Markets and Discourses #2
Serialized Treatise about Prosperity and Politics after the Libertarian Revolution
Markets and Discourses – Prosperity and Politics after the Libertarian Revolution
Patrik Schumacher, London 2018-2028
alternative titles:
Markets and Discourses - A Philosophy in Defence of a Radical Stateless Capitalism
Markets and Discourses - A Theory of World Society’s Best Future
The following is a preliminary, slowly accumulating content list. Although the manuscript has reached over 300,000 words most chapters are either still empty or just dumping grounds for excerpts and notes. Some, however, are only waiting for final elaboration and polish and thus are ready for serialization here. This is obviously not a quick shot from the hip. The time horizon for completion is 5 - 10 years. Serialization here hopefully starts the flow of feedback a bit earlier.
Contents
PREFACE 9
INTRODUCTION - Prosperity and Politics after the Libertarian Revolution 16
1. PHILOSOPHY 33
1.1. Reason and Freedom 35
Greek Philosophy 35
The Enlightemnent 35
1.2. Philosophy and Scientific Unification 37
The Specter of Reductionism 41
A Materialist Philosophical Foundation 47
Unification within the Social Sciences and Within Economics 48
1.2. Evolutionary Theory as Master theory 53
Cultural Evolution 54
Theories of Competiton 55
1.3. Critical Pragmatism 56
Philosophy of Language 59
1.4. Philosophical Anthropology 62
German philosophical Anthropology: Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen 63
Pedagogy 65
1.5. Epistemology 67
Evolutionary Epistemology 67
Sociology of Knowledge 68
Hayek 68
Luhmann 68
Habermas 71
1.6. Methodology 71
Functional versus Causal Explanations 71
Understanding versus Explanation 80
1.7. Interactionist Relationism versus Methodological Individualism 81
Communicative Action as Challenge to Methodological Individualsim 87
Mises on Methodological Individualism 88
Methodological Individualism in Evolutionary Approaches 98
Collective Agency 100
Structure versus Agency 100
1.8. Praxeology after the Linguistic-Pragmatic Turn 101
The Spectre of Polylogism, Historicism, and Relativism 110
Networks rather than Hierarchical Deductive Systems 117
The Historical Evolution of the Categories as guide to their Systematic Ordering 123
Praxeology’s Relation with Economic Science 124
1.9. Conceptions of Freedom 132
2. HISTORY 132
2.1. Historical Materialism 134
Ideology and Discourse 147
2.2. Freedom in Historical Perspective 154
2.3 Capitalism 166
2.4 Conflict Theory 168
2.5 Class Society and Class Struggle 171
2.6 Historical Agency 172
Social Movements 172
2.7 History of Non-state Governance 172
3. SOCIETY 173
3.1. Action Theory 173
3.2. Niklas Luhmann’s Social Theory and Theory of Modern Society 176
Codes, Media and Autopiesis 183
Openess through Closure 188
Lead-distinctions and Communication Structures 193
Functions Systems and the Functional Exigencies of Society 195
Critical Appropriation of Luhmann’s Sociology 202
Luhmann’s Philosophy of History 209
3.3. A Counter-intuitive but Necessary Synthesis 212
The Case of Science 215
Habermas’ Concept of Communicative Action as Challenge to Libertarian Theory 217
The Indispensability of the Category of Discourse 231
The Organisation and Regulation of Discourse Forums 235
3.4. The Markets-plus-Discourses Theory of Society 240
Functional Differentiation within Markets and Discourses 243
3.5. Relating Sociology and Economics 245
The Challenge from Anthropology 254
Social Capital 254
3.6 Globalisation and World Society 255
4. ECONOMY 257
4.1 Economic Science and Political Economy 263
Economics as Reflexive Discourse 265
Capitalism’s Dynamism 267
4.2 Methodology for Political Economy 270
Normative versus Positive Economics 274
Positive Economics as Empirical Science 275
The Presumption of Rational Economic Agents 275
Challenges to the Rational Actor Model 279
Public versus Private Uses of Economic Science 280
The General Interest and the Project of Humanity’s Progress 283
