John McCone : Philosophy For The Future

Philosophy For The Future

Libertarian

Some Important Truths Are Scientifically Unprovable

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Can every important issue be scientifically investigated and, by comparing enough experiments with mathematical theories, answered conclusively? Can no philosophy uncover truths beyond the reach of science?

Here I argue that, despite the great service it renders humanity, certain biases, intrinsic to science, must be investigated from outside it. I will mention two examples where philosophical considerations can identify limits to the scientific method:

  • Freewill
  • Neurochemical Evaluations of Happiness

 

Why Free Will Is Scientifically Unprovable

 

An increasing number of scientists and psychologists reject the existence of free will. Indeed 86% of philosophers reject libertarian free will, with most believing that all our actions, down to the most minute decisions, are ultimately determined by circumstances outside our control (though compatibilists believe, so long as our desires align with our actions, we are acting freely even though we could neither act nor desire otherwise).

Is this slide towards determinism due to scientific discoveries… or is it the result of a bias in the scientific method itself?

Let us review what science is:

Science is a process whereby relationships of cause to effect are hypothesized and framed as competing theories. Some important predictions of these competing theories are then tested through experiment and observation. The theory with the greatest predictive power is then provisionally accepted while theories with lower predictive powers are usually rejected as false.

In other words, science is the inherent activity of deriving laws with ever-increasing predictive power. The game of science is the game of prediction. Yet prediction is only possible in a deterministic system.

Trying to use the scientific method to prove the existence of free will is like trying to use an earth excavator to fly to the moon. How can an intellectual activity that grants credibility to new hypotheses based on their predictive ability ever possibly grant credibility to a hypothesis that our behaviour is somewhat unpredictable due to our choices not being fully predetermined?

Science can only disprove free will and prove determinism – it is structurally incapable of the reverse. Science can only validate free will to the extent it fails to prove determinism – or runs up against its own limitations.

And yet…

…despite the inherent tendency of the scientific method to accept ever more deterministic descriptions of the physical world, and the unprovable nature of free will, it’s hard to see how our current scientific knowledge based upon experiments could be more favourable to libertarian free will.

The requirements of libertarian free will are quite philosophically demanding. If every action was exactly determined by preceding circumstances, then there would be no freedom, yet if every action was completely uncorrelated with subsequent actions, there would be no will. The notion of will is that an agent’s wishes determine some of its important future actions so as to materialize that wish in reality. These simultaneous requirements seem almost self-contradictory, yet a system whose behaviour is predictable – and heavily predetermined – in the short term, yet unpredictable in the long term, would satisfy the necessary criteria for a modest interpretation of libertarian free will.

Absolute free will (including the freedom to teleport yourself to Mars) is omnipotence. No advocate of libertarian free will, or any sane human being, would seriously claim we possess this. Libertarian free will is simply the modest claim we possess some free will; that our brains can make some important conscious decisions; that some conscious decisions, which arise from our minds, produce physical actions with physical outcomes that were not always predetermined; that we could have decided differently and – had we done so – a different physical action and outcome could have arose as a result of that different decision (that if you wind back the clock far enough to the same past condition and run reality again – a different outcome could result).

The uncertainty principle, states that the position and momentum of particles is fundamentally undetermined. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is more than just a limitation in our ability to measure particle position, as theses diagrams of electron orbitals in the hydrogen atom show. Each orbital represents the spatial probability of finding a single electron in a particular location in the atom. The p-orbital, for example, contains two dumb-bells of finite probability separated by an infinite plane of zero probability. The zero probability plane completely separates the finite probability regions from each other. There is no possible path for the electron to get from one finite probability region to the other without crossing the zero probability plane, yet if the electron didn’t cross the zero probability plane, the electric field and chemical characteristics of the hydrogen atom would be different. Thus, the electron must simultaneously exist on both sides of the zero probability plane.

3D representation of p-orbital probability cloud

Some theories appeal to an infinite number of unprovable parallel universes to interpret wave function collapse as being deterministic, but if we go back to the core value of science: experimental data is king. And experimentally, wave function collapse is non-deterministic.

While the short-term wiggle room for free will is limited to one atomic radius, the butterfly effect means very small differences in initial conditions can give rise to large differences in final outcomes. Here is the first observed example of a computer model exhibiting divergent trajectories in phase space.

Lorenz Experiment: The first time the Butterfly Effect was detected

The initial conditions vary by less than one part in a million, and, initially, the evolution of the system in both cases seems identical, but, after a period, the trajectory of both runs start to diverge and, eventually, they exhibit some important yet completely different behaviours.

 

The combined scientific observation of fundamental quantum uncertainty and long-term divergent behaviour from similar initial condition is conducive with short term macroscopic determinism and long-term macroscopic indeterminism. In other words, quantum uncertainty, when combined with the Butterfly Effect, leaves room for free will in psychology.

It is hard to imagine a physical description more favourable for the philosophically demanding requirements of libertarian free will than those routinely used to describe the behaviour of complex natural systems.

However, this may indicate free will has a long actuation time, which the Libet experiment cannot refute. Total short term freedom would, after all, negate the existence of a meaningful will.

Therefore, scientists who reject free will do not do so due to any scientific discovery (indeed discoveries in physics could scarcely infer a universe more favourable to free will) but rather due to of biases innate to the scientific method itself.

To complain there is no causal  mechanism for free will and, therefore, that it doesn’t exist is to completely miss the point. Causal mechanisms are, by nature, deterministic. A causal mechanism for free will is an oxymoron and demonstrates how the tool box of science is fundamentally unequipped to prove the existence of free will. If no scientific experiment could ever falsify determinism, then claims for determinism are as unscientific as claims for free will.

 

Neurochemical Evaluations of Happiness

 

Given the importance we place on happiness, it’s worth asking: “What exactly is happiness?”

 

Understandably, many neuroscientists and psychologists have brought their expertise to bear on research in this area. Scientific enquiries into conditions for producing happiness are both valuable and important. But is there any hard limit to the authority and expertise that progressive experimental discoveries could convey to researchers studying happiness (and other subjective feelings like misery)?

 

Consider this thought experiment:

Jim walks into an MRI scanner where his brain activity is thoroughly analysed. After emerging from the machine, the researchers, who have decades of experience studying neurochemistry, say to Jim: “We’ve analysed your brain chemistry and the results are conclusive. You are acutely depressed.”

Jim responds: “But I feel happy! I rarely get depressed.”

To which the researchers respond: “You are clearly mistakenly evaluating your own experience. The results of the MRI are conclusive. You are acutely depressed. You must register for a happiness enhancement course. It’s for your own good.”

Jim responds: “But I don’t need a happiness enhancement course, I already am happy.”

To which one researcher responds: “Jim, I have a 1st class degree in neuroscience, a Phd. in evaluating the neurochemistry of happiness and depression. I have spent the last 15 years looking at different people’s brain activities and evaluating them for happiness, or misery. The other 10 researchers on my team all have similar levels of experience and, after analysing your brain activity, we have all reached the same conclusion: that you are thoroughly depressed. How much experience do you have in analysing brain patterns?”

To which Jim responds: “None.”

The researcher then asks: “So why do you think you’d have more knowledge about your brain patterns than a team of researchers who’ve spent decades of their careers measuring and analysing brain patterns to decide whether patients are happy or miserable?”

 

Question:

Could any amount of scientific advances, cranial measuring equipment or AI data analysis techniques in an infinitely sophisticated future ever conceivably make it possible for the team of neuroscientists to be right and for Jim to be wrong?

