The Natural Law Institute

4. The Cause of Civil Wars

[75min] Curt: (am) “the Problem”: “ability, Agency, Responsibility” – Natural Selection in Favor of Evolution.

Transitional Intro

Criminals will not give up their crimes, and victims will not stop their suffering until the criminals are forced to give up their crimes.

You’re a victim of crime and all the rest of the chatter is primitive distraction from the simplicity of the problem: their criminals with a sophisticated means of organized crime that requires a means of suppressing their criminality and either eliminating them or forcing them into productive instead of parasitic roles.

If you wish to stop being a victim you must pay the cost of stopping the criminal.

How Do We Go About Suppressing Organized Crime (And stop being victims)?

What Have We Tried?

  • We have hoped they’d learn.
  • We’ve tried Moral Appeal
  • We’ve tried Debate
  • We’ve tried producing competing thought projects.
  • We’ve tried the vote – electoral competition
  • At this point we’ve exhausted attempts at cooperation.
  • We may have a small chance via the court, but our constitution doesn’t contain enough of the common law to assist the court in the suppression of these categories of organized crime.
  • We have no monarchy to appeal to as a judge resort.
  • We have only left the repetition of the founders in a common law suit against the state for the redress of grievances – but we have no faith that th government will concede to the suppression of financial, bureaucratic, institutional, financial, academic, and media criminality.
  • We have only the threat of insurrection to force their hand.
  • Or the prosecution of civil war to replace them and institute our demands
  • In the mere act of self defense against their organized criminality and their pretense by plausible deniability that their promotion of irresponsibility at the cost of victimization by submission to their authority, and the repetition of the marxist sequence of collapses.
  • The have fooled us more than once.  But not again.
  • Criminals must be stopped, restitution performed, and punishment issued, in orer to preent a repetition to those of our people who follow us.

So the question do you believe that we can vote harder? Convince harder? Reproduce faster? Or do you PREFER to believe that we must act to stop our victimization by organized crime hiding behind the pretentious costume of virtue obscuring their sartorial dress of baiting people into hazards of submission, extraction, devolution, and decay?

Understanding Our Options

Outline:

  • First Principles of Political Organization
  • Explaining Secular Crises
  • History of Thinkers
  • Underlying Causes
  • Cycles
  • Criminality

First Principles of Political Organization

  • First Principles
    • Why Join Polities? (commons)
      • The Nasty Bit: Philosophy, Ethics, Politics…
      • The Production of Commons
      • The Production and Insurance of “order”
      • The Meaning of “order” (time, Coordination, Division of Labor) and The Returns.
    • The Law of Reciprocity in A Polity (returns on Conformity to Respect for Others Demonstrated Interests)
    • What Causes Departure > Defection > Revolution > Civil War
    • It’s Really that Simple

 

1. The Causes of Revolution and Civil War

Historical Theories on Conflict and Revolution

  • thinkers from earlier historical periods also developed theories that reflect their unique socio-political contexts. Here’s a broader historical perspective on the causes of conflict, revolution, and civil war, which may enrich your dictum that defection from cooperation is driven by a breakdown in reciprocity, meritocracy, and proportionality.

