Possibly our thinking is fixed in the concepts of the modern state of area, jurisdiction and the workings of bureaucracy and organs of the state like the police.
… What if the offender would be able to rely on his own protection agency to repel the attempted arrest?
That is where my previous comment about trying cases before councils has its impact. Any protection agency that protected people convicted by a respected council would quickly be regarded as a criminal organization itself (and protecting a convicted criminal would probably be grounds for conviction and punishment itself). Then, public opinion would come into play and the protection agency would probably lose most or all of its legitimate, non-criminal customers.
You are trying to think of a free market way to enforce the status quo, but thats not what would happen.
Firms would not have jurisdictions, only clients.
In a free market, or any truly libertarian justice system, people would not be arrested until after they have been convicted. You have fallen for the Statist contradiction that people are innocent until proven guilty, but we hold them in jail until a trial proves them innocent.
Because the arresting firm needs to travel to another area and enter other’s property in order to make the arrest. They must have permission to do this. Each individual property owner could grant them this permission, or (more likely) permission would be granted indirectly by the protection agencies those properties have contracted. If the needed permission is denied, the firm may choose to use force (and it may have good reasons to do so).
This permission could be denied for good reasons. For example, Taliban police cannot come to America and enforce laws which require men to have beards of a certain length. Their permission to do this is denied, just as it would be denied under market anarchism. Under anarchism, the network effect would give firms representing culturally similar clients incentives to cooperate in aprehending criminals.
Firms would not have jurisdictions on their own, as you say. But they would have jurisdiction through their contracts with clients.
I disagree. Their behavior would be determined by their contracts. This may lead to arrests before trials, or it may not. The individuals buying protection would choose what they feel is best for them, and the market would provide.
If you have stolen money from me, I have a right to enter your property and seize it by force, regardless of whether you allow me to do it. As far as I can see, this is a fundemental rule of nature that no political system can erase, Yes, they would need to obtain the permission of all other property owners, but that does not change the essential rule. The Taliban should not be permitted to come over and enforce beard lengths simply because having a beard of the wrong length would be a victimless “crime”, or, in more accurate words, no crime at all.
I actually question whether your form of anarchanism has any advantages over an enforcement-only minarchism. Your state has corporations with a monopoly on force who are responsible for enforcing laws. The only difference is that you control these corporations by market forces, rather than votes. I refuse to call any system in which I cannot collect restitution for a crime commited against me because some bureaucracy disallows my claim anarchy.
There is a reason for why don’t want a minarchy beyond your analysis webster. And that is because the state harbors an anti-effective organizational structure as Michael Rozeff explains in his lecture, The State as an Organization. It always wreaks havoc whatever checks and balances you try to impose because those checks are of an artificial structure and not part of the natural systems of accountrability. Just look, how long did it take for the Federal government to break it’s cage? A couple of years! The founding fathers themself started to tear down the checks and balances.
States are unreignable!
You need to read Rothbard.
If you hold someone in jail, then a trial determines they were innocent you have kidnapped an innocent person and are now liable. It doesn’t matter if you want to hire someone to arrest people before they are convicted, you have to find a firm that is willing to expose themselves to that risk in order to do it. You are dramatically underestimating the power of voluntary industry standards.
How can you say market anarchy would deny the Talban to come to America? Under market anarchy there would be no Talban, no America, and no regional security monopolies. It would be nothing a like!
Under market anarchy, the only thing keeping the Talban from imposing their rules on non-clients is the collective might of the security industry and fear out being denied access to other markets. Firms that do not adhere to industry standards would be subject to a continual state of warfare, as other firms defend their clients. For this reason, they will either live peacefully or be destroyed. But fortunately, the market system maximizes incentives to live peacefully.
No, I’m just assuming that people will not suddenly become radical libertarians if market anarchism is adopted. Given that people obviously see some utility in non-libertarian forms of justice, I don’t think it is reasonable to say that they would find imprisonment before conviction such a bad thing. And it would not be unjust either, if it was allowed through contracts signed by the property owner the arrested was on when he was arrested. I think what would end up happening is that firms would arrest before conviction in cases where they’d have public support (so hopefully only for things like murder, and not “disturbing the peace” and other such silly “crimes”).