 

I take the view that, for any sensible definition of happiness or misery, the answer to this question is “no.” All happiness evaluations must begin with a questionnaire. Now through comparing questionnaires with measured brain activity, facial expressions or other kinds of behaviour, we may find reliable markers that correlate well with reported happiness (dopamine levels, serotonin levels, activities in particular brain centres etc.). In the future, neuroscientists may, by monitoring brain activity, be able to anticipate reported happiness with 99%, 99.99% or 99.99999% accuracy. So, if neuroscience can achieve such accuracy in predicting how someone reports feeling, what happens when that one person reports a very different feeling to what the instruments tell the scientists he should feel? Are the scientists wrong about how the subject feels – or is the subject wrong about his own feelings?

Given that reported feelings are the foundation for correlating brain activity to subjective experience, subjective present experience must always have absolute sovereignty.

 

One could, of course, scientifically define happiness in terms of dopamine levels much like we define force as mass times acceleration, but such a definition would be irrelevant to the inherent philosophical value of happiness as a subjective sense of satisfaction, joy, pleasure, freedom from suffering, etc., etc., And there probably is a danger that, in the future, overzealous neuroscientists might favour scientific definitions of emotions like happiness, anger, sadness, depression that are easier to objectively measure and stick into computer models, even if such definitions are less relevant to the subjective emotions that we feel and value. There’s also a tendency in some fields to ignore outliers, in order to get journal papers published. All of this, if unscrutinised, could result in experts overriding people’s subjective experience.

 

But:

It is certainly possible that, in the future, neuroscientists will gain sufficient understanding of the workings of the brain to anticipate your future subjective experience, or evaluate your past subjective experiences, better than you can yourself.

 

The absolute sovereignty of the individual in evaluating their own experience, only applies to their immediate present experience. Expertise can (and probably someday will) anticipate people’s future subjective experience with greater accuracy than they themselves can. And there is already some important evidence that we aren’t good at objectively evaluating (or accurately remembering) how happy we were during an extended past period. People’s evaluation of their level of happiness over their entire lifespan varied noticeably based on whether they had recently found a few dimes left by a photocopying machine, suggesting our present mood strongly influences how we evaluate past emotions.

Experts may also understand why a subject reports an experience better than the subject’s own belief for the reasons of his experience. Numerous experiments clearly demonstrate that people can frequently give erroneous accounts of the reasons for their motivations and, perhaps, even feelings.

But this does not alter our absolute knowledge of our immediate subjective experience itself.

But being able to predict what people will subjectively feel themselves in the future, or why they feel what they feel, better than they can themselves, is distinct from being able to dictate what people feel in the present, better than they can themselves.

 

There may also be a one-to-many problem that runs both ways, where many different brain-states in different people lead to similar subjective experiences, while nearly identical brain-states in different people may occasionally give rise to significantly different subjective experiences.

So the evaluation of people’s present experience through evaluating neurological activity is an example of where science can only catch up with, but never surpass, common personal experience.

 

John

 

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How Free Should Speech Be?

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With police arresting 2,500 Londoners over the past 5 years for sending electronic communications that cause “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”, is free speech dead in the Western world? Are we entering into an age of authoritarian censorship? Is Europe fast becoming China?

Censorship and political correctness is not yet as bad in the West as it is in totalitarian China… according to some YouTubers, in certain respects, it’s already worse. As we condemn the Chinese for censoring the internet with their Great Firewall, the U.K. government has raised its own “Great British Firewall” to “protect” us from material that might turn us into terrorists… “terrorist” content like… studies linking vaccines with autism???? (If you’re in the U.K., go to this web page, click on the link in the second line of the second paragraph that says “study” and see what you get). So, to what extent is it O.K. to censor communication? It seems that whenever a government organization is given the power to censor dangerous communication, mission creep will always end with it censoring all information that influences public opinion in ways that politicians don’t like.

(It is not my intention promote any particular position on vaccination, merely to support the right of citizens to read about it without government interference.)

Perhaps there is some truth in John F Kennedy’s warning:

“And there is a very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment”

Without clear red lines that limit government censorship – we in the democratic west will lose everything. Every hard won right past generations struggled for centuries to secure could be lost in a few short decades. Once free speech goes, due process will follow shortly. Once due process goes, absolute tyranny will follow irrespective of any laws on paper.

In this post I will try to identify what aspects of free speech should be ring-fenced at all costs and without compromise. The issue of speech and communication is, unfortunately, a lot more tangled and complex than at first meets the eye, but hopefully people of all political inclinations will see some sense in a few proposals here – or at least acquire food for further discussion.

I will divide speech into 8 sub-classes:

  • Communication between consenting adults
  • Harassment
  • Sharing personal information
  • Communication at organized events and on private property
  • Communication in the Workplace
  • Libel and copyright infringement
  • Misinformation resulting in injury
  • Communication to organize activities that violate the law

 

Communication Between Consenting Adults

 

The free flow of information is as necessary for justice as the free flow of blood is for health or the free flow of money is for prosperity. At the very least, the right of consenting adults to privately exchange information and opinions with each other (unless they are actually plotting to directly violate the law in a tangible way) should be absolute and sacrosanct. Consensual communication should be immune from legal proceedings that relate to causing offence – since participants can avoid offence through withdrawing consent – including disorganized informal expressions of hatred (but not necessarily incitements to violence, property damage, theft or other illegal activities), so long as potentially offensive expressions are not directed at parties who do not wish to see them against their will. Ultimately, most published material is consensual and non-directed whether a book, a film or a blog. Posters in public spaces, billboards in the front of shops, or handing out leaflets to strangers on the street would not automatically qualify as consensual communication.

Even in the case of consensual communication (especially mass-publication), there is still the matter of violating someone’s privacy by publishing someone’s name, date of birth, home address, bank details, or other sensitive information. As well as libel or copyright infringement (discussed later).

 

Harassment

 

One of the most important distinctions between speech that should be immune from the law (or almost immune) and speech that may (though not necessarily) entail a legal responsibility is the distinction between consensual and non-consensual communication. We need to draw a clear line between communication and harassment. No one has the right to demand the time and attention of another human being (even worker-employer relationships are initiated with a job application by the worker), in fact a non-consensual, uncompensated demand on the attention of a stranger is not so very different from making a demand on their labour – a kind of slavery. Harassment is continuing to communicate, follow or man-handle someone after they explicitly tell you they wish to be left alone. In most cases, harassed private individuals should have legal recourse against their harassers.

There are exceptions where harassment may serve the public interest. Reporters might follow people who have acted unethically to publicly shame them. Perhaps a bank manager who gave out dodgy loans, a rogue trader who messed up the houses of clients by doing a shoddy job, a restaurant owner that added rats to people’s food, a CEO, whose company dumped toxic chemicals into drinking water and gave resident health problems, or a politician who embezzled public money. While most disputes where the party who has harmed the other does not wish to engage with them are best dealt with in court, the right of the press to confront some individuals that would rather not be confronted in order to serve the public interest is an important safeguard in a world where justice is imperfect,  judges can be bribed, and courts corrupted. I do, however, reject the notion that just being a celebrity – and nothing else – confers the public, or the press, with some kind of “right to harass”. Although, unfortunately, this seems to be the de facto norm today.

I think people have some right to verbally confront those who bad-mouth them behind their backs, or have damaged them in some malignant or negligent way – so long as a formal minimum level of good-manners is maintained during such confrontations. If you want the right not to be contacted by someone, don’t talk about them.

The other exception is debt collectors or anyone else with whom you have voluntarily entered into a contractual agreement that has not been honoured. Such people also have the right to harass (within limits).

Shouting hate-filled abuse in someone’s face against their will is not freedom of expression. It is harassment. If we make this clear distinction, and give members of the public confidence that the law will protect them from such disturbing experiences, then it should be possible to ring-fence the important elements of free speech and expression from legal censorship.

