Yet the dividing line that Machiavelli never thinks about is: ‘what do you want’. Machiavelli is thinking it all for you. He’s decided men are fickle and greedy of gain. You can agree with that, so be it. But the dividing line is there are those that consent to people initiating physical aggression or thereby consent to greed, fickleness, and war (because NOT all people are that’s a fact of the current market. Not all people commit crimes only the few actually commit crimes). Then there are those people that don’t consent to initiated physical aggression, don’t consent to greed, fickleness, and war.
I consent/want peace, justice, and liberty.
I don’t consent to war, criminal activity, and being forced to do things I don’t want to.
Do you think that the people won’t know that too? It is incredibly expensive to fund wars without some pedagogue politician preaching the dangers of the terr’ists and collecting the sheeps’ loot.
All human action is based on speculation. Is your personal preference for law based on a rational model or a purely arbitrary one? Would you like to pay more for your own security because the company has to invade and rob whomever to pay for some elite group? Or would you like the basic plan where all customers have equal protection under the law and force is only used to hunt down people who actually abridge these rights? If you think about it and decide what you think, then look at the character of the average man, that all, or many, PDAs would be rogue seems a bit unlikely now doesn’t it?
There are things we can use logic to determine, with regard to punishment or reconciliation, then there are things that must be arbitrary. We can’t ever assign X years to a prison sentence, because the only proper use of imprisonment is to have the criminal repay/restore the victim.
I am not suggesting that anyone becomes an expert in law. I was asking you who you want deciding your fate… an expert or Joe Public?
Of course. But how is this an argument for a monopolistic legal system?
Remember, the fundamental issue is competition vs. monopoly. Monopolies are inherently rights-violating (and hence are immoral) and face information and incentive problems (and hence are inefficient). Markets, on the other hand, can exist without aggression and have a more effective incentive structure. Therefore, a competitive legal system is preferable to a monopolistic one.
I notice minarchists often argue against anarchism by asking how some specific scenario would be dealt with under anarchy, and then, unconvinced by the response, conclude that anarchy is undesirable or absurd. But these types of questions are irrelevant: the anarchist has no burden of proof to show how specific scenarios would be handled. What they do have to show is that the incentive structure of anarchy is superior to the incentive structure of minarchy. And this they have done decisively: market competition has a more effective incentive structure than political democracy.
Unless the minarchist can come up with a reason why the legal system should be excepted from this rule, they have no choice but to abandon statism and accept anarchism.
Get a career judge with “scientific training”, and there is a good chance he could be bought off. Get 12 random people in a room, and it is 12 times as likely that somebody will narc.
There is no need for the jurors to have “scientific training”. Simply have chemists, physicians, and other qualified persons from both sides publicly testify under oath.
Nope. It’s not impossible. The point is that IF people would support or tolerate that sort of thing THEN that’s the kind of society you would have. If people don’t stick to basic morality then you won’t have a libertarian society. And IF you think that an abstraction like a ‘minimal state’ can turn people who are not libertarians into libertarians you are out touch with reality.
IF people stick to libertarian principles then NO state is better and more workable than a ‘minimal’ state.
And here’s a bit of psychoanalizing for you. You are an amoralist so you think that all people are like you. But your assumption is unwarranted.
Citizens arrest. If somebody commits a crime, you either arrest them yourself, or hire somebody else to do it.
I don’t care if you call it “public” or “private”. The idea is that if you commit a crime, you get dragged to the nearest courthouse, instead of haggling over multiple, competing courts.
It doesn’t need to be any specific number; it just needs to be a large number.
C’mon man… This isn’t about being bought off or narcing. My question relates to who you think will give a better (more fair & accurate) judgment. The corruption problem you perceive is mitigated by the possibility of chains of arbitration and the economic reality that businesses who don’t meet consumers’ needs fail.
What are you talking about? Not signing a contract does not mean you can kill with impunity. If you kill someone his cousins, his militia friends or the Pinkertons will be after you and they wont care one bit that you never signed a piece of paper saying you wont kill anyone. You agreeing or not agreeing doesn`t even enter the picture. You are deeply misunderstanding something.
Never does a day go by except some university-educated “expert” says something utterly moronic. What is even more shocking is that various proposals backed by “experts” (such as compulsory education, mandatory vaccinations, etc.) have proven failures, but people still refuse to abolish them because they are backed by. . . . experts!
The expert-worship needs to stop. In a courtroom, you should a dozen middle-class working people in the jury box, and the experts on the witness stand, rather than vice versa.
It seems to me that there could be many different market solutions to consumers demanding protection or arbitration services.
A higher time preference might lead a PDA owner to wage war against a competitor or a “judge” to accept bribes or even a legal organization to make fad/popular rulings, However…
Wouldn’t an individual with a lower time preference run a more successful organization by avoiding these pitfalls?