I’m having a hard time understanding this one. Seems like the court system would be rigged by payoffs and bribes. What am I missing here?
Public courts are also rigged, but private courts (they already exist as private arbitration companies) must always face the possibility of the loss of revenue and profit when consumers inevitably find out about corruption. As in all other markets, competition is the best regulator.
I also used to have some trouble comprehending free market courts. That was until I read Rothbards ‘For a new Liberty’, in which he has a very good chapter on provatized courts/police/and law in general.
The adioversion of that chapter can be founde here.
Public courts are also rigged, but private courts (they already exist as private arbitration companies) must always face the possibility of the loss of revenue and profit when consumers inevitably find out about corruption. As in all other markets, competition is the best regulator.
Right, but suppose there is a dispute between Joe and Jack. Joe wishes to take Jack to court to settle. Would Jack have any say in what private arbiter would settle the dispute? Couldn’t Joe bribe Court A to rule in his favor and refuse to settle in Court B, even though Jack prefers Court B?
Both parties would need to agree on what court was to be used. A bribe is always possible, but bad business strategy. The courts that accepted bribes would likely lose business very fast. No one wants to go to a court that is known for accepting bribes.
“the answer is within the question” (Twin Peaks). Courts ARE rigged by bribes. So the only solution is private courts, which would face the massive competition.
Only public courts can be rigged with bribes and payoffs. Private courts are voluntary, therefore, both parties are only there because they actually intend to find a resolution to their dispute, in the first place.
Clayton -
Only public courts can be rigged with bribes and payoffs. Private courts are voluntary, therefore, both parties are only there because they actually intend to find a resolution to their dispute, in the first place.
Clayton -
OK, it makes sense now. You can take me to court to settle a dispute, but not coercively-- I have to agree, and obviously I won’t agree to a crooked court system. Makes sense. Thanks guys.
Question: so what happens if one person doesn’t agree to go to court? For example you accuse me of stealing and I didn’t so I don’t think it’s worth my time to go. Or I just plain don’t want to.
The case could be tried in absentia. It would probably be in your best interest to defend yourself though. But without your presence, lets say the judge finds you innocent. Then you’re off the hook. If, however, you are found to be guilty, you would likely be sent a bill for the damages. Refuse to pay that, and it would go to a collection agency. At that point, banks would refuse to deal with you, and your credit score would be painfully low.
For a violent crime (as opposed to theft), it wouldn’t be unreasonable for force to be used against you if you refused to comply after being found guilty.
@pentahedron: Excellent question. Two parties can only have an incentive to settle a dispute if they are sufficiently close to parity in terms of security to be uncertain about the outcome of a martial contest. In other words, if I’m a 6ft. 250lb. solid muscle man who has killed in the past and you are a weak old man with no family and you want me to go to court because I stole your watch, I will simply laugh. You are no threat to me whatsoever so I cannot possibly have any incentive to go to court.
This is, I think, part of the reason people accept the idea that we need an all-powerful State court who can coerce anyone, however strong, to go to court. I think it’s a flawed reason but it’s a better explanation than some others.
Clayton -
So all I need to do is hit the gym for a few months, increase my bench press and squat, and then I’m safe to commit petty crimes?
How does the market overcome this?
I always point out to skeptical friends of mine (okay, some of them are now convinced) that there is no aspect of a public court which insulates it from bribery.
Private courts operate on a profit/loss basis, so even if a bribery would give immediate revenue it would mean a loss of business from that point on.
When I think of how private courts would operate, I tend to think in terms of a group of contractors acting like the jury (yes, I am thinking in somewhat agorist terms here). The reason I think this would work out better is because each juror would act as a check on power on each other. It would be difficult to bribe a dozen arbiters simultaneously without one of them calling foul. The ones that do would gain a better reputation for being less corrupt, so each person would in effect be competing to find a part of the picture that everyone else missed, giving everyone an incentive to get the case right the first time.
This would be much better than what we have now. Private courts can better prioritize which cases matter the most and how much time to spend on them, so the bureaucracy we see in today’s courts would mostly fade into nonexistence.
If you commit a petty crime you become the potential enemy of literally anyone that could become a victim. Which means that even if you have the might to commit crimes you could end up with an entire community turning against you for their own safety.
With this in mind I doubt the return on petty crimes would make it worthwhile if everyone else would be justified in shooting back if they felt the need to.
One thing I didn’t understand is how if one party is ultimately assured of another’s guilt and the other part is fairly certain that he isn’t guilty and doesn’t want to spend money or take the time to go to court, what would your recourse be then? Would the DRO just review the case and determine if the detractor is worthy of blacklisting?
@Clayton & Mikachussetts
Thanks. I guess that makes sense. I know I asked this question before a while ago but I don’t remember the response, but what about things like search warrants and/or you know a violent crime is about to happen in X’s home, who would have to authority to issue a warrant to intervene before an incident can occur?
but this scenario sort of exists in a two person vacuum. I think other people would treat you differently if you went around stealing poor old people’s watches.
Also you don’t need blood family to have heirs. There could be a sort of lonely old dude mutual aide society. Everybody promises to leave whatever they own to the society when they die, and in return they get protection. Suspect they might get donations from people as well.
Search warrants would be a little like repossession… if you don’t make promised payments on something it’s no longer yours, ownership reverts to the person who you were buying it from and he is empowered to use force to recover his property. A similar kind of property argument could be made in the case of property searches for evidence, and so on. However, it is beyond doubt that the investigative powers of two private parties involved in an arbitrated dispute would be massively less than that possessed by the modern state and its socialist courts. But these powers invariably consist in blatant violations of property rights. Nevertheless, private investigative services would likely be more effective than our wonderful heroic public investigators (see The Other Guys for a hilarious take on this!) even with all their overkill powers to invade our homes on a whim.
Well, I don’t think that property rights are inviolable in some kind of Platonic sense. If you are about to commit a crime - on your own property - the fact that you’re on your property won’t be a sufficient argument in court for you to justify taking recourse against me for having gone onto your property to stop you from committing that crime. But I better be damn sure since if I really am trespassing, then I’m up the proverbial creek in a natural order society. This means it would be difficult for me to just call buddies along because even if I’m sure, they may not be willing to take the risk onto themselves.
Clayton -
@Joe: Of course, I absolutely agree. The Somalis have a clan society that has a smallest unit of four men that act as a sort of mutual-aid or crime-insurance group (all four men are liable for the costs of any tort committed by any one member of the group). There is a Native American tribe described by David Friedman in one of his books that has a similar sort of mutual-aid/crime-insurance organization.
I was speaking in the abstract… if one party has absolutely nothing to fear from the other party, then arbitration cannot occur since the invulnerable party has no possible incentive to come to terms. If you think about it, this is the state of affairs in most court cases in the modern world! The Hobbesian Leviathan is exactly this nightmare scenario of an invulnerable party coming to court against a completely vulnerable party. All disputes which are prosecuted publicly are disputes with the State, (all criminal disputes and more and more civil disputes are being criminalized every day) and the State, being invulnerable, is ultimately dictating the outcome of the dispute since the State actually has nothing to fear from not settling any of its disputes.
Clayton -