Political Theory

Re: Theory of Conflict

Malachi — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 03:19:49 GMT

bump

Re: Theory of Conflict

Physiocrat — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:52:18 GMT

Pdf of Adam Knott's Praxeology of Coercion I haven't read it nor know how it would pertain to war but could be a useful resource.

Re: Theory of Conflict

gotlucky — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 06:11:32 GMT

Just wanted to say that I haven't forgotten about the thread. I've been thinking about these things and trying to clarify the way I see it for myself before putting it up here for scrutiny.

Re: Theory of Conflict

David B — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:30:48 GMT

BransonBow:

If I could do a brief summary:

1. Conflict arises over the use of a resource.

2. Norms and Technology arise to mitigate the conflict.

3. The conflict can come in 3 forms:

a. War- conflict between 2 organized groups

b. Duel- Conflict between individuals and un-organized groups

c. Politics- ??( Would this be a non-violent conflict ie a debate then a vote on a course of action ?)

Good stuff, I might make some minor clarification of how I see this.

1. Conflict arises over the use of a 3 way intersection of matter, location, and time period. The conflict is between metaphysically incompatible plans in 2+ human minds.

2. Norms are a term describing technolgy that emerges as a means to reduce the costs of undoing the mess that happens if both plans were to be attempted in reality.

3. Politics is the field of human social science that seeks to explain and understand all social phenomena (law, government, courts, diplomacy, war, disputes) that arise from conflict.

a. A duel is a specific type of conflict resolution process that happens at the individual level

b. War is a specific conflict resolution process that happens at the larger social group level.

Given the above summary, I think there are lots of alternative "technical solutions" to conflict's at all levels, individual->nation state, and that all of them fall under the science of politics.

Open conflict, war, battles, and duels are one specific class of political action.

There are non-aggressive, non-violent conflict resolution processes and technology that are part of an overarching political science.

Re: Theory of Conflict

BransonBow — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:45:47 GMT

If I could do a brief summary:

1. Conflict arises over the use of a resource.

2. Norms and Technology arise to mitigate the conflict.

3. The conflict can come in 3 forms:

a. War- conflict between 2 organized groups

b. Duel- Conflict between individuals and un-organized groups

c. Politics- ??( Would this be a non-violent conflict ie a debate then a vote on a course of action ?)

Re: Theory of Conflict

David B — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:41:46 GMT

BransonBow:

Superabundant is the same as not scarce. Superabundance doesn't lessen incentive to conflict, it removes the possibility of entering into conflict over the thing. Think of air on earth (under normal outdoor conditions). How could I come into conflict with you over breathing air? I mean it literally. I don't think that I could. It's not just that the have choices to use that thing, A thing is not scarce if there is no action one can reasonably engage in that would require the item, but could not find a sufficient amount of the thing.

It's really hard to think and type at the same time lol. I typed and erased a dozen times. I think you could come into conflict with me over air. There is only so much oxygen in the atmosphere. It's not really the supply of a thing, but the use of it is where the conflict arises. Think of pollution, the argument is over who gets to do what with the air. One person wants clean air, the other wants to pump co2 into it. The supply of it does come into play, but ultimately it's how the supply is used that creates the argument. The supply provides and incentive to do one action or another.

I do in fact agree with you. It is possible to come into conflict over probably just about anything. It would be interesting to see if we could actually come up with something that could not be superabundant. But I believe examination of the history of conflict and norms around it would demonstrate time and time again the appearance of norms as a response to a transition from a superabundant state to a scarcity state.

Pollution for example is an example of a change to the environment where a previously superabundant good (clean air) is no longer superabundant but becomes scarce. Think of crab fishing in alaska, or in the Chesapeake Bay. Property rights would take the issue out of the commons, and allow owners to choose aquaculture.

In the air department, I've often wondered what an economics of breathable air would look like (potable water also) in a human habitation in outer space. If we ever reach the point where man has spread through the solar system, I imagine there will be some interesting markets around breathable air. If I recall correctly, the Asteroid Belt, contains more matter than the inner solar system put together, including more water, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. And more of all of the metals we use in industry.

I think if we take those 3 examples, breathable air on earth prior to pollution, with pollution, and in space habitats, I think we can see that history will provide multiple examples of transitions like this, from a superabundant state, to conflict over externalities, to direct productization of the scarce good, service, or resource.

It might be interesting to look at history and find examples that run in the reverse. In fact, I'm guessing that technology may in fact provide just that. Famine in parts of the world isn't an issue. Think about our critical needs, air(3 minutes), water(3 days), food(3 weeks). I think it's amazing that as fragile as the human body is, and as scarce as potable water can be, think Las Vegas, Nevada. We aren't in constant conflict over water or food, even in places where the potable water supply is relatively limited, and the costs to provide it would necessarily be higher than living near the Great Lakes.

