2.1 Action Axiom

Axiom 1:
Human beings act purposefully in an effort to move toward states they subjectively regard as better.

Explanation:

  • “Better” is a subjective judgment, and standards differ from person to person;
  • Action is based on expectation: “If I do this, the future will be somewhat better than if I do not”;
  • Even when the expectation is wrong, the action itself remains purposeful.

Implications:

  • Action is the smallest unit of analysis in CBT.
  • Markets, prices, institutions, firms, and even nations can all be traced back to the recurring choices made by groups of people under specific constraints.

2.2 Time Axiom

Axiom 2:
Human life is finite, time is irreversible, and the future is uncertain.

Explanation:

  • Time cannot be stored; it can only be used as it passes;
  • Time used for A cannot be used for B. That is opportunity cost;
  • Human beings generally exhibit positive time preference: other things equal, they prefer some benefit now to the same benefit later.

Implications:

  • The discount rate r must therefore be positive in logical terms (r > 0);
  • Even in the absence of money and explicit interest, an implicit interest rate exists as long as time preference exists.

2.3 Property & Boundaries Axiom

Axiom 3:
All economic action takes place within a structure of boundaries, which determines who holds what rights and obligations over what.

This can be captured in one highly intuitive sentence:

Human beings naturally understand what is “mine (ours)” and what is “yours (theirs).”

This means:

  • Property rights and boundaries are not merely textbook constructs; they are a basic human foundation of cooperation and conflict;
  • Institutions make this innate distinction between “mine” and “yours” explicit, procedural, and enforceable.

Boundaries determine:

  • Who may possess, use, benefit from, and dispose of what;
  • Who bears taxes, debts, responsibilities, and obligations;
  • How stable and predictable these rights and obligations are.

Implications:

  • The clearer and more stable the boundaries, the lower r_institution, and the more favorable the environment for long-horizon investment and the building of Positive Buses;
  • The more ambiguous or arbitrarily changeable the boundaries, the higher r_institution and r_u, and the more likely short-termism, rent-seeking, plunder, and conflict become;
  • When institutions no longer provide a credible legal path for repair, society tends to resort to extreme forms of Boundary Rewriting, including violence, revolution, and coups.

2.4 The Bridge from Axioms to Evaluation: CBT’s Minimum Normative Position

The Action Axiom is subjectivist: “better” is defined by the actor. Yet CBT’s evaluative language has a clear direction. On the source side, it favors FCF_Produce + FCF_Exchange and is wary of FCF_Rent / FCF_Plunder; on the use side, it favors FCF→P and constrains FCF→R / FCF→S.

A serious question therefore arises: starting from subjective axioms, on what basis can one say that “production is preferable to plunder”?

CBT answers with a bridging argument rather than a purely logical deduction. The argument has three steps:

First, Axiom 2 (time and uncertainty) implies that any actor that wants “better” outcomes to persist needs a stream of future benefits that can continue over time, not merely a one-period gain.

Second, Axiom 3 (Property Rights & Boundaries) implies that FCF_Plunder and high-intensity FCF_Rent depend on the ability to rewrite boundaries arbitrarily. Once boundaries are shown to be subject to arbitrary rewriting, r_institution and r_u rise for all actors—including the plunderers themselves—and the value of the future as a whole declines.

Third, therefore, under the subjective standards of “better” held by almost all actors, a system dominated by FCF_Produce is superior in the long run to one dominated by FCF_Plunder—not because of a moral declaration, but because the latter systematically destroys the conditions under which anyone can continue acting for the future. The scope of this judgment must be explicit: it applies mainly to actors and systems that must continue to act, exchange, and rely on stable boundaries in the future. For one-shot players that know they are near the endgame—terminal plunderers, actors certain to exit, or regimes that know they are about to fall—plunder may instead be subjectively optimal. This yields a reverse diagnostic insight: when an actor shifts from production toward plunder, the shift often reveals its true assessment of its own remaining time horizon.

It must be stated plainly that this bridging argument relies on an empirical premise: in most circumstances, most actors prefer a future that can continue. The premise is extremely robust, but it is not an a priori truth. Three points should therefore be made explicit:

First, CBT’s non-moralizing analytical stance means that motives and moral labels are not used as substitutes for structural analysis;

Second, CBT is not value-free. It embeds a minimum normative judgment: sustainable positive-sum structures are preferable to zero-sum and negative-sum structures;

Third, this judgment is argued for rather than smuggled in. The purpose of this section is to make that argument explicit.