of discord and contention; and this end would never be attained, were we allowed to apply this rule differently in every particular case…
The government, which … receives the appellation of free … must act by general and equal laws, that are previously known to all the members and all their subjects. In this sense … liberty is the perfection of civil society…
Hume recognized that "The heart of man delights in liberty," and that "In all governments there is an intestine struggle, open or secret, between Authority and Liberty." He recognized almost three centuries ago that the key to liberty is private property, which protects each citizen from abuse by others, including the government, with its coercive powers. When he argued to "maintain, with the utmost zeal, in every free state, those forms and institutions by which liberty is secured, the public good consulted, and the avarice or ambition of particular men restrained and punished," he saw private property as chief among them.
Hume's understanding of property rights also informed his understanding of government. He noted that "Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers." The major mechanism is the continuing erosion of individual rights, for ever-growing nobly described causes that do little more than transfer more power and income to government and those favored by government. That also reflects Hume's observation that "It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received."
David Hume saw that "Man … is engaged to establish political society, in order to administer justice; without which there can be no peace among them, nor safety, nor mutual intercourse. We are, therefore, to look upon all the vast apparatus of our government as having ultimately no other object or purpose but the distribution of justice." And the key to justice is the defense of citizens' property rights. That is why "It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave… Honor is a great check upon mankind: But where a considerable body of men act together, this check is, in a great measure, removed." Americans need to recognize and act on Hume's wisdom about the relationship between government and property today, because it is currently being not only ignored, but widely violated, and it will result in a host of adverse consequences.
Comments (3)
Barry Loberfeld
Published April 20, 2009 on Rebirth of Reason
by Barry LoberfeldA (Very Brief) Defense of Induction
On the blog of his “Rationally Speaking” site, American (by adoption) polymath Massimo Pigliucci, reflecting the influence of a certain Scottish polymath, recently wrote that the problem with induction is “that if the only justification for induction is inductive, it is circular. If one cannot find any other justification, then there is no rational basis for induction. It still works, of course, as Hume surely knew….”
It “works,” he concedes, but that is no “justification.” The only one he’ll recognize for induction is induction itself, and that simply will not do — because it is “circular.” No, induction must be justified by something other than itself. Of course, that something-other-than-itself must also be justified by something other than itself … and so on. Unless we’re prepared to defend infinite regress, we must acknowledge that there comes a point — the foundational one — where we have something that justifies/explains/proves itself. In epistemology, induction is that point.
And is that “circular”? Is it a “tautology”? No. That charge is unfounded at this fundamental level. Consider the difference between the statements “A is A” and “A gazuatron is a gazuatron.” The latter is useless as a definition: It’s not obvious what a “gazuatron” is — it requires explanation in terms other than itself. But how do we define A — “thing” — in other, more fundamental terms? We can’t, because it is the fundamental definition. Without this law of identity, we couldn’t have the commutative (A+B=B+A) and associative ([A+B]+C=A+[B+C]) laws of mathematics, among other things. If someone insisted that we define “thing” (and won’t accept “a thing apart from everything else”), all we could do is pick up a cup, a pen, a rock — the physical world, the universal foundation.
The failure to recognize a fundamental, non-arbitrary, objective context is the primary problem that bedevils people when they encounter axioms in the epistemology of Ayn Rand and the methodology of Ludwig von Mises. And as such, it is surely a problem not without ethical and political implications.…
• Suggested reading: Nicholas Dykes’ discussion of H.W.B. Joseph’s critique of Hume.
Published: April 27, 2009 7:58 AM
Deefburger
"The failure to recognize a fundamental, non-arbitrary, objective context is the primary problem that bedevils people when they encounter axioms in the epistemology of Ayn Rand and the methodology of Ludwig von Mises. And as such, it is surely a problem not without ethical and political implications.…"
"Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers." The major mechanism is the continuing erosion of individual rights, for ever-growing nobly described causes that do little more than transfer more power and income to government and those favored by government."
"It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received."
The end of Breton-Woods was just such a "steal[ing] upon them by degrees,..". The end of Breton-Woods ended the objective definition of the unit of measure of worth. It had been, up until then, fixed at $35/ouAu. With the end in the agreement came the end in an objective measurement of worth, worth of possessions and worth of self. One could no longer gage one's value relative to others with certainty. The change did not occur and does not occur rapidly. It is unnoticed by and large because some objective comparison is still possible on a daily basis. Any measurement made today is good today. It's non-objective nature only shows up when the the measurement is made at a later date, when the value of the unit of measure has changed significantly from the time of the previous measurement.
Measure your worth against your house today, in the Fiat Currency of your choice, and you get a measurement that is inconsistent with the same measurement you made the day you bought it. This is not because You have changed significantly. This is not because the house has changed significantly. It is not because your neighborhood has changed significantly. It is not because the utilitarian value of you or your house has changed significantly. The only thing that changed significantly, was the one thing you have come to rely upon for consistent measurement, it is the unit of measure itself. The Dollar, or Euro you are measuring with is inconsistent and undefined.
I challenge any of you to come up with a definition of unit value for any Fiat currency you can name. You won't find one that does not reference another non-objective undefined value.
