there is no contradiction.
in a world in which there are good mathematicians who can add up and bad mathematicians that can’t.
even with a decentralized order, involving no monopoly licenser of mathematicians, no monopoly ‘regulator of mathematical activities’,. there would still be good mathematicians, and poor ones.
yeah, AJ needs to quit lying. It’s getting old that he brings this up due to his monopoly agenda. But yet again, now that I think about it, what would be wrong with a just PDA having a dominant part of the free market - which still wouldn’t be a monopoly. AJ, I think you need to understand free market dynamics more.
Rothbard later pointed out that he is not talking about a monopoly in that quote AJ gave.
Secondly Rothbard and Hoppe both advocate security being bought and sold on the free market.
Thirdly, AJ is talking about a utopia and I know of no realist that believes in a utopia.
That’s an interesting point. Are we to stop justice from becoming so wide-spread that we are to help support criminal entities to break the growing just monopoly by giving these criminals subsidies, maybe a bailout? Maybe a monopoly on private property by an owner is to be called tyranny and some third party will need to come in and divide up the property to other people for the ‘common good’ - make it polycentric or something?
Yes, and that’s simply agreeing to grundnorms, from what I see. That is: a set of standards, much like there’s a standard concept of the car (it has wheels, an engine, etc). I don’t see that Rothbard denies that there would be variations upon the theme.
Edit: This is addressing Nir
That would make sense if Rothbard were merely saying which legal agencies are “good” and which are “poor” (or perhaps more relevantly, profitable vs. unprofitable or popular vs. unpopular). But he in fact says that the basic law code would have to be agreed upon by all legal agencies, and by “the basic law code” it seems he means his specific conception of the NAP, etc.
But rather than guess at what he means in a specific passage, I would simply ask, Why go through the trouble to specify all sorts of details about homesteading, the NAP, rights, ethics, etc. if private legal agencies are just going to decide the law anyway? I can think of three answers:
The issue I mean to raise here is not that such theories (rights, ethics, NAP, homesteading, etc.) are misguided, but that they appear to be limited to applications #1 and #2 above. I suggest that to put forth such theories with the intent that they effectively serve as a decree for all to follow is stay stuck in the monopoly/Statist paradigm, because only a monopoly could enforce such a decree.
Note: This is not to say that Rothbard’s ideas won’t be adopted as the universal standard owing to their shear insightfulness and fairness. That could indeed happen, but I am saying that would not happen through decree (unless in a minarchy). In anarchy, it would happen because legal agencies and the general population liked Rothbard’s suggestions.
I stopped right there cause all of the books and articles I’ve read of Rothbard include defining what a criminal is, what is just, and how the free market can include entities that offer security. Stop lying.
On my property I want to be the just ultimate-decision maker. It MUST be that way. It HAS to be that way. Because I want it to be that way because I am totally convinced that justice is the ONLY way.
MUST
HAS
ONLY
If that is so, I don’t see a problem. In fact, I think Rothbard presents a fine set of grundnorms if that’s what he means for them to be.
When the criminal entities are having a tough time in my neighborhood, if a person comes to subsidize their lack of fitting into the local community DECREE in order to make it polycentric, then I would consider such a person as aiding and abbetting the criminal(s). Now you are defending this proposition quite possibly.
edit: Now - I know you don’t mean any of this that I’ve covered in recent posts but for those that understand what Rothbard and Hoppe mean this is exactly how you come across to me, and I don’t doubt others would think the same way.
Wilderness,
Maybe I do come across that way because I haven’t been careful to clarify what I don’t mean, but I do not think anything I’ve said necessitates that position. I personally think the legal system could well look a lot like - or even almost exactly like - the one Rothbard envisioned.
The point I wish to make is simply that such visions seem most properly understood as educated conjecture, and to take them as something more is unhelpful in achieving such society or convincing others of its merits.
It’s not a reality now so it’s obviously a conjecture. Foresight is cultivated in such low-time preference activities that include studying, researching, writing books, and investing in iron for steel to make a rod for a house that will be built down the street in two years. Conjecture grounded in logic as opposed to illogic are very different forms of conjecture.
Then perhaps we’re all in agreement after all.
What type of law are they deciding?
Legal and defacto rights.
If they contradict normative ones / natural rights, i.e violate the NAP, then they become aggressors and criminal.
More to the point, and I asked this elsewhere:
Why on earth would two people who have a property dispute, or their respective DRO’s - choose to use a third party DRO that does not protect property rights? It is absurd.