It would not be treated as kidnapping simply because most people don’t consider arrests kidnapping. If you are assuming a population of libertarians, then of course you’d be correct.
There could be. Market anarchy is capable of reproducing the exact same system of government that we have now, all through voluntary contracts. I don’t think that is very likely, but it is possible. America and would still exist in geography and culture, and so its likely that the police forces across America, while not being monopolies, would all follow similar procedures. The network effect and economics of scale mean that uniformity in procedure would probably be common among similar cultures. As Rothbard pointed out, this isn’t the same thing as a true monopoly.
I’ll agree with that, but my point was that the network effect produces uniform operating standards in both America and Afghanistan. Well, America is a large country, and so all procedures would certainly not be uniform, but there are many things American security forces would like share (such as trial by jury). In any case, the networks of America and Afghanistan would most certainly be incompatible, and would not allow each other to enforce crimes on their soil.
They wouldn’t order you to appear in court. There are really two considerations. 1) You are insured 2) You are uninsured
If you have insurance, your agent would contact the car owner’s agent in order to avoid further liability. An arbitration hearing would be held where your agent defended you. You would be found guilty and damages would be assessed. Your agent would pay the damages, which would, no doubt, involve a deductable (assuming, of course, that you are insured for stealing cars). You might then have your insurance cancelled or your premium increased to mitigate the risk you pose. If you were unable to pay, you would be held as an indentured servant until your debt was payed (anything from wage garnishment to forced labor depending on the danger you pose and your ability to conform. You would be responsible for paying to collect your debt. If you allowed your wages to be garnished you could pay your debt faster than if you required incarceration and forced work detail to collect because you would pay for your own incarceration).
Without insurance, you would be represented by either yourself or a defense lawyer that you hired. You would not be arrested, and would not be required to appear in court. If you won the case, the lawyer would be paid for by the firm which made you defend yourself, and you would be free. If you lost, you would be made to pay for your lawyer, the cost of bringing you to justice, and damages to the plaintiff.
In either case, you would not be held until you were guilty. If you are guilty and present in the court, you would be arrested then. If you were guilty and not present, a warrant would be issued. If you were dangerous or a flight risk, a bounty hunter (or several) would be hired, at your expense, to arrest and deliver you.
The advantage of this system is 4-fold:
Everybody would be free until proven guilty. (Habeous corpus would not be necessary)
Nobody would be required to hold insurance. (Coersive taxation would be eliminated)
Only the broadest laws would be used to prosecute. (Technicalities would be removed from defenses to speed prosecution)
Victimless crimes would not be prosecuted. (Law would refocus on justice - not politics)
That’s right. Public opinion plays a role in a modern state, as it would do in a imagined libertarian society. It is necessary why people chose to go the path of the modern state in the first place. Why didn’t a libertarian society evolve from primitive communities?
Then there is the question, if someone from such a save haven would be able to commit crimes in libertarian territory a priori. Would he even gain access, if it was known from the beginning that he is a risk and that one won’t be able to enforce law upon him.
Well, if market anarchy reproduces the results governments do right now, why would one prefer it over present day governmental systems?
But you are having a point. Even without a government in the conventional sense people similar in culture and character tend to follow similar patterns in their actions.That’s why business practices in a country and amongst certain population groups are so similar, even predictable.
I agree that no form of government is truly safe, but I also believe that your system of government by private bureaucracy would be liable to the same corruptions. It is not the name government that causes corruption, but the power given to government. If we place enough power in private security companies, they would find a means to enslave us.
I do not think that any system of justice dependant on the consent of the criminal is likely to succeed. I would assume that no person who wishes to go about stealing cars would consent to a contract that would allow him to be imprisoned without a conviction. Besides, does holding someone in jail for a week or two make a trial somehow more legitimate? I think not. Simply announce a trial date and render judgement in absentio if necessary.