In addition to talking to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you, other forms of personally directed communication such as phone, snail mail or email, and private messages of all kinds in which the recipient has clearly expressed a desire not to receive them, should not qualify as protected forms of free expression. Neither should material handed to people in leaflets or large billboards in public space (not to say that such activities should be forbidden, but merely that they are more accountable for publicized content than more consensual media). Repeatedly using the @ sign in twitter after the account owner asks you to stop is a grey area. However, other than this, non-directed tweets and other social media messaging to followers who can unfriend or unfollow you at their leisure should count as protected consensual forms of free expression.

Reaching out to strangers from time to time is an important part of business and life. The key issue is when someone has made it clear they do not want to be communicated to either directly informing the communicator in question or by broadcasting a general message such as: No Unsolicited Mail.

But what about someone yelling in public space? There are certain ways of interacting with strangers for the first time that will obviously be distressing. I think the answer here is to collectivise public disorder, whether it be someone who wanders around shouting offensive things a strangers or hands out offensive leaflets. If numerous people complain to the police, the policemen should have the power to speak on behalf of the public and tell the person causing the disorder that members of the public have collectively withdrawn their consent to such an unsolicited form of communication. The police should only have the power to press charges if, after giving the warning, the person in question continues to approach and offend strangers. There should also be and expiry date (perhaps a week) after which said person can resume talking to the public until he is warned again – and so on. The expiry date is important, as people’s ability to approach strangers to initiate contact should be reasonably protected. (Harassment mostly only occurs after someone explicitly says: “Leave me alone.”)

Answering a question is never harassment. If you ask someone a question, then you implicitly permit them to answer it in any way that they want.

 

Sharing Personal Information

 

Gossiping is a part of life. If all gossip was forbidden, life would suck. Nevertheless, some private information classes have zero gossip value and, if shared, could expose individuals to physical or financial harm. Such obviously sensitive information is physical location and financial information. To physically assault someone, you first need to know their whereabouts, so publicizing someone’s whereabouts can expose them to harm. The same applies to financial information, or passwords and usernames in general. Email addresses are a grey area. While it is probably best to show discretion, cc-ing people onto small lists (of, say, less than 10) is often an appropriate form of introduction. Nevertheless, if someone explicitly tells you not to share their email address with others, this must be respected. As lists get larger, it becomes increasingly important not to communicate with those on the list in a way that they have not consented to.

 

Communicating At Organized Events and on Private Property

 

If someone walks away from you and you needlessly pester them and get in their face – that’s harassment. But what if many people simultaneously attend an event that they feel they will get value from, and other participants spoil their experience? They may not like what you say, while remaining in the event for other reasons.

Interactive events, question and answers sessions, clubs, conferences, and organizations in general, are a fundamental component of civil society with great importance and value. A place where different people can meet and discuss things with others, where introductions and, perhaps even new friendships, can be made, yet whenever lots of people get together, there will always be the danger of agro. Some participants may take great offence at what others say or do. And if both opponents wish to remain in the venue, or meeting place, things might get nasty.

One solution is to give the organizer total sovereign power to exclude anyone they want from any event they are organising. While such dictatorial power may appear to introduce an inequality between organizer and participant, everyone is free to organize their own events. An event’s size is simply determined by the number of participants who decide to attend. Organizers of large events want people to attend and if they unfairly exclude people, participation levels will drop precipitously. The greatest punishment participants can dole out to an event organizer is to walk out in large numbers. So while giving dictatorial exclusion powers to organizers may seem unjust – competition between different organizations will keep such dictatorial powers in check.

It is worth mentioning that repeated, deliberate physical contact, against the will of the person being contacted at an event, is not the same as speaking to someone against their will and can count as harassment – irrespective of any position taken by the event organizer. Organizers have a responsibility to take reasonable measures to ensure the physical safety of participants.

Beyond that, I would like to add two details: the person who pays for a space (either by owning or renting it) takes precedence over the organizer if they are different people. Say, for example, a group regularly meets in a café, and the person organizing the meeting excludes one attendee, but that attendee remains in the café. If the café owner says they can stay, that decision should supersede that of the meeting organizer. Social networks, where users build up long term value (such as connections to friends or followers), should have complete discretion in setting the policies they adopt. However, once they commit to a policy, they must not exclude members in a manner that violates their own policy. The terms of service should be as binding on the writer of a contract as they are on the readers.

Moderators of comments have a similar level of discretion over which comments they publish.

In a similar way, what if some performer at a venue offends an audience who attended to see someone else? While members of the audience may complain to the venue organizer and while the venue organizer may, at their discretion, exclude the performer, this decision is the sole discretion of the venue organizer. The venue which the organizer creates, can be viewed as a consensual form of communication that participants can choose to accept or reject in totality. Although if attendants bought tickets there might be some cases where they could claim their money back due to false advertising.

There is a case for punishing organizers that consciously oversee venues that systematically incite participants to engage in violence, theft or any other illegal activities. Though, as with the press and harassment, on occasions inciting the public to break the law may serve the public interest (such as if the law is unfair or immoral). Laws against incitement should only apply to physical events and not digital publications, as physically attended events have a greater effect in swaying people’s minds and initiating mob activity.

There are probably some other modifications to the extent that event organizers should be given dictatorial exclusion powers, but this post is long enough as it is.

 

Besides events, there is private property. If you are on someone else’s property, whether residential or commercial (such as a shop), then the owner of that property has the right to communicate with you while you are on their property. Furthermore, the owner can delegate the right to communicate to anyone they wish (such as a shop assistant or security guard who does not own the shop). Broadly speaking, the same principle applies to places of work. The owner of a workplace has the right to communicate with employees who work there, even against their will, so long as they remain on the premises (which they have a right to leave) and to delegate that right to others.

Needless to say, the owners or renters of private property also have the right to expel whoever they want.

This also applies to digital space. Email providers have a right to send emails to accounts that are registered with them (even against the will of users), the same applies to the right of Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to send messages to the users of their service through their internal messaging systems (even against the will of users). However, unlike physical venues, digital service providers should not get dictatorial powers to allow other users to send unwelcome messages to each other.

 

Communication In The Workplace

 

The workplace is a special kind of venue, as employees often cannot leave without great financial sacrifice. As such, giving “the venue organizer” (i.e. the boss) total unregulated dictatorial powers of exclusion won’t work, as it is often much harder to find a new job than join a new club. And so competition between workplaces will have less of a moderating influence since the labour market is currently a buyer’s market (hopefully The Countryside Living Allowance  could change that).

On the one hand, sweeping anti-harassment laws would make workplaces totally dysfunctional, toxic environments. If you have agreed to work at a job for money, that implies agreeing to interact with your colleagues professionally. Balancing the law to protect employees from workplace bullying while enabling frank and effective communication, and a workplace environment where people don’t feel they’re in constant danger of getting sued, is a delicate matter which a single blog post cannot disentangle.

 

Libel and Copyright Infringement

 

There is a serious danger that creeping copyright infringement and libel laws could kill free speech and democracy through the death of a thousand cuts. People’s ability to complain, when they – or others – have been abused, swindled or when their neighbourhoods and the planet get damaged, is essential for justice and democracy. Yet this necessarily involves accusing other people of causing harm and damage. Laws that allow individuals to sue for libel and defamation threaten our ability to shine the light on injustices that cause damage and suffering.

The problem with complex laws, that are open to interpretation, is those with money to hire good lawyers usually win. Furthermore, even if complex laws protect someone’s ability accuse someone else, many victims, who do not understand the legal system, may still be intimidated into self-censorship for fear of libel and anti-defamation lawsuits. Without affordable legal advice, they cannot know if they are protected.

