do consumers have to understand injection moulding techniques so that the worlds factories will produce toothbrushes of the right type, construction and with the requisite efficiency?
do consumers have to understand the finer details of aero-dynamics in order to enjoy the convenience of air travel ?
1. Not everyone wants to participate in the political process all the time!
Direct democracy presupposes that people will be willing and able to vote on minor concerns all the time. This can only be resolved by
a) creating a representative class to deal with certain clusters of issues, which would kill the idea of direct democracy or
b) limiting the number of issues that can be voted on, which would trash the idea of democracy by elevating certain elements above its political sphere. Basically, it would become a republic with more voting going on.
One might argue that a peaceful and prosperous society will only resort to the ballot in the most extreme of occasions. To disprove that, one only needs to look at the myriad of interest groups, from environmentalists to evangelicals, who constantly try to get public momentum for their way of running things.
In the end, the incentive structure of lobbyism would apply to the direct ballot as well: those who stand to gain from certain policies, either economically or ideologically, will flock to the voting office while the general public, of which large numbers already refuse to vote in even a 4-year-cycle, will stay at home since a particular policy might only cost them .50$ more per year. No progress made.
2. Common sense of the common people is not the be-all and end-all of decision-making!
Who elected people like Bush or Obama? The common man, of course. And if the common man is to be put on a jury to exercise his political power that way, he will just as easily be swayed by PR-savvy, good-looking, sweet-talking “experts”, especially if these experts understand how to push the common man’s buttons.
How should these people even figure out which experts to invite for testimony if their very qualification is that they don’t have a clue about the topic in the first place? This glorification of non-expertise needs to stop. Intellectuals may sometimes be full of themselves, but “the common people” cling to half-educated fallacies just as much.
3. Poly-totalitarianism is not liberty!
A black man’s car breaks down in Whitelandia. Whitelandia’s jury rules that black people are illegal in Whitelandia and thus, the black man is imprisoned. This has nothing to do with liberty, but everything with putting a bunch of local people with self-reinforcing prejudices into power.
It is sad that Democracy’s siren song has pulled one back in. This essay by Höppe is excellent and I suggest people read the whole thing.
Democracy is not liberty, it is not even its objective. I hate when people equate democracy to liberty, political representation, and freedom to live are not the same thing. Democracy’s objectives are transparency, and distribution of political power through everyone. You can compare it to socialism, “we all own the land”, and yet who actually ends up ruling? Does this ideology make it more efficient? Giving political power to everyone does not create the most fair laws, or efficiency. So why do you think a direct democracy would make it any better, do you not remember the American south used to legally have slavery and discrimination under democracy? These are strong flaws.
Even better, do I have to understand how the combustible engine works in order for me to start my car?
We could play this game all day [:P]
Do I need to know the rules to play the game?
BOOSH!
Well, no. As LS pointed out, market competition provides internal incentives for efficiency and honesty (in addition to the external check of public vigilance). And obviously if you obstruct free competition the system will become corrupt; that’s an argument for market anarchism.
In any case, I don’t see direct democracy as contradicting market anarchism, because direct democracy is a part of the market. Indeed, the free market is the fullest realization of direct democracy.
In case you missed it minarchists are against rape too.
Ah, except when rape is required to prevent competition in legal systems!
(Use your imagination.)
Exactly. Frankly that is rare.
In case you missed it, I made an analogy.
Which, as I indicated, fails. So what?
Dig deeper. What is the analogy? Is really the “rape”? Or is it the violation of rights?
That would happen as well if you put a bunch of private-sector firms in charge. There is no way that lone black man could overcome the purchasing power of all those citizens of Whitelandia.
What makes you think that private agencies would not kill Socrates and Jesus Christ?
You are putting these firms on a pedestal and suggesting that the would be incapable of making unjust decisions!
But it doesn’t fail. It demonstrates the hypocrisy of the statist. That you are unwilling to acknowledge such is your problem.
Post favorited.
By the way, this thread is pretty convincing in terms of the creation of legal systems in anarchy.
I’m glad you said private agencies; and not private defense agencies - since they would be iniating violence, thus not defending - but aggressing.
They would not be attempting to apply the NAP (basic law code), and thus would be outlaw agencies.
No. I am not.
For bad decisions there would be an appeal process. The bad decision makers / facilitators reputation would suffer, their customer base would shrink and should they continue, they’ll fail.
Can you please list every article / book you’ve read on natural law, the courts and pda’s? I’d be interested to know exactly what the perspective you are coming from is, and what you haven’t read.
Cheers.
Because throwing vague, petty ad hominem insults around really does prove your argument. Please grow up, and stop this immature mud-slinging.
A list that someone states is historical evidence, but because I don’t have access to his works I have nothing to prove your assertion with.
Polycentric authority, even polycentric legal authority, does not equal anarcho-capitalist. If that were so, most of European history prior to the Reformation would be anarcho-capitalist. Furthermore, polycentric authority can exist within a state, as shown by Elinor Ostrom’s work on the preservation of common pool resources.
This is not a historical analysis, rather it is a purely theoretical one.
Overall, it would be a lot easier to prove my post unsound by simply giving a single example of a true anarcho-capitalist society lasting. Keep in mind, I do not deny that such systems can exist, really I deny that they can exist, and prove a stable social framework for an extended period of time. It might be even easier to show that other systems have only done so under extraordinary circumstances. Oh well, the fact that you could not outright slay my point (even while having the materials to do so at hand if your links do the job - I contend that two definitely do not and one is essentially an example of passing the buck) with a direct (e.g. the period of geographical X between years y, and z in which justice was arbitrated by groups showing the general characteristics of PDAs) shows that I my point is still pretty sound. In fact, I do leave it open for you, Sage, to give me an answer in the form I gave to show that my statement is unsound, and if you are able to do that with sound historical facts, I will withdraw my assertion above.
If my argument is wrong, then it is not invalid, rather it is unsound. The two are technical terms, both roughly and shortly explained: “invalid” is when the premises do not necessitate the conclusion, “unsound” is when the argument is valid yet it uses wrong premises. Generally, if you believe that an argument is wrong, it is “unsound”, “invalid” is when there is a problem in its logical form.
This would be a pretty sound argument if there were an anarcho-capitalist society built in a society that is tabula rasa. But, that throws out all of the historical and institutional effects that will be at play, all of which are empirical, and, really, it is the historical, and institutional effects that will have the greatest effect over the success of market-anarchy.
If there is one big reason for which I reject market-anarchy, it is for the fact that it essentially demands that a system be applied to a society, without any regard for the institutions at play, thus rejecting the only proven method of social change: gradual piecemeal change. When we are in a day in which market-anarchy is a viable alternative, I might become one, but it is not a viable alternative in today’s situation.