Most people do not understand that subjective evaluation of an object is still objective. But to subjectively evaluate a subjective value yields only a subjective value. It's like the difference between red, redder and reddest. Without an object of evaluation, there is no measure of relative value. But assign the subjective values of red, redder, and reddest to apples, and the subjective evaluation becomes objective in the substance and example of the apples themselves. The apples can be compared by anyone evaluating the statement that Apple A = red, Apple B = redder, and Apple C = reddest. This works if the value of red is red, the value of redder is redder than red, and reddest is redder than red and redder. The relative values of the colors remain unchanged. Perhaps we are gaging them using painted cards as our unit standards of "subjective" value.
This is what we do each day with Fiat money. The problem for us is that a new evaluation must be made each day. The numbers on the bills are not values, they are simply ordinal indicators, like tick marks on a pier. Without a consistent unit definition, the ordinals have no relevant meaning.
So we assign one. We set a price. But that price has no basis in anything that would yield the same or similar results at some indefinite point in the future. So our evaluation is temporally fixed to the moment, and is useless beyond the moment of evaluation.
The answer to the problem is to establish a consistent unit and convert daily, or eliminate the Fiat Currency altogether. Since I can't do the latter, I do the former. I take the spot price for gold today, and convert gold to Fiat. I look up the historical value in the history of the spot price and I have a valid conversion factor for any time period in my past. I use only the relative weight in gold to evaluate anything else in the future, and find that the spot price on that future date always converts accurately! Much more accurately than any subjective-subjective definition of worth provided me by my bank.
That is how you unshackle yourself by "degrees".
Published: April 27, 2009 9:51 AM
fanofhayek
The most valuable form of private property is Truth, for without Truth, the Laws which protect private property are all for naught.
And thus character--the force with protects truth--is the most important element in protecting private property.
To change the meaning of words, or to diminish words and redifine them in one's own chracterless image is a crime against private property.
Having made the economy worse over the past seven years by insituting the entrepreneurship-free entrepreneurship that is the central plank of Schrammenomics, Carl Schramm is now attenmpting to institute Austrian-free Austiran Ecnomics, hiring Dane Stangler to replace the noble content of the Austrians with Bo Fishback MBA buzzwords such as "growthology." The theory is that is Carl Schramm gets enough invites to fancy dinners on first class flights (bought and paid for by Kauffman, like Carl Schramm's George Eastman Kodak Medal), he can revive the economy as he and Bo Fishback and Dane Stangler hold hands as they fly first class, chanting "grothology," "growthology," "growthology" while coming up with new ways to konsolidate power at kauffman so that no matter how bad the economy gets, no matter how many entrepreneurs and true academics they they oppose and afflict, they will yet receive millions for Carl Schramm's seven years of failed, eocnomy-killing, home-foreclosing, self-serving, MBA-buzzword chanting Schrammenomics. Sure you can buy a lot of medals, firends, and supporters with a $2.5 billion foundation, as long as you are an ambitious political manipulator. When the noble, exalted Kauffman left his estate for entrepreneurs and entreprnuership, he never defined entreprneurship as hijacking a ofundation and using it to fund one's own content-light, insipid, anti-intelletcual vanity press and purshcase George Eastman Kodak medals while hiring anti-entreprneur MBAs/JDs to replace the exalted spirit of entreprneurship with "growthology" buzzwords.
The New York Times reports, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/business/economy/25charts.html?_r=1&ref=patrick.net
Recession, Far From Over, Already Setting Records
Dane Stangler and Bo the Harvard MBA Fishback will never link to this, as their #1 job is to make sure that Carl Schramm's image is exalted even as the economy crashes after seven years of of Schrammenomics.
The economy is in Schrambles, as Bo Fishnback and Dane Stangler come up with new buzzwords to shout as they fly over America in first class, celebrating their massive salaries from the once venerable Kauffman Foundation (now dominated by tyrannical, failed schrammenomics) which have also allowed Carl Schramm to buy himself a George Eastman Kodak Medal and fund a vanity press devoted entirely to displacing the intellectual giants and Nobel Laureate economists who could save the eccnomy--Ludwig Von Mises and F.A. Hayke. schrammenomics is all about dumbing down the economy so as to make Schramm look good, as his insipid, dull, anti-intellectual book GOOD CAPITALISM (SCHRAMMENOMICS/BO FISHBACK MBA BUZZWORDS) BAD CAPITALISM (HAYEK & MISES) left out both Mises and Hayek.
Regarding Carl Schramm's Recession, The New York Times reports:
The two areas in which this is already the worst recession since 1960 are employment and industrial production. The number of jobs in the country has fallen by 3.9 percent, exceeding the 3.2 percent decline in the 1981-82 recession. Economists generally expect those numbers to get worse before they stabilize.
The 15.4 percent fall in industrial production, while worse than in previous recessions, is better than in some countries. The worldwide recession has slashed both production and international trade, and the impact is being felt most in export-driven economies in Asia.
The fourth category used in the coincident indicators is manufacturing and trade sales, a broad picture of total transactions in the economy. Adjusted for inflation, that has fallen 10.8 percent since the peak, a bit more than the decline in 1981-82 but not yet close to the 14.8 percent decline in the 1970s recession.
And yet Schramm continues flying around congratulaing his Statist friends:
F.A. Hayek warned us about Carl Schramm’s Tyranny: Mises Warned us of Carl Shramm’s/Dane Stangler’s Post Office
April 24, 2009 by entrepreneurshipeconomist
“[Socialists] promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office.”” –Ludwig Von Mises predicting what the Kauffman Foundation would become after seven years of tryannical, corporate-CEO, personal-profiteering, anti-intellectual, anti-entrepreneurial Schrammenomics.
Published: April 27, 2009 10:06 AM