WEBVTT NOTE The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.000 In this book, I collected articles, interviews that I have wrote in the course of a quarter century. 2 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:27.000 They are very interdisciplinary, but there is one unifying theme that goes through all of it. 3 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:36.280 that is property, or more precisely private property, defined as the exclusive control 4 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:45.720 of scarce resources, the origin of private property and its ethical and economic rationale 5 00:00:45.720 --> 00:00:53.600 and justification as the ultimate source of peace and prosperity. 6 00:00:53.600 --> 00:01:01.560 And on the other hand, the state defined as a territorial monopolist of ultimate decision 7 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:08.400 making and conflict arbitration, including all cases of conflict involving the state 8 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:17.520 and its agents itself and its origin and its role as the greatest danger to private property, 9 00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:24.640 as a permanent source of conflict, and the greatest enemy to peace and prosperity. 10 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:32.600 And finally, the constitution of a private law society defined as a society without a 11 00:01:32.600 --> 00:01:40.520 state or any monopolist whatsoever, whether legal or otherwise, and its unique function 12 00:01:40.520 --> 00:01:47.140 as the only conceivable guarantor of eternal peace and prosperity. 13 00:01:47.140 --> 00:01:52.560 But there is more to it than just this. 14 00:01:52.560 --> 00:02:00.060 There are reflections on social evolution and the causes of the so-called neolithic 15 00:02:00.060 --> 00:02:07.260 revolution, the invention of agriculture, and of the industrial revolution, I'll come 16 00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:16.300 back to that in a second, on monarchy and on the decivilizing effects of democracy, 17 00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:29.380 on war, on centralization, on the cession, on egalitarianism, on inequality and on natural aristocracy, 18 00:02:29.380 --> 00:02:40.060 and on the inevitability and virtue of discrimination and on migration and the perils of multiculturalism, 19 00:02:40.060 --> 00:02:45.060 much of which is extremely politically incorrect 20 00:02:45.060 --> 00:02:48.600 and has made me persona non grata 21 00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:52.060 not only among mainstream intellectuals 22 00:02:52.060 --> 00:02:57.060 but also and in particular among many so-called left, 23 00:02:57.220 --> 00:03:02.220 big government or bleeding heart libertarians. 24 00:03:03.500 --> 00:03:08.500 Some of the pieces that I assembled in this volume 25 00:03:10.060 --> 00:03:18.220 are dealing with purely theoretical, value free, philosophical or economic problems. 26 00:03:18.220 --> 00:03:26.180 Others deal with normative issues and still others are concerned with matters of politics 27 00:03:26.180 --> 00:03:29.200 and political strategy. 28 00:03:29.200 --> 00:03:39.500 Some of the pieces are very long and intellectually demanding and others are short and easy. 29 00:03:39.500 --> 00:03:44.220 Most of them have been published before, but there are also a few that have never been 30 00:03:44.220 --> 00:03:47.740 published anyplace else before. 31 00:03:47.740 --> 00:03:54.380 And I want to say a few words about one of those pieces. 32 00:03:54.380 --> 00:04:05.060 It is titled From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution, An Explanation of Social 33 00:04:05.060 --> 00:04:06.400 Evolution. 34 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:15.280 This is also a piece that is somewhat politically incorrect, I would say, again also and not 35 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:21.320 in the least among libertarian circles. 36 00:04:21.320 --> 00:04:31.080 What I want to say about this piece is just a brief indication of what I do there until 37 00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:45.920 about 1800, that is until the time when we say the Industrial Revolution began in England. 38 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:54.560 Until that time, and for most of recorded human history, real income per capita in terms 39 00:04:54.560 --> 00:05:03.680 Forms of food, housing, clothing, heating and lighting did not rise at all. 40 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:11.900 That is, average living standards in 18th century England were not significantly higher 41 00:05:11.900 --> 00:05:23.440 than living standards were in ancient Babylon, where we have the oldest recorded data on 42 00:05:23.440 --> 00:05:31.480 wage rates and on various consumer goods and prices for consumer goods. 43 00:05:31.480 --> 00:05:42.000 So we can also say that until about 1800 there existed little difference in the economics 44 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:51.320 or in the economies of humans and non-human animals because for animals and also for plants 45 00:05:51.320 --> 00:05:58.960 It is always invariably true that an increase in their number will encroach upon the available 46 00:05:58.960 --> 00:06:08.440 means of subsistence and eventually lead to overpopulation, that is to supernumerary specimens 47 00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:16.840 as Mises called them, which must be weeded out due to a lack of sustenance. 