Regarding warfare:
First, it does no good to compare anarcho-capitalism to utopia. Instead, compare it to the statist system. Even if you think anarcho-capitalism can lead to these kinds of wars between protection companies, statism can lead to wars between states. By necessity, the wars of the protection companies will be smaller and do less damage.
Meanwhile, though, in an-cap, people know that these things can happen. When they sign up with their company, they ask what will happen in such a situation, and companies that cannot provide an answer don’t get many customers. Some will answer “we’ll go fight the other company” and will have very high premiums. Others will give more reasonable answers, like “we have made arrangements with these 4 other companies that in case of dispute, we appeal to____ (some mutually agreed arbitrator, and with these 3 companies, we appeal to ______. There is one company that’s a little nuts, and won’t make any arrangements with us for such cases, instead, it says it will shoot it out with any company that disagrees with it. We stay away from them, and we don’t hear cases involving their clients, we expect them to go out of business pretty soon since their premiums are so high.”
Or something else. As Bacon put it, if you go back to an age before bombs and explain the destruction that bombs will someday wreak, they’ll try to figure out how it work - picturing bigger and bigger catapults and the like, since that’s how they conceptualize weapons.
People, please read David Friedman’s Police, Courts & Laws: On the Market.
This is educated conjecture, right?
What each side considers valid property rights may differ.
Conza88:
I believe you are stating the situation that AJ was trying to address originally. First you ask "What type of law are they deciding? And then you answer your own question, apparently not only for yourself, but for every single person on earth: “If they contradict..natural rights, i.e., violate the NAP, then they become aggressors and criminal.”
What you are saying is that any legal agency will, in your view, be enforcing a specific legal theory of natural rights. You are saying that enforcement agencies won’t be enforcing any other legal theories than the specific natural rights legal theory you have in mind. Or if this is not what you meant, please clarify. Do you mean poly-centric law, where there are different legal codes in existence, or do you mean a system where there is only one legal code being enforced?
Here is what JackSakylark wrote on this subject (Nov. 1 & Nov.2):
“Even Rothbard favored a monolithic legal code, which is a monopoly of law. It is [in] the provision of law services that competition comes into play in anarcho-capitalist society.” (bold & italics added)
This is exactly what Rothbard is saying on page 236 of The Ethics of Liberty. The provision of legal services can grow by the market process. This is the “anarcho” part. Various companies can open and close, and customers can patronize various providers.
Skylark continues:
“Rothbard advocated a monopoloy on law, not legal services. He got away with not calling it a monopoly by determining natural law as somewhat ‘self-evident.’ Rothbard then claims that natural law must be determined (monolitically) as the basis for ‘fair’ rulings if ancap is to be viable. Thus, he proposes a standard legal code. From the legal code comes competition in services.”
This is very clearly what Rothbard is advocating on pages 189, 236, and 237 of The Ethics of Liberty.
It is a vision that pre-supposes a specific natural rights legal code (roughly the one outlined in The Ethics of Liberty), and envisions that multiple providers will arise within this specific natural-rights capitalistic structure to administer this legal code. But the legal code is conceived as (as Skylark rightly points out) monolithic, i.e., monopolistic.
You ask:
“Why on earth would two people who have a property dispute, or their respective DRO’s - choose to use a third party DRO that does not protect property rights? It is absurd.”
This assumes that what property rights are and what constitutes aggression is clear and unanimously agreed upon. This is far from the case.
Consider intellectual property. In Randian property rights theory, one is an aggressor if one violates a copyright or patent. In Rothbardian property rights theory, one is an aggressor if one violates a copyright, but not if one violates a patent. And in contemporary property rights theory as supported (I believe) by Tucker, Kinsella, and Hoppe, one is not an aggressor if one violates a copyright or a patent.
So here you have three distinct property rights theories, each defining aggression differently with respect to intellectual property.
Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism assumes that only one of these legal codes is in effect, and that those who violate the legal code are open outlaws and aggressors. But this doesn’t answer the question of which legal code is to be enforced by all the various agencies and protection services.
Rand, Rothbard, Tucker, Kinsella, etc., are all libertarians, in the sense that they all agree with some version of the libertarian ethic against initiating aggression. But they define what constitutes aggression differently. Thus, it doesn’t solve the problem to just say that the legal code outlaws aggression and protects property. What constitutes aggression and what constitutes property is the very issue at stake.
As Skylark points out, Rothbard simply assumes or presupposes that a uniform legal code is in effect. He’s thinking of his own vision of libertarian law. But that vision is far from agreed upon. It is one vision of many.