Good stuff, thanks.

Re: Theory of Conflict

BransonBow — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 04:26:58 GMT

Superabundant is the same as not scarce. Superabundance doesn't lessen incentive to conflict, it removes the possibility of entering into conflict over the thing. Think of air on earth (under normal outdoor conditions). How could I come into conflict with you over breathing air? I mean it literally. I don't think that I could. It's not just that the have choices to use that thing, A thing is not scarce if there is no action one can reasonably engage in that would require the item, but could not find a sufficient amount of the thing.

It's really hard to think and type at the same time lol. I typed and erased a dozen times. I think you could come into conflict with me over air. There is only so much oxygen in the atmosphere. It's not really the supply of a thing, but the use of it is where the conflict arises. Think of pollution, the argument is over who gets to do what with the air. One person wants clean air, the other wants to pump co2 into it. The supply of it does come into play, but ultimately it's how the supply is used that creates the argument. The supply provides and incentive to do one action or another.

Re: Theory of Conflict

David B — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 03:58:45 GMT

BransonBow:

I haven't forgot about this thread. I find it very interesting, I just don't have the knowledge to offer anything substantial. I thought the qualifier for property was scarcity? When a thing is super abundant there is less incentive for an actor to engage in adverserial behavior as they have choices to the use of that thing. Why fight you over a tree when there are a thousand other tree's in the forest I can use?

Awesome, something to interact with.

I think you do have something to offer, talking about the ideas is important.

Superabundant is the same as not scarce. Superabundance doesn't lessen incentive to conflict, it removes the possibility of entering into conflict over the thing. Think of air on earth (under normal outdoor conditions). How could I come into conflict with you over breathing air? I mean it literally. I don't think that I could. It's not just that the have choices to use that thing, A thing is not scarce if there is no action one can reasonably engage in that would require the item, but could not find a sufficient amount of the thing.

Time for example is never superabundant. Every action a man could possibly engage in takes time, and there is a limited amount of it. Necessarily only so many actions could possibly be taken in a day.

Re: Theory of Conflict

BransonBow — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 03:13:56 GMT

I haven't forgot about this thread. I find it very interesting, I just don't have the knowledge to offer anything substantial. I thought the qualifier for property was scarcity? When a thing is super abundant there is less incentive for an actor to engage in adverserial behavior as they have choices to the use of that thing. Why fight you over a tree when there are a thousand other tree's in the forest I can use?

Re: Theory of Conflict

Malachi — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 03:11:27 GMT

No, its my turn but I havent had much time recently

Re: Theory of Conflict

David B — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 03:00:13 GMT

Did I kill this thread? I thought we were working on something substantive here.

BTW, meant to throw down the gaunlet.

Property as a concept cannot arise without conflict. That should tell us something about what it means for something to qualify as property.

Re: Theory of Conflict

David B — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 18:35:40 GMT

Andris Birkmanis:
I am surprised noone mentioned Schelling. I do not fully agree with his works, but I've got a number of take-home points from them (was a long time ago, before my exposure to Mises, might be worth a re-read). IIRC, generalization of both threats and promises to commitments, and what makes them credible was one of the most interesting ideas. BTW, game theory in general is a good starting point for exploration of conflict, except it usually postulates quite rigid world, in which participants cannot negotiate to come up with new ways to cooperate, and must just choose from a number of levers to pull or buttons to push, so to speak.

On an unrelated track, I think it may be useful to approach building the theory of conflict from the following direction. Imagine the most primitive animal able of conflict. Not all kinds of conflicts are possible, e.g., extorsion requires threat, which requires ability to communicate. Then add more abilities to the animal to allow for more advanced kinds of conflict. How many levels of such abilities can we construct? Do they form a pyramid, a tree, or a network?

I've been reading some of the descriptions of Schelling, I like the things said. Personally, my goal is integrated formalization. If (and some disagree) Praxeology is in fact a priori, then it's categories would produce conflict. Even more so, the existing theories about conflict ought to be integrable with Praxeology.

I also like the idea of building a theory of conflict by removing features of man, and then re-inserting them.

For example, I don't think there is such a clear cut line between human action, and the pseudo-intentionality of other biological systems. In fact, the similarities point to some interesting categories that might be relevant.

Here's my thought experiment, I'd ask what is the most generic description of perceptible phenomena that gives rise to the categorization of certain existents as life?

