I don’t know of anybody that thinks a law can donk somebody on the head.[:)]
No it is not. There are various quotes of Rothbard being explicit about how he is not advocating a “monopoly” and that the free market will determine the outcome of legal systems. I emailed these quotes to you before in a discussion we had. I find no need to have to pull those quotes up again and re-type them. I don’t know why you contradict what Rothbard actually states. disingenious?
I think what you don’t readily grasp is that any one legal system, in the case of Rothbard his numerous writings and advocation of natural rights, will think it has the best and most just legal system - unless of course there would actually be one that advocates injustice. Rothbard even argues why natural rights are just and he also dialogues how other forms are criminal. He defines what a criminal is. He defines what justice in accord with natural rights are. He was very reasonably convicted about what he outlined as being good and just.
This is written in absence of what property rights covers. What Rothbard consistently outlined. He based his theorizing on the individual. That is certain.
What I meant was that I wasn’t sure that your interpretation of Rothbard was correct. But looking over EoL now, it does seem that Rothbard never fully escaped the constitutionalist fantasy of a constitution as some self-enforcing magical document that exists outside of society. The natural law cannot be protected merely by enshrining it in a legal document. What is needed is real checks and balances and incentive structures. The case for anarchism is that market competition produces more extensive checks and balances and more reliable incentive structures than does government. At least Rothbard recognized this last point.
On subjectivism: what do you think of the distinction between explanatory value subjectivism (explanation in terms of the actor’s values) and normative value subjectivism (the view that there are no objective values)? If the former is true and the latter is false, we can have subjectivist economics and objective ethics.
What do you make of this?
A market anarchist can certainly think that some right-claims are correct and others are mistaken, and that agencies acting on correct views have the moral right to defend their clients, by force if necessary, against agencies acting on mistaken views. In that sense, market anarchists have no objection to the idea that actions based on correct views of justice have a right to a “monopoly” against actions based on a mistaken view of justice. What market anarchists deny is the further inference that this “monopoly” is best achieved through a monopoly agency or institution. On the contrary. (Long p.17 n.37)
I pulled out some quotes from “Democracy - The God That Failed”.
“…for a government allowing unlimited secession is of course no longer a compulsory monopolist of law and order but a voluntary association. Thus notes Rothbard with regard to Mises’ pronouncement, ‘once admit any right of secession whatever, and there is no logical stopping-point short of the right of individual succession, which logically entails anarchism, since then individuals may secede and patronize their own defense agencies, and the State has crumbled’ (The Ethics of Liberty, p. 182) see also idem, “Power and Market”…” [italics Rothbards]
“Power and Market” : Rothbard: “Defense in a free society… would therefore have to be supplied by people or firms who (a) gained their revenue voluntarily rather than by coercion and (b) did not - as the State does - arrogate to themselves a compulsory monopoly of police or judicial protection… defense firms would have to be as freely competitive and as noncoercive against noninvaders as are all other suppliers of goods and services on the free market. Defense services, like all other services, would be marketable and marketable only.”
In these two quotes, and there lots more to understand and read, Rothbard had directly ‘word for word even at times’ stated other than what you have to tried to pass off here Adam Knott.
Sage:
“The case for anarchism is that market competition produces more extensive checks and balances and more reliable incentive structures than does government. At least Rothbard recognized this last point.”
I agree with this. But I think this comes close to simply being a general definition of libertarianism. This is essentially a fundamental thesis of libertarianism. But the more narrow point is whether under AnCap, as a particular branch or school of libertarianism, competition is conceived to apply between various legal codes, or only between agencies enforcing a single legal code? I believe Rothbard intended the latter (again, pages 236, 237, TEoL) I think this is an important question and a valid question.
“On subjectivism: what do you think of the distinction between explanatory value subjectivism (explanation in terms of the actor’s values) and normative value subjectivism (the view that there are no objective values)? If the former is true and the latter is false, we can have subjectivist economics and objective ethics.”
Maybe start a thread on this one?
“What do you make of this?”
I think that the monopolistic conception of libertarianism is contrary to purpose, and that a conception of libertarianism that envisions the coexistence of various civil associations on a nonterritorial basis is what will pave the way for emergent libertarian societies.