48 00:06:16.840 --> 00:06:25.240 Now today, obviously, we know that as far as humans are concerned, this must not be so. 49 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:32.840 No supernumerary specimens who are thus weeded out exist in modern western societies, but 50 00:06:32.840 --> 00:06:37.100 for most of human life, this was indeed the case. 51 00:06:37.100 --> 00:06:43.540 Let me just also quote Mises to this effect, Mises recognized this quite clearly. 52 00:06:43.540 --> 00:06:51.780 He said, the purposive adjustment of the birth rate to the supply of material potentialities 53 00:06:51.780 --> 00:06:59.740 of well-being is an indispensable condition of human life and action, of civilization 54 00:06:59.740 --> 00:07:03.900 and of any improvement in wealth and welfare. 55 00:07:03.900 --> 00:07:09.140 Whereas the average standard of living is impaired by the excessive increase in population 56 00:07:09.140 --> 00:07:16.140 and Human Action figures, irreconcilable conflicts of interest arise. Each individual is again 57 00:07:16.140 --> 00:07:24.140 a rival of all other individuals in the struggle for survival. The annihilation of rivals is 58 00:07:24.140 --> 00:07:31.420 the only means to increase one's well-being. As natural conditions are, man has only the 59 00:07:31.420 --> 00:07:39.100 choice between the pitiless war of each against each or social cooperation. But social cooperation 60 00:07:39.100 --> 00:07:46.460 is impossible if people give rein to the natural impulses of proliferation. 61 00:07:46.460 --> 00:07:55.020 The question then that I address in this rather lengthy essay is, what did get us out of this 62 00:07:55.020 --> 00:08:03.380 Malthusian trap which characterized most of human history? 63 00:08:03.380 --> 00:08:09.520 And the answer that is frequently given, the standard answer, also among libertarians is 64 00:08:09.520 --> 00:08:16.940 there must have been some institutional change that occurred around 1800. 65 00:08:16.940 --> 00:08:22.700 And what is typically pointed out is there must have been a better protection of private 66 00:08:22.700 --> 00:08:27.120 property rights that somehow occurred at that time. 67 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:30.680 But no such change can be found in history. 68 00:08:30.680 --> 00:08:33.220 That is simply not true. 69 00:08:33.220 --> 00:08:40.100 Private Property Rights were also well protected hundreds of years before and still we did 70 00:08:40.100 --> 00:08:43.380 not get out of the Malthusian trap. 71 00:08:43.380 --> 00:08:50.060 It is true that the protection of private property rights is a necessary condition for getting 72 00:08:50.060 --> 00:08:54.060 out of this trap, but it is certainly not sufficient. 73 00:08:54.060 --> 00:09:24.060 Now, what I hypothesize in accordance with some other sources, I should mention in particular Michael Hart's book on understanding human history and also a book by Gregory Clark, Farewell to Arms, is the variable of human intelligence during the Malthusian age. 74 00:09:24.060 --> 00:09:47.060 What we can observe is that those people who are economically successful and do survive are by and large the brighter people and the brighter people have a larger number of offsprings. 75 00:09:47.060 --> 00:10:13.060 And this is in particular true in northern regions on the globe because northern regions represent a more challenging environment and higher intelligence is, so to speak, something that is especially advantageous to have in more challenging environments. 76 00:10:13.060 --> 00:10:37.660 And it takes a long time in order to breed a more intelligent population that then makes it possible to make enough technological innovations to allow not only growth of the population, but at the same time also an increase in per capita income of this growing population. 77 00:10:37.660 --> 00:10:55.660 And this breeding of a more highly intelligent population, especially in the north with a gradient going to the south, is responsible for the Industrial Revolution that broke out around 1800. 78 00:10:55.660 --> 00:11:03.620 No institutional changes are responsible for this, but the gradual development of a more 79 00:11:03.620 --> 00:11:10.660 intelligent population due to the fact that the more intelligent people breed a larger 80 00:11:10.660 --> 00:11:19.480 number of offspring and thereby gradually increase the average intelligence of the population. 81 00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:26.840 And I also point out that there is, of course, then also the possibility that this development 82 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:28.800 can be reversed. 83 00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:35.720 It can be reversed if it happens that the less intelligent people do breed larger numbers 84 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:40.960 of people and the more intelligent people breed less and less. 85 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:45.140 And that that is a danger you all know already. 86 00:11:45.140 --> 00:11:46.140 Thank you very much. 87 00:11:46.140 --> 00:11:48.140 Thank you very much.