So, it's not pure regularity. The earth rotates around the sun at a regular interval, we don't interpret that phenomena as intelligent or alive. But a lack of regularity is also not considered to be indicative of life or intelligence. Think of noise (like when listening to a radio frequency that doesn't have a radio transmission present). So if it's not regularity in phenomena and it's not irregularity what is it? Well, I think it's actually a class of regularity characterized by complexity. So, the one might see regular patterns that are not simple patterns. Again, that's not necessarily enough.

Anyway there's lot of stuff here.

BTW, one of the reasons I want to put down some formal logical propositions is because formalizations of that type are useful in applying them to the real world and checking if your premises about the situation in reality are accurate. If we know our fomalization is valid, and applicable, then when we see results that don't match, it necessarily means we're missing something. That's important for the use and construction of technical solutions.

Note, that the solution is mathematical in construction, but like all praxeological formalizations, they are not quantitative, but qualitative. I believe the only proper mathematical relation for use in understanding action phenomena is "greater than/less than".

I have two ways I could describe a value function, and I would define it as the internal evaluation of potential future realities it's output is 1 future reality as the preferred over all potential realities considered. However, that doesn't produce action, so one has to be more clear. The value function that produces action relies on the other function to evaluate potential realities, but the action value function has to consider potential actions available now, and so it's input is potential actions now, and it's output is the preferred action. The only relationship I know about is that the action returned by the V(set of Actions) function means that the action returned (or performed) has a value > actions not taken. But we also know that since the evaluation of potential realities must have been an evaluation of the realities produced by the actions considered, that the reality produced by this action was valued more highly than the ones discarded. Here for example is where Mises explains causality as a feature of human action and logic.

Secondly we can't know the other persons value function, except by learning about the kinds of action it produces. We can see (empirically) that changes in the knowledge content of the mind, effect the kind of actions returned by the value function. Your value function is a risk to me. Meaning the less I know about you, the harder it is for me to predict the outcome of your value function. However, the idea of a threat, is the implication that I know enough about your value function to force it to produce an outcome I want, by limiting it's options to a binary choice (or apparently binary from my point of view).

Not only do we assume that the other human being is praxeological, we also have to assume that you value remaining alive if we wish to use a threat against you. All social action, however, begins by assuming that the target operates on praxeological categories: knowledge, action, prediction, risk, scarcity, value function (my term for preference generator), etc.

Re: Theory of Conflict

Andris Birkmanis — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 16:57:01 GMT

I am surprised noone mentioned Schelling. I do not fully agree with his works, but I've got a number of take-home points from them (was a long time ago, before my exposure to Mises, might be worth a re-read). IIRC, generalization of both threats and promises to commitments, and what makes them credible was one of the most interesting ideas. BTW, game theory in general is a good starting point for exploration of conflict, except it usually postulates quite rigid world, in which participants cannot negotiate to come up with new ways to cooperate, and must just choose from a number of levers to pull or buttons to push, so to speak.

On an unrelated track, I think it may be useful to approach building the theory of conflict from the following direction. Imagine the most primitive animal able of conflict. Not all kinds of conflicts are possible, e.g., extorsion requires threat, which requires ability to communicate. Then add more abilities to the animal to allow for more advanced kinds of conflict. How many levels of such abilities can we construct? Do they form a pyramid, a tree, or a network?

Re: Theory of Conflict

David B — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 16:02:13 GMT

Neodoxy:

@David B

I'm glad you're on this thread, and I'll respond to some of what you said later, but for now I just want to say that I don't think that we should be "too rigorous" at the moment, as dangerous as that sounds. While I don't think that we should let stupid stuff slip, the fact is that creative thinking, like what we are doing now, is incredibly difficult. I think that we should be throwing ideas out, as it were, and letting them slosh around while basic categories emerge, and only then after we have a general idea of what the structure will look like to we start from the basics and fully refine our investigation.

My god, this thread is going to require sooo much reading...

Nevertheless I'll continue, I'm really worried about not having a foundation it's just fluff and noise.

I think I may have found a way.

So the question was how to differentiate between cooperative action and adversarial action, if social action is action that uses another human being (as a human being) as means to an end, then I asked, what differntiates between cooperative action and adversarial.

What leads me to an answer is fear. But fear isn't present in any way that I understand praxeology. All we have is preference which is directional. Toward an outcome or away from an outcome. I need diagrams here.

Logically, V is the value function of our actor, X1 happens with no action, X2happens with action A, so if V(x1) < V(x2) then A. Meaning that if our actor values x2 more than he values x1 then he will perform action A.

Ok, so let's examine what happens when I point a gun at you, and ask for an action B. There's an implied action C that I'm going to perform if you don't perform action C, which is shoot you (action D).