I believe it is much more accurate to refer to Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism as “natural rights capitalism.” Rothbard’s vision is of a capitalistic system of private property, where what constitutes property and aggression is to be determined by his specific version of natural rights, outlined in his books. In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard sketches the rough outlines of a libertarian legal code (property and criminality, ownership and aggression, theory of contracts, children and rights, etc…) What it means to be a Rothbardian, is that one accepts this legal code in principle, and/or in its particulars. This means to some extent that one is willing to accept a particular theory of what constitutes aggression and what constitutes property. In accepting this particular theory, one is accepting a legal code. But the question is, what happens in the case when someone chooses a Randian or Kinsella/Tucker/Hoppe legal code as the basis for defining what constitutes aggression?
That is the important question.
What non-Rothbardians are trying to point out is that various libertarians can disagree about what constitutes aggression and property. And in so doing, each thinker is accepting or adhering to a different legal code. (this is without even considering all the other cultures and possible legal codes outside the very small libertarian world)
Usually, when anarcho-capitalism is discussed on this forum, those advocating it are assuming or presupposing a single, monolithic legal code that is in effect for all of society. They seem to take it for granted that their own view of property and aggression is the correct one. But the Randians and the Kinsellians believe that their view of property and aggression is the correct one. If libertarianism is to be conceived as a monopolistic legal code enforced on all people by various market providers, the question of which legal code is to be enforced is an important one that can’t be ignored.
Rand and Rothbard are wrong on IP, or I could say that their takes on IP do not follow from the NAP. So, these folks are “Libertarian” still, but their prescriptions regarding IP don’t conform to guidelines we would get as part of actual ‘libertarian law’. Maybe some of what I have written before will help explain this silly Rothbard quote that so many are still hung up on.
This may have been Rothbard’s view, but my understanding of market anarchism is that market competition in legal systems will tend to produce laws that approximate natural law, not that natural law is somehow magically enforced on society. The purpose of natural law is not to protect rights, but to guide us in protecting rights.
Very true. An important argument for anarchy is that, given that both government and anarchy will have different parties trying to enact their particular conceptions of justice, there will inevitably be disputes, and anarchy does a better job in resolving these disputes peacefully and in a manner favorable to liberty.
But are you suggesting that disputes over property and aggression can never be resolved? If so, why?
Olovetto:
OK Then yours is a fairly tolerant vision of AnCap, where the legal code is a guideline, and where outcomes may be the result of various cultural mores.
In that case, I consider your legal and social philosophy to be part of a growing and emerging libertarian consensus, and a move away from the standard monopolistic and absolutist libertarian conception which predominated in the second half of the twentieth century…
Sage:
“…market competition in legal systems…”
Fair enough. But this the complete opposite of Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism. In your sentence here, substitute “legal codes” for “legal systems.”
Your vision of AnCap includes various legal systems, whereas in Rothbardian AnCap, all but one legal system is an “open outlaw and aggressor.”
When you write: “This may have been Rothbard’s view…” This is subjectivism; the idea that Rothbard’s legal conceptions were OK for him, but not necessarily for you or others. This then implies that legal codes are subjective to the individual or group concerned… This is more of a Misesian conception than a Rothbardian conception. I’m not saying I disagree, but this is what your statements imply to me.
“…anarchy will have different parties trying to enact their particular conceptions of justice…”
This seems to be a poly-centric vision. In my view, this is moving away from a monolithic or monopolistic legal system with multiple private providers administering the same legal code—what I referred to as natural rights capitalism…
“But are you suggesting that disputes over property and aggression can never be resolved?”
No, that isn’t my point.
My point is that there is a huge difference between a conception of libertarianism where there is a single monolithic legal code and where multiple private providers may compete to administer this monolithic legal code…and, a conception of libertarianism that allows for or envisions the idea of multiple legal codes, and an assumed mediation between various legal codes, societies, associations, cultures, etc…
What I’m getting from this discussion, and from other discussions surrounding AnCap, is that this latter idea seems to be gradually replacing the older idea. This older idea was the Randian/Rothbardian conception of libertarianism.
I think what is causing some confusion and perhaps needless debate, is that when AnCap is being discussed, it isn’t always explicitly stated which version of AnCap is being advanced: a single legal code with multiple private administrators, or, various legal codes existing and mediation between those…
The former is the pure Rothbardian libertarian conception from TEoL. The latter is something different. It lacks an absolute monopoly on law, and it lacks ethical and moral absolutism in the Randian/Rothbardian sense, to the extent it envisions mediation between various legal cultures.
If we take away the idea of territorial monopoly of law, we are essentially heading towards a panarchist conception.