“(1) A market anarchist can certainly think that some right-claims are correct and others are mistaken, and that agencies acting on correct views have the moral right to defend their clients, by force if necessary, against agencies acting on mistaken views. (2) In that sense, market anarchists have no objection to the idea that actions based on correct views of justice have a right to a “monopoly” against actions based on a mistaken view of justice. (3) What market anarchists deny is the further inference that this “monopoly” is best achieved through a monopoly agency or institution. On the contrary”
I interpret “think” above to mean something like “believe.” For example, Ayn Rand can certainly think (believe) that anyone who violates a copyright or patent is an aggressor, and defend this view, by force if necessary, against those acting on mistaken views. Or, Murray Rothbard can certainly think (believe) that anyone who violates a copyright is an aggressor, and defend this view, by force if necessary, against those acting on mistaken views. Or, Kinsella and Hoppe can certainly think (believe) that anyone who enforces a patent or copyright is an aggressor, and defend this view, by force if necessary, against those acting on mistaken views.
I think #1 is the subjective preference of the individual or group concerned. Then #2 is a “justification” of a monopolistic theory of law based on considering #1 not the subjective preference of the individual concerned, but instead an objective universal truth. I think #3 needs to be spelled out in detail. This might be a separate thread.
Sage, if you would like to be an advocate of various positions or theories of R. Long in separate threads, I would be willing to participate. There are other former forum posters who would probably be interested, though they may not have time to participate. Plauche, Wombatron, Leonidia, Lilburne, etc..
I’ll try another angle but of the basics I already put forth. What is another legal code outside of do not initiate physical aggression ie. property rights? You tell me.
"In turn, we can distinguish two subvarieties of descriptive rights: legal rights and de facto rights.
This gives us a three-way distinction:
Yes, that could be part of their dispute. But it is absurd to then believe that they would turn to a DRO, 3rd party that does not respect property rights or the NAP.
The point that I was raising was that, they don’t just get to arbitrarily decide what the law should be… i.e from demand on the market.
"Well, there are many things demanded on the market that are also crimes. There may be a demand for killing redheads. And there is certainly a demand for government loot. What’s so great about market demand? if it is not within a framework of non-aggression, there will always be a demand for fraud and theft.
The free bankers accept a kind of David Friedmanite anarchism, where there is no law, only people engaging in exchange and buying people out. If you have a group that wants to kill redheads, the redheads will have to buy them off if they value their hair. I think this is monstrous, the kind of anarchism would indeed be chaos. Just because there is a demand for something doesn’t mean it should be fulfilled."
Do you deny that someone initiating violence is not an aggressor?
Another part of the point I was addressing, but not stating clearly enough:
“One common, flip criticism by opponents of natural law is: who is to establish the alleged truths about man? The answer is not who but what: man’s reason. Man’s reason is objective, i.e., it can be employed by all men to yield truths about the world. To ask what is man’s nature is to invite the answer.”
Some agencies may error, which is - as Rothbard stipulated:
“Furthermore, difference of opinion is no excuse for discarding all sides to a dispute; the responsible person is the one who uses his reason to examine the various contentions and make up his own mind.[22] He does not simply say a priori, “a plague on all your houses!” The fact of man’s reason does not mean that error is impossible. Even such “hard” sciences as physics and chemistry have had their errors and their fervent disputes.[23] No man is omniscient or infallible – a law, by the way, of man’s nature.”
So some will make mistakes, and I believe the market will correct them, as in it can be self regulating… i.e two people have a property dispute, or someone initiated violence against one of them. They want to know who is justified and want the problem properly solved. Their issue is what is the justified use of force, naturally it leans towards the NAP. Or Kinsella’s estoppel approach. Some judges may naturally error, make bad descisions and their reputations as fair decision makers would be tarnished, no-one would want to use them again. It would be like a run on the banks.
On the other hand, you have DRO’s in a religious fundamentalist society. Men rule over women and it has been so determined in the “courts” that women have no real legal or defacto rights, and must be obedient to the whims of their husbands. How can you pose any political ethical objections?
“On the contrary, the fact that natural-law theorists derive from the very nature of man a fixed structure of law independent of time and place, or of habit or authority or group norms, makes that law a mighty force for radical change.”
Not will, but should… i.e using natural law as the guide. The NAP isn’t too hard to understand, is it? Philosophy of self ownership?
If their decrees violate the NAP, they are sanctioning aggression.
