Can anybody on this board think of any problems that might arise from obliging people to serve in the militia if they want to be citizens in a minarchist state or if they want to live in an ancap community? I can understand problems that might arise if somebody already owns property in a given area, but what if you move to a new area. Could the homeowner´s association require people who purchase property in a given area to supply their own arms and train with them X times a month or something like that?
I should be clear in saying that I’m not questioning whether one should be obliged to serve in the military, as is the case in Switzerland, but rather that people could not be citizens.
Regarding a minarchist state (or any other state, for that matter), whether there are “problems” with that requirement depends on what your values are. But in the specific case of a classically liberal minarchist state, the citizenship granted from military service cannot change one’s liability for torts. Instead, it can only provide inclusion within certain political activities, such as eligibility for various government positions.
The Roman Republic worked much this way, given what we know of the cursus honorum. Also, the Roman Empire (if not also the Republic) granted Roman citizenship to foreigners who served in its military.
Now in the absence of a state, I don’t see how HOAs could exist as we know them today. Purchasing a home there would necessarily mean gaining allodial title to it. The only lien that could prima facie apply would be from the bank that’s providing financing for the mortgage. With that said, the bank could require you to follow certain rules to maintain the property at a certain level for the duration of the mortgage. Such rules may be similar in some ways to those of an HOA.
I think it’s safe to say that, in a given market transaction, the seller cannot retain a lien on what is sold.
A homeowners association could not, unless you didn’t really own the house but the association did.
But let me take my favorite example: me owning a small town, and renting out property to tenants at given conditions. Could I make them serve in a militia? Perhaps (I could cancel the contract at any time, and only stiff penalties would convince most to risk their life).
But should I? I cannot think of a single good reason to do it. You would like to pay a whole lot less for your house if you could be called at any time to get killed. Wouldn’t I, the landlord, have been better off by charging more, and using part of the money to pay decent, well-trained mercenaries? Of course I would, the division of labor works in killing people as in every other field.
To my understanding of history, you get drafted into a militia. You receive the minimum amount of training conceivable, are whisked away from your home very now and then to sleep in the mud and, should war break out, they put you in the line of fire, to fight an enemy probably much more trained than you.
A guerilla band, on the other hand, cannot draft anyone. Sure, it can coerce resources from the population, but such abuses are limited by the need to keep the pops friendly. A multitude of small bands, with no central command, can experiment with ways to hit the enemy hard, and could even conceivably turn their activity into a market service of protection. A guerilla campaign is the closest think I can imagine to a free market in defense.
HOA-s are a purely crypto-statist concept. It is the same thing as the constitutionalist/scepticist “give power to states instead of feds” shout line, only on smaller scale.HOA-s are a purely crypto-statist concept. It is the same thing as the constitutionalist/scepticist “give power to states instead of feds” shout line, only on smaller scale.
I think that anarcho-capitalist militas are very important. There shouldn’t be any conscription because that’s just agains the free-market priniciple of self-ownership.
I agree. I don’t see how anyone could serve on a HOA and still believe that the state can solve people’s problems.
In their current form, sure. But if all houses are owned in common by everyone in the neighborhood, as in a mutual company, and you merely rent ‘yours’, than HOAs would be fully libertarian. I don’t think they’d survive competition for long, but they need not be mini-states.
