Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I just ordered it. I hope it gets here after finals… otherwise I’ll fail every class.
AJ, I asked Adam, but he hasn’t been able to answer. What other legal code other than ‘do not initiate physical aggression’ ie. property rights are there?
Secondly, what do you think ‘code’ means? I can only assume what Rothbard meant, but it is a very educated guess. Code has various meanings but one is a set of rules or principles. Property rights are of the intellect and is a principle/axiom. Thinking in terms of Rothbard, he therefore meant legal code to mean legal principle, and principles do not vary. Principles are certain and absolute deductively. A theory about a principle can vary though. Therefore the principle - property rights - is certain. It is a legal principle that much is certain. Any theories about property rights may AND have varied in history. The episteme of any theory expands, and may even be subtracted from, added to, or completely aborted. The principles being certain do not disappear because of poor knowledge/theory. The principles (and facts) of any theory simply get absorbed into a better theory if need be. Property rights being a principle/axiom does not disappear but how it is interpreted and applied (both of theory) can change. Scientific theories, even of social theoretics, are open to evalution and improvement if something comes along that has more or better explanatory power (which again is of the theory not the doubting of property rights).
Being objective and subjective has nothing to do with this.
You’re conflating libertarianism with anarchism. As I a modern libertarian I’m driven by passion for morality, justice and liberty. As an anarchist, I recognise that other people have different ideas of what those words mean, and I’m not going to force anyone to live by my conceptions of them.
The problem is property rights exist. They are a metaphysical fact. It would be the theory of property rights because of the ever-growing episteme of the world. That theory of property rights may vary. You gave theories about property rights. Both of the above “legal codes” you put in parenthesis are theories that both can apply to property rights. As you even point out “will interract via a theoretical”… yes theoretical. Legal codes used once by Rothbard is not a hinging factor to explain what he meant other than providing other quotes and facts about what Rothbard explained.
1 - And Rothbard for a fact stated property rights are a principle (which one definition of code is defined as principle).
2 - Rothbard word for word states he is not talking about a monopoly and word for word speaks out against a monopoly.
3 - Rothbard talks about natural rights are based on the individual
4 - Rothbard discusses how law is of the market “only” (quote of his)
To state what Rothbard was explicitly against hinged on a half sentence in an epilogue (i believe so it wasn’t even the main part of his book) and yet to find out that code means principle and Rothbard was talking about principle(s) ie. NAP, property rights, etc…
Another understanding instead of those offered trying to illogically conjecture what Rothbard said in his discussion on Nozick so far would be necessary.
The question is. Are there other principles - other legal codes - that would completely change the theory of natural law of human nature (NAP included), but this theory would still need to include property rights as they are necessary, in other words, a principle. A different application, a different interpretation of property rights may happen but that would be a change in theory not in the principle.
What is your definition of justice? And are you going to enforce it?
no one is advocating ‘forcing’ people to be moral and just.
‘classic libertarians’ (Rothbardians if you will) advocate understanding right from wrong, and using that knowledge to guide action. and also to determine self-defense against unjust non-libertarians.
you are conflating understanding that murdering redheads is wrong, with ‘forcing’ people not to murder redheads.
of course, ‘self-defending’ against red-head killers was not even mentioned by you, (or you twisted defence into forcing others not to abuse you… )there is no ‘forcing’ in defense against evil aggressors. its defence. the killers are the forcers. this is libertarian theory believe it or not…
DF’s full machine: http://is.gd/58ptZ
I addressed this in my post to Adam. But found this;
“The laissez-faireists offer several objections to the idea of free-market defense. One objection holds that, since a free market of exchanges presupposes a system of property rights, therefore the State is needed to define and allocate the structure of such rights. But we have seen that the principles of a free society do imply a very definite theory of property rights, namely, self-ownership and the ownership of natural resources found and transformed by one’s labor. Therefore, no State or similar agency contrary to the market is needed to define or allocate property rights. This can and will be done by the use of reason and through market processes themselves; any other allocation or definition would be completely arbitrary and contrary to the principles of the free society.”
[:)]
You assume they abstain. And what about when they know the praxeological considerations, yet choose to reject them?
