Liberty is not the ultimate value

@Autolykos:

From Clayton’s What is Law post:

This definition immediately raises the question of how disputes can be resolved between asymmetrically powerful parties. In modern law systems, the aggressor (accused) has an incentive to resolve the conflict with his victim by means of law because the state will immediately retaliate against the accused for failure to comply with a court trial. In other words, the state offers the options of non-violent dispute resolution or immediate, overwhelming retaliatory violence (appear in court or be arrested or possibly even killed for failure to comply). In a stateless society, it appears that an aggressor would have no incentive to seek non-violent resolution of a dispute with his victim. After all, an aggressor usually will not attack unless he reasonably believes he can get away with the attack in the first place. That is, he has already calculated that he can win a martial contest with the victim.

Therefore, the victim must be able to present a sufficient threat to the accused in order to motivate the aggressor to come to court. That is, both parties must have an incentive to seek a peaceful settlement of the matter. Law and security, then, are inseparable. You cannot have real rights without the capacity to present a real threat to aggressors who refuse peaceful settlement of disputes. In other words, if you steal my television, and I send you a notice saying, “You must appear in court regarding the matter of the theft of my television,” I must also be able to take forcible action in the event you refuse to settle the matter through non-violent means. Otherwise, you will simply ignore my summons.

This seems to be the central flaw of Anarchism in practice, namely that the powerful can avoid justice. I’ve never read anyone suggest anything that seems to mitigate this flaw.

You yourself even suggested that the party obtaining a judgment against an aggressor is the one whom should also carry out the enforcement of the ruling. Implicitly, you think this would become a contract for sale, a sort of enforcement market. Someone with a judgment against another could sell his claim to an enforcer at a discount and leave it to them to enforce it. They would then show up at the defendant’s place, army in tow, and threaten them into paying. Apparently.

That is supposed to be better than simply having a court with coercive ability issue a judgment and have neutral third-parties peaceably sanction bank accounts or property in order to rectify a claim.

It should be noted that none of the coercion used by a court in this process can be categorized as aggression. It would all be responsive coercion in the pursuit of justice. Thus, there are no moral grounds to oppose such an action.