Actually, I don’t make that presumption. For me, “custody” does not equal “ownership”. Sorry for the confusion.
(a) it might not be voluntary at all if the parents are physically detaining their child
In this case the parents have initiated force and the child can respond with force, or employ a PDA to respond with force on the child’s behalf.
(b) the child might be too young to think rationally and therefore perform purposeful action. We cannot say that on this level the child is at fault, thereby if he ‘decides’ not to leave an abusive household.
I make no claims that anarchy will remove all injustice and there will be no casualties of the process. I only claim that on a macro scale the overall quality of life will improve. It is reasonable to assume that there will be parents who abuse there children and manage to get away with it. There will also be cases of rape, murder, pedophilia, etc. However, these are all symptoms of the current system as well so arguing that these exist in anarchy results in a net-zero argument (no advantage to either side). What we can argue is in which society they will be more prevalent. I am of the opinion that in an anarcho-capitalist society they will be less prevalent because the market can respond faster and more effectively than government can respond.
Just as another poster mentioned, there are examples in the current world where children are abused and this abuse in supported by the state. There are far more examples where children are abused and the state is ineffective at stopping it. There are even more examples where children are abused and the state responds but in an untimely fashion (after much psychological damage has been done).
Again I would like to reiterate that I am not championing a utopia free of child abuse. I am championing a political system in which there is an overall reduction in child abuse, not a complete elimination of it.
Very valid points. NAP, in my opinion, is an ideological construct to help arbitrate interpersonal interactoins. However, in a real world scenario it only matters if someone is pressing charges against you. If you physically pull me away from a bus there is a high likelyhood that I would not press charges against you so even though the NAP may be what is used to determine reparations, it is of no consequence if charges aren’t pressed. The same goes for me and my brother wrestling, if neither of us press charges it doesn’t much matter who started it.
This would also extend to children and, since they can’t speak at the age you mentioned, they can’t very well press charges. When they get older they may press charges against you but the hope would be that they would understand you were trying to help them (just as you were trying to save me from a bus in the above example) and therefor they wouldn’t press charges. On the other hand, an abused child may press charges relatively soon if they can be persuaded to by some third party (anti-child-abuse activists). This colud be as early as they can speak.
Logically following this through does lead to the conclusion that a parent can “get away” with child abuse up to the age at which the child can speak. The parent may still have to pay reparations after that, but none the less the abuse can potentially continue up until that age and there are no checks against such things. For this I will fall back to my previous argument that it’s not possible to fully eliminate child abuse (socialism or anarchy) but rather to simply reduce it.
Would you mind defining “custody” then, if not ownership?
Wikipedia is one of the weakest sources for authority, if you’re going to appeal to authority.
There is a big gap in understanding here though. You’re drawing conclusions without understanding the Austrian methodology or libertarian philosophy. You’re relying on empiricism and vage notions of “better” or “preferable” both individually and collectively.
What is economic and social progress? How do you define it? What is a better life? How do you define better?
The risk of collapse is always there. Nothing is forever. Governments collapse too. We just forget that happens. See Egypt. See the USSR. See East Germany. See Serbia. Utopia is not possible.
If you understand Ancap and it doesnt work, you go back to having a state. It is a no risk proposition. If you like how things are now, fine. But being risk averse is not an argument.
Anarcho capitalism is not utopian, and anyone who would say that doesn’t understand it at all. Sorta like the OP who is not the first or last “libertarian” who figures out they aren’t libertarian at all. People adopt labels and use terms without understanding them. The burden for that falls on the person using the label, not the person who understands it.
What is work? Again, you don’t understand Ancap. It’s a very simple premise. It should be very easy for you to understand what the basic consequences of that premise are. This is not rocket science.
If you want guarantees, then you’re in the wrong business. There is no perfect system which always “works” the “ideal way” for “everyone” “all the time”. So give up that expectation because it is impossible to achieve.
