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AlexMerced
07-11-2010, 08:42 AM
http://libertyisnow.blogspot.com/2010/07/understanding-social-policy.html



Understanding Social Policy
by Alex Merced

You may have seen my recent video discussing how people are socialized by institutions, and how all institutions fall into three categories. I then followed up about how this framework can be applied to understanding and combating institutional discrimination. I thought I'd recap much of what I said in a written article for those who prefer these ideas written.


Intersocial Institutions

Definition: These are institutions that are made of people with similar interests, goals, or other unifying interests that are not spiritual. Since these are not spiritual they cannot use to the fear of violence in the afterlife to accept customs, traditions and practices.

Examples: Family, Friends, Clubs, Jobs, etc.

How it enforces Customs: A intersocial institution can only use the fear of being no longer allowed to participate in the institution to keep members in line. These Institutions are voluntary and since they don't threaten violence only removal from the institution, it's the least influential and least destructive to individual liberty of the three types on institutions.

How to Reform: If certains customs or beliefs of the institution are discriminatory or offensive, one can choose to not to participate in these institutions and encourage others to withdraw as well which would destroy these institutions from within. No further coercive method is needed since these insitutions can only survive through voluntarism.


Spiritual Institutions

Definition: These are institutions organized by institutions that exploit the existance or belief in of spirituality.

Examples: Churches, Religons, Youth Groups

How it enforces Customs: A Spiritual Insitution uses FUTURE VIOLENCE as a threat to get participants to participate in it's customs and traditions. The threat that in the afterlife one may live the next life as an inferior being or be casted into eternal damnation are threats of post-life violence. Due to peoples TIME PREFERENCE* this threat of violence is typically less influential than the threat of violence from government.


How to Reform: If certains customs or beliefs of the institution are discriminatory or offensive, one can choose not to participate in these institutions and encourage others to withdraw as well which would destroy these institutions from within. No further coercive method is needed since these insitutions can only survive through voluntarism.



Governmental Institutions

Definition: Tese are insitutions created by a government which is monopoly of violence, and everyone who's governed by this government may or may not consent to be governed, so withdrawl from these institutions is not an option.

Examples: Internal Revenue Service, Department of Education, Federal Drug Administration

How it enforces Customs: A government insitution keeps all people participating through the threat of CURRENT VIOLENCE. If people choose not to obey laws, they are threatened with penalties, incarceration, and inevitably violence to comply. Due to time preference, this CURRENT VIOLENCE is a much stronger influencer than the FUTURE VIOLENCE of the spiritual institutions, on top no one chooses to participate in a governmental institution but are subject to it due to their location or other arbritrary factors


How to Reform: If certains customs or beliefs of the institution are discriminatory or offensive, one can't choose to withdraw so unlike intersocial or spiritual institutions which can be reformed by voluntarist means, a government institution can only be reformed by using the insitutions own power to reform it which means one must climb the power structure and then change the rules. Since this is the only way to reform this institution, it makes it the slowest institution to change and the more influential in keeping discriminatory and collectivist social structure in place for prolonged period of time even after attitudes and values have changed.


Conclusion: While Intersocial and Spiritual institutions both have their roll in discrimintation, violating liberty, and other social problems; they are fairly easy to deal with due to their voluntarist nature. The government on the other hand cannot be dealt with by voluntarist means and is structured in a way that can only serve to keep the status quo in place much longer than it is in the minds of individuals. This is why Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalist focus so much on abolishing this particular type of institution versus allowing individual to reform the others through voluntarist means.


* Time Preference is a theory developed by Austrian Economist such as Carl Menger and Ludwig Von Mises that states people value present goods over future goods. Alex Merceds views on Sociology/Anthropology are based on an Indivudalist Philosophy (Isaiah Berlin, Murray Rothbard) with an sociological application of Time Preference theory to different threats of Violence.

djdellisanti4
07-11-2010, 08:49 AM
I really enjoyed this and is something I will have to remember when educating others.

AlexMerced
07-11-2010, 08:58 AM
I really enjoyed this and is something I will have to remember when educating others.

Thanks, I thought this was ainteresting framework and application of a lot of austrian theories.

djdellisanti4
07-11-2010, 09:52 AM
Thanks, I thought this was ainteresting framework and application of a lot of austrian theories.
Agreed. But also had a question. I was reading Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom and in the beginning he talks about technical monopolies. I think one of the examples he used was railroads in the 19th century. Under which category would they go under?

AlexMerced
07-11-2010, 12:48 PM
a Business is an Intersocial institution as long as it remains voluntary, once government grants it monopoly then it becomes a government instution since government has decide to use coercion to force people to participate, but only government can transform another institution in this way.

AlexMerced
07-11-2010, 08:47 PM
bump