"In the first place, while praxeology can indeed demonstrate that laissez-faire will lead to harmony, prosperity, and abundance, while government intervention leads to conflict and impoverishment,19 and while it is probably true that most people value the former highly, it is not true that these are their only goals or values. The great analyst of ranked value scales and diminishing marginal utility should have been more aware of such competing values and goals. For example, many people, whether through envy or a misplaced theory of justice, may prefer far more equality of income than will be attained on the free market. Many people, pace the aforementioned intellectuals, may want less abundance in order to whittle down our allegedly excessive affluence. Others, as I have mentioned, may prefer to loot the capital of the rich or the businessman in the short run, while acknowledging but dismissing the long-run ill effects, because they have a high time preference. Probably very few of these people will want to push statist measures to the point of total impoverishment and destruction—although this may happen, as in the case of Communist China. But a majority coalition of the foregoing might well opt for some reduction in wealth and prosperity on behalf of these other values. They may well decide that it is worth sacrificing a modicum of wealth and efficient production because of the high opportunity cost of not being able to enjoy an alleviation of envy, or a lust for power, or a submission to power, or, for example, the thrill of “national unity,” which they might enjoy from a (short-lived) economic crisis.
What could Mises reply to a majority of the public who have indeed considered all the praxeological consequences and still prefer a modicum—or, for that matter, even a drastic amount—of statism in order to achieve some of their competing goals? As a utilitarian, he could not quarrel with the ethical nature of their chosen goals: for he had to confine himself to the one value judgment that he favored the majority’s achieving their chosen goals. The only reply that Mises could make within his own framework was to point out that government intervention has a cumulative effect, that eventually the economy must move either toward the free market or toward full socialism, which praxeology shows will bring chaos and drastic impoverishment, at least to an industrial society. But this, too, is not a fully satisfactory answer. While many programs of statist intervention—especially price controls—are indeed cumulative, others are not. Furthermore, the cumulative impact takes such a long time that the time preferences of the majority would probably lead them, in full acknowledgment of the consequences, to ignore the effect. And then what?
Mises attempted to use the cumulative argument to answer the contention that the majority of the public prefer egalitarian measures even knowingly at the expense of a portion of their own wealth. Mises’s comment was that the “reserve fund” was on the point of being exhausted in Europe, and therefore that any further egalitarian measures would have to come directly out of the pockets of the masses through increased taxation. Mises assumed that once this became clear, the masses would no longer support interventionist measures.20 In the first place, this is no argument against the previous egalitarian measures or in favor of their repeal. But secondly, while the masses might be convinced, there is certainly no apodictic certainty involved; the masses have in the past and presumably will in the future continue knowingly to support egalitarian and other statist measures on behalf of others of their goals, despite the knowledge that their income and wealth would be reduced. Thus, as William E. Rappard pointed out in his thoughtful critique of Mises’s position:
Does the British voter, for instance, favor confiscatory taxation of large incomes primarily in the hope that it will redound to his material advantage, or in the certainty that it tends to reduce unwelcome and irritating social inequalities? In general, is the urge towards equality in our modern democracies not often stronger than the desire to improve one’s material lot?21
Rappard also noted that in his own country, Switzerland, the urban industrial and commercial majority of the country have repeatedly, and often at popular referendums, endorsed measures to subsidize the minority of farmers in a deliberate effort to retard industrialization and the growth of their own incomes. The urban majority did not do so in the “absurd belief that they were thereby increasing their real income.” Instead, “quite deliberately and expressly, political parties have sacrificed the immediate material welfare of their members in order to prevent, or at least somewhat to retard, the complete industrialization of the country. A more agricultural Switzerland, though poorer, such is the dominant wish of the Swiss people today.”22 The point here is that Mises, not only as a praxeologist but also as a utilitarian liberal, could have no word of criticism against these statist measures once the majority of the public take their praxeological consequences into account and choose them anyway on behalf of goals other than wealth and prosperity.
Furthermore, there are other types of statist intervention that clearly have little or no cumulative effect and that may even have very little effect in diminishing production or prosperity. Let us, for example, assume—and this assumption is not very farfetched in view of the record of human history—that the great majority of a society hate and revile redheads, perhaps, to cite Simons again, because they find redheads “evil or unlovely.” Let us further assume that there are very few redheads in the society. This large majority then decide that they would like very much to murder all redheads. Here they are; the murder of redheads is high on the value scales of the great majority of the public; there are few redheads so that there will be little loss in production on the market. How could Mises rebut this proposed policy either as a praxeologist or as a utilitarian liberal? I submit that he could not do so.