So what I've done is present you with two alternatives, and the third one which was removed by my gun is the key. Current reality is X1, if I shoot you is X2, and if you do what I want is X3. The form of the hierarchy of value from the point of view of the person threatened is, V(X2) < V(X3) < V(x1), otherwise you would have chosen to perform the action anyway.

Meaning that the form of a threat or adversarial action is to present a necessary outcome that is less preferred to the wished for action, but more specifically that the necessary outcome is causally linked to an action of the man pointing the gun. This is all perception based btw, thus the idea of a bluff, or misdirection. I think the source of the adversarial relation is the causal link of the future event to the actions of a specific actor.

Again pointing a gun at a person only works because of the social nature of the act. I am assuming knowledge, categories, and logic in the mind of the other person. Secondly, I'm presenting a future state of reality that I assume he will find less preferable to the current reality (he's alive and uninjured). Thirdly, I'm asking for an action by him that I want and which will remove the threat of harm. Again, the adversarial nature is the fact that the future I'm making him aware of is one that would be caused by me.

I think that's a semi-formal definition of a threat.

I don't think this is necessarily a conflict, but at least we can classify threats on a larger scale as taking their form from this form.

The inverse of this situation is if the future presented to the other person is instead one prefers to current reality if they do act. That would be a cooperative interaction.

So, adversarial, presentation of a future worse than current expectation if action X isn't performed. Cooperative, presentation of a future preferred to the expected future if action X is performed. Exchange is mutually beneficial. Extortion is singly beneficial, even thought the giving of money was made preferable to dealing with the future the threatened action was performed. One party is better off.

All forms of social action also intend to change the way in which the target of action, acts. It may be through education, or argumentation, or through presenting cooperative action, win-win or win-lose (in the mind) is the way I would think of cooperative vs. adversarial.

What does lose-lose look like? No one tries to create lose-lose, but individually each of us would seek to avoid avoid lose-lose. or lose-win. Thus lose-lose is an accident, in other words an unforseen outcome. Where lose-lose occurs or lose-win occurs, man would seek to create knowledge and theory and technology to avoid these situation, just as he would create technology to allow win-lose or win-win social action.

Re: Theory of Conflict

Neodoxy — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 06:24:40 GMT

@Malachi

Can you paragraph or number your classifications above? I find it really hard to keep up with what is being said in a big paragraph when the subject is constantly changing.

@Gotlucky

I agree with your amendments to what I posted. I think that they easiest way to restate it would be: a man will perform an action so long as he believes that the possibility of success provided by the action is worth the risk of forgoing the costs inherent in performing that action and the possible consequences of performing that action which the individual in question perceives.

Now I'm mostly going to address your three classifications. The biggest problem I see in them is that where exactly duels end and wars begins is a little shaky. Theoretically a duel could be massive in scope, a huge riot between a huge number of people with few or no real declared sides or goals. I think what really marks out a war is clearly defined sides and some degree of organization and chain of command. It's hard to argue that a "gang war" isn't really a war, even though it may only involve 100 people directly, and insofar as one is able to argue that it's not it's because of the disorganization and individuality usually associated with gang membership. So I think that there's

1. Duel: Chaotic fighting between loosely defined and poorly controlled parties of two or more (fairly common)

2. War: Relatively organized fighting between fairly small to infinitely large groups of two or more (common)

3. Conflict: Fighting between a relatively organized group and a relatively disorganized group. One could argue that the war in Afghanistan and Vietnam are like this because many times the U.S is fighting against semi-autonomous guerilla forces (fairly rare)

4. Politics (Omnipresent)

It's important to note that our definitions need not be entirely precise. Just as Mises acknowledged that it's hard to determine at what point a meduim of exchange could be qualified as money, so too it could be difficult to determine some of these categories.

Now that we have some basic methodology and categorization down I think that we should focus directly upon the most pressing and the most easily analyzable systems: War within a hierarchical military command which functions on behalf of a democratic mixed economy, and politics. We should start by listing out types of wars. To some extent politics may be seen as an entirely different category

@David B

I'm glad you're on this thread, and I'll respond to some of what you said later, but for now I just want to say that I don't think that we should be "too rigorous" at the moment, as dangerous as that sounds. While I don't think that we should let stupid stuff slip, the fact is that creative thinking, like what we are doing now, is incredibly difficult. I think that we should be throwing ideas out, as it were, and letting them slosh around while basic categories emerge, and only then after we have a general idea of what the structure will look like to we start from the basics and fully refine our investigation.

My god, this thread is going to require sooo much reading...