Similar problems lurk behind copyright laws. The ability to criticise and quote the works of others is essential to informed political debate. If someone writes a book, makes a film, or has an interview, where false or misleading statements are made, it is important that others can criticise their quotes and set the record straight. Yet if they are not allowed to quote them, for fear of infringing their copyright, this will be impossible. Many documentaries, which draw attention to a range of important human rights and environmental issues, often need footage from a wide variety of sources. Overzealous copyright laws could stifle these works.

We live in an age where everyone and everything is surveilled all the time. There are vast archives of data…but who owns them? If only a tiny subsection of society owns the copyright to most of it, they will have a monopoly privilege to slice and dice it into narratives and propaganda of their choosing to convince anyone of anything while those without copyright may not be able to critique it without getting sued for infringement.

Fair Use legislation is there to defend against this, but it is quite ambiguous and the penalties for falling on the wrong side of it are severe: $30,000 per infringement. It is critical that people become fully aware of the ramifications for justice and democracy if we let Fair Use get chipped away.

This is the problem: Most people go about their daily lives not worrying about copyright. Most don’t consider copyright law or anti-defamation law when they vote in elections. Yet if these laws creep in the wrong direction, they could provide an ideal backdoor route to restrict free speech.

…and yet…

Should someone’s business be ruined because someone else tells a lie (or even reveals an embarrassing truth) about them?

It is right that someone should profit from another’s work without paying the creator a penny?

When it comes to defamation, the issue is complex.

But one way to stop copyright from smothering documentary makers and other creators of compilations would be to only let infringed parties sue for a portion of the profits of works that quotes substantial portions of their creation and to set a floor that guarantees that those who incorporate portions of other people’s work into their work receive at least 50% of their compilation’s  profits. The sum total of aggregate royalties to all parties that sue for copyright infringement in a compilation should never exceed 50% of the net profits derived from the compilation. $30,000 fines for statutory infringement in compilations should be eliminated completely – the danger of destroying freedom of speech, expression and the use of quotes and other source material in informed debate far outweighs the danger of not compensating creators for the value of their creation.

 

The general public needs to pay a lot more attention to legal creep in these critical areas of law before it smothers their free speech entirely. The big problem with “leaving it to the experts” is that rich people and corporations are usually the ones paying experts to lobby to modify these areas of law in ways often at odds with public interest.

 

Misinformation Resulting in Injury

 

While spreading lies and misinformation may not be generically illegal, on occasions when it causes damage to life and property, the legal consequences can be severe. Perjury is a crime that relates to lies in court and the punishment is years behind bars. Beyond that, there is a grey area between giving out damaging financial advice and confidence trickery. Certainly, someone who falsely poses as financial adviser and misrepresents the risk of an investment can face lawsuits from investors who’ve lost millions from the advice, along with fines and imprisonment. Someone whose misinformation on health issues results in a loss of life can face consequence of similar or greater severity.

This all may seem very reasonable, yet sometimes punishing people for spreading damaging misinformation can be problematic. A big issue is health advice. When standard medicine has a tried and trusted cure for an ailment with minimal side effects, going with the treatment prescribed by your GP is a no-brainer. However, for many health conditions, such as cancer, standard treatments are not 100% effective, and even if you follow your GP’s advice you could still die. Many chronic health conditions require continual doses of medicines that are expensive, have dangerous side effects, and reduce people’s quality of life. In cases where the standard treatment for an ailment is unsatisfactory, it is understandable that some people will search the internet for better solutions either in addition to, or in place of, prescribed treatments.

The internet health scene spans the full spectrum from charlatan snake oil salesmen who charge big up front money for non-cures to simple, incredibly helpful, cheap, life changing advice, to terrible advice that is downright dangerous. It is understandable that some people would want to shut it down to protect public health.

…and yet there’s a problem with this…

Existing medicine is strongly biased towards researching new chemical compounds with curative properties as opposed to exploring new (previously unknown) curative properties possessed by existing compounds. This is not the most effective use of resources and has everything to do with patent law. The existing compounds cannot be patented, so systematic research into new curative properties of existing chemical compounds is not, for the most part, profitable.

Yet the long term side effects of injesting compounds that can be found in the food section of the supermarket are far better known than the long term effects of injesting a newly discovered chemical compound. At the very least, chemicals contained in regularly eaten foodstuffs have stood the test of time and have been eaten by billions. Conversely, control trials of new chemical compounds are conducted over shorter periods on smaller groups. These can screen for short-term side effects, but can miss potentially damaging side effects of long term dosage on small, vulnerable portions of the population.

 

You can find hundreds of household cures on the internet. Coconut oil for skin rashes and earaches, garlic for flu, someone even testified that he has successfully used a vibrator to cure a chronic case of haemorrhoids!!! Many of these cures have not been systematically tested in large expensive control trials, principally because they cannot be patented. All we can go on is hearsay and personal stories.

Health bloggers have to be careful about what they say. Even if a given remedy really does have beneficial health effects if it isn’t “authorized” by the medical status quo, due to a lack of evidence from control trials, (which is often due to an absence of control trials due to lack of funding) then if someone tries the remedy and suffers as a result, there could be a danger the health blogger might be held accountable.

In all high-stakes fields (engineering, medicine, mental health) there is a severe bias towards the status quo. Conformity becomes a protective umbrella. It is inevitable that from time to time, people will die, but if you follow the best practice standards in your field and someone dies, then you are not legally accountable. However, once you move away from those standards, you enter a world of personal liability. One might argue that this protects people, but the reverse can also be true. If procedure A is accepted as best practice and kills 10% of patients, and procedure B is not accepted as best practice but only kills 5% of patients, then not following best practice could actually save people. Yet, paradoxically, the physician who follows best practice is legally immune from the consequences of the 10% of his patients that die while the physician that did not follow best practice could be held personally accountable for the 5% of his patients that died – and might be imprisoned for negligence as a result.

Thus, while best practice can prevent standards from slipping it is also a huge obstacle to improvement and deters all but the least risk averse physicians from seeking better treatments to save lives.

We should research new curative properties of existing compounds, such as foods and cosmetics, more systematically, but until more funding for such research is made available, reading about home remedies on the internet might be the best we can do. It is always good to first talk to a GP about a medical problem (which is pretty much what every medical website says to cover their arse). Nevertheless, if the remedy a GP prescribes is not fully effective, people must have the right to seek better remedies (if they so wish) on the internet at their own risk. While others must have the right to give advice, so long as they do not misrepresent their qualifications.

And laws that protect people from damaging misinformation must not expand to the point that they suppress information of uncertain helpfulness. Just because it is uncertain whether something is helpful doesn’t imply it necessarily isn’t.

 

Communication to Organize Activities That Violate the Law

 

Attempts to break the law are illegal even if they fail. And communicating to organize others to break a law can be considered part of an attempt. The key thing is to distinguish between an “attempt” and a “fantasy”, evidence such as the level of detail in the communication (such as serious information gathering and analysis), and the physical activities that accompany it, contribute to distinguishing serious attempts from idle fantasies. But there can be no doubt that, in some cases, communication could be the lion’s share of evidence to confirm that an attempt to break the law was serious. So this is a further class of criminal communication.

 

Final Remarks

 

It is understandable why all forms of censorship concern us. You can only censor others if you are more powerful than they. If you have less power than another, you cannot sensor them however much you might want to, so the ultimate decision about what to censor and what not to censor will always rest in the hands of the most powerful actor (be they a person or an institution). Free communication and the innate power of uncontrolled gossip have historically been deployed to curb the shamelessness and impunity of society’s more powerful members and to limit the abuses they can get away with.