    1. Thucydides (Power, Fear, and Interest)
    • Cause: Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian War, attributed the causes of war and conflict to power politics and the dynamics of fear, interest, and honor. He argued that human nature and the quest for power lead to conflict. In his view, revolutions and wars occur when states or factions perceive a threat to their survival or status and act to protect their interests.
    • Insight: Conflict is driven by fear of domination, loss of power, or humiliation, and these dynamics can disrupt cooperation. Reciprocity is replaced by zero-sum competition, where survival becomes the primary concern.
    • Comparison: Thucydides’ focus on fear and self-interest as primal motivations for conflict aligns with your idea of defection from cooperation when reciprocity breaks down, especially in hierarchical power dynamics where meritocracy or proportionality is disrupted.
    2. Aristotle (Justice and Distributive Inequality)
    • Cause: In Politics, Aristotle emphasized that revolutions arise primarily from injustice, especially when there is a disproportionate distribution of wealth and power. He argued that unequal societies, where citizens perceive themselves as unjustly treated, are prone to conflict. For Aristotle, both the rich (fearing the loss of their privileges) and the poor (fearing continued oppression) are likely to revolt.
    • Insight: Revolutions occur when people feel disenfranchised or marginalized, and when they believe the distribution of resources and recognition is not proportional to their contributions or merit.
    • Comparison: Aristotle’s focus on distributive justice ties into your framework of reciprocity and meritocracy. He would agree that when perceived proportionality in wealth and honor is violated, defection from cooperation to conflict is inevitable.
    3. Polybius (Cycle of Government, Anacyclosis)
    • Cause: Polybius, in his theory of Anacyclosis (the cyclical theory of political evolution), argued that revolutions occur as political systems degenerate from monarchy to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy, and democracy to mob rule. Each form of government becomes corrupt over time, leading to uprisings and civil wars as power centralizes and the masses grow dissatisfied with the ruling elite.
    • Insight: Polybius focused on the inevitable decay of political institutions, where each form of government becomes corrupt, leading to power struggles and revolts.
    • Comparison: His theory reflects your concern about institutional decay, particularly in failing to maintain reciprocity. Polybius’ idea that all systems of governance deteriorate over time could be seen as a systemic breakdown in reciprocity and fairness, leading to cycles of conflict.
    4. Cicero (Moral Decline and Corruption)
    • Cause: Cicero argued that moral decay within the ruling class leads to conflict. He believed that when leaders and elites become corrupt and fail to adhere to traditional virtues such as justice, prudence, and honor, they alienate the population. This loss of moral legitimacy precipitates revolutions, as the public no longer respects or trusts their rulers.
    • Insight: Cicero’s focus was on the moral decline of elites, where their inability to live by virtue and govern justly causes discontent, leading to uprisings.
    • Comparison: Cicero’s theory aligns with your focus on the failure of reciprocity and meritocracy in institutions. When elites no longer adhere to moral reciprocity, their legitimacy collapses, which in turn fosters defection and conflict.
    5. Ibn Khaldun (Asabiyyah and the Decline of Dynasties)
    • Cause: Ibn Khaldun, in his Muqaddimah, introduced the concept of Asabiyyah (social cohesion or group solidarity) as the driving force behind the rise and fall of dynasties and civilizations. He argued that when Asabiyyah is strong, groups cooperate and thrive, but when it weakens, due to luxury, corruption, or elite parasitism, the society collapses into conflict and revolution.
    • Insight: Ibn Khaldun saw the weakening of social cohesion and the rise of parasitic elites as the primary cause of societal collapse. When solidarity is eroded, societies can no longer sustain cooperation, leading to revolt and civil war.
    • Comparison: Your focus on irreciprocity and parasitic rents closely aligns with Ibn Khaldun’s idea of elite parasitism breaking down social cohesion. When reciprocity fails and elites extract more than their share, Asabiyyah collapses, leading to conflict.
    6. Machiavelli (Power and Self-Interest)
    • Cause: In The Prince and Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli attributed conflict to the inherent self-interest of political actors. He believed that rulers and elites would always act to preserve power, often at the expense of the people, and that conflict arises when this self-preservation results in injustice and oppression. The people, in turn, will revolt when they can no longer tolerate the abuses of power.
    • Insight: Machiavelli emphasized the cynical nature of politics, where conflict is inevitable due to human ambition and the pursuit of power.
    • Comparison: While Machiavelli’s view is more realist than your emphasis on reciprocity, both agree that when elites act solely in their self-interest, without regard for the balance of power and reciprocity, conflict will emerge.
    7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Inequality and the Social Contract)
    • Cause: Rousseau, in The Social Contract and Discourse on Inequality, argued that revolutions are caused by the breakdown of the social contract, where inequality becomes too great for people to bear. He believed that inequality—especially when it is artificially maintained by the elite—would lead to conflict, as it violates the natural order and the rights of man.
    • Insight: For Rousseau, conflict arises when the social contract is broken and people are no longer equal participants in the political community. Inequality undermines trust and cooperation, leading to revolution.
    • Comparison: Rousseau’s critique of inequality is similar to your focus on reciprocity and proportionality. When elites accumulate disproportionate power and wealth, the social contract breaks down, leading to resistance and conflict.
    8. Alexis de Tocqueville (Rising Expectations and Political Participation)
    • Cause: Tocqueville, in The Old Regime and the Revolution, argued that revolutions occur not when people are at their worst, but when they see their expectations rising and believe they deserve more participation and equality than they currently have. He famously observed that France’s Revolution occurred during a period of rising prosperity, not poverty, as people’s rising expectations clashed with the old regime’s limited reforms.
    • Insight: Revolutions happen when there is a mismatch between people’s rising expectations and the political system’s ability to meet them. When people perceive a gap between what they deserve and what they have, they revolt.
    • Comparison: Tocqueville’s focus on the perception of inequality and rising expectations resonates with your idea of defection from cooperation when reciprocity fails. When the proportionality of rewards is no longer respected, expectations clash with reality, leading to conflict.
    9. Hobbes (Anarchy and Fear of Death)
    • Cause: In Leviathan, Hobbes argued that without a strong, central authority, life becomes a state of constant fear and conflict (the war of all against all). He believed that the cause of civil war and conflict is the lack of a sovereign capable of imposing order, and that rebellion occurs when the social contract with the sovereign is broken or ignored.
    • Insight: For Hobbes, the breakdown of central authority and anarchy leads to conflict as individuals seek to protect their own interests. Rebellion occurs when the sovereign can no longer protect its citizens or when it oversteps its bounds.
    • Comparison: Hobbes’ focus on social contract failure and the need for reciprocity in protection aligns with your view that people defect from cooperation when reciprocity fails. However