This system sounds like lawyer hell. I do IT for a corporate defense law firm, and I get a pretty good look at how the current legal system works regarding legal contracts between our clients and our clients’ clients. The proposed system will replace the government machine with an explosion of additional lawyers, mediations, and trials. Utlimately, you are seeking to expand the judicial branch of government to encompass the executive and legislative branches of government… whether or not you assign judges in some kind of convoluted free market system only complicates the process, but it doesn’t change that you’ve created an all powerful judical branch and dispensed with the checks and balances that protect citizens in a democracy.
I am not at all convinced that economic forces will prevent corporate misdoings. From my vantage point, it appears corporations will rape and pillage for a profit. Leaving it to individuals to take corporations to court for redress is very impractical. Huge corporations can use motions and counter motions to draw out litigation indefinitely, bankrupting small parties in court. Also, many corporate crimes are against the environment in general, and individual harms won’t be evident until long after the fact, if ever.
Claiming that the rich get away with murder in the U.S. is a broad and unsupported claim. I’m sure we can throw around antecdotes, but show me proof that our current legal system doesn’t hold the wealthy accountable for murder. Yet this claim is being used to promote a system where human life is reduced to economics and the ability to hire protection. This sounds a lot like how the mob runs neighborhoods and cities.
In my humble opinion, those supporting this system of governance are asking us to trust our environment, our safety, and the well-being of our children to economic mob rule, hordes of lawyers, and corporate self interest without even a publically elected body to provide oversite. Before countering with how the free market will magically make this system into a utopia, show me statistics of how free enterprise brings security and order in the absence of government. If I’m not mistaken, the wild west was short on government and heavy on free enterprise.
Hi, Regarding conflict solving in the absence of a central monopolist power, I’d like to draw you attention to a much forgotten legal text that I have helped putting online. It’s a book by a certain S.S. Liu called 'Extraterritoriality: Its Rise and Its Decline’ from 1925. It clearly shows one way in which conflict solving was handled historically, i.e according to the principle the principle of actor sequitur forum rei [i.e. plaintiff follows forum of the case, that is, the law of the defender or accused, not that of the accuser]. For example, you had the right to be judged according to the laws of your choice, not according to the laws imposed on you by others. There where also specialized courts that were able to handle multiple legal systems. This was also closely related to the origin of embassies, even though modern embassies resemble very little those of yesteryear. The Liu book is now online at Gian Piero de Bellis’ website, http://www.panarchy.org/shihshunliu/presentation.1925.html. I have written about it at LewRockwell.com (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/johnsson3.html) and later at The Exterritorial Imperative (http://www.butterbach.net/blogs/epinfo/archives/00000026.htm), maintained by Christian Butterbach. The title is ‘To the Monopolists of All Parties’. In that article I explain that the current territorially monopolist Governments are a new invention, unknown in the history of Mankind. The alternative, I call ‘non-territorial governance’ (or whatever!) and it includes element of tolerance that we definitely are lacking today. I have also a longer version review of the book, available at http://www.panarchy.org/johnsson/review.2005.html under the title ‘Non-Territorial Governance – Mankind’s Forgotten Legacy’. It seems to me that e.g. the actor sequitur forum rei principle is so important that you really have to learn about it and I believe I have provided some of the best links above. I hope you will take this chance to learn more about this topic. Richard CB Johnssonwww.richardcbjohnsson.com
This is true to an extent. The branches of government would be bound within competitive firms. Judges wouldn’t be assigned, they would be hired. And I fail to see how a competitive institution can be all powerful. The checks and balances of which you speak would be distributed from within the confines of a single monopoly (democratic government) to separate, private organizations much like the federalism that was supposed to be the framework for this nation (but without the arbitrary borders).
