http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/028742.html

- Because your questions don’t help the discussion. If my statements are wrong you are free to attack them as such. If you have to resort to attacking the messenger you reveal that you have nothing to object and thus nothing valuable to add to the discussion itself. I could tell you that I attended graduate school in Europe and in the US and that I took numerous classes on Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Economic Policy, Monetary Policy, Managerial Economics. I could list the books I read or you can look them up in my blog. I could point out that I am editor of a blog that is among the top 100 econ blogs. But all these facts still wouldn’t make my statements right. Nor would an absence of the same make my statements wrong. My statements are right or wrong on logical grounds, not because of who I am.

“I also notice that you apparently don’t know the difference between history of economic thought and economic history – not a good demonstration of your extensive knowledge of Economics.”

- No I am very well aware of the fact that there is a difference between economic history and the history of economic thought. And in fact, I never claimed anything to the contrary. I do realize, however, that both disciplines overlap. The economic ideas that prevailed during The Age of Enlightenment for example, certainly had an impact on economic policies in France, Britain and arguably in the US.

“You want me to ask you a few specific questions. O.K., lets start with your assertions immediately above.

How can an ethics be anything but normative? That is the point of ethics, to distinguish between good and bad, isn’t it?”

- I am referring to normative ethics as one of the branches of ethics next to meta-ethics, and descriptive ethics. Feel free to read up on it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics

“What, pray tell, can you possibly mean by characterizing natural law ethics as \bottom up?\
Natural law ethics starts from the implicit claim that the continued existence of an organism is an unquestionable good and proceeds to make empirical assertions regarding what promotes longer existence. You can try diversions, as does Rand, in converting \longer existence\ into \the existence proper to man qua Man\ but ultimately you are reducing an \ought\ to an \is\ without admitting the \ought\ implicit premise in the deduction.”

- By bottom up I mean that Rothbard approaches his quest for what it right and wrong with very basic rules that go to the core element of society, the individual human being, as opposed to Mises’ utilitarian approach which only asks “Does means A accomplish objective B”.

“Further, you are wrong in implying that there are only two sorts of ethics. There is at least one more, probably the one that has been most popular among ethical theorists for at least a hundred years – deonthological ethics, like that of Kant or Jesus.”

- No, I never said or implied that there are only two types of ethics. Where are you taking that from? I could point out, however, that 2 paragraphs ago you said that there is only normative ethics, and now you suddenly distinguish 3 types, but all that is besides the point. You are fighting windmills.

“As I implied in my fist post, you obviously don’t know the first thing about Ethics but you want to comment on Murray Rothbard as an ethical theorist and cite to his brillant analysis.”

- I refer back to my first statement and recommend for you own sake that your time is better spent on trying to refute my statements (which so far you haven’t done) rather than making baseless claims.

“Similarly, your comments about property rights are totally uninformed. Property rights do not concern WHO owns something but what ownership implies, how title is or can be \split up,\ and what incentiives result from different \property right regimes.\ Typical questions are: Does ownership of land mean fee simple title or something less than that? If you own land, do you own just the right to use the surface of the land or are mineral rights and overflight rights included? Can these be separately deeded off and sold?”

- It is obvious who is uninformed here. Did you even read For a New Liberty or The Ethics of Liberty? I am reciting a small passage from it. You can look it up yourself you don’t believe me. Having said that, yes, all the things you listed above are well and long known corollary issues that accompany the issue of property rights, and I never said anything that would contradict what you outlined above.

“Is there a limit to property titles? If, for instance, someone steals my grandfather’s gold watch in 1900 is the present possessor of that watch [who is not the original thief, but who gave value without notice of defect in title and in good faith] the present owner or am I the present owner if I can prove that I am the sole surviving heir of my grandfather? How do you make the decision of which of these alternative property title systems to \go with\?”

- Not sure if you are really asking me here, but: You are the rightful owner if you can prove that it was your grandfather’s watch and that he wanted you to be the owner after his death. Rothbard actually covers this issue to exhaustion in Ethics of Liberty in case you are interested :)

“Questions like that have to do with a branch of Economics called Property Rights Economics or Neoinstituionalism. Bet you never heard of it.”

