> Look, I appreciate your sincerity but think you are really starting to eat your own tail here
Care to elaborate why? I'm not arguing because I think you're going to suddenly acquiesce, but because I'm trying to refine my own viewpoint.
I obviously can't quickly read the linked books to see what they're actually saying, but they clearly have their own set of philosophies. This is fine, but these philosophies are not beyond reproach.
And as to Arrow's theorem and the problems of procedural outcomes - that's precisely my point! You're the one coming from the viewpoint where we're all bound to an ever-growing system that possesses the mandate to regulate whatever is economically prudent. If a system is incapable of adequately taking into account the conflicting desires of its inhabitants, it should be decentralized so that everybody doesn't have to agree!
Basically, because you're assuming that you can identify universal rights and a procedure for reliably identifying them, which you think is going to free you from the implementation problems of axiomatic statements of rights. This is the legal equivalent to squaring the circle, and it has been argued that legal rules are likely as limited by Godel's theorem as any other formal system. Indeed, recognition of such procedural shortcomings is a big reason for the elevated role of the judiciary in common-law legal systems.
system that possesses the mandate to regulate whatever is economically prudent
I don't agree that it's necessarily ever expanding, but insofar as it involves regulating whatever is economically prudent then sure, because I'm a utilitarian. Of course, I only have limited foresight, so I support the democratic approach as a necessary evil although I'd rather a pure technocracy. As long as it produces a reasonable approximation of Pareto optimality, I'm OK with that. It's imperfect, of course, but at least it's a methodology.
[...] it should be decentralized so that everybody doesn't have to agree!
But it already is; living in the US gives you a choice between over 50 different legal systems, and that's only at the state level. Some of them provide exceedingly poor outcomes for their citizens IMHO, but there you go.
Care to elaborate why? I'm not arguing because I think you're going to suddenly acquiesce, but because I'm trying to refine my own viewpoint.
I obviously can't quickly read the linked books to see what they're actually saying, but they clearly have their own set of philosophies. This is fine, but these philosophies are not beyond reproach.
And as to Arrow's theorem and the problems of procedural outcomes - that's precisely my point! You're the one coming from the viewpoint where we're all bound to an ever-growing system that possesses the mandate to regulate whatever is economically prudent. If a system is incapable of adequately taking into account the conflicting desires of its inhabitants, it should be decentralized so that everybody doesn't have to agree!