Did you read Rothbard’s Public Sector, III: Police, Law and the Courts? The government is not necessary, or even, in all reality desirable, in the function of judgement…
The notion that there is a need for authority is fallacious at best, this is all within the ability of the free market to handle…
You do understand the Spooner is saying the government is illegitimate, however you take government, without voluntary consent, this is an illegitimate govenrment based on coercion?
I never said it was, in fact I’m all for private justice. I’m merely pointing out one can deny the government’s authority to punish as he can deny the authority of such a private court. Therefore, it’s best to use NAP-friendly measures rather than go for punishments.
Suppose somewhere far away from our eyes, A kills B and takes his land. Now we meet him (or his descendants) and only later on we find out what he did. Is this just cause to dispossess A? Restitution can’t happen, even if B has heirs, which might not even be clear in the absence of proper inheritance. If A has heirs on the other hand, they should be rightful owners, since they supposedly did not commit theft and therefore have better claims.
Sounds like estoppel to me. I read a bit about estoppel and I can’t say I fully agree with this concept. Probably only in a restricted sense (ethical estoppel, restitution-oriented estoppel).
If this includes unwitting purchasers excluding accomplices, then I think we’re basing our whole rationale on hidden motivations. I think it isn’t that hard to come up with a “cleanroom theft” procedure, at least in the case of a state or government, since history gives us so little evidence about what truly happened. Even if we estoppel the government, it still leads to conflicts over who should be entitled to take up its property: those who supported a democracy (which are kinda guilty), those who can prove their ancestors were hurt and/or immigrants who allegedly have no good claims?
EDIT: Surely, you could say everybody else has a better claim, but it won’t actuallly be that clear in a (former) democracy.
A court has no authority to punish, whether private or “public”. The authority is the victims, and it follows that he can appoint willing representatives. A victim needn’t even require a court to pass judgement.
Yes, “authority” might be a bad choice of words in this context.
However, you do realize the criminal can defend himself or hire protection (and even retaliate later on), right? IMHO, anarchy should be approached like a system of interactions, more than from an ethical standpoint, i.e. “human action” drives it, not necessarily ethics.
Yes. It is always just to repossess stolen property from a thief. It is not just to the extent that you are a knowing accomplice. The family and friends of A have no more right to his murderously acquired stolen property than A himself. It will be a profitable business, as it is today, to confirm land titles and help the just owner in repossessing it.
Unwitting purchasers of stolen property, i.e. pawn shops, have no right to the property. They are merely owners until the title holder repossesses it. The purchasers are not required to be reimbursed by the title holder upon repossession, but may sue the thief for fraud.
Concerning estoppel, it is illegitimate. The reasons are many, but suffice it to say that it relies on force and unvoluntary methods.
I think this is accurate. Anarchy is market, and market has niches. If we try to think what would happen in an anarchy, out best bet is to describe a stable point and avoid contradictions (e.g. describing anarchy as a NAP-abiding democracy or something similar).
I thought my brevity might come back and bite me. An innocent person has a better claim then the thief, but they do not have a better claim then the rightful title holder.
Of course there will be conflict over who should be entitled to own state property, thats why we have to employ our already existing theory of property.
Governments aren’t even necessarily undesirable, what’s undesirable is the mass democratic state we see now. On the other hand, small, competing providers of law with a geographical monopoly solve Mises’ calculation argument as applied to the provision of security. They also have other advantages as compared to the standard anarchist view of PDAs namely that they reduce risk and therefore costs.
As for illigetimate, I do think the democratic state is illegitimate, but I don’t think it can be proven. Hoppe’s argumentation ethics, Rothbard’s arguments in TEOL and other forms of natural law all fail in my opinion. On the other hand, if you’re willing to take various things on faith, you can say the state is illegitimate, you just can’t prove it.