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ALTRUISM Altruism is an ethical system purporting to govern not merely the relations between equals, but also between principals and dependents. ANARCHY Strictly, anarchy describes any system in which there is no distinct elite; thus it embraces equally direct democracy and a lawless society. These two organizations are inconsistent, because the one is founded on the ethic of righteousness or solidarity and the other on the ethic of egoism or "rugged" individualism. Thus it is preferable to adopt the usual use, i. e. to include only the latter. ARISTOCRACY Aristocracy is a system of decision in which the elite has the initiative. If there were no referendum at all, then the system would be not aristocracy but autocracy. AUTHORITY Authority is a relationship in which one party is a mere agent, devoid of discretion (and, therefore, irresponsible ¾ "responsible authority" is a contradiction in terms). BUREAUCRACY Bureaucracy is a system of decision in which officers and principals participate equally. A bureaucrat is one who claims the privileges of a citizen while holding office ¾ particularly, to discharge some function other than with the consent of (the majority of) the people. CAPITALISM Capitalism is the economic system in which all proprietors are equal. Discussion of capitalism commonly is inconclusive because democratic capitalism (law-and-order) is confused with bourgeois capitalism. The difference is enlighteningly illustrated by the United Kingdom. At the time of the industrial revolution the subjects enjoyed, or are supposed to have enjoyed, bourgeois capitalism ¾ i. e. the King allowed them some measure of freedom of contract. The Kings peers, in contrast, enjoyed the protection of law ¾ no peer would be condemned for taking the life of another in a fair fight. It is safe to say that any critics of capitalism have in mind bourgeois, privileged capitalism, not law-and-order. Public Capitalism We have argued that agreement can be reached in two ways, a priori, by taking counsel, and a posteriori, by trial-and-error. If we consider an organization, we can perceive that certain of its activities are governed by law ¾ it must pay its bills, it must make whole whomsoever it damages ¾ but others are a performed by trial-and-error, e.g. from whom to buy, to whom to sell, how much to pay or to charge. And the former are the responsibility of the owners, the latter are typically delegated to management. If the society has subjected its government to law, then the government can be allowed to perform the former functions: there can be public ownership, provided that the latter functions are reserved to private parties, parties who are ranked in order by competition. The combination of public ownership and private management can be denominated "public capitalism." (The term "state capitalism" was used by Lenin for a system essentially similar to the Fascism practised by Mussolini and Hitler, i. e. privately owned assets were diverted to the interest of the state ¾ not, as in socialism, that of the people.) COLLECTIVISM Collectivism is a theory that collectives, e. g. unions or states, have rights, rather than powers. Collectivists are heard to contend that the Constitution strikes a "balance" between the rights of the collective and of the citizens. The disproof of the theory is that the collective does not learn from finding itself mistaken. COMMON LAW Common law may have three meanings. The first is mere custom. The second is "the common law of England", i.e. the law which was common to all the courts (but not, of course, to all plaintiffs or all defendants ¾ only to those who were subjects). The third is, the law governing the civil rights of persons against public institutions, such as judges and juries. CONSERVATIVE The term conservative has to do with a problem of judgment, viz. how to make the best use of an asset: a conservative holds that an asset will be best conserved by its owner, i. e. that the asset should be owned by a human being, as distinct from owning a guardian. (Note that a conservative merely believes this a posteriori, whereas a liberal can show a priori that a person ipso facto has a right to acquire, possess and protect property.) The self-styled "conservative" does not hold this; rather, he asserts that the collective can in some way advantage itself by denying the right of the individual to dispose of his own life and property. CONTRACT, SOCIAL The social contract is, or was, the explanation of monarchy. If the idea that individuals can reason together is rejected, then even the collective decisions must be made by an individual. Thus, it was supposed, the mass of the people contracted with one person to make their collective decisions, particularly to conduct relations with foreign powers. The one was allowed to call the land, and even the people, his own, on the theory (properly called conservative) that if he thought of them so, he would be motivated to defend them. (It was supposed that, because the king was surrounded by other kings who were also lawless, he would require an army and a navy, and therefore would allow the people to accumulate wealth which could be taxed.) On social contract theory, the collective, not the individual, made the agreement with the monarch, so that it was only the collective which paid taxes: individuals could not be mulcted unless they did not belong to the collective, i. e. were in some way distinguished. Thus the king strove always to incriminate individuals and pillage them ¾ hence the savage "common law of England" which populated the States and Australia. CRIME A crime comprises an attempt to violate the right of another or others who are equal, made without justification. The essential crime is to fail to assist an equal who is wronged or, a fortiori, to wrong such an one. A statutory or "political" crime, as distinct from the crime malum in se, is one in which the "right" violated is not that of an equal, but of the