I am not appealing to authority. I am simply sourcing where I got my definition from. I am making no claims that my definition is correct because it comes from an authoritative source. If you have a a better source then please provide it. Otherwise, your comment on me appealing to authority is simply a red herring (not to mention wrong).
If you understand Ancap and it doesnt work, you go back to having a state. It is a no risk proposition. If you like how things are now, fine. But being risk averse is not an argument.
I think EvilSocialistFellow is stating that he sees more potential for “bad” (defined however he wants) coming out of an ancap society than he sees potential for “good” (defined however he wants) coming out of an ancap society. Therefor his own personal risk analysis tells him that it is too risky to switch to ancap and therefor he chooses not to do so. This is a perfectly reasonable market decision and whether his analysis of risk vs reward may be based on incorrect assumptions about ancap, his conclusion that it is too risky for him is still valid.
Our goal here should be to persuade him that the potential for “bad” is lower than the potential for “good” in an ancap society so then he will decide for himself that that the reasonable market decision is to switch to ancap. Perhaps during this dialog with him he will invoke some thought(s) in some of us that lead us to alter our personal views of the “good” vs the “bad” of ancap thereby causing us to consider it too risky as well.
I don’t mind at all. I’d say I equate “custody” with “guardianship”.
If you’re going to debate economics and political philosophy here, this is one of the most authoritative sites on the web for those topics.
That’s his call. I simply would point out that a statist society is fundamentally immoral, violent and self-defeating economically. If he thinks ancap can be worse than that, so be it. But statism, in my opinion at least, has very little going for it.
It is not a market decision. It is a value judgment.
I am not trying to persuade anyone of anything. I am simply pointing out what the choices really mean, not what people think they mean, or what they hope they mean. If someone really believes that we have to hurt children for their own good, that person has deeper problems than I can help with. Likewise, if someone thinks they will be freer if they are enslaved, then so be it. I can’t make people’s minds up. They have to make their own choices, and live with them. I can certainly help them understand their choices better, but the decision at the end of the day is theirs.
I agree, the longer this discussion goes on, the more we can see who is full of crap.
@Auto, your new style of quoting breaks the page. I have been fixing the page errors all day. This is a new thing, as your posts never did this before. I suspect you are copy pasting, instead of using the quote function. Since you post a lot, please use the post function, as it is a hassle to fix a lot of posts by hand.
Sorry, LS, I didn’t realize you were fixing them by hand. I’ve been copy-pasting my quotes ever since I joined the forum, though. I’ll try using the “Quote” feature, but I remember it didn’t work for me before (none of the quoted text would show up in the edit box).
Edit: Just confirmed that clicking the “Quote” link won’t do anything. I’m using IE8, if that makes any difference.
Not a huge deal. Maybe try the techniques in this thread?
TIA.
But what you’re describing is precisely the sort of Inquisitorial system which we have today where State-paid psychologists induce children to “remember” all sorts of things that their parents never did to them. I disagree that this is a sane way to prevent child abuse and, in fact, I think it actually creates systemic child abuse when the children are dislocated from the custody of the two human beings who have the highest interest in that child’s welfare (the two people who happen to share 50% of their DNA with that child) and place them into the custody of strangers. Children are a very valuable commodity in the meat market.
Clayton -
If you’re going to debate economics and political philosophy here, this is one of the most authoritative sites on the web for those topics.
I did a search on mises.org and there was one PDF that came up, some blogs and a bunch of forum posts. The PDF did not provide a succinct definition of the word, it appeared more to be talking about it rather than defining it. Could you point me to a source that succinctly defines voluntaryism? So far the best definition I can find is Wikipedia, but only because I haven’t been able to find a more credible one.
I still believe this is really a red herring since all that matters is that everyone agrees on a definition of a word and where that definition came from is of little consequence. Since no one else is offering a better definition it seems reasonable to use the one provided by an easily accessible source.
