I wish to challenge a certain sentiment I have seen expressed here by a number of different people. I often bring this up in individual instances, but I figured it would be better to address this as one unified post. (Follow the links for more context, although I’ll summarize later.)
Lennow:There aren't any magical answers to your questions; market participants would decide everything.
AJ:It's a matter of degree - how much centralization? The less centralization, the more natural* the order. *Natural (adj.) - of or pertaining to [the result or product of] a long history of intense competition on a rich marketplace**, culminating in a highly interconnected matrix of symbiotic, win-win relationships or interactions. **"Marketplace" in the metaphorical sense where applicable. Market is also a matter of degree - how much coercion? Enough human-to-human coercion, institutionalized and you end up with a push toward centralization.
*Natural (adj.) - of or pertaining to [the result or product of] a long history of intense competition on a rich marketplace**, culminating in a highly interconnected matrix of symbiotic, win-win relationships or interactions.
**"Marketplace" in the metaphorical sense where applicable. Market is also a matter of degree - how much coercion? Enough human-to-human coercion, institutionalized and you end up with a push toward centralization.
Clayton:Absence of free entry to the arbitration market. We don't need a pre-existing legal system to be able to define monopolization. If you employ leg-breakers to intimidate your business competitors and drive them out of business, you are a monopolist. That definition holds regardless of the legal system.
Clayton:The pattern is that our legal system is the way it is exactly because it is a territorial monopoly. We do not have less rights than we should because there is a lack of theoretical arguments that show why things should be different than they are. We have less rights than we should have because the territorial monopolist of law and security - the State - has devoted its full energy to ensuring that we cannot enjoy those rights. So, the root problem is the territorial monopoly of law and it is this which must be attacked by libertarians. I do not think attempting to raise self-ownership to the level of an axiom enhances the battle against the monopolist of law, in fact, I think it cheapens libertarian theory.
trulib:As libertarian anarchists, we have two goals: Anarchy - i.e. free entry into the field of producing legal codes (by legal codes I mean the principles under which property rights are to be assigned). Libertarianism - i.e. property rights being assigned according to the principles of homesteading, abandonment and voluntary exchange. I think what AJ is getting at is that to persuade people to become libertarian anarchists, we should focus more on goal 1, because once we have acheived anarchy, people will quickly become libertarians, when the superiority of a libertarian legal code becomes apparent (i.e. libertarian legal codes will win out in competition).
I think what AJ is getting at is that to persuade people to become libertarian anarchists, we should focus more on goal 1, because once we have acheived anarchy, people will quickly become libertarians, when the superiority of a libertarian legal code becomes apparent (i.e. libertarian legal codes will win out in competition).
Solid_Choke:Law by its very nature seems to be a set of rules that is chosen deliberately using reason (or revelation). Conventions, on the other hand, are rules that are generated spontaneously. It comes about through an evolutionary process of adjusting behavior while taking into accound the behavior of others. Torts (conventional harms) are determined by this mutual adoption of rules that solve some kind of coordination problem (in game theory this is called an equilibrium). Some conventions are arbitrary, but some aren't. For instance, driving on the right side of the road is a conventional rule that could have been different (and so is, in a sense, arbitrary). […] For some conventions, the opposite or negation of the rule is a dominated strategy and so wouldn't be adopted by freely choosing persons (it wouldn't be in their self-interest). The conventional rule of first come, first serve could not have been last come, first serve (the agents would wait forever and so is not an ESS). Could it be the case that conventional rules like these are "natural"? Natural, in this sense, would mean that the rule is a unique solution to a coordination problem, is a Nash equilibrium, and the negation of the rule could not have solved the coordination problem?
Some conventions are arbitrary, but some aren't. For instance, driving on the right side of the road is a conventional rule that could have been different (and so is, in a sense, arbitrary). […]
For some conventions, the opposite or negation of the rule is a dominated strategy and so wouldn't be adopted by freely choosing persons (it wouldn't be in their self-interest). The conventional rule of first come, first serve could not have been last come, first serve (the agents would wait forever and so is not an ESS). Could it be the case that conventional rules like these are "natural"? Natural, in this sense, would mean that the rule is a unique solution to a coordination problem, is a Nash equilibrium, and the negation of the rule could not have solved the coordination problem?