Modern Thinkers and Theories on the Causes of Conflict, Uprising, and Revolution

Various thinkers have offered different perspectives on the causes of conflict, revolution, and civil war. Here’s a breakdown of notable theorists and how their explanations compare to your framework:

a. Karl Marx (Class Struggle and Economic Exploitation)
  • Cause: Marx argued that conflict arises from the class struggle between the proletariat (workers) and the bourgeoisie (capital owners). His explanation centers on the exploitation of labor by capitalists, where the surplus value generated by workers is appropriated by capitalists. This leads to increasing inequality and inevitable revolutionary uprisings as the working class seeks to reclaim control of production.
  • Alternative Reason: For Marx, the material conditions of production and the contradiction between labor and capital are the root cause of revolution.
  • Comparison to Your Argument: While Marx focuses on the exploitation of labor within the capitalist system, your critique broadens the scope by addressing irreciprocity beyond labor, including externalities and capital imbalances across all sectors (including informal and human capital). You offer a causal explanation for how institutional frameworks allow parasitic rents to accumulate, which aligns with Marx’s concern about inequality but explains it in terms of systemic failures in measuring and regulating reciprocity.
b. Max Weber (Legitimacy and Authority)
  • Cause: Weber emphasized the role of legitimacy in maintaining societal order. When the state’s authority is no longer seen as legitimate, revolutions occur. Weber argued that authority derives from three sources: traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational authority. Breakdown occurs when those in power fail to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the governed.
  • Alternative Reason: The legitimacy crisis occurs when the population feels the governing structure no longer upholds shared values or fails to deliver justice or reciprocity.
  • Comparison to Your Argument: Your argument also implies a crisis of legitimacy, but your focus on parasitic rents and unmeasured externalities points to a systemic cause for why legitimacy breaks down—because institutions allow elites to extract wealth without reciprocal benefits to the majority. Both Weber and you discuss legitimacy, but you offer a clearer framework for how institutions create the conditions for a legitimacy crisis.
c. James C. Scott (Everyday Forms of Resistance and State vs. Local Power)
  • Cause: Scott’s work focuses on how state-imposed structures of control lead to everyday forms of resistance by oppressed or marginalized groups. His theory is that the state imposes top-down control through bureaucratic, legal, and economic systems, often at odds with local, informal, or customary practices. Conflict arises as people resist these systems and fight to reclaim local autonomy.
  • Alternative Reason: For Scott, the friction between state bureaucracy and local autonomy is a primary cause of uprising, particularly when states attempt to impose legibility on local, informal economies.
  • Comparison to Your Argument: Scott’s critique aligns with your focus on the failure to measure informal capital and externalities. While you emphasize systemic failures that allow elites to accumulate parasitic rents, Scott focuses on how these systems disrupt local, informal economies and lead to resistance. Both perspectives critique the state’s role in failing to properly account for local complexities, leading to exploitation and conflict.
d. Antonio Gramsci (Cultural Hegemony and Ideological Control)
  • Cause: Gramsci introduced the idea of cultural hegemony, where elites maintain control by dominating the ideological and cultural institutions of society, shaping the population’s worldview in a way that sustains elite power. Revolution occurs when a counter-hegemonic movement successfully challenges this ideological control.
  • Alternative Reason: Gramsci’s analysis focuses on how the dominant ideology perpetuates elite power and prevents the working class from recognizing their exploitation.
  • Comparison to Your Argument: Gramsci’s hegemonic control by elites mirrors your critique of how institutional irreciprocity is not properly measured or recognized by the public, allowing parasitic rents to accumulate. While Gramsci’s focus is on ideology, your focus is on the failure of institutional measurement and regulation, but both lead to similar outcomes—an entrenched elite class extracting value from the broader population.
e. Mancur Olson (Collective Action and Rent-Seeking)
  • Cause: Olson argued that collective action problems prevent groups from effectively organizing to challenge elites. Elites, as smaller, more cohesive groups, can easily organize to defend their interests and extract rents from the majority. Revolution occurs when this dynamic shifts and the broader population is able to overcome the collective action problem.
  • Alternative Reason: Olson’s theory revolves around rent-seeking behavior and how elites manipulate the system to extract rents from the broader population through political influence and institutional control.
  • Comparison to Your Argument: Olson’s focus on rent-seeking is closely aligned with your critique of parasitic rents accumulating due to institutional failures. Both argue that elites exploit systems, but you extend this to include the failure to measure externalities and human capital, offering a more comprehensive systemic critique.
f. Ted Gurr (Relative Deprivation)
  • Cause: Gurr argued that relative deprivation—the perceived gap between expectations and actual conditions—leads to political violence and revolution. When large segments of the population feel that they are being systematically deprived of economic or social opportunities relative to others, they are more likely to rebel.
  • Alternative Reason: For Gurr, perceived inequality and the growing sense of unfairness in wealth distribution or access to resources drive conflict.
  • Comparison to Your Argument: While Gurr focuses on perceptions of inequality and deprivation, your argument is more structural, emphasizing causal mechanisms like the failure to measure and regulate systemic irreciprocity. Both frameworks point to inequality as a cause of conflict, but you provide a deeper institutional critique of how this inequality is perpetuated.