And yet, from the above considerations it seems that we cannot ringfence the absolute freedom of every conceivable form of communication. Some forms of communication can do great damage to others and it seems morally necessary to sometimes regulate them (fraud at the very least). Whenever we say: “I believe in absolute freedom of expression” it must always be qualified by something like “excepted in cases of fraud, copyright infringement, perjury and reputation damage caused by libel.”

But can these exceptions be contained within an impregnable bubble, or will a creep in legislative interpretation enable those in power to incrementally warp and expand the sphere of acceptable censorship to the point of acquiring the de facto ability to censor anything they want?

 

John

 

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Geo-Libertarianism: A Peaceful Way To Resolve Territory Disputes At Sea

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Historically, the emergence of new frontiers has frequently been accompanied by spates of violence as rivals rush to assert, and defend, new claims. As new frontiers open up in the oceans, the arctic, and in space, does an orderly way exist to peacefully divvy up the rival claims for territory that will surely arise? Given the immense destructive power of modern nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, the absence of clear international cyberwarfare norms, and the existential threat posed by a hastily conducted AI arms race, a working solution to this issue has never been more urgent.

Bidding is the obvious peaceful alternative to fighting over the use of scarce resources. When two people bid to against each other to access the labour of other humans, the money should clearly be paid to the person who supplies that labour. Similarly, if a craftsman creates an item of value and puts it up for sale, the proceeds of any auction between rival bidders for that item should go to the manufacturer of that item.

But what if no one created the value that competing interests bid to use? What if it has no rightful owner? There’s only one just answer: if no one created an item of value, then everyone has an equal claim to it.

There would, of course, be no sense for everyone to equally use everything – including things they didn’t want. For the sake of productivity it is far better for the winning bidder, the party with the greatest desire and ability to make use of the resource in question, to have sole access to that resource.

The great insight that Henry George articulated, in his masterpiece Progress and Poverty , was that the inherent equal entitlement of everyone to all natural value could be resolved with the rationale for giving sole access to the winning bidder, with a simple Land Value Tax whose proceeds would be redistributed equally throughout the population.

Henry George’s ideas are the basis of Geo-Libertarianism.

The three basic Geolibertarian principles are:

  • Everyone is entitled to freely help themselves to all abundant natural – and relinquished – resources (i.e. abundant meaning supply exceeds demand at zero price)
  • Everyone is entitled to an equal share of all scarce natural and relinquished resources
  • Everyone is entitled to the full benefit they negotiate for the value of their labour – this includes any increase of value that their labour has added to capital they have negotiated legitimate ownership over ( labour includes effectively managing a company you own ).

Once you grasp that relinquished resources have the same status as natural resources, just as dumpster divers are free to help themselves to trash produced by labour, most concerns  about quantifying the labour mixed with land, disappear. Land with negligible value, whether natural or relinquished, is available to all for a negligible land value tax. The value of improvements, that labour produces, is simply the minimum cost of producing those improvements on abundantly available land (assuming workers on normal salaries produced them). This applies as equally to a house, a factory or a shop as it does to a golf course, a ski slope, a hedge row or any other kind of cultivated land. The land value tax is the yearly payment the state must charge to reduce the sale price of the land to the cost of producing the improvements on it – or a sum high enough to cause some owners of unimproved land to freely give it away, but low enough to ensure there are always takers.

Accusations that libertarians would leave homeless single mothers in the cold to starve are therefore unwarranted as a basic income, paid to rich and poor alike, is consistent with zero income tax. Indeed supporters of land value tax include notable libertarians like Milton Friedman  and Peter Thiel.

Seasteading And Geolibertarianism

 

Gabriel Sheare, Luke & Lourdes Crowley and Patrick White/seasteading.org

The most credible and motivatated movement seeking to expand into a new frontier is the seasteading movement. The Seasteading Institute eventually aims to establish new floating nations in international waters. The institute has met with representatives of states as well as engineering firms which build floating structures, such as Blue21 .

In the past, territory was fought over. Since 1945, sovereign territories have mostly, either remained static, or fragmented. The UN consensus seems to be that since war is bad, and since sovereign boundaries are mainly altered through war, the less we try to alter borders, the better. Independence movements have, from time to time, caused sub-regions of countries to establish themselves as independent nations, but very few nations have expanded their borders since World War 2 (with the exception of German reunification). Instead, the general trend has been increasing regional independence and more numerous, smaller, independent nations.

Yet this pattern of establishing new nations through civil war, civil unrest or political activism in unruly regions of existing nations (Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Bangladesh, Eritrea, etc.,) offers no guide for dealing with new unclaimed frontiers – especially international waters. As the ocean becomes increasingly valuable due to improvements in underwater mining technology for fossil fuels , and other minerals , as well as open ocean fish farming , OTEC  and off-shore wind , the question of how to divvy up oceanic resources is becoming urgent. We already see disputes over ocean territories developing between nations while existing international conventions for determining sovereign maritime control are hideously tangled and arbitrary.

Seasteads, could test out new ways to achieve a peaceful territorial consensus. Systems which, after ironing out the bugs, could resolve territorial disputes everywhere.

I propose applying geolibertarian principles to new territorial claims in international waters. International waters is particularly suitable for geolibertarianism as it contains little, if any, fixed capital. This reduces the complication of separating land from improvements.

Geolibertarian principles suggest the following approach for establishing sovereignty in international waters:

  • A new seastead informs the UN of its intention to ringfence a patch of oceanic territory
  • The UN announces this intention to all existing nations of the world (including other seasteads) and makes a record of this declaration publicly available to anyone – including other groups who may want to establish their own nation.
  • If no one challenges the territorial claim of the seastead, they get it for free
  • If some party disputes all or part of this claim, the UN conducts an auction where disputing parties bid against each other for control of the territory. Procedures to parcel the disputed territory into different “lots” will have to be worked out by trial and error. Control of each lot goes to the seastead that bid the highest.
  • The parties bid over yearly payments. These payments must be made to the UN in perpetuity unless control of the territory is voluntarily relinquished.
  • No territorial claim to international waters is permanent. It will always be open to challenge. Another seastead, or new entrant, can always challenge an existing seastead’s territory to a bidding contest. If a portion of their claim is challenged, and they are out bid, they must part with that portion of territory. This prevents first movers buying up vast tracts of international waters early on, closing up the frontier, and blocking new entrants. Existing seasteads may have to increase their yearly payments to the UN to defend their claims against new challengers who offer higher bids.
  • Yearly payments to the UN should mostly be redistributed as a per capita payment to all permanent residents of international waters (regardless of their jurisdiction of residency – if any). A small portion of the proceeds should fund the program’s running costs.

 

Bugs and details will, of course, need to be ironed out. Perhaps bidding rules should not allow challengers to bid for a seastead’s maritime heartland before bidding for its borderland. Other issues may also crop up and trial and error will establish norms for good conduct.

This system for resolving disputes should first be beta-tested on tiny disputing seasteads competing over different portions of international waters before a smoothed out, re-purposed version is used to resolve disputes between large nations over exclusive economic zones.

A further benefit is that, by creating an economic incentive to live at sea, a maritime basic income could encourage floating settlements to be built near maritime workers – who mine minerals, manage wind turbines, maintain OTEC systems or run fish farms. This would let their families live nearby and improve their quality of life.

 

Similar bidding systems run by the UN along geolibertarian lines have also been proposed as a means of preventing space wars between rival asteroid mining companies.

 

Future Territory Disputes Could Save, Rather Than Destroy, Lives

 

Needless to say, the effect of applying this system to existing terrestrial sovereign borders would, in most cases, be destabilizing to say the least. The safest way to establish  the sovereign borders of land governments is to stick with the status quo – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Nevertheless, ribbons of disputed territory at the borders of some sovereign nations are already potential flashpoints for future wars, the Golan Heights being one example. A geolibertarian solution (debugged by seasteads) where disputing nations make rival bids of yearly payments to the UN for control of a disputed territory, would be unlikely to worsen these tense situations and may improve them.

