Take a look at this democrats.com forum

Economics Economics Questions
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41

Haha, come on answer my questions. What would be the rule of law? What would be the standard? How would you know that PA’s wouldnt offer defense to their clients by any means, including against any charges from third parties, legitimate claims nonwithstanding?

You cannot allow force in an free market. Once force can be bought and sold people will use it to their advantage. Free markets work so well because everything is VOLUNTARY. Once a PA tells its members, “We will defend you against any charge, whether it be true or not”, then people will feel they can do whatever they want. You may say that other PA’s would fight against this PA. Is that really the answer? Constant warfare between PA’s?

You must acknowledge there is a large group of people in the world that feel homosexuality is evil. It would stand to reason that in the PA system you speak of, their would be PA’s that would serve these people, and allow their desires to cause physical harm to these people. They would protect their members from any attempt to bring them to justice in your “impartial courts”, because in their mind, since these courts would not see homosexuality as evil, these courts are partial to homosexuals.

Plus, what will happen when someone breaks a contract? What if they refuse to go to your “impartial court”? Sure the free market will punish them, as people will no longer do business with them, but what if breaking this one contract creates for them such a huge financial gain that they do not need to offer anymore services. Surely the person on the wrong end of the deal would want his PA to do something, but what if the person that broke the contract had a strong PA? Would actual battle’s be fought over broken contracts?

You can say that PA’s that defend these people would not be reputable. Maybe not, to you or me, but it would be reputable to enough people that would want their protections that they would be able to turn a profit. Under your system, people with money could use this money to cause physical harm to others, and have protection from retribution.

Perhaps there is no need for a “System of Government”. But what must be provided is a set law that says no one may harm another person directly (of course this law must be carefully crafted). Free market protection agencies would be fine, but there cannot be free market on this LAW: it is not ok to harm others for any reason. You cannot harm someone simply because they are homosexual, or that they just had an abortion, or that they are a different religion than you. Surely you, me and everyone on this forum will realize that this is what the law should be, but that is not how many people on this planet think the law should be.

42

I got blocked to, haha damn democrats. But anyway, yes I believe that these people are affecting the government. What I am saying needs to be done is your law of non-aggression needs to be a LAW and the only law. No other laws can be added, so these crazy people cannot cause harm. And someone needs to enforce this law. Perhaps that could be private, but the PA system has to many flaws for me.

43

No, there would not be a market for them. What you are talking about is a tribal political system, not a market system.

First because it is in their best interest to do so. Without hundreds of millions of people to tax, and without a central bank with a monopoly on counterfieting, there is no way on Earth an outlaw PDA could fund the enforcement of their petty moral dictates. It would be prohibitively expensive. The only way they could do that is by siezing control of an existing political apparatus. And that is why we advocate starving that apparatus to irrelevence, not trying to take its reins or overthrow it by force.

Second, because most people agree fundamentally with the NAP in the abstract. In the absence of the state, putting it into practice would not be so difficult.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Every night me and my buddies from church go prowl the streets looking for homos to burn at the stake. Give me a break. Every religion has its kook fringe, but it is the fringe. It is a bunch of loudmouths who get more press than us regular people, because they’re more interesting.

And the solution to protecting society from them is not to construct a political system which they could sieze! The solution is to get rid of any such system.

Both parties would have to agree beforehand on the court in question in order for the process to be seen as legitimate. And since a court must appear to be legitimate to stay in business, they would encourage this. When there is competition and free entry into the market of justice, a huge bribe would not be more valuable to a court than their reputation as a fair adjudicator.

Consequently, courts that try people for cases of, say, adultery, could only operate in cases where both parties had a legally enforceable obligation against the other committing adultery. In other words, unless people agree to those sorts of strictures as terms of their service under the PDA, there would be no ability of the court to enforce them. Essentially, there would be “special interest” PDAs.

No, they would be serving individual customers. “Public opinion” is a collectivist falsehood.

No, but they are rational. Your fear of your neighbors is nothing but paranoid hysteria.

44

“Both parties would have to agree beforehand on the court in question in order for the process to be seen as legitimate. And since a court must appear to be legitimate to stay in business, they would encourage this. When there is competition and free entry into the market of justice, a huge bribe would not be more valuable to a court than their reputation as a fair adjudicator.”

This is the whole problem with you system. Some people would not agree to any trial. And if they have a PA to protect them, then getting them to justice would be economically impossible to justify.

You act like this “fringe” is so tiny. Perhaps compared to the entire world population it is. But their are enough people that beleive in this stuff and would follow their desires if they were allowed to. And if they had enough money to start their own PA to protect them, then they could do it. If they simply targeted small minorities of the public, then PA’s could not find it economical to attempt to bring these people to justice.

45

you are only rehashing this article anyway, http://mises.org/daily/2874

46

What exactly prevents this from happening now? According to this theory there are enough lunatics to support a PA financially (though usually lunatics don’t have much in the way of money). All of these lunatics would have to be located geographically near each other because PA is going to be limited by it’s size to an area. So you are going to have to find enough lunatics in a small area that all want the same thing, right?

Currently we have towns with populations under 50 who have their own sheriffs and make their own laws. They have just as much power as any protection agency would have, and you aren’t worried about them.

47

What if Bill Gates decided he was going to start a PA against homosexual males? What would prevent him from doing so? He has the resources. Towns under 50 you can stay away from, if enough people joined PA’s that practiced infringing upon the rights of others for personal gain it would harm everyone. That is what allowing force to be market controlled will do.

48

You forget that some people are motitaved by more than just profit. Some people truly believe in something so strongly (generally a religious system) that they will punish those that do not agree with its strict moral guidelines. And some of these people are very wealthy. You cannot act like these people would not create a market a certain kind of PA that none of us would like to see.

