I’m having a discussion about minarchism vs. anarchy. The supporter of minarchism is a well known LP member… Someone made a point about corporations taking over, which led him to say:
“:Wow this actually is what feeds back into my discussion earlier about justice. I think that if you have a small government that stays within the bounds of the constitution and has checks and balances, then you’re better off. A corporation could buy all the land around you in effect trapping you and then who would protect your natural rights? No, I am still a firmly in the minarchist camp. There is no utopia, only baby steps towards freedom with a berlin wall here and there.”
I view this scenario as unlikely, and fail to see how any government would help even were it to occur. I wrote more, but I wanted to get some input from you guys to follow up with… Any suggestions?
Maybe its just me but I think company’s would be much too busy to start building circles around people. They have much more important things to do, such as satisfying consumer demand…
Quite possibly the second most-tired minarchist argument (the first being: “But who will build the roads?”)…
Government has already done exactly this! It owns all the land, everywhere. And you’re trapped.
Corporations have already co-opted a very large government. Presuming that they couldn’t co-opt a much smaller one is silly.
There is such a thing (and dates back centuries in real property law) known as an “easement”. under the circumstances set forth above, the land-locked individual would be entitled to an easement for use, established by an open and notorious use of the land prior to the sale. The argument presumes there are no free-market protection/dispute resolution agencies in existence.
If there are no PDAs in existence, that means there is nobody to protect the “corporation” from your trespasses.
I’m already aware of the above but what I don’t understand is what something like this (quoted) would look like, how it would work, and how these “resolution agencies” would enforce their decisions should someone else disagree.
Customary Law with Private Means of Resolving Disputes and Dispensing
Justice: A Description of a Modern System of Law and Order without State Coercion
by Bruce L. Benson
Enforcement of Private Property Rights in Primitive Societies: Law without Government
by Bruce L. Benson
Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society
N. Stephan Kinsella
Reciprocal Exchange as the Basis for Recognition of Law: Examples from American History
by Bruce L. Benson*
Anarchism and the Public Goods Issue: Law, Courts, and the Police
by David Osterfeld
Customary Law With Private Means of Resolving Disputes and Dispensing Justice: A Description Of a Modern System of Law and Order Without State Coercion
Bruce L. Benson
THE ROLE OF PERSONAL JUSTICE IN ANARCHO-CAPITALISM
KARL T. FIELDING
Justice Entrepreneurship
In a Free Market*
by George H. Smith
Forum for Philosophical Studies, Los Angeles
ORDER WITHOUT LAW:
WHERE WILL ANARCHISTS KEEP THE MADMEN?
JOHN D. SNEED
European Unification as the New Frontier of Collectivism: The Case for Competitive Federalism and Polycentric Law
Carlo Lottieri
CHAOS THEORY
Two Essays On
Market Anarchy
by
Robert P. Murphy
Before Stefan Molyneux went off the psycho-babble deep end (News flash: just because your wife is a psychiatrist does not qualify you to evaluate everyone else’s “daddy” issues.) he had some good stuff on this topic, in particular an early podcast called “caging the beasts” or something to that effect. Although this deals more with actual crime than with the sort of thing we’re discussing here.
Another angle you can play, is that look: Government already does this, or enables corporations to do this, and then provides them with all sorts of blanket protections/immunities etc. The fact that in a free market, some corporation might do something like this can not be considered sufficient justification for dismissing a free market, since this self-same evil already exists under statist conditions.