The sentiment underlying all of these quotes is the idea that we libertarians do not need to concern ourselves with the nitty-gritty of libertarian legal theory (e.g., “Is intellectual property legitimate? Is abortion allowed?”) because we can rely on a freely-competing marketplace of legal systems to settle these questions. These issues are purported to be in the same class as any other question of consumer preferences: What kind of restaurants should be made available? How fuel-efficient should cars be? We would not consider centrally-planning these decisions, so why centrally-plan the legal system by claiming that we know the right answer to these questions?
I believe that this idea is a naïvely cavalier form of anarchism that seeks to abolish everything in sight, to the point of abolishing the ground out from beneath our feet.
(The post I wrote grew rather lengthy, so I put the rest in a PDF in a ZIP here. Let me know if you have trouble with it.)
Zavoi: I think asking "what should the law be?" in a centrally-planned law society is logically equilvalent to asking "how should automobiles be designed?" in a Soviet style centrally-planned economy.... I can know that automobiles should be designed by competitive producers without knowing what features will ultimately emerge from such competitive production. I don't need to know whether manual or automatic should be* the primary form of transmission in order to say that the central-planners almost certainly have the wrong mix of manual versus automatic transmissions. The same goes for law. I can guess certain things that the market would improve over our currently centrally-planned law society. But I don't need to know which laws need to be changed in which ways to say with confidence that our laws do not reflect the desires of the customers of law services.
Clayton -
*i.e. will be selected by the market
I just skimmed your PDF, I will read it later more carefully. Libertarianism is a belief about means, not ends, but it certainly favors certain ends over other ends. For example sexisms wouldn't be profitable in a libertarian society, so in the long run it would be wrong. But for other cases we do not know, for example with intellectual property rights. I agree that you have to give people a concrete idea about what they are facing, but that is not libertarianism anymore. Libertarianism is only selecting a means, anything else goes beyond the scope of libertarianism.
Marvelous cop-out. Perhaps the most, aside from your run-of-the-mill Communist.
"I hope someday that you'll join us... and the World will live as One!"
Refer to Clayton's post, then.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Zavoi:I believe that this idea is a naïvely cavalier form of anarchism that seeks to abolish everything in sight, to the point of abolishing the ground out from beneath our feet.
Example: Free market roads have been provided using a toll service, or were sometimes donated. Would modern markets choose this method? Donno. But pointing to one solution is a way to show the feasibility of anarchism.
I... I really don't know what the speed limit would be on anarchist roads. To avoid being accused of "copping out" I'm going to choose 68.234 mph.
68.231 maybe.anything else is just ludicrous!
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Zavoi:The sentiment underlying all of these quotes is the idea that we libertarians do not need to concern ourselves with the nitty-gritty of libertarian legal theory (e.g., “Is intellectual property legitimate? Is abortion allowed?”) because we can rely on a freely-competing marketplace of legal systems to settle these questions.
First define what a libertarian is.
Zavoi:These issues are purported to be in the same class as any other question of consumer preferences
If you admit they are preferences, then you admit they are subjective.
Do you need a hug?
Clayton:I don't need to know whether manual or automatic should be* the primary form of transmission in order to say that the central-planners almost certainly have the wrong mix of manual versus automatic transmissions. The same goes for law. I can guess certain things that the market would improve over our currently centrally-planned law society. But I don't need to know which laws need to be changed in which ways to say with confidence that our laws do not reflect the desires of the customers of law services.
You seem to be saying that although you don't know what the “market-correct law” is, there is such a thing, and the current legal environment is not that.
While this is true for cars, restaurants, etc., I've argued (in section 2) that there is no “market-correct law” in the same sense, because the kind of law that emerges is not determined solely by individuals' preferences.
