Fraternal Libertarianism

This post sketches out a proof from first principles for a coherent political economic system herein called Fraternal Libertarianism. This system has the teleological* End as the maximization of happiness of all the people under its purview.

Axiom I: Based on Aristotle’s thinking in “Ethics”: Humans seek to and make decisions to maximize Happiness.

A person acts rationally in many dimensions to maximize his happiness. Not only his actual actions, but his thoughts of possible paths are virtual explorations of other paths that will maximize his happiness.

This Axiom also connects to the “pursuit of happiness” concept in the US Declaration of Independence. Jefferson changes the Lockean “life, liberty and property” to “life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, perhaps following and generalizing “property” along Aristotle’s thinking. Individual freedom for the pursuit of happiness would be essential in a State to maximize happiness.

Generalization: The political and economic structure of a State should be such to aid or assist or promote the maximization of some kind of aggregation of the happiness of all citizens.

Axiom II: All Men are Created Equal. To generalize from that classic formulation, All People are Created Equal.

Immediate Results

1. Then applying the “all men are created equal” axiom, for the happiness of a State, the aggregation of individual happiness is a simple sum – equally weighted happiness of every citizen.

2. This philosophic system justifies crime controls as just behaviors by a few (that increase the criminal happiness) reduce happiness of many more.

3. Such a state would also permit a very large amount of personal freedom as the self-interest of each person to maximize his own happiness is then harnessed to maximize national happiness.

Assumed Economic-Behavioral Laws

These laws will be used to derive some general indication how the State would go about maximizing the aggregate happiness of its citizens.

Law of Diminishing Returns: After a moderate or large amount of wealth and power has been achieved, further unit accretions to an individual produce diminishing unit accretions of happiness.

Risk Aversion: Risk aversion is the reluctance of a person to choose an action with an uncertain addition to his happiness rather than another action with a more certain, but possibly lower, incremental happiness.

Results

4. Controls on the ruling classes would justified and necessary as they use power (economic or state) to enhance their own happiness often at the expense of the many. While the actions of a person in the ruling class would tend to increase his own happiness, by taking more and more resources and control over others, he depresses the happiness of the masses. And that aggregate amount of depression is larger than his increase, according to the law of diminishing returns for him and risk aversion for them.

5. A social support system can also increase the happiness of the entire community as the happiness of the masses is increased MORE than the costs of support system reduces the happiness of the wealthy & powerful classes (who pay for that system), also due to the principles of risk aversion and diminishing returns. By protecting the masses from the small risks of catastrophic loss and / or marginalization of their lives, the happiness of the nation is increased. The costs would be borne by the rich and powerful.

[NOTE: it also shows how a society can breakdown IFF a majority of its members become criminals – maximizing happiness then is the path of crime as in Somalia.]

This political system is called Fraternal Libertarianism, as it promotes maximum freedom for the common man, some restrictions on the ruling classes, and a social support system to prevent catastrophic individual human degradation.

One can think of this as a "trimmed" Libertarianism. The State and political economic system is largely Libertarian with maximal freedom for the common man, combined with the trimming done on each end of the distribution of happiness of its citizens. The vast middle part of the distribution is free to act according to their own individual choices to increase their own happiness. The accumulation of power and resources by the ruling classes is controlled - that is the "high end" trim. The happiness of the citizens at the lower end of the distribution is supported to reduce their degradation / poverty / marginalization. The "trimming" increases the total happiness of the State according to the laws of behavior of diminishing returns and risk aversion.

Historical support for such a System is quite strong and abundant. Innumerable great empires were destroyed by the rapacious greed of the ruling classes in creating more and more powerful aristocracies at the expense of the common man. And not aiding the masses in attaining some happiness led to inordinately destructive revolutions. And the freeing of the masses of people to lead their own lives as they chose individually (when by successful reforms or mass emigrations) led to a huge increase in happiness of the citizens.

Formerly I thought that what I called Populist Libertarianism was the correct political economic system for humanity, but as you can see, I was wrong. I had incorrectly maximized freedom, which is a means, instead of an End, which is happiness. Freedom can lead to more happiness. The above proof, however, shows that perfect freedom does NOT maximize aggregate happiness of all the people.

Markets

I re-bought some FCX and MT as short or intermediate term trade in 1-2-3 Fund. I'll buy more on a further pullback. These stocks hit my (mentally) pre-determined re-buy points. My reading of the charts suggests some support around S&P 1085. It might not hold. But I'll swing my bat here a few times to see if I can get a hit.

PS: Added to my usual suspects, the resource trading stocks. Re-buy BHP, add MT.

Word of the Day

Teleological - adjective [$10]
Teleological means exhibiting or relating to design of purpose especially in nature.
Sentence: Fraternal Libertarianism has the teleological* End as the maximization of happiness of all the people under its purview. That is its design and purpose.