“For we can avoid aggressive violence completely by preventing it through purchasing the services of defense agencies, agencies which are empowered to use only defensive violence.” - ETOL (225)
A PDA stops being a Private Defense Agency when it initiates violence, because it clearly isn’t defending anymore.
Yes I agree, and here is the text:
Furthermore, law and the State are both conceptually and historically separable, and law would develop in an anarchistic market society without any form of State. Specifically, the concrete form of anarchist legal institutions- judges, arbitrators, procedural methods for resolving disputes, etc.-would indeed grow by a market invisible-hand process, while the basic Law Code (requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property) would have to be agreed upon by all the judicial agencies, just as all the competing judges once agreed to apply and extend the basic principles of the customary or common law.13 But the latter, again, would imply no unified legal system or dominant protective agency. Any agencies that transgressed the basic libertarian code would be open outlaws and aggressors, and Nozick himself concedes that, lacking legitimacy, such outlaw agencies would probably not do very well in an anarchist society.14
- Cf., Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law (Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1972), and F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).
So I would reject the notion, characterization & use of the word ‘monopolistic’ is describing the basic law code.
This goes beyond the BASIC law code “(requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property)” = that is NOT being questioned, what IS being discussed - and the issue you raise, is which is the right / correct one?
There are disagreements within Libertarianism about what constitutes a violation of the NAP sure (FRB, IP), but they are all still trying to apply the NAP!
The issue you raise goes beyond the basic law code, and into the intermediate / advanced. There is room for the market to operate thus, and determine much like Roman Law. As it pointed out in Bruno Leoni’s Freedom and the Law.
Uniform how? Only in its basic principles, i.e the NAP. And he stipulated “just as all the competing judges once agreed to apply and extend the basic principles of the customary or common law.” Historical precedence. And if they don’t, fine - they are on the freemarket, and Rothbard acknowledges this: “Any agencies that transgressed the basic libertarian code would be open outlaws and aggressors, and Nozick himself concedes that, lacking legitimacy, such outlaw agencies would probably not do very well in an anarchist society.”
Again, '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 /; respect property rights? Or a violation of the NAP?’ It is absurd.
Not who, but what.
A person can choose to define whatever they want as constituting aggression. They may believe rape is not aggression, since they own their wife. One of the counter measures, is that a DRO isn’t going to keep such a person on as their client, or customer when a person with such an inclination is more than likely going to cause so many property disputes. The costs / premiums for that person naturally go up.
The point is when there is a property dispute, someone is seeking justice or damages, the two parties decide on a judge, or third party who they will believe to be fair, and just in his decision and state they will accept it in the contract or payment for his services. The individuals respective DRO’s could do this on behalf of their clients, and have a number of limited appeals set into the process before it begins.
The applicant and defendant could present both their conceptions or arguments and the judge would decide. It would be reasoned out with arguments etc. That’s how I see it playing out. But as was mentioned before, the basic law code is the name - but what is being dealt with is advanced, i.e beyond the foundations.
I don’t think it’s actually necessary.
What does that have to do with it?
If, then, the natural law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature … absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place.[37]
Just on this, as a kind of consolidation for all the obvious cultures out there;
Thus, and I elaborated on this recently in some thread I can no longer find - that individuals and “society” may use various means to condemn such actions as immoral, for eg. in India the cow is a sacred animal. In a Libertarian society, there is nothing unethical about homesteading the cow and doing what you want with it, as long as it doesn’t violate the NAP - it doesn’t violate natural law / political ethics, then the law should have nothing to say about it.
In India, that doesn’t mean the individual who slaughtered the cow - won’t be ostracized, condemned, boycotted, ignored, barred from certain private property, his reputation attacked etc. (All acceptable, as they do not violate the NAP) Some people will refuse to sell him items, while others will take pity and do so. He can use reason and persuasion to convince them that their beliefs are absurd and illogical etc. But he cannot initiate violence against them, and they cannot to the same to him.
You mean natural law and natural rights?
Again, I reject the monopolistic characterization. There is no barrier of entry is there? A PDA / DRO can set itself up, outside of the basic law code (NAP), and essentially be an outlaw organisation, but as is conceded by Nozick, it won’t get very far nor last long.