Sieben:Well, we can imagine some ways in which an anarchic society might work. Our point in exploring these options is to prove that there is at least *one* workable non-government solution. We are also open to other solutions.
Right. I suppose my criticism is of those who propose the abolition of government but do not want to play any part in shaping the subsequent society.
Sieben:I... I really don't know what the speed limit would be on anarchist roads. To avoid being accused of “copping out” I'm going to choose 68.234 mph.
Well, the speed limit is a market issue, like an automobile's specifications or a restaurant's dress code. The question of law is: “Who has the authority to determine the speed limit on this road?”
I guess it might be easier to include the full text of my post directly; I’ll include it below:
Much has been made in libertarian circles of this distinction, to say firstly that order can emerge without centralized authority, and secondly that such an order will be subject to a different (in a good way) sort of incentives from a “centralized” order. De Jasay writes*:
Anthony De Jasay:It is a fact of life that while this basic layer of ageless and spontaneous rules does not altogether disappear, it gets progressively overlaid by what I propose to call statutory or (more tellingly) rule-made rules. [...] A rule-made rule is so named because it derives its validity (and, in the view of many, its legitimacy) from being created according to a rule to which new rules or changes of old ones must conform in order to be binding. [...] Whether the rule of rule-making is easy or difficult, simple or complicated, is of secondary importance. The important fact is its power to generate binding rules. [...] The fundamental difference between spontaneous and rule-made rules, then, is that regardless of the substantive content of each, the spontaneous rule is generated in a manner consistent with freedom and the rule-made rule is one that is inconsistent with it. The latter is designed to relegate to the unfree category an (albeit unpredictable) part of the feasible acts of an (often quite predictable) dissenting segment of the society that must obey the rule.
[...]
The fundamental difference between spontaneous and rule-made rules, then, is that regardless of the substantive content of each, the spontaneous rule is generated in a manner consistent with freedom and the rule-made rule is one that is inconsistent with it. The latter is designed to relegate to the unfree category an (albeit unpredictable) part of the feasible acts of an (often quite predictable) dissenting segment of the society that must obey the rule.
*(Freedom from a Mainly Logical Perspective)
First recognize that the rule under which new rules are made (what De Jasay refers to as the “rule of submission”) must itself be a spontaneous rule -- otherwise the whole system could never get off the ground. A democracy did not become a democracy because a majority voted for it, a monarchy not because the king decreed it, etc. Secondly, it’s important to observe that the rule of submission is not the only rule characterized by the ability to generate new rules: in fact, every rule of property (which, taken broadly as by Rothbard, can be interpreted to encompass (almost) all social rules) contains within it the ability for someone to make rules governing that property. E.g., If you’re in my restaurant you have to wear shoes and a shirt. Thus we see that, contrary to De Jasay, “spontaneous” and “rule-made” rules differ only in content, not in form. Statism and libertarianism are just two different ways of drawing the property lines.
So suppose that we did away with the current government, and mind-wiped everybody to remove all their statist biases and prejudices -- in short, created a pure state-of-nature. What would the new emerging order look like?
Some would say that there is a particular property allocation scheme that would emerge out of this state-of-nature, for economic or whatever reasons, and that this is what libertarians should advocate. This way, we have a concrete policy recommendation (i.e., a way of distinguishing our proposed social order from all the others, as being more “natural”), while at the same time we avoid engaging in any normative or ideological advocacy (since the demonstration that this order follows from the state-of-nature is purely fact-based).
However, to make a long story short, there is no particular order that follows from the state-of-nature.
Cowan and Sutter picture social conflicts as a hawk/dove (or “chicken”) game, where each player prefers the other to back down, but for both to challenge results in huge costs. (Follow the link to see the diagram.)