state. CURRENCY Currency is that money which is used for cash transactions ¾ commonly, it is not specie, because a specie coin is degraded by passing from hand to hand. DEMOCRACY Democracy is a system of decision in which the elite are responsive. If no response at all is allowed, then the system would be not democracy but authority. The term is used also in several other senses. It is used in Europe to mean republicanism, i. e. the system in which officers hold office only subject to election. It is used in the States to mean populism, i. e. doing what is popular regardless of whether it is right. It is used also to mean the system of the Democratic Party, i. e. that the individual decisions are made collectively. Direct democracy is a system in which the people, having made a decision, execute it by means of the posse comitatus, rather than through the agency of an officer. ECONOMICS Economics is the study of the free choices made by two or more distinct parties. It is a social science, and ¾ contrary to prevailing belief ¾ has nothing to do with statistics, which governs entities devoid of intelligence. The adjective economic, as distinct from economical, is of more than incidental interest ¾ it leads to an instance (the only one known to the writer) where the "conservatives" are right (as distinct from Right). It is used to refer to actions which are neither individual or collective, but concern some only of the people: just as propositions can be universal ("all swans . . ."), particular ("some swans . . . ") or singular ("this swan . . . "), so actions can be collective, economic, or individual. A radical, or liberal, holds that collective decisions are to be made collectively, individual ones individually, and economic ones individually, because the collective is "less equal" than the individual. Those whom the "conservatives" call liberals take the opposite position on the disputable point, viz. they hold that economic decisions are to be made collectively. "Conservatives" hold that collective decisions are to be made individually ¾ they are content that presidents, governors, and sheriffs should be above the law ¾ and that individual ones are to be made collectively ¾ they strive to use power to suppress art, morality, and all other spheres of individual judgment. However, "conservatives" make the same mistake as those they call "liberals", and treat economic decisions as if they were collective, i. e. to be made by individuals. Thus by making two basic errors "conservatives" arrive at a conclusion with which a radical would agree (of course, the "conservative" does not intend to defend the right to economic liberty, even though he acknowledges it). EGOISM Egoism is an ethical system holding that each person is free to choose whether or not to oppose wrong-doing. It is popularly called "rugged individualism." ETHICS Ethics is the study of the relations between three or more equals. It is not to be confused with morality, which may well concern itself with the relations between parent and child, or person and pet. FALSIFIABILITY Falsifiability is the characteristic of a proposition which is both UNIVERSAL (Every swan is . . ., not most swans are . . .) and EMPIRICAL (white, not graceful.) ¾ that is to say, a single counter-example can disprove it. To falsify is to reveal falsehood, not to conceal it!FASCISM The European term for the combination of private ownership and public management is Fascism. In the States, the same combination is disguised by the term regulation. FEDERALISM Federalism is the (plausible) theory that, even as a posse may have a sheriff, so also a league of States should have (at least) an army and a navy separate from those of the several States ¾ that there should be a Congress, as opposed to occasional meetings of the State governments. Capital-F Federalists (and capital-R Republicans) go further, and hold (implausibly) that the federal creature is an equal of its creators. FRATERNITY The third principle in the tripos, liberté, egalité, fraternité, is righteousness or, among persons, solidarity (among states, collective security.) INDIVIDUALISM Individualism is a theory that only individuals are capable of self-consciousness, i. e. of predicting their own future state: individuals can make ¾ and, therefore, keep or break ¾ promises. (It is here claimed that States and nations also can exhibit this property.) One can express an equivalent idea by saying that men are created in the image of their Creator. A quite different theory is "rugged individualism" ¾ supposed by the Republican Party to be the ethic of the States ¾ viz. that the individual is not entitled to call upon his equals to join in the common defense. HUMANISM Humanism is a philosophy which takes as its dogma that the individual has the right to pursue happiness; it is, therefore, incapable of proving this proposition. Apparently, it concerns itself with questions as to how individuals are to conduct their own lives, which other systems would deem unanswerable. JUSTICE The system of decision in a society of equals is justice: what has been agreed is, by definition, just. Confusion is prevalent because the term is misunderstood to refer to a state of affairs, rather than a process ¾ a court of justice enquires how a state of affairs came to pass, and in particular whether all those equally concerned had, explicitly or otherwise, consented. Justice is also used to distinguish law from equity: however, this distinction is here discounted. LAW A law is a proposition true without exception ¾ in particular, one governing persons capable of knowing the Law. The term law is also used to signify a statute, but this usage is herein avoided. LEFT A republic is susceptible to two modes of failure ¾ it may oppress a minority, or favor a majority. The latter mode of failure is not recognised by the Left. LIBERTY Law is derived a priori.. All knowledge of cause anv|º*oA=S a¯ê+íù8Ë9a¹ó9FìyÒÁÊGXüÀ_=$"§ËȲ
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