But what you’re describing is precisely the sort of Inquisitorial system which we have today where State-paid psychologists induce children to “remember” all sorts of things that their parents never did to them. I disagree that this is a sane way to prevent child abuse and, in fact, I think it actually creates systemic child abuse when the children are dislocated from the custody of the two human beings who have the highest interest in that child’s welfare (the two people who happen to share 50% of their DNA with that child) and place them into the custody of strangers. Children are a very valuable commodity in the meat market.
Do you believe that in a free market the amount of implanted memories will increase or decrease? As I have stated before, I am not claiming that an ancap society is perfect or will right all wrongs, only that it would be better than the current system. Something to consider is that the insurance agencies will require sufficient proof to provide reparations and they are unlikely to consider child testimony as proof. However, if an advocacy group were to utilize modern surveillance techniques, once they child was of age to object the footage could be used to provide proof. In the current system things like child testimony (and in general, witness testimony) is overvalued. In a free market it is more likely to be valued more appropriately.
Butler Schaeffer. V for Voluntary. Lysander Spooner. Strike the Root. Voluntarism isn’t primarily an Austrian thing, but I think it is becoming one.
It’s not a red herring. Wikipedia is rife with errors, and is notorious for their silly editor policies. It is far from being credible.
I don’t disagree about Wikipedia being an unreliable source, but I would guess that over 98% of the time the information in it is accurate and the purpose was a simple one, to acquire a definition for a word so we can talk without confusion. My guess (unprovable) is if I didn’t include my source you would not have said anything, because it’s inconsequential where the definition came from.
The reason I think it’s a red herring is because you seem to be going out of your way to avoid directly providing me with a better definition (you could have defined it 3 times over now) and are making me hunt for something that you seem to already know. On top of that, this search for a better definition doesn’t matter because as long as we agree on a definition we can communicate more effectively no matter what that definition is.
Edit:
After doing a search on mises.org for each of those terms I have concluded, given the information available to me, that as I suspected you are trying to send me on a wild goose chase for some reason. I can only guess the reason for this, perhaps pleasure, perhaps as a distraction while you try to come up with an argument against something I have stated, perhaps to boost your post count. None the less, if you want to supply a better definition go ahead. Until then I will use the definition I provided above and I encourage others in this thread to use the definition above so we can all communicate clearly.
I will respond in a bit to your post in full but I would like to quickly say this; I do understand certain aspects of methodological individualism and have read some of Human Action, etc. I am just having a hard time phrasing my vocabulary to meet your (extremely specific) expectations. Its not necessarily the case that I don’t know, I just can’t express myself the way you want me to. I think some people get a bit anal about what words you can and can’t use (especially considering this is a newbie posting zone, not a die hard expert economist zone - economists use very specific language in a very specific way that ordinary people don’t know how to). Ok, so maybe I don’t imagine that AnCap would be perfect for everybody, all the time. I am just saying that there are certain social issues that are incredibly complex and are ones that the entrepeneurs would have more difficulty fixing than the state bureacrats who own a monopoly on coercion (and subsequently have more power to implement their plans and may also legitimately use coercion). Obviously, the statist system is by no means perfect (and as I have stated many times, I would like to see a transition towards a freer economy) but it is possible that they can handle certain structures better (better being a subjective value) than entrepeneuners in a pure free market economy. Since we don’t have a vast quantity of data showing what an AnCap society would like, ‘we’ can’t really know. ‘We’ do know, however what a mixed economy looks like because we have had a mixed economy in the west since the 20th Century.
I’m trying to use my language in a specific way here, its just hard to meet your expectations, I’m so sorry.
Edit - Micah was spot on when he was talking about my own personal risk assessment, by the way; why should I risk a free market economy and lower living standards (by my own subjective analysis) because you guys all want to overthrow the state? I might be pointing a gun to your head and forcing you to pay taxes but at least there is empirical evidence which shows what a mixed economy looks like; plunging me into AnCap is like throwing me in at the deep end in a hazy confusion of blurriness.