- Again I refer to my first response. I suggest you apply logic and reason rather than betting on the messenger’s background. I distinguish economics of voluntary action and economics of compulsory action as the two main branches of economics, which in turn is a subset of praxeology. I deal with ownership under economics of voluntary action.

“And so it goes among those who are universal geniuses in their own minds with no training in anything they want to address. I would suggest that you put some time and effort in and get that training before continuing to publically make a fool out of yourself.”

- And again I refer to my first response and look forward to your next attempt at refuting a single one of my statements.

I also notice that you apparently don’t know the difference between history of economic thought and economic history – not a good demonstration of your extensive knowledge of Economics.

You want me to ask you a few specific questions. O.K., lets start with your assertions immediately above.

How can an ethics be anything but normative? That is the point of ethics, to distinguish between good and bad, isn’t it?

What, pray tell, can you possibly mean by characterizing natural law ethics as \bottom up?\
Natural law ethics starts from the implicit claim that the continued existence of an organism is an unquestionable good and proceeds to make empirical assertions regarding what promotes longer existence. You can try diversions, as does Rand, in converting \longer existence\ into \the existence proper to man qua Man\ but ultimately you are reducing an \ought\ to an \is\ without admitting the \ought\ implicit premise in the deduction.

Further, you are wrong in implying that there are only two sorts of ethics. There is at least one more, probably the one that has been most popular among ethical theorists for at least a hundred years – deonthological ethics, like that of Kant or Jesus.

As I implied in my fist post, you obviously don’t know the first thing about Ethics but you want to comment on Murray Rothbard as an ethical theorist and cite to his brillant analysis.

Similarly, your comments about property rights are totally uninformed. Property rights do not concern WHO owns something but what ownership implies, how title is or can be \split up,\ and what incentiives result from different \property right regimes.\ Typical questions are: Does ownership of land mean fee simple title or something less than that? If you own land, do you own just the right to use the surface of the land or are mineral rights and overflight rights included? Can these be separately deeded off and sold?

Is there a limit to property titles? If, for instance, someone steals my grandfather’s gold watch in 1900 is the present possessor of that watch [who is not the original thief, but who gave value without notice of defect in title and in good faith] the present owner or am I the present owner if I can prove that I am the sole surviving heir of my grandfather? How do you make the decision of which of these alternative property title systems to \go with\?

Questions like that have to do with a branch of Economics called Property Rights Economics or Neoinstituionalism. Bet you never heard of it.

And so it goes among those who are universal geniuses in their own minds with no training in anything they want to address. I would suggest that you put some time and effort in and get that training before continuing to publically make a fool out of yourself.

I would be delighted to see you point out flaws in the economic theories I espouse and write about on a day to day basis.

You may have noticed that I write about economic history once in a while as well. I would be more than happy to see you attempt to debunk my writings.

It would be helpful for your own sake if you tried to point out what points specifically you disagree with and propose your corrections, lest your comments join the myriad pedestrian rants that hover through cyberspace, looking for relevance.

Kind regards,
Nima

So why, exactly, do you feel qualified to opine on the validity of Murray Rothbard reasoning in those fields?

Let me put the question another way: What would you think of someone who had exactly zero training in mechanical engineering, astronomy and physics but wanted to tell you how to fly to the moon? Yes, it is the same thing, exactly the same thing.

A normative ethic that is to be applicable to all humans needs to fulfill certain requirements: For example, he establishes three possible options for ownership of a good:

1. Only one person owns all goods. (Complete Totalitarianism)
2. All persons have a minimal, but equal share in ever single good there is. (Complete Socialism)
3. Whoever first found a good by mixing his labor with it, owns a good, and has the right to voluntarily transfer ownership to other people. (Private Property)

Options 1 fails the test of universal applicability, it would imply that different ethics apply to one person than to others. But we are trying to establish a set of ethics for ALL humans.

Option 2 is completely impracticable for obvious reasons. If all humans had to cast a vote on what is to happen which each particular good, we would be doomed to immediate starvation.

Option 3 is the only practicable one that would qualify as an all encompassing law of ownership.

These will be highly enjoyable if you own an iPod:

http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=87
http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=95

I fully agree with this, but I’m curious as to how you arrive at property rights as a true, eternal idea. I can see how it works better than any alternative – and the fact that it works does indicate a relationship to truth – but where do you derive your axioms from?

Just curious.