I’ll ask it again: what about competing court systems that don’t violate negative rights? Do you think a monopoly court system would be committing aggression by shutting them down?
Yes. And why shut down those who produce that which you want to be produced?
The little part of government which minarchists can be said to want to conserve and develop, i.e. the basic criminal and contract laws and court system, already allows people to choose their own arbitration boards. As long as they agree upon it. Standard shipping related contracts often apoint a specialized private court in London or in New York as their arbitrator. I think that the courts in even especially oppressive governments like those of Saudi and Iran respect such contract clauses. That part is actually already managed in a very libertarian way!
Now consider variations of libertarian court systems. Many details of laws and court procedures cannot be categorized as either libertarian or non-libertarian. Within the realm of negative rights, many variations of the details are imaginable. In some abstract way, competition would be feasible there. And as I said, when mutually agreed upon, the parties of a contract may even today freely choose their arbitrator. However when they don’t agree even on that, then what? For me it seems quite obvious that a court system needs monopoly on retaliatory force within its jurisdiction to have any value to delivier. Otherwise the “court” is just some guy with an opinion.
I want to add that the variation of details within a libertarian justice system, aren’t really a matter for debate pro/con government. It’s a matter of legal technicalities to be debated according to some secondary principles.
While I agree that Orthodox Jews can use a private system of law, it is binding because of fear of excommunication (which is a pretty good reason). If any of them decided they didn’t like the decision, excommunication is the only means of enforcing it in the current system, as to enforce it with violence would invoke the wrath of the state.
Okay, so how then would any court system have a monopoly if multiple court systems are operating within the same area?
Except when it isn’t.
Anyways, I think logically you must accept the conclusion that there would be no monopoly court system in a libertarian society, as such could only be maintained by waging war against competing court systems within the area claimed by the court monopolist as its “jurisdiction”, and such waging of war would constitute aggression (presuming one or more of the competing court systems are not violating negative rights).
Okay, so how then would any court system have a monopoly if multiple court systems are operating within the same area?
Competing arbitration boards today base their existance on the fact that monopoly government court systems enforce contract clauses which designate them as the arbitrator of the contract, and then also enforce the conclusion of the arbitration board appointed. So, how could competing courts operate without monpoly justice system which enforces their right to do so?
If criminal and victim do not agree upon who is to judge their case, then what? Negotiation between insurance companies? Really!? Stinks corporativism and maffia to me… At the best, some brand name value caculus in the marketing department would replace the actual protection of negative rights.
Anyways, I think logically you must accept the conclusion that there would be no monopoly court system in a libertarian society, as such could only be maintained by waging war against competing court systems within the area claimed by the court monopolist as its “jurisdiction”, and such waging of war would constitute aggression (presuming one or more of the competing court systems are not violating negative rights).
That’s funny, because I think it’s the other way around!
When there is competition of retaliatory force, there will be wars waged. And peace will be established only when one has conqured everyone else, at least within some jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) such that it makes sense to operate a justice system within it. A justice system which does not command a monpoly on retaliatory force, is pretty useless. It would just be an opinon, and what if the convicted disagrees and refers to the opinon of a different court?
Basically, justice requires the use of violence and there cannot exist a market for violence, since a market is voluntary human action. Therefor justice must ultimately be produced in a non market fashion. And it takes enough of us individuals (within some jurisdiction) to understand, promote and enforce libertarian rights in order for those rights to be upheld. I don’t see any shortcuts in the shape of allowing everyones “competition” with their non-libertarian laws.
However, I think you’re conflating legal systems per se with organizations (and even individuals) that follow them.
I can only offer my own thoughts on the matter. If a person accused of a crime does not even come forward to answer the accusation (let alone consent to search and seizure of his property, questioning, etc.), then he’d be declared an outlaw. At that point, he’d lose any employment, insurance, and other contracts he has. He’d be unable to enter into any new contracts. More than likely, this will make things very, very difficult for him.
Along with being declared an outlaw, a default judgement might also be made against the accused. This would authorize (in the sense of granting legitimacy to) the plaintiff to recover damages from the accused. In fact, this would be the general outcome of any judgement in favor of the plaintiff - except the damages to which the plaintiff is deemed authorized to recover may change.
As nearly everyone is capable of some kind of retaliatory force, it would follow that wars would be waged between nearly everyone nearly all the time. Why isn’t that the case? I submit to you that human nature isn’t nearly as Hobbesian as you make it out to be.
There can be a market for making judgements, which is itself not violent. However, I think human nature is sufficiently uniform for something of a “natural monopoly” to arise when it comes to common law. That in no way means that a single organization has to monopolize the actual making of judgements using that common law.
You are forgetting that justice-providing organizations will compete for clientele on the market. So, everything will depend on what sort of people inhabit the society: those that like civil wars or those that like tranquility. I think the second kind will tend to favor security organizations that settle their differences in a peaceful way, through voluntary arbitration, not through going to a war with each other.
Your argument (“better to have one emperor than seven kings fighting with each other”) works only when you don’t have a free market. I.e., when being a client of a particular king is imposed on someone by the king. (The same goes for mafia organizations.)
When you have freedom to choose between different security organizations, the ball is in the public’s court, and I think people in general prefer tranquility over chaos and war.
That’s true, except I heard of cases when a Beis Din would hire bouncers… (I think it was only done in the cases when a husband refused to grant his wife a divorce, effectively making her unable to re-marry.)
But this issue concerns law enforcement, not legal process itself. That’s what I said before: I agree with Robert Murphy that it’s useful to separate thinking about how law discovery would work vs. how law enforcement would work.
There have been historically systems of private law enforcement (e.g., Iceland).
Any system you propose will depend on some degree of people agreeing to work together. There is no way around it. That is why the question is more about the mechanism of law discovery and enforcement and less about the content of law. The content will depend on the people under all systems of society. No tyrant will be able to maintain certain law for a long time if the people don’t support him. The question becomes: under which system will the voice of the people be better expressed in the law-making agencies’ decisions.
I say that for the same reason we favor democracy over monarchy, we should favor anarchy over democracy. And for the same reason vox populi is heard better in, say, shoe production, it will be heard better in legislature.
Law discovery and law enforcement are different, but they are more intertwined than you think. If a court has no means of enforcing it’s ruling, then it is up to the parties involved in the dispute to abide by the decision voluntarily. In the case of private Jewish courts in America (or anywhere), they can only function so long as the parties involved adhere to the decisions. The main incentive in this particular case is the fear of excommunication.
If one of the parties involved decided he did not want to adhere to the ruling, there is no way the private Jewish court can actually enforce it. If the court were to enforce it with violence, then the court would be playing with fire as the state would swoop in and grind the court down.
I would like to see more private courts in America, just as there have been competitors to the USPS. The problem is that without a means of enforcing rulings of the private courts, it is unlikely that there will be a widespread use of these courts, unlike the widespread use of FedEx and UPS and others.
I agree with much of the rest of your post, with the exception of democracy being necessarily better than monarchy. Many democracies around the world are getting more tyrannical every day, though there are many monarchies (or any government with one leader) that are much worse. However, comparing democracy in the West with the monarchies in the West, it is not clear that democracy has actually led to a less tyrannical system overall.
Question is: do you guys think under private law the situation would be different? The article says that the woman was found guilty by the jury, but that’s a little misleading. In most cases, the jury simply verifies the facts, and as there is little doubt that the woman actually did fire her gun, the jury had no choice but to say “guilty”. Things would be different if the jury members knew about the concept of nullification by jury or were willing to apply it.