Yes because of natural law and the study of human interaction through the thymological process. Rothbard postulates that when laws will be established immoral actions will apriori be illegal. What these ‘immoral actions’ are is established through the NAP. I’m sure there will be some place that loves Block’s idea of ‘murder park’ but the aim of Ethics of Liberty is not to engage in the deduction of every action that an individual may take in a libertarian society but what a possible ethical system concerning what general laws and codes would arise from human interaction that can be label ‘libertarian’
Where do you see this ‘flaw’? Rothbard believed in natural law but that does not infer then that he wanted monopolistic legal systems.
One thing is for sure, we can never expect a just legal system to emerge from the state. The incentives just aren’t there. Our only shot at upholding the NAP is market law. There is a good amount of historic precedent for us to be optimistic about the outcomes.
This brings us back to “what do you mean by ought to?” Later you make clear that you mean objective ought, as in Rothbardian natural law. This I reject, so I suppose this ends the discussion. I’ve posted my refutation of various objective ethical theories several times, which I can dig up if interested.
Again, which conception of property rights? Which conception of the NAP (which definition of aggression)?
I believe your position is that Rothbard’s conception of natural law is a priori correct.
(1) In that case, it would make sense to call anyone not observing natural law an “outlaw” and an “aggressor,” and not intended as mere subjective opinion. In response to this, see what I wrote to Conza. Either we can discuss the logical validity of Rothbard’s proofs or we’re at an impasse in this particular thread.
(2) However, even if natural law were a priori correct, I gather you agree that the only thing causing people and PDAs, etc. to adhere to it would be its inherent logical correctness. If so, can I assume that if Rothbard’s proof was shown to be in error you would change your position? (I don’t mean change it away from the NAP, but change it away from “the NAP is objective”)
By the way, this is very interesting.
Also interestingly, the same interview continues:
Austrian Economics Newsletter: One of the criticisms of this position [rejection of free banking] is that it is normative and not economic.
Rothbard: Yes, but the response to 100% reserves is that bank entrepreneurs have the right to offer whatever fraction of deposits they want, which is also a normative position. Any discussion of policy is inherently normative. You can’t have free markets unless you have property rights.
Conza, your quote from Long about normative, legal, and de facto rights seems to make the part I italicized a non sequitur, because property rights in Rothbard’s statement, “You can’t have free markets unless you have property rights,” only applies to de facto rights, not normative ones.
Is Rothbard confused?
The way to tell a set of ‘defacto’ property rights apart from a set of ‘defacto’ nonsense, or ‘not-property rights’ is through normative understanding.
iotw. you have to understand ‘political’ freedom if you are to conceive of a ‘free’ market.
“you are free to do what your master tells you”, and “you are free and have no masters”… both use the term ‘free’ but one is proper and the other shallow. you cannot have more than a shallow view if you deprecate objective/normative moral truth viz ownership and aggression.
Was the Nazi economy a free economy? well there were a set of ‘defacto property rights…’, as the jedi would say; these are not the rights you are looking for
There is also a “market” demand for tariffs, minimum wage laws, and for printing ever more money. But economic science doesn’t approach the demand for such things by means of a normative theory. Economics demonstrates the necessary (incontestable) consequences of these actions, and thus nonlibertarians (for example) abstain from doing these things to the degree they otherwise would, because economic science shows them how it harms their own interests. Economics shows how those actions harm the people and groups they themselves care about. They abstain out of self-interest, as demonstrated by value-free economic science. They do not abstain due to libertarian normative theory.
Then, when we switch over to “ethical actions” (i.e., non-catallactic actions—actions not conceivable in terms of money, prices, and exchange ratios), the assumption is automatically made that we must switch over to a normative approach to deal with them. The assumption is that there are no necessary (incontestable) consequences to such “ethical actions” as there are to economic actions, and thus no way to appeal to the self-interest of the nonlibertarian (for example) by means of value-free science.
This assumption is totally mistaken, and as far as I am aware, there is actually no sustained or coherent argument that value-free science cannot demonstrate with respect to ethical actions what it demonstrates with respect to economic actions; that there are incontestable consequences to such actions, that were the actor to know about them, he may possibly abstain from such actions out of self-interest.
Normative ethics is based on and conducted on the assumption that there is no regularity in ethical phenomena as there is in catallactic phenomena (market phenomena), and that therefore, there are no “exact laws” of ethical action. This is a mistaken assumption, but it is the assumption which enables normative ethicists to believe they are practicing the only possible approach to the subject realm of ethics.