Mises made one further attempt to establish his position, but it was even less successful. Criticizing the arguments for state intervention on behalf of equality or other moral concerns, he dismissed them as “emotional talk.” After reaffirming that “praxeology and economics . . . are neutral with regard to any moral precepts,” and asserting that “the fact that the immense majority of men prefer a richer supply of material goods to a less ample supply is a datum of history; it does not have any place in economic theory,” he concluded by insisting that “he who disagrees with the teachings of economics ought to refute them by discursive reasoning, not by . . . the appeal to arbitrary, allegedly ethical standards.”23
But I submit that this will not do; for Mises would have to concede that no one can decide upon any policy whatever unless he makes an ultimate ethical or value judgment. But since this is so, and since according to Mises all ultimate value judgments or ethical standards are arbitrary, how then could he denounce these particular ethical judgments as “arbitrary”? Furthermore, it was hardly correct for Mises to dismiss these judgments as “emotional,” since for him as a utilitarian, reason cannot establish ultimate ethical principles, which can therefore only be established by subjective emotions. It was pointless for Mises to call for his critics to use “discursive reasoning” since he himself denied that discursive reasoning can be used to establish ultimate ethical values. Furthermore, the man whose ultimate ethical principles would lead him to support the free market could also be dismissed by Mises as equally “arbitrary” and “emotional,” even if he takes the laws of praxeology into account before making his ultimately ethical decision. And we have seen above that the majority of the public very often have other goals which they hold, at least to a certain extent, higher than their own material well-being."
And that’s complete bs. It’s “BASIC Law code” which is as simple as “(requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property)” - the strawmanners have added the word single to try make their fallacious point.
They further lie when they call it a uniform legal code… yet: "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." And it wouldn’t.
The charges are bunk.
Except he’s not. The use of the word monopoly to describe Rothbard’s position is not Austrian, nor correct in any sense of the word and doesn’t stand the light of day.
But what if Jones challenges the finding? In that case, he can either take the case to his X court system, or take it directly to a privately competitive Appeals Court of a type that will undoubtedly spring up in abundance on the market to fill the great need for such tribunals. Probably there will be just a few Appeals Court systems, far fewer than the number of primary courts, and each of the lower courts will boast to its customers about being members of those Appeals Court systems noted for their efficiency and probity. The Appeals Court decision can then be taken by the society as binding. Indeed, in the basic legal code of the free society, there probably would be enshrined some such clause as that the decision of any two courts will be considered binding, i.e., will be the point at which the court will be able to take action against the party adjudged guilty.[4]
Every legal system needs some sort of socially-agreed-upon cutoff point, a point at which judicial procedure stops and punishment against the convicted criminal begins. But a single monopoly court of ultimate decision-making need not be imposed and of course cannot be in a free society; and a libertarian legal code might well have a two-court cutoff point, since there are always two contesting parties, the plaintiff and the defendant.
Have you read No More Military Socialism? I don’t think you have.
Rubbish, just not the type of anarchist you want.
“Let us take, for example, two of the leading anarcho-capitalist works of the last few years: my own For a New Liberty and David Friedman’s Machinery of Freedom. Superficially, the major differences between them are my own stand for natural rights and for a rational libertarian law code, in contrast to Friedman’s amoralist utilitarianism and call for logrolling and trade-offs between non-libertarian private police agencies. But the difference really cuts far deeper. There runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire which in turn is better than the current system. Amidst the entire spectrum of political alternatives, David Friedman has decided that anarcho-capitalism is superior. But superior to an existing political structure which is pretty good too. In short, there is no sign that David Friedman in any sense hates the existing American State or the State per se, hates it deep in his belly as a predatory gang of robbers, enslavers, and murderers. No, there is simply the cool conviction that anarchism would be the best of all possible worlds, but that our current set-up is pretty far up with it in desirability. For there is no sense in Friedman that the State – any State – is a predatory gang of criminals.”
No.
Not natural laws, or natural rights (normative).
Sharia Law? Hell no.
Natural Law.
Ahh lol, from Rothbard’s Review of Freedom and the Law by Leoni, that was footnote 13 above.