The resulting yearly payments to the UN could fund a global universal basic income, which everyone – including inhabitants of the poorest countries – would receive. Arms races already are a kind of bidding contest between combatants, yet the result of this “bidding” is wasteful and destructive, resulting in the trashing of expensive military hardware and human life.

If, instead of trying to out-spend rivals in weaponry, competing countries tried to outspent each other with charity, then, in the future, territorial disputes between nations could save, rather than kill, people.

 

John

 

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A Rights-Based Basic Income

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howcolour/Shutterstock.com

When the topic of basic income arises, people often ask me: “Why should we pay people to do nothing?” We generally think that hard word generates income, and that workers rightfully own that income. The idea of taxing hardworking people to pay those who (might) do nothing seems unjust. Should workers slave for money that mostly gets confiscated and given to others?

Yet not all income is paid to labour. A portion of income is used to rent assets of value. An owner of valuable assets can receive rent from others who wish to use them. This will provide him with an income for little to no work – possibly indefinitely. Some of the value of rentable assets was produced by labour, however a portion, perhaps a third to a half, was not.

I propose (as Henry George once did) that only the value created by labour can rightfully be privately owned. The only assets of value that can rightfully be purchased are assets created by labour, and if labour is only responsible for a portion of an asset’s value, then only that portion which labour produced should be owned privately.

There is no reason why one person should have a greater claim than another to value that is not produced by labour and, therefore, the rental income proceeding from the use of all natural value, by right, should be distributed evenly throughout society. The only way to own something is to produce it or purchase it from the rightful owner. This requires a voluntary exchange of ownership extending back to the original producers of the item of value. The purchaser of private ownership rights to natural value is like a buyer of stolen bicycles – as all private entitlements to natural value were originally stolen from the commons.

This article explores the revenues that a basic income based on equal rights, could generate. An income based on the principle that all people have:

  • An equal right to the unimproved value of land
  • An equal right to newly printed money
  • An equal right to inheritance
  • An equal right to benefit from bads whose quantity must be limited

 

The Portion of Land Value Not Produced By The Owner

 

Anything for which the demand at zero price exceeds the supply has monetary value. For some of these scarce, yet desirable, items (such as a piece of jewellery) the source of value  was the labour of a craftsman, in which case the value rightfully belongs to its creator. Yet in other cases, at least a portion of the value is naturally occurring (a lakeside view, for example). Usually, human labour must mix with natural value to produce the final item. However, some natural resources require less effort to extract value from than others. Consider two coal resources: one far below the surface branching into narrow seams, another deposited on the surface, extractable with open cast mining. The value of coal from both mines is equal, yet one requires far more labour to extract than the other. This will make the mineral rights of the easily mineable deposit more expensive than the rights for the deposit that requires more capital and labour to extract coal from. But when one mining company out bids the others and pays the higher sum for the right to mine these easily accessible deposits, to whom should the money be paid? Who was responsible for that coal deposit being closer to the surface? Who deserves to be paid for this service? No one! It is simply a fluke of nature. And if no one deserves the cash proceeds from selling the rights to this resource, then everyone is equally entitled to these proceeds.

Beyond that, there is value that arises from proximity to other people. It is valuable to live close to shops, restaurants, discos and workplaces from which to earn a living. Yet the land owner creates only a tiny portion of this value. If most people on a street paints their house, the location value of the street will rise even for those who don’t. If a shop or railway station opens up, nearby house prices will go up even if their inhabitants did not build the railway or work in the shop.

We can thus see that, while much of a location’s value does arise from human activity, the rental proceeds from location value are not paid to the creators of that value. Since it is impossible to identify who is responsible for each pound of increased location value, it is better to tax the rental value of location and distribute a per head payment to everyone.

How do we assess what portion of land value arises from its unimproved location value and what portion arises from improvements which the owner has made? The value of the improvements is the cost of producing the improvements. If a house in London costs £150,000 to build and sells for £750,000, then it’s unimproved land value is £600,000. The cash value of the yearly benefit that proceeds from the exclusive use of a location is the location rent (the site rent). The appropriate level to set land value tax (a sum payable to the government for the exclusive use of a location) in a neighbourhood, is therefore whatever level reduces the prices of houses traded in an area to the cost of producing all the improvements present at that location. Mark Wadsworth estimates that a tax on the full site rent of residential property in the U.K. would bring in around £200 billion. Existing business rates offer a conservative ballpark estimate for what a tax on the unimproved value of commercial land could raise – around £30 billion.

Natural resources and farm land would not significantly change these figures.

So an equal right to the rental proceeds arising from the unimproved value of land in the U.K. would split £230 billion per year among 50 million adults and yield a yearly basic income of £4,600 per person.

 

An Equal Right to Newly-Printed Money

 

Any civilization that permits usury must continually create new money to remain stable. The current way that central and private banks create and distribute new money is highly unjust. So who should receive the newly printed money? Newly created money is not produced by labour, we certainly don’t reward private individuals who labour to create money! Forgery, the production of money by private individuals, is a criminal offence. Money is an – albeit useful – artificial monopoly imposed by legal fiat. Because it is produced by legal fiat, rather than labour, all people have an equal claim to the value of newly printed money. In a previous article, I discussed the precise financial policy reforms required to stabilize our system. Suffice to say they involve paying £1,840 to every adult, every year.

 

An Equal Right To Inheritance

 

Imagine a think-tank asked you to summit a design proposal for an equitable welfare system that addresses poverty to a report they were writing. Imagine you proposed a system where the welfare each recipient received was proportional to the net worth of their parents at their time of death. The response of the editor would probably be: “That’s the dumbest, most arbitrary, welfare system I’ve ever heard! Come back when you have something better!”

Inheritance is welfare. It’s unearned wealth some people receive in exchange for no work.

Some people accumulate a great deal of wealth over the course of their lives, which doesn’t go away when they die. So what to do with that value? Since no living person produced it, no living person has earned it. As such, everyone should have an equal claim to the wealth left behind by the dead.

So how much money would an equal right to inheritance bring in?

Let’s neglect land (whose value would already be taxed away) and just include financial assets. The HMRC estimates the total value of financial assets in the UK to be £1.6 trillion. If we take the gap between generations to be 33 years, as Richard Murphy does, this would yield a yearly revenue of £53 billion to be redistributed. Let’s assume, for the sake of being conservative that half of this is avoided or evaded. This would leave ~£25 billion a year, or £500 per person per year.

 

An Equal Right To Bads Whose Production Is Restricted

 

It is impossible to quantify with any accuracy, how much income this would bring in as the extent to which bads are restricted, and how they are restricted, is a political one. A slight modification of David Fleming’s proposal of Tradeable Energy Quotas ( TEQs ) would distribute rights, to purchase CO2 emitting fossil fuels, equally throughout the population. Every time you buy coal in the shop, you would have to surrender a portion of your quota. Companies would not be issued with any carbon ration but would have to purchase it from private individuals who could sell their carbon rations on the market to companies instead of burning it.

An alternative would be to charge a fixed price per unit bad emitted. There is a case for spending this price on clean-up costs rather than giving it to the population in general.

Beyond that, companies must often be approved for a license to engage in potentially harmful activity. The quantity of this activity could be reduced by increasing the cost of the license (whether selling liquor or gambling). The money raised should be distributed evenly throughout the population.

Conservatively, I will add £500 per person per year as the proceeds of the redistribution of fees, duties, rations, licenses, etc., etc.