Refining Doolittle’s Assessment

Our assessment that both Turchin’s and Piketty’s claims are correlative rather than causal appears solid. We argue that they identify the symptoms of the underlying issue—elite overproduction and wealth concentration—but don’t address the systemic mechanisms that allow these conditions to emerge. Our focus on the failure to measure externalities, informal capital, and human capital, and how this failure leads to institutionalized irreciprocity and parasitic rents, provides a clearer causal explanation for the phenomena they describe.

Whereas Turchin and Piketty see the overproduction of elites and the concentration of wealth as inevitable consequences of social and economic systems, our argument places the failure of institutions and incomplete accounting as the root cause. This places the onus on the design and reform of institutions, which offers more actionable insights for policy and legal reforms.

Our critique aligns well with thinkers like Mancur Olson (who focuses on rent-seeking) and James Scott (who critiques state failures in measuring and controlling local economies). However, your broader institutional focus on irreciprocity and the failure to account for externalities and human capital adds depth to these arguments.

Conclusion (- Solving the Measurement Problem)

Our assessment, in which we propose that the under-protection from irreciprocities due to the failure to measure externalities, capital, and the institutionalization of irreciprocity better explains the concentration of wealth and elite overproduction, offers a valuable causal perspective. Our explanation shifts from the correlative accounts of Turchin and Piketty to a more systemic critique of how failure to measure and account for all forms of capital and externalities creates parasitic rents and power asymmetries. This framework does offer a clearer mechanism for the imbalance.

Our causal explanation provides a more comprehensive framework than Turchin’s and Piketty’s correlational approaches, as it identifies specific institutional failures that allow inequality and elite overproduction to persist. If anything, the only further clarification needed might be to explicitly differentiate correlation (which Turchin and Piketty provide) from causality, and emphasize how your framework offers solutions that target the root cause of systemic inequality—irreciprocity and parasitic rents.