"Leoni’s great contribution is to point out to even our staunchest laissez-faire theorists an alternative to the tyranny of legislation. Rather than accept either administrative law or legislation, Leoni calls for a return to the ancient traditions and principles of “judge-made law” as a method of limiting the State and insuring liberty. In the Roman private law, in the Continental Civil Codes, in the Anglo-Saxon common law, “law” did not mean what we think today: endless enactments by a legislature or executive. “Law” was not enacted but found or discovered; it was a body of customary rules that had, like languages or fashions, grown up spontaneously and purely voluntarily among the people. These spontaneous rules constituted “the law”; and it was the works of experts in the law—old men of the tribe, judges, or lawyers—to determine what the law was and how the law would apply to the numerous cases in dispute that perpetually arise.
If legislation is replaced by such judge-made law, says Leoni, fixity and certainty (one of the basic requirements of the “rule of law”) will replace the capriciously changing edicts of statutory legislation. The body of judge-made law changes very slowly; furthermore, since judicial decisions can only be made when parties bring cases before the courts, and since decisions properly apply only to the particular case, judge-made law—in contrast to legislation—permits a vast body of voluntary, freely-adopted rules, bargains, and arbitrations to proliferate as needed in society. Leoni brilliantly shows the analogy between these free rules and bargains, which truly express the “common will” of all participants, and the voluntary bargains and exchanges of the free market.[2] The twin of the free-market economy, then, is not a democratic legislature ever grinding out new diktats for society, but a proliferation of voluntary rules interpreted and applied by experts in the law."
Force? Hilarious.
Rothbard: “In a free society, as we have stated, every man is a selfowner. No man is allowed to own the body or mind of another, that being the essence of slavery.”
Trulib: “Why can’t you buy and sell people? It’s an anti-market view!”
This is close to what I stipulated above in response to Adam. What needs to be noted is your assumption that this would not take place in the Rothbardian “system” is false, as it’s clearly not a unified legal system.
They do some what with “Roman private law, in the Continental Civil Codes, in the Anglo-Saxon common law”, but what about Sharia Law and other instances of natural rights / human rights being violated by the legal system as being supported by the culture / society, do you have any political ethical objections?
Anyway, what needs to be remembered is:
Another common objection to the workability of free-market defense wonders: May not one or more of the defense agencies turn its coercive power to criminal uses? In short, may not a private police agency use its force to aggress against others, or may not a private court collude to make fraudulent decisions and thus aggress against its subscribers and victims? It is very generally assumed that those who postulate a stateless society are also naïve enough to believe that, in such a society, all men would be “good,” and no one would wish to aggress against his neighbor. There is no need to assume any such magical or miraculous change in human nature.
Of course, some of the private defense agencies will become criminal, just as some people become criminal now. But the point is that in a stateless society there would be no regular, legalized channel for crime and aggression, no government apparatus the control of which provides a secure monopoly for invasion of person and property. When a State exists, there does exist such a built-in channel, namely, the coercive taxation power, and the compulsory monopoly of forcible protection. In the purely free-market society, a would-be criminal police or judiciary would find it very difficult to take power, since there would be no organized State apparatus to seize and use as the instrumentality of command. To create such an instrumentality de novo is very difficult, and, indeed, almost impossible; historically, it took State rulers centuries to establish a functioning State apparatus.
Furthermore, the purely free-market, stateless society would contain within itself a system of built-in “checks and balances” that would make it almost impossible for such organized crime to succeed. There has been much talk about “checks and balances” in the American system, but these can scarcely be considered checks at all, since every one of these institutions is an agency of the central government and eventually of the ruling party of that government. The checks and balances in the stateless society consist precisely in the free market, i.e., the existence of freely competitive police and judicial agencies that could quickly be mobilized to put down any outlaw agency.
It is true that there can be no absolute guarantee that a purely market society would not fall prey to organized criminality. But this concept is far more workable than the truly Utopian idea of a strictly limited government, an idea that has never worked historically. And understandably so, for the State’s built-in monopoly of aggression and inherent absence of free-market checks have enabled it to burst easily any bonds that well-meaning people have tried to place upon it. Finally, the worst that could possibly happen would be for the State to be reestablished. And since the State is what we have now, any experimentation with a stateless society would have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Why would he, he was a natural law libertarian after all?
I don’t think the man was stuck, I think he was putting forth the (his, at least) ideal libertarian legal code. Not necessarily saying that anarcho-capitalism can only be founded upon the code. Just as a Catholic anarchist would prefer all courts to follow Canon law, Rothbard would prefer Natural Law. Without society can still be anarcho-capitalist (as Friedman has shown) just less libertarian or Catholic.