 

Getting Real About Basic Income

 

Adding it all together, a rights-based basic income, which makes no claim on the proceeds of other people’s productive labour, would amount to about £7,440 per person. That this is far below the average wage should not be surprising for, as Piketty has mentioned, capital accounts for 30% of income (and some of that capital is justly earned), while wages account for 70% of income.

We need to be realistic about basic income. The purpose of basic income is not to enable people to live comfortably without working, rather it is to enable people to live without working in the labour market. If instead of using basic income as something to buy meals and pay rent, you think of it as money that enables you to purchase building materials, gardening and maintenance tools, and fertilizer to which you apply your labour to set up and run a homestead, then an unconditional payment of £7,440 a year could go a long way to enabling a sufficiently industrious person to establish quite a high quality of life for himself without selling his labour to others.

And since no customers or employers are required to give people permission to provide for their own needs, anyone could access this lifestyle. While not everyone would choose it, a universally accessible option of self-provision would greatly strengthen the negotiating position of workers with their employers and increase both wages and employment.

So a modest basic income could go a long way.

My article Basic Income, Self-Provision and Full Employment discussed the higher credit value of basic income as well as it effect on wages and employment in greater detail.

 

John

 

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Let’s Stabilize The Business Cycle – Once And For All!

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Victor Moussa/Shutterstock.com

Any civilization that permits usury must continually create new money to remain stable.   Since the industrial revolution, loans at interest have become an indispensable means of financing important infrastructure to greatly improve living standards. Yet there is a price pay for this practice: the economic busts that have plagued the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries are the bitter fruits of usury.

It is not a coincidence that the Bank of England, founded in 1694, arose before the industrial revolution got into full swing. Without it, economic busts would have destroyed finance and torn apart the embryonic industrial economy. Central banks enable our financial system to survive economic busts – devastating though they are. Ever since their founding, central banks have covertly created new money out of thin air and lent it to banks; sometimes a nominal store of gold (of far less value than the money issued) “backs it up”, other times money is simply created by legal fiat.

As time has gone by, central banks have been getting better at using newly printed money to stabilize the finance system. The 2008 recession was pretty bad, but it was nothing like the  1930’s. However, the policies which central banks currently deploy to stabilize finance are causing inequality to skyrocket.

Central banks don’t give out newly printed money. They lend it. All money was originally loaned into existence. If all loans were paid back, all money would disappear. To stop this, central and private banks constantly lend out new money so new loans can be used to repay old loans. Thus, the total amount of money loaned out exponentially increases, yet if this exponential is sufficiently gentle, it can, in principle, sustain a steady, moderate rate of inflation indefinitely.

Since the loaned out money can never be repaid without societal collapse, the exponential increase in loans, that the central bank supports, is really just a money printing operation.

 

Fiscal Policy and Skyrocketing Inequality

 

So who gets all this newly printed money?

The answer: People who can raise credit at low interest rates. The activity of continually printing new money inflates asset prices. If you can raise a loan with newly printed money at an interest rate below inflation and use it to purchase assets, then the value of your asset portfolio, purchased from money loaned to you out of thin air, will almost certainly go up – at least with inflation  – leading to yearly capital gains that exceed the interest originally used to buy that capital.

Such people, using low interest loans to make capital gains, essentially receive newly printed money for free.

This effect is exponential: as the assets purchased with new loans appreciate at the inflation rate, our investor’s net worth will increase yearly roughly by the inflation rate minus any interest owed on his loans. This increase in net worth can serve as leverage for yet more loans which can purchase yet more assets whose value in turn appreciates.

The problem is that not everyone can access credit at interest rates below inflation. People who already have valuable assets can leverage up at very low interest (some brokerages charge less than 1% interest on money loaned out to buy stocks) but people with insecure jobs and no assets, cannot get 1% interest and usually pay over 10% on their loans.

This interest rate apartheid, between people whose net worth is positive and those whose net worth is negative, divides the population into 2 distinct groups: Those in the black who – if they are financially savvy – receive free newly printed money from central and private banks and those in the red (and less savvy ones in the black) who get no newly printed money.

The current policy of the world’s central banks is effectively to continually print new money and hand it out to rich people for free (through facilitating leverage to inflate financial assets). Theoretically this can put off another sudden, disastrous crash for quite some time (which is why, despite many cries of wolf, there has been no “next great recession”) – although a change in fiscal policy (such as Ending The Fed or raising interest rates) could cause a sudden catastrophic collapse. However, this strategy can only stave off collapse by continually increasing the relative share of the world that the wealthy own. So although central banks can stave off the next crash by handing free money out to rich people (assuming no revolution), since the super rich cannot own more than 100% of the world’s total wealth, this policy cannot continue forever.

Yet if we don’t continually release new money into the system – it will collapse!

 

Stabilizing Finance Without Increasing Inequality

 

The question is…if we are going to print money out of thin air, which we have to unless we intend to ban usury (and it’s a little late in the game to ban usury!)…who should we give this new money to?

The answer is simple: since no one has earned the newly printed money, everyone has an equal claim to it. Newly printed money should be divided evenly among the population.

How much money should be printed every year?

If we look at the formula for price:

MV = PT

Where

M = Money supply

V = Money Velocity

P = Price

and

T is the number of goods transacted

Then making P the subject of the formula yields:

P=(M/T)V

If we assume a real economic growth rate of 2%, a constant money velocity and an inflation target of 2%, then that would imply that the money supply should be increased by 4% per year. Taking the UK’s M2 money supply of 2.3 trillion as M would imply that, in order to achieve a target inflation rate of 2%, £92 billion pounds of new money should be distributed evenly throughout the population per year, which would give each U.K. adult  £1,840 of newly printed money per year.

This is only a ballpark figure, and may be an overestimate, since the velocity of money in the hands of poorer people is faster than its velocity in the hands of the super rich, so the payment might be somewhat less. Furthermore, it would oscillate to correct for changes in the money velocity.

But the important point is that such a payment of newly printed money to everyone could simultaneously stabilize our financial system and prevent the super-rich from acquiring an ever larger share of the world’s wealth.

 

Growth and Inflation

 

Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com

You may have noticed that the amount of new money required to stabilize the system  roughly equals the inflation target plus real economic growth.

Economists often say we need real economic growth to stop systemic collapse. This is not true. Nominal economic growth plus steady inflation, arising from new money, is adequate to stabilize the system. What is true is that real economic growth allows central banks to pass free money under the table to rich people without anyone else noticing. Our financial system is rigged to ensure the rich get the lion’s share of all newly created wealth but, since everyone ends up with more, no one complains too much.

Distributing an appropriate amount of newly-printed money to everyone would let capitalism exist in steady-state with modest inflation. Don’t believe anyone who says otherwise. It’s just the rich couldn’t get richer without genuine innovation that outperforms the market.

 

National Central Banks Should Hold All Deposits

 

At the moment, private banks create most (97%) new money. This must stop if central banks are to hand everyone new money. Otherwise the fractional reserve system would multiply the new money – perhaps 30 fold – and cause hyperinflation.

Stopping this is relatively straightforward. All that is needed is for central banks to hold all deposits. The national central bank would then manage all ATM machines and give everyone a central bank debit card for cash transactions. In other words, the central bank would provide personal banking services to everyone. Since the central bank can, in principle, print an infinite amount of currency out of thin air, there would be no fear of runs on the bank as it could always print enough cash to pay depositors.

The central bank would then loan money to private banks at low interest who would then loan the money out to people and firms at a higher interest rate – the spread in interest being the private banks’ source of profit.

In our current system, when private banks lend out money, they credit the money to a deposit account held in the same private bank which can then be used as collateral for yet more loans, leading to uncontrolled money creation.