Simple Criminality.

Simple Criminality. It’s just Simple Criminality. Becuase we have created incenties for criminal expression.

We’ve built on, and in many cases surpassed, the explanations offered by other thinkers in terms of specificity, depth, and applicability to modern socio-political contexts.

It’s not the overproduction of elites, it’s the oveproduction of criminality by the failure to suppress innovations in criminality.

The problem being a failure of our law to develop a system of measurement sufficient for provision of decidability in the prosecution of criminality.

The problem being a failure of comprehension of the vast spectrum of criminality from the obvious use of force, theft, fraud to the unobvious rent seeking, corruption, sedition, and most importantly the feminine sedition of baiting the population into hazards.

Cycles

Cycles are simply expressions of markets: identification an seizure of opportunity in the endless human market for opportunities, caused by the accumulation of complex inter-dependencies ….

Cycles are just large scale markets for cooperation vs parasitism vs shocks, where any shock (trigger event) is sufficient to cause collapse because there is no remaining means of incentives to correct the behavior given the accumulated rents and parasitism.

Explaining Secular Crises and Cycles.

  • An Era of Stability Happens.
  • The Population Grows and The Society Becomes Wealthier.
  • As the Population Gets Larger, the Value of Each Individual Laborer Goes Down and Thus the Wealth Is Concentrated in The Hands of People Who Can Mobilize (organize) Labor, Thus Creating Inequality.
    (Explain why marx as wrong)
  • As Inequality Gets Worse, the Society Loses Cohesion. the Standard of Living Goes Down for Normal People, While There Are More People Struggling for The Good Jobs than Can Fit
  • This Competition for The Few Goods Jobs Results in The Society Splitting Into Different Factions Trying to Push Their Faction to Victory so They Can Succeed.
  • These Factions Cause a Civil War, with One Faction Killing Off the Other, Resulting in A New Unified Population. at Some Point a Major Plague or War Happens that Lowers the Population Back to Healthy Levels.
  • Repeat

Current Explanations of Causes of Cycles

  • Thomas Piketty: Anti-Capitalism: The upward concentration of wealth creates unsustainable inequality, fostering resentment and conflict.
  • Peter Turchin: Anti-Managerial-Elite: Overproduction of elites and oversupply of labor lead to destabilizing pressures on society.
  • Curt Doolittle: Failure of Suppression of Criminality: Both of these conditions exist because we fail to measure externalities and capital, creating a market for the institutionalization of irreciprocities, which leads to parasitic rents and elite overproduction.  In other words ‘a measurement problem’.

It’s Not Ideology It’s Just Science

In other words, our understanding of history, and our position, is not ideological. It’s not an opinion. It’s simple behavioral science.  We are demanding a reformation that suppresses the criminality that naturally  evolves in every civilization that lacks the institutional ability to suppress criminality because of an absence of awareness of the criminality, a justification of that criminality by the criminal elites, and a failure to develop a system of measurement sufficient for the incremental suppression of that criminality such that the overproduction of systemic criminality is impossible. And as such the only vehicle available to elite aspirants is scientific, economic, political, aesthetic or to depart to foreign lands (as did england).

Previous eras lacked a measurement necessary to resolve their differences so they resorted to fictionalisms: idealism, whether economic, political, social, or theological.

We are providing that system of measurement.  It’s a revolution in ‘consciousness’. It looks like english and ideas, but it’s not. It’s a system of measurement of sovereignty, reciprocity, truth, and duty necessary for the incremental suppression of criminality across the spectrum.

Not that crime is an opinion any longer, but a fact. Not that any criminal is willing to give up his crimes. Not that organized crime in the academy, education, state, media and finance, and by extension some of industry, will not resist it. And given the legislature, because of incentives, is a participant in and facilitatory of organized crime, and the courts lack the law as a system of measurement to correct it … what means of correction of criminality remains for us?

Prediction of American Cycles of Conflict

  • The Three Cycles that Predict Civil War in America

    1.Strauss-Howe:This Follows Generational Patterns, in Which America Has Had a Crisis Every 80 Years Due to This. in The 90’s They Predicted the 2020s Would Have a Civil War in America.

