How could the Xeer legal system be reinforced in a stateless society? Would it need private police forces, or can society accept common laws without coercion?
I assume all anarch-capitalists would support Xeer law, but what about libertarians? For example, many libertarians look up to Ron Paul, but he’s a strict constitutionalist and believes in its literal interpretation.
Oh really? I was under the impression his goal was self government rather than a return to the Constitution. [4 minutes]
Not everything is as it seems. [:)]
I remember watching one of the Republican debates of the '08 election, and Ron Paul talked about being “the most conservative candidate among [his] colleagues” and he bragged about being a “strict constitutionalist”
As soon as I find a youtube video of it I’ll post it
The question that needs to be asked is IN COMPARISION to what?
Everyone here would be in favor of the government outlined in the US Constitution IN COMPARISON to what we have now. No?
Ron was never asked publicly about a truly free society vs the US Constitution and which one he would take.
He was asked that question above, and he gave the answer. ‘Self government / Voluntarism instead of a return to the Constitution.’
Don’t bother.
I could care less about RP and teh constitution but am surprised to have not heard of Xeer before.
read
Ground it in blood and soil, like it is in Somalia.
What does this mean?
The poverty in Somalia isn’t because of Xeer law. The Somalis have used Xeer since the 7th century and they rivaled neighboring Africans like the Ethiopians. They fell into poverty because of colonization and transcontinental conflict.
This is what I mean. Somalis follow the Xeer because it is a hallowed means of dispute resolution among the members of an extended family with generational ties to the land. That’s why that Dutch crackpot had to marry into a clan, because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to claim the protections of the Xeer (not that his story holds up that well under close scrutiny).
So do you think other populations of the world could handle using the Xeer? Is it a means of law and order in the vision of anarcho-capitalists, or is it a system that could only be handled by the Somalis?
You can not transplant a traditional law to where it is not traditional. It is its continuity that makes it accepted.
You must start anew. That is not to say you can recommend modeling it after an existing code, but a transplant won`t work, you must let a new code be built from the ground up.
In any case there are no institutions that could support Xeer except in other tribal societies (which already have tribal custom of their own).
You seem to have no reason to call the guy a crackpot. What can you prove wrong about his story? What is a crackpot exactly anyhow? Someone who makes claims and can’t back them up? Hmm…
The legal order we advocate would have private insurers replacing the role of the family. The article made no mention of Somalis barring foreigners from clans explicitly. I bet if it were profitable to them, some arrangement could be made for ad hoc membership!
Ron P. on self-government: ‘That’s what I really want…’ (from that video Conza gave).
Then it is not Xeer anymore.
Clans do not know of ad hoc membership. Members have a responsibility to back their clan in a dispute with arms. Taking on this obligation is what buys the members the protection of the clan. They can only accept people who they are sure are willing to back the clan in this way and they can not be sure an ad hoc member will do so. So why waste resources protecting a member that will not reciproce and help protect other members?
do people re-affiliate based on marriage? or even just on proximity and reputation, i.e. are there no ‘honorary clansmen?’
Not on an ad hoc basis. It takes a lot of time before a newcommer will be accepted in. The clan must be sure he is neither feint of heart nor a troublemaker that it will cost the clan more to defend than the services they will be getting in return.
Marriage does not really come into play. Where there is no division of labour only adult males (who can be their own policeman) are fully legal persons. Wives are dependants. As far as tribal courts are concerned a crime against a woman is more a crime against her husband or, if not marrierd, her father than herself. Thus the likelihood of a father in a fully tribal society relinquishing a daughter to a clanless male is nill.
“Then it is not Xeer anymore.”
So what? Some things from Xeer or medieval Icelandic law don’t really make sense. If I killed someone on accident, all I should need to do is make my best effort to prove it was an accident. Announcing my deed at exactly the next three houses I pass versus two isn’t logical. These are examples of variation based on cultural mores, within what we can basically call polycentric libertarian law.
That we can say, “Here look at Xeer, or Guatemala, or Iceland, or Ireland. They’ve maintained order without a monopoly on violence.”, is what matters. If the motivation is profit, clan honor, or whatever doesn’t matter. The important similarities between libertarian law and these others are there.
So you are off topic.
How does colonization make a country poor? Many of the world’s richest countries are former colonies (USA, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc…).
So what? The original question is answered regarding how Xeer is upheld in Somalia. I was discussing the actual important problem for us non-Somalis.
I did a decent amount of study on African colonization from the 1600’s to post-Berlin Treaty. As appealing as Africa’s riches were, malaria was a bitch and so was the inland passage for a long time. Also, the riches of India and SE Asia were more appealing in general. One vague rule in the Berlin treaty was regarding the requirement that colonial powers establish sovereignty over the local population of a given area. In a majority of cases, tribal leaders signed over sovereignty without being able to understand what they were doing but actually maintained control of their land as long as they didn’t rebel against the Europeans who plundered them.
The Europeans mainly wanted to stake out their claim to vast areas of land before their rivals did. It wasn’t until technology allowed the heart of Africa to be penetrated that colonial involvement grew. In many cases, infrastructure is still focused on rails vs. roads because what was important to colonial powers was getting out natural resources, not the concerns of natives.
The countries you cite were either mainly made up of European settlers or had an actual strong colonial presence in government. In Africa, whites didn’t actually settle so heavily except in a few areas like Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria. There’s to this day a strong correlation between the original white population and standards of living.