Since every piece of land is a private property, it means the owner/owners of the land can make their own laws, including enforcing a private police and court system. So here we are, with private law. But is it any different than public law? After all that private territory is just a small version of the state, isn’t it?
The main difference that I see is having explicit contracts with your tenants, not some mystic social contract.
You have an explicit contract with your state as well, which is the law of the land. If you are not happy, you can move to another country. The same thing exactly is applies to private law.
We had at least two similar threads:
There were a few ideas in them.
Thank you for the links. They were interesting. Now I’d like to ask the following. How with private law can disputes between people in different lands, and therefore different sets of laws, can be resolved? Who is the arbitrator? What if the two land owners didn’t manage to find an arbitrator at all?
That presumes the state owns all land within its claimed boundaries - if not also all non-land property. Are you prepared to agree with that presumption?
That presumes the state owns all land within its claimed boundaries - if not also all non-land property. Are you prepared to agree with that presumption?
It’s funny that I initially typed two differences, the second being the ownership issue, but then erased it.
Well, how would argue the state does not own the land? Every type of government has a firm analog - e.g., hereditary monarchy can be seen as a partnership (among family members). Democracy is not a corporation, but a co-op - elected politicians are elected directors, while the citizens are owners. Sure, co-ops are extremely inefficient type of firm, so what?
Do we argue against state ownership of land from homesteading perspective, perhaps?
My reply to Eugene was directly in response to his invocation of the “love it or leave it” argument. The point was that anyone making that argument is implicitly arguing that the state has legitimate ownership over all land (if not also all other property and perhaps even people) within its claimed territory. Most people making that argument, however, don’t believe this. So I think it’s important to point out the contradiction in their thinking.
I consider state ownership of land to simply be illegitimate, based on my own view of morality.
How Could A Voluntary Society Function?
Private laws already exist. The concept is simple: on my property you follow my rules, on your property I follow your rules. If I go to McDonalds and am refused service because I’m barefoot, no one says “hmm…well on his property barefootedness is permitted, we need to find an arbitrator to resolve this because the laws in his land differ.” Likewise, public laws between states differ. If I went to Saudi Arabia and broke a law there that doesn’t apply in the US, no one goes about wondering how to arbitrate between the different legal systems. I am on Saudi Arabia’s “property,” I follow their rules.
That’s not entirely true. Arbitration does indeed occur between states - it’s otherwise known as “diplomacy”. Likewise, if you get literally thrown out of a McDonald’s for going in barefoot, you may well have grounds for litigation against the employee(s) who threw you out, if not McDonald’s as a whole.
Actually, I’ve been thinking of the idea of a border association lately. I think there’s some writings out there on this subject. Basically, imagine 10 landowners with adjacent properties. They get together and decide to form a corporation whose job is to patrol the perimeter of their 10 properties taken together. This perimeter becomes a border and the corporation would then take on many of the features we associate today with a State. It may be possible to model the State as a border association to some extent. Think about why it’s hard to dissolve political unions… Sir Percival de Montvale invested millions of his family’s fortune in some railroad companies with the understanding that these companies would receive regulatory enabling that would give them a leg up against potential competitors. The railroads that were built connected the East and West of the country. The dividends on those rail stocks are now a steady, dependable part of the Montvale family income. A Montvale currently serves on the board of directors of one of the companies after graduating from Oxford. Do you think the Montvale family will support or oppose a political secession movement that would separate the country into two separate countries, East and West?? Now multiply the Montvales by 10,000 and you begin to have a picture of what makes a political unit hard to dissolve.
Clayton -
You’re right, but these are situations where a public law takes precedence over a private law. Eugene is primarily concerned with a world where there are only private laws. My examples might not be perfect, but I think they illustrate the point I was trying to make well enough.
Ah, okay. I wasn’t aware of that, so thanks for pointing it out. But now I wonder whether there could ever be a case where there’s no “public law” to take precedence over “private law”. 
I think even if the entire planet was stateless, social norms and conventions would sometimes override property. So someone beating his kids, yelling at his wife and pouring beer on his dog might not be breaking the NAP if we say his kids and dog are his property, but its seems to me that a given community might break their own laws to put an end to this guys behavior. He might be so hated that no one would bother to enforce laws protecting his property when the mob comes to put him in his place.
Anyway, I think that social conventions (which include non-aggression and private property) will tend either become the private law or take precedence over it when the difference is striking enough that individuals choose to act on it. So, no, there probably won’t be a case where there’s no “public law” to take precedence over “private law.”
Yes and no. Same would apply to humans. Every human being is a “walking state”. But that doesn’t even make sense and is only useful if one is a marxist trying to debunk ancapism with scaring tactics such as that.
furthermore, if state really owened all land, then there would be NO PRIVATE (land) property at all. At least, anyone could invade someone elses property and live here etc.
P.S. mikachusetts replied on Fri, Mar 4 2011 9:34 PM
well said
That’s the point. Besides, you can wander by mistake into some area, and the owner will shoot you on sight. This is definitely unacceptable, but he will just say its his land. I think public law is a must, if just to resolve dispute between land owners. We terribly lack such mechanism in our geopolitical world. With a world court in place with an enforcing agency, perhaps many of the conflicts and wars in the world would have to stop.
I don’t know what to say here. If you think that land owners shooting wanderers will be such a widespread problem that a free society couldn’t possibly handle it without a government, you see the world in a much more terrifying and fantastic way than I can imagine.
People think that if you remove the State, all morals and ethical values vanish with it. But that’s not the case. God is not a morality giver, neither is the State which is just a concept in peoples’ heads which makes them feel safer. Kind of a superstition…