In the system I propose, when private banks lend money out to customers, they credit the customers’ central bank deposits. This enables the central bank to tightly control the amount of new money and credit created. And every personal account held by the central bank would, from time to time, be credited with basic income that roughly annualizes to £1,840 – more if the economy grew faster than 2% per annum.

Financial crises happen when too many borrowers fail to pay back their loans and cause depositors to lose their money. If these depositors either have loans themselves, or pay wages to people with loans, then this loss of deposits causes more debt defaults which wipe out yet more deposits…and on…and on… and on, in a disastrous cascade.

Securely protecting deposits could make financial contagion and crises a thing of the past. And if the central bank held all deposits, they would be fully protected, as any entity that can infinitely print money can pay all depositors in cash – even simultaneously. Thus, if the central bank held all deposits, there would be no more financial crises.

If the central bank held all deposits, no private bank would be too big to fail. There would be no difference between a large bank and large car company going bust.

A central bank holding all deposits is consistent with the libertarian ideal of the nightwatchmen state that solely protects private property. After all, your deposit account is your property, so should the state not protect it from irresponsible lending institutions?

It would be fairly simple to transition to this system without an economic collapse. The central bank could offer depositors convenient personal banking services along with a central bank debit card (an perhaps a sign up bonus). Then, whenever someone transfers a deposit out of a private bank and into the central bank, the central bank would lend the private bank a sum exactly equal to the deposit that was transferred out. This way, the central bank could transition to holding all private deposits without drying up the supply of loans.

Simple!

The recent announcement by the Chinese central bank that they will launch a digital currency may be the first step to a future where individuals and businesses can access the affordability and convenience of a current account without running the risk that the private bank holding the account might go bankrupt. If China can properly implement such a system, it will make its economy completely immune to recession. If the rest of the world’s central banks fail to catch up, digitize their currencies and recession-proof their economies, then, in the wake of the next recession, we may all end up using Chinese digital Yuan.

 

A Land-Backed Currency

 

Without gold, what is the real basis of a currency’s value? A currency backed by genuine value inspires more confidence than one whose value floats on thin air and good will, yet backing up a currency with real value is a straightforward matter and can be accomplished with the stroke of a pen.

A tax on the site rent of all the nation’s land, payable only in national currency would – at the stroke of a pen – create a land-backed currency. Such a land value tax would effectively use the total asset value of the nation’s territory to back its currency.

Since:

  • Total global land value far exceeds total global gold value
  • Land cannot be covertly stolen
  • Land is the natural asset of every nation
  • Land is of far greater use than gold

It is far more sensible back up a currency’s value with land rather than gold.

By adopting all of these measures, we can end the devastation that financial instability causes once and for all and transition to a stable, secure and prosperous future!

 

John

 

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Floating Infrastructure For Stable Governance

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Political change can end oppression with long overdue emancipatory reforms, but it can also create oppression. The transition of the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany, the Rise of Mao Zedong following the boxer rebellion and the Chinese civil war, the collapse of Yugoslavia and the genocide that followed, or the American PATRIOT act are all examples of changes for the worse.

Even neutral reforms can be disruptive, and leave many elderly people with a sense that the rug was pulled out from under them, while the cost of regulatory change often exceeds the cost of the regulations themselves. Between a third and a quarter of all financial service firms spend one whole day per week tracking and analysing regulatory change. The best regulatory environments for business are politically stable ones with constant rules that make long term future planning, and investment, possible.

In my book, The Philosophy Method, I suggest that, since immigrating into a country requires positive effort, immigrants effectively consent to a host nation’s law more completely than those who stay for family, friends or career. For this reason, a nation with unchanging laws and an initial population of zero would more closely resemble a perfect social contract – a legal system with the full consent of all inhabitants (until they had children) – than any other real world political arrangement. Voluntary migrants into such a country would accept its law in totality at the time of their arrival. Since the laws don’t change, they remain acceptable to old migrants, while the new migrants will also accept them (or else not move there). So a country with unchanging laws and zero initial population will amass, over time, an entire population who all find the law acceptable, perhaps even optimal (if such a thing is possible in the real world).

I called this form of governance “Constitutional Anarchy.” “Anarchy” merely refers to the fact that no one has the authority to make or change the law. There would still be a legal constitution as well as a judiciary and police force to interpret and enforce it. Human beings must, of course, initially write the law, and they could write and modify the law for the territory until the first inhabitant moved in to be ruled by it. However, once the first person moved in, the law would be frozen for ever after.

A major limitation of constitutional anarchy is that the only response to an objectionable law is to leave the country. You may ask incredulously: “But what if a law was a huge problem for 99% of the population? What if the solution was obvious? Would everyone still really have to up sticks and leave?” While people may initially all agree with the laws, changing technology and criminal tactics could suddenly make a given law very problematic. There is something ridiculous about an entire citizenry abandoning buildings, roads, parks, zoos, etc., etc., just because new technology rendered a few (easily fixable) laws ineffective and no amendment procedure existed. The principal absurdity of moving an entire population just to change a law is the billions of pounds worth of fixed infrastructure that would effectively be wasted.

Unamendable laws foster political stability, which has many advantages. The main disadvantage (of the only recourse to dissatisfaction with the law being relocation) is the cost of abandoning fixed infrastructure.

Floating Infrastructure
A graphic representation of a floating city. Picture provided courtesy of the Seasteading Institute

But what if all the country’s infrastructure floated on water? What if the country was only a few miles across and the nation with identical laws in all other respects (except for the problematic law) was located 5 miles away from the first? Given that container ships the size of skyscrapers routinely travel across whole oceans, does it really seem impractical to move a floating city across 5 miles of water to amend a law? There would be a third option: the Seasteading Institute advocates modular floating cities composed of platforms that can be docked to, and undocked from, each other. So, if only some people wanted to change a given law, they could undock their platforms and move 5 miles over to the new jurisdiction while those who were happy with the status quo could stay. This might happen if the existing regulations inadequately met the needs of some new industry in the floating city but continued to serve other industries.

 

Jurisdiction-Independent Courts

 

Example of how the same aquatory could be recycled for new jurisdictions without ever changing the rules in a single inhabited jurisdiction.

The largest barriers to towing a city made of floating infrastructure into a brand new jurisdiction would be negotiating the territory for the jurisdiction with the UN (current international politics takes decades, if not longer, to create new countries), and starting a new court from scratch (since precedence plays a strong role in judgements and court procedures). The best way to address these challenges would be to establish an umbrella nation on the high seas with a single court. This court could:

  • Rapidly create new jurisdictional territories with new constitutions in regions of water within the aquatory of the umbrella nation with arbitrary laws proposed by jurisdictional entrepreneurs
  • Judge cases for multiple jurisdictions in accordance with whatever local laws govern that jurisdiction

While the umbrella nation’s court could establish new jurisdictions on ungoverned territory, it should not be allowed to “rezone” previously zoned jurisdictions until their last inhabitant moves out. This way political stability can be ensured for those who choose to stay put in their jurisdiction of choice.

All the territory (aquatory) of the umbrella nation that was not specifically allocated as a jurisdiction would be subject, by default, to the law of the sea.

Such an umbrella nation would in all likelihood take decades to establish, but, once established, it could serve as a sand box in which to rapidly test a wide variety of different legal and regulatory systems.

We can thus see that, perhaps ironically, the inherent flexibility of a floating medium could make more rigid and more stable governance systems feasible. However, their compactness and variety would ensure that everyone could find a jurisdiction that was right for them.

 

John

 

Do You Have a Burning Desire to Make a Comment?

 

Have you found this article thought provoking? Is there some message you desperately want to communicate to future readers but can’t because my comment section automatically closes 28 days after my posts go live?

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If you’d like to leave a comment, simply scroll to the bottom of the page, sign on to my mailing list and them email me with a request to reopen the comments section for this post.

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John