This is an understandable mistake for mainstream social theorists, since they make no (or few) explicit claims about exact knowledge. But for Austrian social thinkers, this mistake is tragic, since Austrian economics, founded by Menger, and carried by Mises through the twentieth century, is founded on the idea of exact laws of human action.
Ethical acts are acts. They aim at ends and utilize means. And there is a logic of those acts just the same as there is a logic of economic (catallactic) acts.
A normative approach is not necessary with respect human actions—such as ethical actions—that are not conceivable in terms of money prices. What is needed is to extend Austrian School social science (praxeology, Menger’s science of exact laws) into other realms of human action beyond mere catallactic human action.
This debate shows the flaw in the name ‘anarcho-capitalism’. It makes it sound like one system, when it’s actually two. Anarchism is a description of how legal codes are created… specifically by competing providers. Capitalism (a better term would be libertarianism) is the normative part. The two must be seperated. I call myself a libertarian anarchist, stressing that anarchism is my view about how law should be provided, and libertarianism is my view of what would make good laws.
Rothbard was a great libertarian who did superb work showing the justification for a legal code based on the NAP. However, just like Mises never took the step of supporting competition in the field of security, Rothbard never took the step of supporting competition in the field of legal codes.
He conceived ‘a single legal code’, with courts competing over the application of this single legal code. He viewed a court not respecting his particular version of justice (adherence to the NAP) as an ‘outlaw court’. Abortion and capital punishment are two issues where it is not clear what the ‘correct’ libertarian answer is. In Rothbard’s system, if abortion is allowed by the ‘single legal code’, then any courts not allowing abortion are outlaw courts. Although he did not recognise it, and in several places denied it, I believe he was ‘stuck in the monopoly paradigm’, as AJ says.
David Friedman has a much better conception of anarchy and how competition in the field of legal codes would work. And he gives convincing reasons why the legal codes that are produced are likely to be largely libertarian. Libertarian legal codes will probably be the most demanded legal codes in the market. They may even be so popular that no other legal codes are demanded, in which case they would be a beneficial market “monopoly” - and the world would appear to be no different to how Rothbard imagined. But this is an organic process. Friedman shows how courts following totally different legal codes (pro/anti-abortion, and pro/anti-capital punishment) will interract via a theoretical ‘bargaining process’.
Friedman is first an anarchist, and second a libertarian. Rothbard is first a libertarian, and unfortunately not quite an anarchist.
In Friedman’s system the kinds of legal codes produced are those that are demanded. Isn’t that how it should be? Isn’t that what we’d expect - that the laws of a soceity reflect the values of the individuals in that society. What is the alternative? That laws are produced that people dont really want… in other words they are having a legal code ‘forced’ upon them… a legal code created by libertarian philosophers. The libertarian philosophers become the overlords!
Rothbard’s concern about ‘buying people out’ reminds me of people who reject private security because the rich will be better protected than the poor. It’s an anti-market view. Just like with security, we should be advocating for legal codes to be market-produced. The libertarian philosophers will compete with each other on the market, because each court will want to say it uses the ‘best’ libertarian code and will therefore pay for the services of libertarian philosophers.
Because of the ‘bargaining process’ Friedman describes, a court which uses a code which endorses killing redheads will not last long. If this is a minority view, it will be prohibitively expensive to set up an anti-redhead court. The major courts have the power to outbid the redhead court. Even if the majority support killing redheads, it may still be prohibitively expensive, because the redheads will probably care much more about not being killed than the majority do about killing them. If virtually everyone supports killing redheads, then maybe such legal codes will be cheap enough to buy. We’ll just have to hope enough people oppose the killing of redheads that it nevers becomes part of a legal code. I am optimistic about how libertarian laws will likely be under anarchy. Theory and history support this view.
Link svp?
Chapter 31 of The Machinery of Freedom: Is anarcho-capitalism libertarian? Also excerpted in the wonderful Anarchy and the Law. I can’t find a link to the chapter itself.
“The “social engineer” is the reformer who is prepared to “liquidate” all those who do not fit into his plan for the arrangement of human affairs.”
sounds familiar, lol.
lol, why should we hope that unless we care about justice?
but i guess you are confused and don’;t know what justice is.
i guess you arent sure why its wrong to kill innocent readheads, nor why redheads buying their lives from their would-be-killers is simply slavery/extortion.
I am pessimistic since the flavour of modern ‘libertarianism’ junks morality, justice, and ‘liberty’…