I’m new to AnCap and understand free markets pretty well but don’t understand one thing about private law:
If a criminal commits a crime, and the victim contacts his Law/Defense Agency (I imagine the two could be effectively merged in a single company, or at least tight bonds between the two would be established, but I digress) to arrange for a trial, and the criminal is then apprehended, what happens if he does not agree to whatever court is being employed. Does private law not require some mutual agreement on who provides it? Do criminals have a right to preference for a ‘fair’ trial? If he does then couldn’t he just fillibuster his way into old age and avoid restitution by dodging the establishment of a third-party?
I feel things like this are rather complex, because you could have more than one answer. Yes, let’s say the criminal gets a lawyer or attorney, and goes through the regular process, and the problem is not finding a court both parties agree on, well, if that’s the case for all you know that district has a default court and judge for when that happens, and seeing how the criminal is an aggressor his choices in this are limited. Let’s say there are 3 choices in or around that district, and he doesn’t choose any of them, then it could be default for that district that it must fall on one of them in a certain time, etc. Either way, I don’t see some criminal pushing back time as much as possible, the courts now do that already, so I’d expect the private courts to not put up with that type of behavior.
I would say that yes, the accused would have to agree to the judge before whom he will be tried. But in the event he keeps refusing, consider the following:
If you were an insurance company, would you provide insurance for such a person (without very high premiums)?
If you were an employer, would you hire such a person?
If you were a bank, would you lend money to such a person?
In short, someone who shows that they don’t care for the property of others and constantly shirks trial isn’t going to find someone who wants to contract with them very easily - and if he keeps refusing to be tried by reputable judges, it could only be interpreted as deceptive behaviour. This really sucks for that person if private protection relies on long-term contractual arrangements.
I used to have a problem with this as well until a month or so ago. I think it’s a wisp left over from the statist mindset. Because the statist mindset has us believe that law and order are some “law-of-physics” power that government has, we tend to overlook the true psychological reasons for why the system lives on. The system works because we think it does. Ultimately, there is nothing that assures fair trial in any system whatsoever.
Does the current system generally work? Besides legislation, I have the feeling that criminal cases are effectively tried (generally, but this is an assumption, correct me if I’m wrong). But how come it works? Heck, we have a monopoly in legislation but the system holds together and we believe it to be generally successful. The reason is that we have faith in the system. We know that if we don’t respect justice, the world will come down crashing. We’re afraid of chaos.
Thus, because the public wants justice, you will have courts which dispense justice.
As to choice of court, I agree with the posts above which show the consequences of not agreeing to a reasonable court. You virtually lose all of the benefits of society.
The current system is actually pretty bad at meting out justice, from what I understand. But it continues because people by-and-large still believe otherwise.
I think we have a problem of knowledge here. To quote a recent movie: “It’s not about what you know, it’s about what you can prove in court.”
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as “a criminal” in criminal law. It deals with “a suspect”, “an accused”, and “a convicted”. At every step, no one who wasn’t directly involved in the crime knows who did what. Therefore, no one else knows whether a person who has been suspected, accused, or convicted of a crime actually committed it. That’s why there are legal safeguards for suspects, the accused, and the convicted - even (at least ostensibly) in statist societies.
I see no reason to think that an anarcho-capitalist society could know more in this regard. So I think the same or similar safeguards would exist. The (alleged) victim of a crime may say he knows who did it, but how does anyone else know? Before anything else, then, I recommend that you not engage in the sort of “pre-trial conviction” that all too many people engage in today.
Thanks all for the responses. I suppose this question kind of provokes the question of how statist arrangements of townships or communities might be replaced in a free society. One of you mentioned districts and I’m curious as to what you mean by that. Do you mean informal norms developed by a local understanding of goings-on, or something else?