Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

You should look at the US mutualist Kevin Carson’s “subjectivized” labor theory of value (the Journal of Libertarian Studies did a full article on it). Capital uses privilege to command labor. Remove privilege to capital and labor would get it’s full product and just due.

Of what relevance is location? It is clearly possible to labour upon land to transform it into something else (capital, a lawn etc.) Why should one not own this then?

I would look at Wendy McElroy’s difference between the “consent theory of the state” and the “conquest theory of the state”

http://www.wendymcelroy.com/state.htm

You would own that which you transform with your labor into capital (a lawn, a fence, a building, a driveway, a crop of corn, etc). But you do not labor to create the location and it is the location that you have exclusive use over. The location itself pre-exists humans and thus your labor.

“Political means” is possible only by the state. If a private organization or an individual use “political means” that would be robbery by any definition and as an immoral act it isn’t allowed. It is a robbery even if the state use it, but… the state legalize it so what can we do :frowning:

But I don’t see the problem, because “we” wouldn’t live better if someone use political means, it is nothing but redistribution of wealth (capital). There are no more goods produced than consumed. Actually there is less goods produced, because the one who use political means don’t produce at all. So it could be in a short run that state would be richer and live better, but overall the society isn’t better off, it’s quite the contrary, and in a long run even the state is a loser, because the overall progress is slowed down.

There is no privilege in a free market. Capital can’t command labor, because in the free market capital and labor are both “goods” and are commanded by supply/demand. It is possible that for a short temporary period there would be less capital than labor and in that case “capital would command labor” but this is possible vice versa also. Anyway in a free market we ultimately come to an equilibrium (I don’t have formal education in economics, but I believe Leon Walras worked on this theory).

Anyway in the current market of our world, I agree, you are right, capital command everything not just labor.

All things must have some location. If you own the lawn, how do you not own the location it is situated upon?

Did you read the McElroy article? Nock drew a distinction between the state as illegitimate authority and governance as legitimate agency.

In anarchy where all land is legally claimed, those with access have a claim on labor-based wealth of those who don’t.

So exclusive use of land backed by force is the political means to steal the labor-based wealthof those excluded by privilege.

It is a similar concept to our common right of ways contained within collectively owned sidewalks to excercise our common rights to speech, assembly, and petition.

Yes, so the price of goods get driven to costs. So how does one go about capital accumulation in a free market?

You can’t, hence the temptation to use the political means - privilege to protect profits. Owners of capital don’t want privileges to be removed in a free market and as long as they have privileges then capital can command labor.

I don’t see any problem about this, because the cost aggregates the profit. I understand that the profit is the “wage” for the capital just as the salary to the labor is the “wage” of the labor. Both are part of the cost. It is another matter that accounting practices is somewhat different, but :slight_smile: you know what… economics laws don’t give a damn about accountant practices. The price come to the cost is true only if your cost aggregates the profit. You have to add value to a good in order to be able to sale it for a greater price, and part of that plus value is here thanks to the labor (this is the salary to the labor) and part thanks to the capital (this is the profit). So there is no problem with accumulation of capital.

Of course it is important to know (and both Mises and Rothbard wrote about this a thousand times), that in a free market we never have an exchange of equal values, if the two goods are equal in value, no exchange would take place, so in a voluntary exchange both side is at gain, otherwise there wont be an exchange at all. And a very important prerequisite for this is that both sides must add value the “merchandise”, so if both side add value and if that value is more than the consumed value, there will be an accumulation of capital. The only important thing is, that capital is made by man, and as man can produce more than he consume (with the help of the existing capital) he will produce more capital. Now if half the population lives on political means (as today) it is clear that the accumulation of capital is impossible and that there is actually a zero saving or maybe even a consumption of capital, because we consume more than we produce.

Actually the return on the factor of production called capital is “economic interest”

What about land? Much of what is called “profit” these days is a misunderstanding of the return on the factors of production, particularly economic rent (the return on land).

Land is a very peculiar factor of production because it doesn’t respond to market forces as it’s supply is inelastic.

If I remember correctly, Mises and Rothbard made a categorization:

Original factors of production: Labor and Land (Land = natural resources)

Capital goods: Tool, equipment, building, etc.

In order to produce, we also need general conditions.

Today I am afraid, we don’t live by this categorization, and that’s the source of our problem.

Without a doubt today we have this problem because the language is actually manipulated and weakened, so profit means an incredible wide range of things. But I am not talking about our planned economy here; I am talking about an anarcho-capitalist world where free market is supreme. Of course rent is not profit, even if people handle it like it is the same, in reality it is not and of course elasticity is also different for different goods that’s why the free market is the only way to handle it correctly.

Though I do certainly love Kevin Carson, I love truth more.

Carson’s theory is LTV in name only. What it comes down to is that input prices will end up being the only prices that are paid for by a consumer.

Aside from being ambiguous though, it still does not get to the heart of the matter, being what causes prices. It is not, in fact, labour, sorry it just isn’t. Carson’s argument has to focus on prices as pre-existing constructs, but it does not in any actuality get to the point of the origin of price.

I don’t want to discourage you all, but it is very hard if not impossible to get to any meaningful conclusion on price theory if our thoughts are greatly influenced by fiat money. The free market can’t exist in a fiat money world, therefore can’t work with fiat money, so any further discussion about profit, price, rent etc. is impractical in a fiat money world using free market laws.

The questions posed in the article have already been answered by Weber, Rothbard, Mises and others. Society, according to Mises, is the result of voluntarism, that which is the product of human action but not of human design. Agencies like the state do not appropriate land from labor or voluntary trade, and so are destructive to society. To the extent that states are the product of voluntary agreements or contracts between individuals (which implies the state obeys its contract, which would likely not prohibit secession), they are synonymous with market anarchism.

The problem which Jefferson noted was that future generations should not be burdened with the government of past generations. Our generation have inherited all sorts of tyranny. This is not a voluntary contract, this is coercion.

What common right if ways are you alluding to? Easements? These only arise from use.

According to Rothbard almost none of the land titles here in the US today were legitimately homesteaded from unowned land. How could they be?

What is destructive to society is a state that grants privilege without any obligations to those being excluded because it violates the absolute right of self-ownership of those excluded. This is Nock’s definition of a state. Whereas local governance as legitimate authority requires an obligation which is the defensive use of force.

The ones contained within the sidewalk that allows you to publicly protest so long as you do not infringe on the equal rights of an other individual to the same.

That means you can’t block the sidewalks you must keep moving.

Whence does such a right arise? The justification for easement rights is very different.