And what about when they know the natural-rights considerations, yet choose to reject them?
Both the praxeologist and the natural-rights proponent are protected to some extent by a legal system that deters some types of harmful acts. Thus, both the praxeologist and the natural-rights proponent, as citizens, are able to deter harmful acts to some extent, due to the existing legal system, or due to the legal system either would choose were he free to do so.
In addition to the consequences of legal punishment which both the praxeologist and the natural-rights proponent can avail themselves of in order to deter harmful acts, the praxeologist, as social scientist, can also demonstrate in what way the acts the harmer was intending are also harmful to the harmer’s own interests (above and beyond the mere punishment the legal system may administer).
The significance of Mises’s praxeology and of Menger’s theoretical exact science, the pillars of Austrian School social thought, is that this approach provides a scientific demonstration to the actor of the ways some of his intended acts are harmful to himself. This provides the actor with an additional reason, above and beyond threatened punishment, to abstain from some of the acts he was considering.
And thus, for example, though both legislative houses in the US are controlled by those who by ideology would favor protectionism and higher wages mandated by law, they abstain from any significant tariff program or minimum wage increase, since they (rightly) believe it will harm the classes of citizens they are trying to help. And, though the present monetary authorities have both the means and legal authority to continue printing ever more money, which they could use for pressing social concerns, they are fearful of doing so. Instead, they are searching for ways to curtail further significant monetary expansion.
In these areas in which value-free economics instructs, people who would otherwise be acting much more harmfully than they are, abstain from doing so not because of threatened punishment from the legal system, and not because of any socialist, religious, or libertarian theory of norms.
They abstain because they believe the consequences of these actions would be harmful to their own interests. And they believe this because of value-free economic science, which is essentially the logical science of human “catallactic” action.
Thus, the value-free social scientist can assert consequences to human actions above and beyond the penalty the legal system might administer. Value-free social science can demonstrate other consequences that the actor may consider harmful to his own interests. These consquences are “extra-legal” consequences. If science demonstrates them, and once this type of cause and effect knowledge becomes generally accepted (as much of it has in the economic sphere), then people abstain from harmful acts peacefully, and of their own accord, since they believe the acts would harm themselves (would be detrimental to their own interests).
To the extent that social science can demonstrate how actions the individual intended are harmful to his own interests, and to the extent the individual abstains from specific actions due to this knowledge, then to this extent government intervention isn’t necessary to constrain individual behavior.
Thus, the advance of value-free social science is related to a decrease in government intervention. Because value-free science provides that information (scientific knowledge) which causes the individual to abstain from harmful acts without the need to resort to government intervention.
What is needed in the ethical realm of human action is not more normative theories. What is needed in the ethical realm of action is value-free science that can demonstrate how various ethical actions (for example, coercion and dishonesty) harm the interests of those who utilize these social means.
As in the economic realm of human action, if science can demonstrate the necessary consequences of ethical acts, then actors can be expected to abstain from specific types of harmful ethical acts of their own accord, and without the need to resort to government intervention.
This does not eliminate harmful social acts absolutely. But it diminishes harmful social acts without the need for government intervention.
To the extent we cannot tell the actor: Your intended act X will harm your own interests…
Then, if we wish him to abstain from act X, we must say to him: If you undertake act X, we will harm your interests…
This latter is essentially government, i.e., threatened punishment.
Thus, what is needed is to extend the science envisioned by Menger and Mises beyond the catallactic realm of human action (those actions conceiveable in terms of exchange ratios and money prices), and into other realms of human action such as the ethical realm. The advance of Austrian School theoretical science beyond economics goes hand in hand with freedom (non-intervention) in the ethical (political) realm of human action as opposed to merely freedom in the economic (catallactic) realm of human action.
In other words, instead of only having freedom in the economic realm (freedom to buy and sell), we desire freedom in the ethical/political realm (freedom to politically associate). And this can happen when people abstain more and more from harmful ethical actions such as dishonesty and coercion, of their own accord, because they believe these actions harm themselves. This is why Menger’s exact science and Mises’s praxeology are important.
Conza88, some really good quotes and analysis.
yes - in liberty people incline to do such things. When there is liberty there is peace.
And what would such a theory based on the consequences of coercion, dishonesty pronounce as its contraieties?
