any ‘tribe’ as you say that would be recognised as decidedly unlibertarian, would face the consequences of those people who are libertarian and belong to libertarian tribes who would shun it from division of labour and make it difficult for its rogue members to ‘get their way’ when the way is an act of aggression.
Finally, someone who understands anarchy.
But, to elaborate a bit, travel would be facilitated by sponsorship and letters of credit.
Your “free society” is just your fantasy of being able to act without consequence. Like the welfare state, where the central government protects people from the consequences of their pathological behavior. At least you’ve dropped the pretense of being an anarchist.
I advocate individual rights. I realize that competition in the provision of security is superior to monopoly so in that sense I’m an anarchist. Unlike people who want to set up their own theocracies…
This isn’t quite right. Juan plays devil’s advocate, and instead of promoting a society where people act without consequence, he promotes a society where no one makes an act of consequence, if you get the subtle distinction.
Court fees for a vagrant (accused) aggressor don’t exist, because there are no vagrant aggressors, not because they can act with impunity.
These days, I just choose not to take the bait, although I will admit you can bait a pretty good trap yourself.
See Nir ? What do you think ? Are my references to tribalism that outlandish … ?
As you are so fond of regularly exclaiming : misrepresentation !
I really meant that people have confused ‘anarchy’ and ‘free society’ – yet they are not the same thing and the difference is not so subtle.
To put it in different terms. If an evil ‘rich’ guy is able to get innocent people convicted in a stateless society, then that system is as broken as the monopolistic system we enjoy today.
On the other hand, assuming a competitive system is in a place because its users are interested in freedom and justice then it should be pretty hard to get innocent people convicted.
Once again the left shows discomfort with capitalism and the free markets and tries to use of their view of justice to hide it.
I agree with that however, I can not change human nature. I can not tell somebody to put down a pitch fork.
I have no problem with that because I really do not believe anybody will be “rich” in a truly anarchist world. You might.
The only instance where I believe any “rich” person in an anarchist world could survive is if he is EXTREMELY benevolent because I believe that the pitch-forks would otherwise turn towards him. So, I think your hypothetical scenario of “an evil “rich” guy is able to get innocent people convicted” is absurd. It is no more intelligent than saying an evil guy with magical powers that can transform his victims into sand with the wave of his wand.
So, Juan, you have to offer a compelling argument for why a “rich” person would actually exist in a libertarian world. Until then, you really have not thought through your objections hard enough.
Well, that is an even more absurd hypothetical because it is internally inconsistent. Basically, if everybody was interested in freedom and justice, tell me, from where did the evil “rich” guy who wants to convict innocent people arise? You can not have it both ways. I suggest that you learn to accept human nature.
what does ‘rich’ mean? rich is in my dictionary but ‘rich’ i havent come across before reading this thread…
In my post I explained why does that happen. They are mentally insane. I met this guy years ago (sorry, I can’t remember his name), who is a psychologist and he was studying and doing charity work with homeless people. He even did the experiment of living as a homeless joining their groups. What he found out is that they tend to suffer various degrees of schizophrenia. Mentally healthy people don’t end in the streets, they find some ugly work or go to the country to live as Indians, they do whatever it takes but they don’t fall to the level of a homeless sleeping in cardboard boxes. Maybe you argue that they would be coerced to enter a mental institution, but that’s very unlibertarian. You just can’t force someone “for his own good”.
Given the mental condition, he wouldn’t even understand the charges. As he is alone in the world and absolutely poor, even if he understood the situation he wouldn’t be able to hire a lawyer.
The case of an abuser blaming someone else is not a wild story at all. There was this case years ago in the United States where a whole family who owned a kindergarten was accused of molesting the children.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
There is even a good movie starred by James Woods about this case. And here is another case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kern_county_child_abuse_cases
What happens in child abuse situations is that the public declares the suspect guilty before any evidence is presented, and they are very eager to punish him. People like you try to find the guy and kill him before any case is presented. Again, very unlibertarian.
Want to destroy somebody? Just say this:
“I don’t really know, but I heard that Larry might have abused a friend of his daughter”
That’s all it needs.
Even if the kids grow up and clear the situation (very unlikely as they tend to repress and keep silent), two crimes were committed without any restitution or punishment ever made. The girl and the homeless guy spent years of suffering, while the uncle was running wild.
The argument of “human nature” is pretty damned weak. If you consider yourself so helpless, why would you even care to have a justice system and/or to defend yourself?
Why caring about political change in the first place? Isn’t human nature to want to live for free? Then let the government enslave some people so you can live for free. And if you are one of the slaves, well, it’s just human nature to want to be masters, you can’t blame them.
I think it’s obvious there are mentally ill people and abused sons and daughters. Was there a point to this or maybe you thought people didn’t know this?
