When I start talking about free markets, this subject usually comes up.
What are the quick Cliff Notes on how these would work in a free market?
First you must ask yourself if there should be a prison and court system in the first place.
What does “should” have to do with anything? Maybe you can rephrase the statement/question.
While I concede that an anarchistic society is something of an unknown in the modern era (unless anyone here has been holding out in telling us about their psychic powers or ownership of a time machine…); I would wager that a court system would persist with or without the existence of a state. My reasoning is that individuals will tend to agree in the long run that fighting is a costly affair, and settling issues with the help of a third party (an arbitrator/judge) would be least expensive. At least for the larger conflicts, private courts would arise to meet the demands of people requiring conflicts settled (e.g. the merchant courts of medieval europe). Petty claims would most likely devolve to more informal institutions, such as a respected member of the community acting as a de facto judge or [the petty conflicts] would be settled between the conflicting parties without any third party involved at all.
Now about those there prisons… What sort of criminals would require imprisonment in an anarchistic society exactly?
This does not necessarily imply a court, however. It could just mean that the judge would visit each party at their home and then give his decision.
Me and my neighbor have a dispute, we find a company that provides arbitration services, we contract to abide by the decision of the court, we present our cases, and a decision is made to the satisfaction of both parties.
The best real world example to use with other people that you talk to is dispute resolution between companies in different countries. There is no over-riding law that either company has to adhere to, yet they are able to resolve their differences anyways.
Be careful regarding these “how would X work” questions. I argue here that anarchists have no burden to answer them, although having answers is necessary for bringing about an anarchist society.
also, having a great idea on any of these in a free society questions could potentially prove profitable in the future.
That’s the market at work! Problems that need solutions create profits, and profits are incentives for people to solve the problems. Price system ftw!
We could only answer that if we had perfect knowledge.
what was Murphy’s (or your) response to :
I had a feeling Aster Lacnala (Alan Calretsa backwards perhaps?) would be mentioned in the field of “how would X work” questions
I’m working on an article on this topic and I will be posting it to the Mises forums when I complete it (maybe sometime in the next 6 months). Ask yourself what people did before there were prisons? You either fined or killed the person. Prison can be thought of as a particularly inefficient form of property confiscation - since it wastes the person’s productive potential, it’s more like burning someone’s house down as punishment than confiscating it. In the free market, there would probably be significantly less demand for prisons. Given the choice, a victim and aggressor would more likely opt for some punishment that retains the aggressor’s ability to be productive, such as incarcerated labor or pay garnishment or simple lump-sum award. The libertarian theory of punishment is still in disrepair - as Rothbard says in Ethics of Liberty - and that is one of the primary topics I want to address in my forthcoming article.
As for competitive production of law, we actually have a significant historical record on this point. The American West and certain African and Native American tribes had competitive law models. Law itself emerged from verbal dispute resolution. This is the essence of law - resolution of disputes that would otherwise become violent physical conflicts through non-violent means. There is no reason you need a monopoly on force or law to produce law … unless you want to be free to act with impunity. [;)]
Clayton -
This is hilarious.