The use of the word “government” in this instance is a drawback that excludes any type of justice in a free society. It muddies what you are trying to say. I suggest more clarity on your part here. You point out that criminals will be around in a free society and I ask what else does one do to criminals other than stop them by enacting self-defense (which has various forms that include simply verbally stating, “Stop” all the way on the other end of the spectrum of needing to apply violence to them before they murder an innocent) and then the following appropiate repercussions ie. ostracized, paying a fine, etc…
Even saying “stop” to an innocent child may prevent them from mingling with the wrong crowd. That need not be construed as a monopoly or a governmental action on a child’s life. That need not be construed that the child is even a criminal. That’s merely called good parenting.
A good education is one way of preventing a person from going off-course from their own individual moral compass. In liberty with good guidance, a developing individual has the opportunity to discover their own good path in life.
Here, again, is the quote by Rothbard: “…the basic Law Code…would have to be agreed upon by all judicial agencies…” “Any agencies that transgressed the basic…code would be open outlaws and aggressors…” (The Ethics of Liberty, p. 236-237)
You’re right - he doesn’t say single. But he says “the”, meaning only one. And by saying all judicial agencies have to agree, he is implying that there are no variations between different courts’ legal codes (only their interpretation of it).
How much detail is there in the basic legal code in your view? You say it could be simply requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property but this depends on what is considered a person’s rightful property. I think Rothbard meant property meaning rightful property as he defines it (acquired by homesteading, production or voluntary exchange).
So what if a court wanted to have a different rule for defining rightful property - for example, suppose they believe in Rothbard’s rules in all cases except water. This court believes, for some reason, that water is always the “property of the Earth” - so if A takes some water from B, this is simply not a crime, because B has no better claim to the water than A, in the view of this court. Now - would Rothbard call this an outlaw court? I think he would, even though this court is abiding by the basic legal code (it simply has a different definition of invasion/aggression/property).
If the basic legal code does not define what rightful property is, then a court can define it any way it wants. In this case, I don’t see how it is possible to have an outlaw court (they’re all just ‘different’ courts), and I don’t see what the courts would be ‘agreeing’ to. Surely Rothbard meant for the legal code to be more narrow, namely requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property according to the libertarian definitions of property and invade.
Without this stipulation, the basic legal code is a non-concept. As wilderness pointed out here…
… any legal code can be framed in terms of property rights. Every legal code will be based on a version of the NAP. It all depends on how property rights are defined.
So - my question to you is. Is the basic legal code:
- Narrow - requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property according to the libertarian definitions of property and invade - in which case, any court deviating from libertarian principles is an “outlaw court”.
- or Broad - requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property - in which case, what is it the courts are agreeing to exactly (since every legal code fits this basic legal code)? And how could a court ever be an “outlaw court”?
I hadn’t. Thank you for the link.
This one I’ve read. I agree with most of it. I hate the State, and I think Rothbard’s arguments for libertarianism are stronger than Friedman’s. I don’t see how it’s relevant to this discussion though.
So if a bunch of people in Rothbardia want to live under Sharia law, can they? Will the libertarian courts just call the Sharia courts “outlaws”? Or will there be a Friedmanite bargaining process where two courts try to outbid each other over whether cases between their respective clients are tried under libertarian law or Sharia law?
Of course. But what do you propose to do about it? Use force to make them live under libertarian law, or leave them be and stick to persuasion?
sure, viz. each other.
only if the sharia courts support their customers in the committing of crimes against customers of libertarian courts.
the bargaining between those who would wish to be unjust and those who would be treated justly should only flow one way. that is, the prima-facie unjust actors, could hope to make their actions just by offering to pay the other parties as compensation to allow them to do the act, and if they strike a deal they will succeed to perform the acts within the mode of justice, else they must refrain or be unjust.
if sharia customers want to stone adulterers signed up to libertarian courts then i do propose that there will be occasions when force would be legitimately used against them. this is no more suprising than to say that robinson crusue and man friday, if one were to try to kill the other, the would be victim would apply defensive force in justice
What I was pointing out is that ‘property right’ is a legal code. Understanding property begins byt theorizing upon what ‘mine and thine’ is. I say theorizing because no matter the origin of how ethics arises ie. moral feelings, god-given, or thoughts etc… what we know is what we are talking about here. The distinction between mine and thine is a distinction between two differing properties ie. his property, her property, etc… What we know about ‘mine and thine’ - the theory that tries to determine and thus deliberate upon the metaphysical fact that there is a ‘mine and thine’ is where variance may happen. Let me focus on your two questions here and see what I think.