I just started to read a book on the evolution of poverty through history.
In ancient times being poor meant that you couldn’t feed nor dress yourself properly. Being rich meant you were fat and had all the clothes you needed.
With the Industrial Revolution hunger and cold practically disappeared in industrialized countries. The was that poverty became defined in terms of consumption. Now, being poor means that you can’t reach the average consumption pattern of your society.
Don’t blame, the sociologists came up with that thing. Yes, the very definition of poverty makes it an unsolvable problem.
Anyway, by contrast we can define being rich as being able to afford for yourself a consumption pattern of better quality and in bigger quantities than the average person in your town.
Let’s suppose everybody earns the same, but then one man discovers a method to turn wood into gold. He sets his own electrical conductors business and starts making much more money than his neighbors. Then he is rich.
You are missing the point.
I am just giving an example of how a Libertarian justice system could fail, so we can think of a solution.
In the current democratic system there are two clear examples of unjust justice: child abuse trials (not the law) and labour cases (both in law and in trials). I am sure the problem with labour cases would disappear in a Libertarian society, but the other will not. That’s why it makes a good example to find the flaws.
This is not a wild ad-hoc assumption. To prove that a theory is wrong you just need a counterexample. I am giving the counterexample. So let’s go back to the drawing table and correct the blueprints.
Don’t start screaming at me.
The flaw is the idea that you have to pay for the justice you get, as Byzantine and Charles Anthony believe. The very same paying customers of the system would be hurt that way. Of course, charity could take care of the situation. Or maybe not charity, as law students could use these cases as practice.
Sorry if my straight-forwardness seemed like screaming, but I gave a plain-spoken question and wanted a plain-spoken answer. I got one. Thanks. That’s all I was asking for.
And you came up with two solutions. Charity and law students (which would still be charity, posted on a bulletin board, maybe mentioned by the professor if anybody wanted to sign up for a month or more)
I do not consider myself so helpless and I do not care how weak you think my judgement of human nature happens to be.
I observe some people to take up pitch-forks and to act on impulse.
My motives are irrelevent.
That is fine. However, there is nothing in your explanation that convinces me that your hypothetical conditions would all exist in anarchy as they do now. For example, I believe statism ultimately is the cause of mentally ill people living homeless on the streets.
Hold on a minute. I am not advocating vigilanteism. I am just recognizing that other people act like vigilantes and there is nothing you nor I can do as libertarians to stop them from wanting to do so.
– and who believes everything they hear? I certainly do not.
Like I said, I think people who blame mentally ill people will be doubted. You seem to disagree.
Forgive me but I do not know how to put this lightly. This is the best I can do: I believe that in Libertania, people who believe everthing they hear will be weeded out of the population. So, I really do not consider your hypothetical scenario to be much of an objection.
Look. Everybody has a different conception of how real-life anarchy will come about and manifest itself. Personally, I tend to believe that true anarchy will not be like modern life at all. I think anarchist communities will partly be communistic or tribal if you want to call them that way. In general, the best I can describe my belief is that people will be required move backwards technologically to a more agrarian lifestyle out of sheer necessity because shipping food across the globe will be unaffordable. In our current state of affairs, I see the modern transportation industry as highly dependent on the state for its survival. So, in a nutshell, I believe that people will live very close to each other in anarchy – close enough to treat their neighbors as family. Your hypothetical scenario is hardly likely to ever occur except for a population which is doomed to extinction in my opinion.
Anyway, even if I am wrong and you want to use an elaborate poly-centric model of free market justice, I would still say that people who tend to believe everything they hear would have a hard time getting a private defense agency to take them on as clients or to hear their every complaint. That is just my opinion.
That’s not a flaw, it’s a fact of existence: due process costs money. If you can’t pay for it, you aren’t going to get it; no different than food or shelter. People will likely rent living space in cities that are owned by a few mercantile families and it will be a package deal: utilities, dispute resolution, common defense, etc. There actually won’t be much of a court system because sociopathic individuals will just be summarily evicted, and nobody’s going to wait for a state-paid or even volunteer lawyer to file ten habeas petitions either. Nobody will pay a judge to sort thru all that shit in a free market for judicial review.
BTW, the US Navy has probably spent $250K escorting one half-starved Somali pirate to New York City for prosecution. He’s now entitled to food, board, medical care and an attorney on the taxpayer’s dime. Do you really think anybody would pick up that tab in anarchy? Well, I suppose some law students would. Except, there won’t be law schools full of students living off subsidized loans–just articled clerks who have to show a profit. Except it won’t even come to that. The mercs will just leave his bullet-riddled corpse for the sharks, pocket their bounty, and go to Mogadishu to celebrate.
I still like this answer.