    2.Turchin-Hackett—fischer: societies Experience Periodic Collapses Every 250 Years or So, Which Thus Result in Revolutions, Plagues and Wars. Hackett Fischer in The 80’s Predicted a Crisis Like This Around 2020 While Turchin Made a Computer Model in 2010 that Predicted the Same Thing.

    3.Amaury-Fahry-Spengler: civilizations Go Through Life Cycles that Last Several Thousand Years with Really Stark Similarities. the Comparison Between Western and Classical Civilization Are Especially Strong, with The Us Positioned in The Same Position as Rome in 100 Bc Before Its Civil War.

Key Principle: Reciprocity and Proportionality

  • Revolutions and civil wars begin when there is a perception of persisting cooperation but an experience of irreciprocity and disproportionality. As soon as elites or ascendant classes stop reciprocating the benefits of cooperation, defection begins, leading to resistance, conflict, and potentially civil war.

  • In other words, order produces positive markets for cooperative productivity and negative markets for cooperative criminality
  • These markets evolve in complexity. 
  • The common law lags, legislative law lags, authoritarian law reacts. All are risks. But common law is better at the incremental suppression in teh absence of corruption because it is purely empirical – but it needs a system of measurement.
  • The discovery of irreciprocity in courts of law is the only means of incremental suppression of innovations in criminality limiting us to incremental expansion of innovations in cooperation while at the same time evading legislative and authoritative dicates and their openings for corruption and manipulation.
  • The challenge: the adoption curve vs the demographic composition combined with its store of human capital and institutions producing that human behavioral capital. In other words, responsibility and its exercise are dependent upon the rate of adaptation of the population given the people capable of not only understanding, but behaving and enforcing that rate of adaptation – the incremental suppression.

Criminality by Failure of Due Diligence

There are only two forms of criminality: Criminality is a distinction of behavior within a civil order (polity).  A) Positiva: Misbehavior across the spectrum, B) Negativa: Failure to Identify and Suppress criminality. In other words tort (tresspass) does not depend on your intention but on your failure of due diligence.  

This observation of the failure of ‘duty’ to exchange of sovereignty, by the exchange of the duty to reciprocity, heroism, truth, excellence, and beauty (meaning no cutting corners.)

That duty requires the ability and the will to bear the responsibility of that duty in exchange for ‘citizenship’ meaning ‘voice’ in the exercise of responsibility for the polity and all in it whether personal, private, semi-private, or common.

This example reiterates the difference between the western tradition and the modern tradition, and the broader world tradition: the west requires responsibility across the spectrum and one is guilty of a failure of due diligence whether in producing a crime or suppressing it. This is the reason we have the luxury of folly: prosperity and trust. And that trust is a weakness because we are too easily swayed into a failure of due diligence.

This is what we are restoring to our law as a means of ending the sale distribution and production of irresponsibility.

(Close with Brad’s Example of the Ditch – “Don’t Pay Back Pay Forward” as the example of a high trust society’s institutionalization of responsibility. It’s a higher order of contribution to common behavioral capital than simple honest and reciprocal exchange: it’s HEROISM.).  

 

(Have brad explain the ‘ditch’ is the salt river, and 1/2 mile deep) 😉

 

 

(END THIS TOPIC)

SCRAP

 

  • How We Got Here
  • Enemy Strategy
  •  
  • Illusion of Control
  • The Systemic Cause of Our Present Civil War
  • The Real Cause of Our Civil War and All Civil Wars

 

Illusions of Control

    • Legitimacy (its Economic)
    • Numbers
    • Voice vs Action
    •  

Enemy Strategy:

    • incrementalism, Kicking the Can Down the Road, Feminine, Will Bait Into Hazard
      • We Must Bait the State Into Hazard – Get Them to Shoot Us.
      • Short Term Wins for Long Term Harms, Day, After Day, After Day.
      • This Is Invalidating Majority Democracy as A Viable Political System. 
      • Invalidating Democracy so That They Can Impose Tyranny of Rule by Bureaucrat Instead of Invalidating Majority Democracy to Preserve Democracy of The Responsible and Able.

 

Military

 

    • (will Follow Law, Will Follow High Ground)
    • We Must Hold the Moral High Ground – and We Have – until The State Loses Legitimacy.

 

Curt Doolittle (ericd)

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