Narrow - I would say the evalution of any particular court to be identified as a “outlaw court” would be a court that deviates from property rights. Hypothetically speaking, but also based on a prior, a court may be identified as “outlaw” by free marketers who may find the service provided by the court to be at odds with their individual desire to retain a free society. They simply may not shop there. Of course if the “outlaw court” further proves it’s actions are at odds with the free society by overt coercion, then self-defense is appropiate to stop the growing threat. This would all hopefully, thus the hypothetical based on principles of what a free society is, be stopped by the free market process before any conflict - way before - any conflict happens. The free market doesn’t like it’s service and over time it loses profit and simply dissolves. If some grand conspiracy is ever able to get off the ground before market forces stop any outlaw for that matter, then self-defense is an appropiate last resort.
Broad - An outlaw court would deviate from what a free society has deliberated upon, that is as long as enough people are present to evade with a free market process or if necessary self-defense to make a difference in detering a criminal, in this case a court that has deviated from what enough liberty-minded/hearted, people deliberate upon.
In both the narrow and broad approach the deliberation upon what is appropiately considered liberty, justice, and retains the aspiring effort of what a free market/society is, such a deliberation is considered by any number of individuals. What is understood as an “outlaw court” in the narrow and broad is deliberated upon a knowledgable society that has come to terms as to what the retainment of liberty requires. It is the passing of ideas, hugs not thugs, and profitable exchanges between individuals that shape the growing theory as to what ‘mine and thine’ is. The innovation of the computer is one example that obviously historical clarification and theorizing will not shed light on. Property rights are a beginning of the process in determining what is ‘mine and thine’ on the internet, but theorizing and applying this is as new as the computer and internet itself.
Did that answer your questions? If not I apologize and maybe another go might be necessary, let me know.
Trulib:
These are all valid points. And the point I’ve been trying to make is that we don’t even have to go outside of libertarianism to make your point. Because there is no unanimity about what constitutes property and aggression even within libertarianism.
Rothbard’s early associate, Ayn Rand, believed that both patents and copyrights were legitimate property, and anyone violating them would be an aggressor. Rothbard himself believed that only copyrights were legitimate property, and one is only an aggressor if one violates a copyright, but not if one violates a patent. Now, followers of Rothbard believe that the very institutions of patent and copyright are themselves a form of aggression, and that one is not an aggressor for violating either a patent or a copyright.
So here are three different definitions of what constitutes property and aggression. These constitute, in essence, three different legal codes. And this is not only within libertarianism. The definition of property and aggression differs significantly amongst associates and followers of Rothbard himself. There is no agreed upon libertarian definition of property and aggression. It depends on which libertarian we are referring to.
(here, we need not consider all the other possible libertarian-related schools or philosophies, such as anti-property anarchists, anti-hierarchy anarchists, etc… They will all have their own ideas and normative theories on what constitutes “just property” and what constitutes “aggression”)
There simply is no agreed upon libertarian legal code. There are many factions and schools within libertarianism and anarchism, and each have their own notions of just property, of aggression, of justice, fairness, morality, immorality, etc…
But the determination of prima-facie unjust depends on what “just” means. The libertarian court will say its prima-facie unjust to stone adulterers. The Sharia court will say its prima-facie unjust for adulterers to object to being stoned, because stoning is fair punishment for adultery. I agree this will be resolved by one party paying the other party off in some sense - i.e. the Friedman bargaining process. But it could easily be the case that the adulterer pays compensation to the stoners to refrain, if adultery is generally considered unjust (i.e. if the Sharia courts are able to outbid the libertarian courts, which may be the case if Sharia law is more popular than libertarian law).
I underlined what the legal code is. You even point out in your own statement that all three are referring to property. It is the theorizing of property rights that is happening.
No. These are three different theories based on one legal code ie. property rights. You even said yourself all three are based on property.
wilderness-
What legal code isn’t based on property rights? In Rand’s theory an inventor owns his idea. In Sharia theory men own their wives. In a hypothetical redhead-killing theory redheads do not own their own bodies. All these are property rights theories. You asked this yourself earlier the thread. Do you think the answer is that no legal code not based on property rights can conceivably exist?