As far as the environment, the worst pollution is created by common ownership [(http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/wwpp2007/finalReport2007.pdf)]. Private companies do not seek to open themselves up to litigation or ruin the future value of their property. Neither political nor economic forces can prevent corporate misdoings. However, the corporations that have the poorest record will be the least successful. Also, I don’t see how motions and counter motions would even be an option. I can’t see how it would be in the interest of arbitration firms to establish rules that excessively prolong justice. That is, the prosecuting firm will seek to obtain justice (retribution) in the shortest possible time. While the defense firm will seek to obtain justice in the shortest possible time. Since every minute the case is drawn out compromises at least one side’s profit, companies that must be on both sides at one time or another, will attempt to establish law that both allows enough time for dissent but also reaches a timely decision. I don’t see how the government run courts have any internal incentive at all to reach swift justice. In the absence of public outcry private justice will aim for efficiency while public justice will aim for a relaxed work environment.
In the end, it is your gang against my gang. It’s not that I want to trust my most private needs to mob rule, that’s just the reality of the situation. As such, people should be allowed to choose their own gang without violent opposition. That way people will be allowed to leave aggressive gangs for the safety of defensive gangs. But aggressive gangs are aggressive by nature. That is why peace requires that we allow secession as a matter of policy. The difference between our arguments is that I remain unconvinced that just because we say we are all in the same gang, that we are. Instead of denying reality, we should look for ideas that will allow us to make the most efficient use of the resources we have. One of these resources is the fact that rational, self-interest leads to cooperation in human society. Instead of using this to our advantage to eliminate aggression, some argue that it is only through aggression that we cooperate. This is what leads to Tyanny.
Here is an article and some excerpts:
“An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalsim: The NOT So Wild, Wild West.” T. Anderson & P. Hill (http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf)
"1) The West, although often dependent upon market peace keeping agencies, was, for the most part, orderly.
Different standards of justice did prevail and various preferences for rules were expressed through the market place.
Competition in defending and adjudicating rights does have beneficial effects. Market agencies provided useful ways of measuring the efficiency of government alternatives. The fact that government’s monopoly on coercion was not taken as seriously as at present meant that when that monopoly was poorly used market alternatives arose. Even when these market alternatives did become “governments” in the sense of having a virtual monopoly on coercion, the fact that such firms were usually quite small provided significant checks on their behavior. Clients could leave or originate protective agencies on their own. Without formal legal sanctions, the private agencies did face a “market test” and the rate of survival of such agencies was much less than under government."
“In conclusion, it appears in the absence of formal government, that the western frontier was not as wild as legend would have us believe. The market did provide protection and arbitration agencies that functioned very effectively, either as a complete replacement for formal government or as a supplement to that government. However, the same desire for power that treates problems in government also seemed to create difficulties at times in the West. All was not peaceful. Especially when Schelling points were lacking, disorder and chaos resulted, lending support to Buchanan’s contention that agreement on initial rights is important to anarcho-capitalism. When this agreement existed, however, we have presented evidence that anarcho-capitalism was viable on the frontier.”
Branches. And they aren’t all-powerful; they only have rule where there is prior consent.
Huge corporations do use those tactics. Small corporations don’t, because they can’t afford to. The problem is the system which allows those tactics in the first place. If two actors form an agreement (contract) with one another and agree to 3rd-party enforcement (a system of justice), each does so because they believe it will benefit them. Assuming this belief is more or less correct (i.e., symmetrical information), they will both benefit from this enforcement. This is a market exchange, the same as a traded good. Because of this, both parties’ self-interest involves an efficient and accurate resolution of any conflicts.
Ask yourself, absent of market forces, how can contract enforcement be done rationally? How can the enforcer know when the cost is too high because of excessive accuracy? How can the enforcer know the accuracy is too low because of excessive cost-cutting? The answer is, it can’t. As Mises and Hayek pointed out, the only way to rationally arrive at prices is through the market mechanism. Absent that, there is no way to arrive at rational costs for speed and accuracy in judicial decisions.
Even in modern democracies, private arbitration is generally agreed to because its far easier and faster than public courts, e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration_in_the_United_States_of_America
I do wonder if lawyers in their current incarnation would survive in market anarchism. I hope not many would.
