This seems to be (at least for me), one of the hardest aspects of ancap to grasp. Just a couple questions about private court theory:
How do the two parties reach a consensus over which court to use?
How does the court ensure neutrality in its cases?
If someone was suing another person then they’d just sue them in the court of their choice. The person can protest it or not. If they did protest then they could find another court. If the guy refused to accept any choices then the plaintiff could just go ahead and have the trial held in whatever court he wanted. The defendant is free to not attend the trial if they so wanted but it would make it very difficult for them to win. If the person was accused of a crime such as murder then you could have the same thing happen.
There will likely be cases of courts being corrupt and partial but then how would that be different than the state run courts? The key to this is that the private courts must maintain their marketability and that rest on how the public perceives them. If they have a track record of being partial to this person or that company then their honesty and impartiality will be called into question and they will lose clients. Their business is honesty and impartiality and if they compromise that then they will go out of business. Also remember that even the courts can be held liable for rights violations. If they punished a person that was actually innocent then they could be brought up on charges themselves. No one is immune under anarchy. Unlike today where people are found guilty and later proven to be innocent the judge, the DA, the jury and everyone else connected to that case aren’t held responsible for destroying a persons life. Under anarchy everyone will be responsible if they punished the wrong person. That too will make people be extra cautious when making a ruling.
First, consider a criminal case.
Suppose person A hires police/court XYZ and person B hires police/court UVW.
If XYZ and UVW agree on the proper resolution, then there’s no problem.
If XYZ and UVW disagree, then they hire a third court, RST. Then, RST resolves the dispute.
In a free market, police protection and insurance may be bundled together. If necessary, XYZ will compensate A for their loss while UVW compensates B for his loss, if it’s truly impossible to determine who is responsible.
Also remember that “compensation-based justice” is different from “revenge-based justice”. For example, in the present, a court can only rule “guilty” or “not guilty”. In a free market court, there could be a ruling that says “With probability 10%, B murdered A”, in which case B owes 10% of the fine/penalty for a murder. In that case, XYZ would be responsible for reimbursing A for the remaining 90%.
XYZ and UVW won’t let a dispute escalate to all-out war. If they did that, they would lose their customers. If the dispute was truly un-resolvable, they would write it off as a loss. If UVW made biased rulings in favor of its customers, then it would be shut down by its competitors. In the present, the State is a corrupt protection agency that makes biased rulings in favor of its customers. If you say “What happens if a rogue police agency imposes its will violently?” The answer is that, if that happens, you have a State, which is exactly what’s happening now.
Second, consider a civil case, regarding breach of contract. In that case, a contract would usually specify what court had jurisdiction.
Free market competition ensures fairness of courts. All decisions are public and scrutinized. If a court habitually makes bad decisions, it will lose its customers.
In the present, judges and State employees are absolutely immune if they do something wrong. As the above example stated, suppose a person is wrongly convicted of a crime and spends 10 years in jail. The police, prosecutor, and judge face no negative consequences for their mistake. The victim usually can’t collect compensation for the 10 stolen years of his life. Suppose Congress passes an illegitimate law banning possession of marijuana. The people who write and enforce illegitimate laws suffer no negative consequences.
If somebody makes a claim against me, I would be free to ignore defending myself. The plaintiff would be free to defame me and make any allegations he wanted. Thus, ruining my reputation and forever making my life difficult. I have an incentive to defend myself against the initial claim.
On the other hand, if the defamation is made in such a stupid manner – for instance, in the court of The National Enquirer – nobody is going to take the claim seriously. The claimant has an incentive to defend his claim seriously with a reputable court.
That isn’t the way the State works. If you receive a subpeona to appear in court, you HAVE to go! (unless you’re Karl Rove, who may do as he pleases)
With true free market justice, a court appearance won’t be the huge burden it is now. Simple trials would be resolved quickly.
Of course, if someone made a frivolous charge, you can safely ignore them. If an illegitimate police force attempted to kidnap/arrest you, then your police protection agency would defend you.
I realize that. I am talking about how courts may work in Anarckapia.
Contract insurance
1- Every exchange is a contract
2- To avoid conflicts, people will buy contract insurance
3- Insurance companies will have a direct financial incentive to enforce contracts - or else they must indemnify the victim
4- Ins. co’s would stipulate in their contracts with customers how disputes are resolved, which courts would be used, etc.
5- Any court or ins. co that was unfair, biased, or corrupt would lose all of its customers and go bankrupt - business suicide.
6- Any customer who refuses to honour their contract and accept the court’s decision would be ostracized and blacklisted.
Private protection
1- Protection from coercion is an economic good
2- People will buy protection services from insurance companies, who have a financial incentive to eliminate crime - they must indemnify crime victims
3- Insurance companies will have a direct financial incentive to enforce contracts - or else they must indemnify the victim
4- Ins. co’s would stipulate in their contracts with customers how disputes are resolved, which courts would be used, etc.
5- Any court or ins. co that was unfair, biased, or corrupt would lose all of its customers and go bankrupt - business suicide.
6- Any customer who refuses to honour their contract and accept the court’s decision would be ostracized and blacklisted.
Even if people do not have insurance, remember: resolving disputes peacefully is the cheapest way. Fighting is expensive. So, disputants have an incentive to reach a consensus.
Neutrality can never be ‘ensured’, no one can garuntee the absence of corruption any more than that of crime. But there are certain corrective elements within the market. Even if imperfections, problems and questionable scenarios can be imagined it is important to keep in mind that the market may not be ‘perfect’, but it’s as good as you’re going to get. This stems from the fact that it is essentially based on rationality; communication and argumentation with objective premises on which to deal with questions about scarce resources. The market is not simply an option, it really is the only option. But, like everything, the market is subject to the decisions that individual people make.
Not that I discourage the activity, but I find these arguments over An-Cap provision of presently-State-services to be a bit unecessary from a position of economic logic. It is a fact that State’s can not work, and even if we can not explain away all problems we certainly can’t solve them by resorting to systematic arbitrary violence.
I think one concept that a lot of people fail to recognize, is that in accordance with NAP, you could never be compelled to attend a trial.
Most people just stop thinking once they hear this, and assume that murderous rapists and bank robbers would simply not show up, and get a free pass. Most people stop the analysis here, without really examining how the entire system would work, especially with regards to mutual contracts, indemnification, blacklisting, and private property right.
You could, of course, be convicted in absentia, and the judgment against you would stand of record. Everyone with whom you have existing arrangments would probably be very put off by this. Grocers may refuse to permit you in their buildings, people who own the roads (yes, people would own the roads!) might refuse to grant you access to the thoroughfares and highways, etc. The same sort of punishment by social ostracism might very well be meted out against anyone determined to have filed frivolous suit against you, so there is a check against malicious defamations, and attempts at extortion.
FSK, i bring this up in response to your posting not because I think you make this mistake, but because it seemed like a good place to tack on these details.
In the vast majority of cases, ostractism should suffice to enforce verdicts. Initially, this is how agorists will have to operate before they have their own police forces.
If the agorist community becomes succesful, then police won’t be able to enforce State actions against agorists. Policemen who enforce a corrupt law would be barred from the free market! At this point, the State has already lost.
However, there will always be some incorrigible violent criminals. They will need to be detained violently. There will always be a demand for some police, although probably not as much as in the present.
Agreed. NAP and estoppel can accommodate this if the cards are played correctly…