Productivity Growth as Key Indicator 288
Challenge to the Concept/Measure of Productivity 291
4.3 Approaches to Economic Science 292
Mainstream Neoclassical Economics 297
New Institutional Economics 302
Evolutionary Economics 302
Gametheory in Economics 302
Experimental Economics 303
Behavioural Economics 304
Marxist Political Economy 305
Post-Keynesian Economics 307
The Complexity Paradigm and Agent-based Computational Economics 311
4.4. Austrian Economics 311
Philosophy and Methodology of Austrian Economics 317
Crucial Insights from Austrian Political Economy 317
Money 325
Economic Calculation 327
Entrepreneurship 327
Business Cycles 327
Interventionism 334
Critique of Austrian Economics 338
4.5. Harvesting the Fields of Economic Science 339
Growth and Growth theory 339
Social Choice and Welfare Economics 339
Institutions and Institutional Economics 345
Development and Developmental Economics 346
Money and Monetary Economics 346
Finance and Financial Economics 354
Alternative monetary systems 354
Work and Labour Economics 355
Cities and Urban economics 355
International Trade and Trade Theory 355
Organisations and Theories of the Firm 355
4.6. Systemic Historical Transformations within Capitalism 358
4.7. The New Economy 366
Globalisation 367
Intangible Capital 368
Information and Knowledge as Commodities 371
Network Effects 372
Zero Marginal Costs 373
Platform Capitalism 376
The Commons 379
Open Source 379
Web 3.0 379
Libertarians and the New Economy 379
4.8. Crypto-currencies and Decentralized Finance 381
The Blockchain Revolution 381
Crypto-markets and Crypto-discourses 382
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations and Systems of Governance 382
The Metaverse 382
4.9. The Libertarian Creed: Its Economic Rationality and Historical Pertinence 383
Private Property 383
Intellectual Property 385
5. PSYCHOLOGY 386
5.1 Human Nature 387
Humanism 388
Anti-humanism 388
Sociobiology 388
Developmental Systems Theory 391
5.2 Altruism 391
5.3 Social Psychology and Personality 394
New Man? 399
Individuality and Intimicay 400
5.4 Anti-capitalist Mentality 402
6. MORALITY 402
6.1 Evolution and the Socio-economic Rationality of Morality 408
Materialist Account of Morality 408
6.2. Moral Philosophy 413
Moral Intuitions 413
Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason 414
The Specter of Moral Relativism 421
Inequality and Social Justice 421
6.3. The Libertarian Morality 422
The Evolution of Morality 423
Capitalist Morality 428
Business Ethics 430
Economical versus Political Morality 436
6.4. Gauthier’s Contractarian Theory of Morality 441
6.5. Habermas’ Discourse Ethics as Basis for a New Libertarian Ethics 441
The Axiom of Argumentation grounding Libertarian Private Property Ethics? 459
6.6. Integration of Discourse Ethics and Contractarianism 462
6.7. A Libertarian Concept of Limited Solidarity 462
Inequality, Distributive Justice and Welfare 465
6.8. Aesthetics 466
Libertarian Sensibilities? 471
7. LEGALITY 475
7.1. Sociology of Law 478
Primitive Legal Systems 480
7.2. Economics and Law 481
7.3. Property Rights 484
Modern Subjective/Individual Rights 486
Property Theories 486
Economic Property Rights Theories 488
Intellectual Property 495
Patents 496
Open Source 497
7.4. Historical Evidence for Non-state Law Enforcement 499
Medieval Iceland 499
Merchant Law 499
Arbitration 499
7.4. Libertarian Conceptions of Law and the Legal System 499
The Disappearance of Violence 500
8. POLITY 502
Collective Action 511
Free Speech 512
8.1. The Public Sphere 512
The Networked Public Sphere 521
The Antinomies of Deliberative Democracy 522
8.2. Habermas on the Reciprocity between Liberty and Popular Sovereignty 523
8.3. Theories of the State 532
Nomocracy versus Teleocracy 540
8.4. Critique of Democracy 541
Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem 545
The Right to Secession 546
8.5 Taxation and Tax Policies 547
8.6. Political Interventions in the Economy 548
Public Goods as Justification for Interventionism 552
Employment Regulation 552
