Except where Islamic statists have expanded its scope, Sharia law covers only marriage, divorce and other family law matters. The situation in Afghanistan is similar in this regard.
Clayton -
What other point is there to the social sciences than to answer the question, “What ought to be?”
They cease to be social sciences at that point. We might use the social sciences in forming our opinions on what ought to (and could) be, but the question of ends is not strictly within the framework of the social sciences, any more than it is within the biological sciences.
While I think it is beneficial to separate the dispassionate, descriptive aspect of science from the motivated aspect of science, I think it is an implicit denial of human action to permanently and completely separate them. Descriptive science can never be but a means to some other end. That end is always something valued by someone (else it would never have motivated the action of scientific study). I find it curious for Austrians to elevate the means (science) above “mere ends” (improving self/commerce/world/etc.) when it is Austrians who constantly point out that both means and ends are integral components of human action.
Clayton -
very well said, I agree here completely 
Shariah in Africa: Somali Woman stoned for adultery
Somalia: Shariah courtsentences two men to lashings for ‘un-islamic’ romance
13-year old stoned to death in Somalia
I guess these qualify as family matters.
Did anyone say that Somalia is perfectly libertarian?
But if a statist society can be more libertarian then what is the point of anarchism?
Depends on how you define “libertarian”.
Statist can never be truly libertarian, because it is necessary to be there anarchism first. IMHO.
Only when there is anarchy one can expect libertarian laws/morals etc. However, one can argue, that it’s better to live in a “moral libertarian statist society” (whatever that means) than anarchic somalia kind of thing with sharia laws.. And I wouldn’t disagree, it all comes to preferences.
XOmniverse did similar video about it..
It depends on where these events occurred. Did these news stories come from northern Somalia (Somaliland/Puntland) or down around Mogadishu? If down around Mogadishu, then Xeer law is much weaker and Islamic law is much stronger, under al-Shabaab, which is an Islamic extremist group made up in part from remnants of the old Islamic Courts Union. As far as I understand it, Xeer is the law of commerce, property, etc. in Somaliland and Puntland and Sharia law is applied within the larger framework of Xeer, primarily to family matters. This understanding is from what I’ve read of van Notten.
Clayton -
I take that as a contradiction of terms. A state enforces a dual-law/morality which is necessarily anti-liberal. Under customary law, a unitary law can emerge and, while that unitary law is not guaranteed to be liberal (in the 18th-century European sense of liberalism), it is at least logically possible for it to be liberal. Statist liberalism, on the other hand, is an oxymoron.
Clayton -
What empirical evidence did you come across, Strange Loop? Can you help expand a collection of sources on Somalia?
I’m going to be blunt, Somalia is a third world dump surrounded by other backward dumps.
I hope I don’t offend anybody, but the point really needs to be made that anybody extrapolating from this backward corner of the earth to the developed market economies that we all live in to make the case for anarcho capitalism needs a reality check.
I don’t think anyone is doing that exactly. Somalia is mostly important for people to see that law does not come from the state. This would have been obvious to the ancients and even to English speaking peoples a couple centuries ago, but today it seems most believe that law can only come from government legislation and can only be enforced by government agencies.
Please watch this. Powell addresses your point right at the very beginning of his speech. You’re comparing apples to oranges to decide which variety of apple is best. You should really compare apples to apples when trying to decide which variety of apple is best.
Clayton -
LMAO.
Your completely right economistintraining, but I don’t think we can deny the statelessness nature of Somalia.
but I don’t think we can deny the statelessness nature of Somalia
State quality is not a constant, it varies hugely across time and place and nobodies really decided as to why exactly this might be, it could be biological, cultural or merely the result of institutional path dependency. But, almost without exception African countries have had really, really shitty governments and whether related or not they generally tend to have pretty basic economies.
All I’m saying is that generalizing from this one case that’s way to the left end of the distribution in terms of economic development and quality of governance is likely to be misleading. There are far too many important functions currently carried out by governments in the western world that I don’t see tribal courts being able to handle, whether or not some other private entity could.
What is the difference between a tribal court and a private entity?
What are these “important functions”?
What is the difference between a tribal court and a private entity?
I think he means simply tribal courts, as in there are other structures (insurance companies, community legal covenants, etc.) which would be required to flush out a fully functional liberal justice system. As it is, Somalia lacks the intellectual and physical capital to fully replace many of the State’s functions. But I would argue that the State is so distortive in what it does, they are still better off totally lacking these functions than with State supply.