It already is reduced to that. Fortunately, America is rich enough to have good protection. There is a reason richer countries are safer. Aside from the fact that richer counties tend to be made rich by voluntary cooperation (the practical opposite of crime), rich countries can afford the division of labor necessary to train people like honest police. I won’t say market anarchism will reduce the number of rich people getting away with murder, because it may very well be that our courts spend too many resources prosecuting the rich when it could go after easier and more plentiful targets.
I do not think rhetoric will win you arguments in this crowd. People would trust their safety and well-being to themselves, and their own decisions. No one would force a judicial system or lawyers on any of them. As I mentioned before, they could even reproduce a constitutional republic if they wanted to, through voluntary contracts. Judges could be appointed democratically, if that is what the market demanded. The only real difference between market anarchism and the US Constitution is that anarchism would allow secession from the constitutional contract (unless it was specifically prohibited, in which case it never would have been ratified). Unfortunately, the institution of slavery has given secession in the US a very bad name.
The state of law and order in the old American West is relatively irrelevant. It was a case of people appropriating unowned resources, and those will always be fought over unless the actors involve share compatible ethics and goals. This is the same whether or not the people appropriating come from democracies, monarchies, anarchies, or socialist communes.
If you want examples of how the market brings security in the absence of government, look around you! People aren’t more honest than they were 500 years ago because police punish them for every wrong doing. They are more honest because they’ve grown to realize how voluntary cooperation and the division of labor produce more wealth and prosperity for everyone. Unlike voluntary cooperation, governments have a less-thrilling track record of protecting justice, as they’ve commonly done just the opposite.
You don’t try to enforce contracts that someone backed out. You get the contract insured and create a fiscal accountability.
In regards to the OP: You’ve got it wrong. Courts are actually quite redundant in anarchy. You see, a person would protect themselves from theft in two manners.
Protection before the fact.
Restitution after the fact.
We are concerned with the second. In this case, individuals will purchase insurance and possibly services to track down the stolen property. Courts are unnecessary.
This doesn’t address the fundamental needs for courts, which are ESPECIALLY important in market anarchy. If I (or an agency on my behalf) track down my stolen property and attempt to take it from the thief, then the thief’s own protection agency will want to do their job and stop me. The best way for the competing agencies to resolve such a dispute is not war, but binding arbitration by a third party- a court. In response to the OP, I can legally track down the thief and try to take back my property. If his or her protection agency cries bloody murder, I can take the case to an arbitrator, under the condition that if the other party is found innocent, I will cover all the costs of the trial. In this case, there is no rights violation.
The main problem is that we are used to think in the terms of the existing court practices. First in a free society, if someone press charges he would have to enclose evidence, without the evidence, the court would dismiss the charges and nobody would bother you. If there is evidence, then the court would have the right to decide on the case even in case of absence of the defendant. Of course it would be in your interest to show up and to defend yourself (to prove that the evidence isn’t convicting), but if you think you don’t have to do that, you are perfectly free to don’t show up in the court. But if the court finds you guilty, then according to the principles of the free society and moral, you would have to pay the damages to the injured side. If you don’t want to do that, the court can order a use of force (not physical) and to size assets from you in the amount of damages you are owed. The reason of justice and courts in a free society is not punishment; it is to pay the damage to the injured side. In a case of fatal injuries, like murder it isn’t possible, in that case the murder have to pay the damages to the family of the victim (if you kill somebody the family lost is in many domains, one of those domains is material especially in a case that you kill the income generating member of a family) and after that the society and the court which is made by the members of that society has the right to live without the convicted murderer, so they can send the murderer away. If he don’t want to go away or if there is no such a place where he can go (present situation), the society should make one (prison, but not the kind of prison we have), but we don’t have the right to execute him, nor has the right to restrain there freedom, we just have the right to live without interfering them, but they should be free outside the borders of our society (or inside the borders of the prison), the only justifiable killing is self defense, the only justifiable restrain of freedom is enforcing to pay the damages. Nor execution or the bonds on the hands of a murderer won’t bring back the killed one, so there is no justification and certainly no right in the natural rights philosophy for any of that solution. But we have the right to live without convicted murderers and we have the right to defend ourselves from them in a case they attack us or our property.