Interventionism in the Financial Sector 555
Excursion: The Eurodollar phenomenon 557
Interventionism in the Health Sector 560
Interventionism in the Education Sector 560
Interventionism in the Mass Media 560
8.7. Welfare Politics 560
Universal Basic Income (UBI) 560
8.8. Environmental Politics 561
The Climate Change Challenge 562
Government Failure in Environmental Protection 564
Voluntary Non-governmental Initiatives 567
Voluntary Carbon Markets 568
Green Crypto-currencies 570
8.9. Urban Politics 573
The Urban Crisis and the Prospect of a Market-based Urban Order 574
Discourse Against Garbage Spill Urbanisation 577
Only a Libertarian Revolution can solve the Housing Crisis 578
8.10 State Funded Science 591
8.11 Critique of Identity Politics 592
8.12 Platform Polities 592
9. IDEOLOGY 593
9.1. Super-theories 608
9.2. Language 610
Memes 612
9.3. The Republic of Letters 613
Literature and Literary Criticism 614
9.4. World Views 615
Myths 615
Autonomy of the History of Ideas? 617
Luhmann on the Evolution of Ideas 618
Luhmann on Social and Semantic Structures 618
9.5. Critique of Ideology 620
Political Correctness as Discursive Pathology 620
10. PUBLICITY 620
10.1 Habermas on the Public Sphere 620
10.2 Mass Media and Social Media 620
11. ANARCHY 620
11.1. Theory of the State: Social Power, Political Power, State Power 623
The Impossible Anarchy: Anarcho-syndicalism 624
Social Order and Control beyond Government 625
Private Forms of Governance: Law making and Law enforcement 626
11.2. Legitimacy 627
11.3. Free Private Cities: Libertarianism via For-Profit Polities 627
The Honduran ZEDE Legislation 631
A Spontaneously Evolving Network of Private For-profit Polities 638
Corporate Governance Models for Micro-nation Constitutions 639
Georgist Land Tax 650
Urban Planning Regimes 650
Immigration Policies 659
11.4. Dangerous Freedoms? 659
12. SECURITY 659
The Disappearance of Violence 660
The Private Production of Defense 662
13. STRATEGY 662
13.1. History, Social Theory and Revolutionary Consciousness 664
13.1. The Identification of a Revolutionary Subject 665
13.2. Revolution 667
Social Versus Political Revolution 668
13.3. Conditions, Prospects and Strategies for Libertarian Revolutions 671
Crisis as Necessary Catalyst for Revolution 672
Party Politics and Democratic Participation 672
14. SPIRITUALITY 673
14.1 Atheism 673
THESES 673
References 676
Especially interested in Evolutionary Theory as Master theory, Interactionist Relationism versus Methodological Individualism, Praxeology after the Linguistic-Pragmatic Turn, Conceptions of Freedom, SOCIETY, ECONOMY, THESES. So basically almost everything is of top tier interest.
Perhaps these can enter the picture too:
1. Mediation/ specifically Mass Media Theory/ Network Effects as related to decentralization of society, even beyond social media. My conviction is that the blockchain-based Metaverse is the 8th mass media after the seven conventionally recognized ones: Print (1450), Recordings (1877), Cinema (1900), Radio (1910), Television (1925) Internet (1990), Mobile Phones (2000). The Metaverse’s potential for decentralization of social/ financial/ political systems. What comes after Sarnoff/Metcalfe/Reed’s Laws of network effects?
2. Urbanism/Architecture’s contribution to freedom (spun from points you made in your UFM lecture)
3. Appendices/Case studies of libertarian startup societies/cities and Metaverse DAOs
Regarding title…
My #1 favorite:
Markets and Discourses - A Theory of World Society’s Best Future
👇
It’s the most accessible and least text bookish. I think it will garner wider readership.
#2 favorite:
Markets and Discourses - A Philosophy in Defence of a Radical Stateless Capitalism
👇
IMO this would appeal to a radical niche reader aligned with your libertarian values.
#3 current title:
For reasons I discussed with you before, I think the west (at least the US) lost its’ appetite for a libertarian “revolution” following January 6 capital building attack by Q-Anon radicals.