49

Look, you’re the one advocating putting a monopoly in a group’s hand, an absolute monopoly over law and order. You’re the one who makes no “practical” sense.

-Jon

50

And you’re only rehashing ignorant comments on anarchist legal systems.

If they disagree, they will be trialed in absentia. If their PDA thinks the judgment is unjust, it has every right to object. If not, it is in its interest to comply, and will cease to provide protection. If it is an outlaw PDA, it will be treated as such. Your objections are nothing new. They are mere fetishism for some extra-societal god called the state, as if it is not prone to all the corruptions you speak of, and as if the questions of partiality and “who will write the laws” are somehow conclusively answered in its case. At least under anarchism, one can hire a PDA to protect them from fringe extremists. Under a state, they are constantly ruled by them. Have you taken the time to read For a New Liberty or The Market for Liberty, or more importantly Hoppe’s articles on the private production of security? They address all of this stuff in there.

-Jon

51

I am not arguing that I have the solution. I am merely arguing that neither do you. There are too many holes in this theory, to many externalities.

Perhaps in a perfect world this system would work. But everyone must realize that we are hundreds of years away a system like this every being enacted. Why should I care about a system that would not be created until after my death? What I want is to attempt to correct our system the best way we can. That means limiting government power as much as possible. Maybe after that happens we can work on getting the legitimate forms over government into private hands. Maybe, but it is pointless to speculate.

52

Already been addressed. Any PDA he hires will either refuse out of concern for its professional reputation, or it will be an outlaw, no different to any other. BIG DEAL. As if the State officials cannot be bribed.

-Jon

53

The holes are of your own, limited imagination. Limited government is as much, if not more of, a fictional utopia than anarchism. God forbid we actually let people patronize the protectors of the choice, no, we must have an “Objective” provider of law and order to do this and force them to consume its services, and call it Master. Doesn’t it just radiate with impartiality? Please, get real.

-Jon

54

Surely the government we have now has the corruptions I speak of. Surely any government could be corrupted. But they are a necessary evil. Oh sure, my comments are ignorant, but you cannot truly explain to me how we would rectify a situation where an “outlaw” PDA, with tremendous resources, say, the Catholic Church, decided that they would make their own laws where harming other people in certain situations were ok, because they didnt believe what you believe. You cannot answer that because their is no answer. If they were only perscuting a small minority, why would it be profitible for other PDA’s to come to their aid? It would not, they would act in rational self-interest, as they should. If the outlaw pda were harming everyone, surely others would intervene, but if it was a small minority who would help them? What of the people that cannot afford a sufficient PDA, they could easily fall victim to others who knew they had no protection.

Something you are suggesting has never been tried or experimented upon, it is all simply theory. We know our constitution was an amazing step in the right direction, why not simply improve upon it now. Perhaps in the future, as government continues to get phased out, people could begin experimenting with this system. But until then, it is just theory.

55

You have not addressed this at ALL! A PDA financed by a few extremely rich people could easily become very powerful and not have to worry about their reputation as they would have a steady source of income from those people.

56

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” -----Federalist #51.

Limited government, in spite of human nature, is, unfortunately our best hope. Anarchy, like socialism, is self-destructive–it just occupies a domain on the opposite end of the “government” spectrum. While I generally agree with the idea of anarchy, it is simply an impossible system given human nature. The US Founders understood this very well. They studied past civilizations and all forms of government, including anarchy.

One thing that has crossed my mind, and to which I’m interested in receiving your responses, is whether the US Constitutional framework of government was the result of a free market? I argue it was. Nothing impeded America from adopting or not adopting any form of government, including anarchy. That market, however, determined that a limited constitutional republic was the best form of governance to ensure the protection of freedom. Thoughts?

57

Yes, but who would want to do business with those rich people and those PDA’s? Would you? Also, remember that there are other rich people and many other poeple who are fairly well-off. A lot of these people will vehemently oppose the aggressors. They would not only cease do business with them but they may even join together in some sort of voluntary organization to oppose them (do not forget, all others would have all have an interest in retaining respect for person and property).

Also, your hypothetical “rich people and their PDA’s” sounds suspiciously like the governement we have today. Interesting…

58

Only in your imagination. You repeatedly assert that a bunch of rich people can hire a PDA to do their bidding. Firstly, the profit-maximizing level of output lies in serving the whole of the market, not just a small niche, and this is especially true in this case. So, other PDAs (or rather, insurers) could (and would) draw upon money from other sources and put this institution down. In all likelihood, they’d be insurance agencies, with more than enough resources to do so. These rich individuals would not remain rich for much longer, and few would be willing to even do business with them. Secondly, you’re assuming the “rich” are some homogeneous group, and that they’re not as wealthy as they are because of the State. They often are. Thirdly, you neglect how much easier it is for these self-same individuals, who use the state to enrich themselves, to merely seize control of it, it being the monopoly provider of law and order. So again, how have I not addressed this, and what have you done but regurgitated ignorant fallacies?

-Jon

59

Doesn’t anarchy then evolve into democracy (i.e., mob rule?).

60

Assertion.

They are.

Already answered this, so it’s false.

If it was their client that was being persecuted, and the agency wished to retain its reputation for being efficient, I’d, um, think so. Here’s a question for you: how does a minority react to a State whose majority is bent on oppressing said minority? Where does it seek recourse? To the monopolist provider of law and order? After all, states certainly have no track record of oppressing minorities… [;)]

[8-)]

As for those who cannot afford it, first of all there is no positive right to having protection provided, and secondly they could sell their right to persecute the outlaw to a wealthier, or otherwise more able, individual who’d take a share of the damages awarded. I haven’t even gone into charity or mutual aid here.

No, “we” don’t.

Unlike minarchism, which is of course failed theory…

-Jon