I’ve recently been wondering, what sort of business model would exist to curtail spread of pandemics and epidemics in an anarchist society? Not to say the government does a good job or anything, and I’m not going to become a minarchist if there’s no good answer to this particular problem. For example, let’s say I own a bird, that has contracted the bird flu. Clearly it is a violation of my property rights if some organisation comes and kills it. Until my bird negatively affects someone else, they can’t really do any pre-emptive strikes, right? Unless they can somehow prove the danger to be of a very high probability, and even then, it’s still rather pre-emtive. Of course, if instead we wait till my bird contaminates someone else, it may be too late, and people will die. Do I then take responsibility for not allowing the “neutralisation” of my bird? Would people sue me for murder, or as an accomplice to murder? This is starting to sound a lot like a public goods argument to me actually
I read a business plan regarding the operation of a private defense agency. Maybe there’s something similar related to disease control?
That’s not entirely right. I look at this as being similar to the drunk driving issue. A drunk driver may or may not hurt anyone, but he is not in control of whether or not that happens. Intoxication diminishes moral agency to the where at some point - and admittedly, there’s no way to define a-priori where that point is - where the potential harm results not from his immediate decisions, but from chance. He’s made the decision to divorce the consequences of his actions from his moral agency in this context, and so can be treated like any other force of nature.
Of course, once he is removed from the context of driving, he still has his rights, and so morally allowable action ends with getting him off the road.
Your bird is the same way. So long as you retain control over whether your property hurts others (leaving aside any possibility of your intent to harm for now), I cannot violate your property rights. But should I rationally believe that this infectious agent is no longer under your control - say if you let it fly around the neighborhood - I have the right to treat it as something with no moral agency attached.
The same would go for you yourself if you were infected with a highly contagious disease. Stay in the hospital, or in your house where the contagion cannot escape, and I have no right to interfere. But once you create a situation where infection of other people is not under your control - not subject to your moral agency - I have to protect myself.
I see what you mean. So that justifies the moral actions related to disease prevention.
But what about business viability? I think charities are likely to handle a lot of injections for people who can’t afford them, and hospitals may take in people that can’t afford treatment as a PR stunt. Perhaps insurance companies that cover diseases and illnesses would be interested in getting disease spreads under control, and hire out specialist agencies? Alternatively they may just get the PDAs to do the job, since they already have a relationship with the client, and probably a relevant contract clause?
All of those are possibilities, and likely all would be employed to some extent. There’s probably no one “best” way, the best approach will be determined by circumstances. Bird Flu would have to be handled very differently than HIV, and both different than influenza or Bubonic Plague.
My guess is that in general in an anarchic society, insurance type companies would be a primary provider of risk managment, including actively working to proactively mitigate risks as opposed to mostly just compensating for realized risk as they do now.
BTW, several writers on lewrockwell.com say that such exotics as bird flu in China are grossly exaggerated. The real problem is unhygienic, over-utilized hospitals and indiscriminate use of antibiotics.
Your bird cannot be pre-emptively killed, since for all we know you have it well-contained. However, if you create a risk of contagion, your property can be quarantined and your access to the outside cut off. Similarly, a neighborhood or city that wishes to prevent itself from being affected can limit entry and exits and screen travellers.
Finally, it is obvious that if you do not take proper safety precautions with infectious diseases or any other hazardous substance, you will be responsible for all damage that an outbreak will cause. It is in your interest to isolate the disease or kill the bird if there is no other available protection.
If someone points a gun at me, I’ll shoot them first. Preemptive defense is allowable, but it must stand up to the burden of proof. Whether it will be treated as a legal defense or an illegal offense is determined by the facts of the case.
But couldn’t I say that you simply owning an infected bird is a risk I am not willing to take? How far does “preemptive defense” go? If I run a poultry farm next door to you, and you have an infected bird, can I even risk the chance that it will get out and ruin my property?
If I point a gun at you, you will shoot me first because you are not willing to take the risk that I am simply fooling around…or that the gun isn’t loaded. Can we apply preemtive defense to “potential risk”?
Well, first we must establish that preemptive defense is ever allowable.
We know that some of the incidents where a person points a gun at another person end in murder. So hypothetically, if every time a person had a gun pointed at them they killed the gunman atleast some of the incidents would be legitimate defense.
The trouble lies in determining which are and which are not. Once a gunman has been shot we can never truly know what he would have done, which leaves us with doubt. This doubt must be interpretted in either the “victim’s” or the “gunman’s” favor, depending on the circumstance. If I kill a gunman inside my own home, the benefit of doubt would fall in my favor. But if I was to kill a gunman in his home, I would have to meet a very high burden of proof to legitimize my action.
That would be decided by a jury, with the help of experts on the bird flu.
But remember, even if killing my neighbors diseased birds was held to be a crime, I might have economic incentive to commit the crime in order to save my livestock. The law can not prevent crime.
I don’t hold whether the gun is loaded to be relevant. If a mugger threatens you with a gun, the assumption is that the gun is loaded. Unless a person has knowledge that the gun is unloaded, he can be expected to act as if it was.
The law does not tell people what to do, it determines the facts after the incident has happened. The reasonable person standard is useful here. If I mistake a toy gun for a real gun, it can still be legitimate defense, if the mistake was a reasonable one. (The mugger intended for me to mistake it for a real gun.) People do not have knowledge of the future, all action involves potential risk and potential gain.
True, but we can try to make laws that are clear enough so that people can act with a reasonable idea as to what the outcome will be.
If I never know when I am in the right or not, I will always have a fear to act…knowing that my fate is always in the hands of a bunch of people on a jury who might be morons.
We can make very specific laws: if a person threatens you with a weapon, and you believe they do so with the intent to aggress against you or your property, you have every right to defend yourself as you see fit. Clear and concise, and I know how to act legally in most cases.
We can also make very vague laws: if a person has an infected animal on their property, and there is a moderate chance that the animal might escape, and in so doing it might cause damage to your property, then you may have cause to preemptively aggress against the animal…but that will have to be determined later. I have no idea how to act legally in this instance, and my only choices are to do nothing and hope for the best…or do something and hope for the best.
But the nice thing about the infected animal example is that there is no time crisis. I can easily go before a judge or private arbitrator and ask what they think I could do legally. I could try legal means to have the animal destroyed. Not like the gun example at all, where an instant choice has to be made.