Cowan & Sutter:The game in Figure 1 is a coordination game with two Nash equilibria in pure strategies, one where Able backs down to Baker’s challenge and the second where Baker backs down to Able’s challenge. The costs of conflict provide an incentive for a peaceful resolution of the confrontation (Rothbard 1978, Friedman 1989, Benson 1990), but do not determine which equilibrium will prevail. Nonetheless we can already see the potential for the evolution of government in the interests of some parties to the adjudication prevail over the interests of others. We also can see that only one of these equilibria is libertarian (Sutter 1995). Both equilibria may be peaceful, but at least one equilibrium does not respect individual rights. For instance, Able (the victim) backing down is an equilibrium of the confrontation game. Caplan and Stringham (and other proponents of anarcho-capitalism) have not to our minds offered an argument why the competitive, libertarian equilibrium is likely to prevail. [...] Anarchy might be peaceful after an initial conflict, but equilibrium selection then would depend on the relative strength of the agencies. If might makes right, as Umbeck (1981) argues, only by luck would the libertarian equilibrium prevail. And over time, an agency that consistently backs down would lose customers. Customers will patronize agencies that can win battles, and the protection market will become increasingly concentrated.
We also can see that only one of these equilibria is libertarian (Sutter 1995). Both equilibria may be peaceful, but at least one equilibrium does not respect individual rights. For instance, Able (the victim) backing down is an equilibrium of the confrontation game. Caplan and Stringham (and other proponents of anarcho-capitalism) have not to our minds offered an argument why the competitive, libertarian equilibrium is likely to prevail.
[...] Anarchy might be peaceful after an initial conflict, but equilibrium selection then would depend on the relative strength of the agencies. If might makes right, as Umbeck (1981) argues, only by luck would the libertarian equilibrium prevail. And over time, an agency that consistently backs down would lose customers. Customers will patronize agencies that can win battles, and the protection market will become increasingly concentrated.
In other words, every equilibrium, once established, is self-enforcing because unilateral deviation would result in a worsening of one’s position. Furthermore, there are as many equilibria as there are space-filling* property allocation schemes -- among which is included statism.
*I.e., leaving no feasible action unallocated. (Backdown, Backdown) is not space-filling.
Perhaps there is some reason why a particular equilibrium will be selected over others? For example, in a bilateral ultimatum game, where two players must agree on a way of dividing a dollar between them, it seems most “natural” for each player to get 50 cents.
This sense of “seeming natural” is known as “salience,” and is discussed by Thomas Schelling in his explanation of a “Schelling point.” From the SEP:
SEP:As Schelling’s example illustrates, salience is a “subjective” psychological trait that does not follow in any obvious way from the rational structure of the strategic situation. Hume already anticipated a role for subjective psychological traits, noting that our choice of convention often depends upon “the imagination, or the more frivolous properties of our thought and conception” (Treatise, p. 504, note 1).
While such salient equilibria may exist, they exist only by a mental whim of the parties; they are in no way objectively determined, even if the parties’ individual economic preferences are given. Thus, a pure mind-wiped state-of-nature will have no general tendency to settle on any particular equilibrium rather than another. As it so happens, the salient points currently existing in the minds of people today are ones that grant the State the authority to make rules governing nearly everything.
If libertarians want to have any impact at all, they must try to change the generally-accepted salient-points from statism to libertarianism. This cannot be done solely by economic reasoning (since economic preferences do not determine salient-points), nor by an appeal to decentralization as a purely formal, non-content-based specification for a social order (since the rule of submission is itself a spontaneous rule). Rather, we must actually take a position and engage in ideological advocacy to alter people’s opinions. And this means taking a stand on issues such as IP, abortion, slave contracts, and so forth.
I welcome your comments.
Zavoi:The question of law is: “Who has the authority to determine the speed limit on this road?”
The road owner?
Zavoi:Right. I suppose my criticism is of those who propose the abolition of government but do not want to play any part in shaping the subsequent society.
By not working to shape the subsequent society, they are shaping the subsequent society. Remember, there is no such thing as purposeful non-action.
Could you please identify 3 people who fit your criticism?
Zavoi:If libertarians want to have any impact at all, they must try to change the generally-accepted salient-points from statism to libertarianism.
Why?
Zavoi:This cannot be done solely by economic reasoning (since economic preferences do not determine salient-points), nor by an appeal to decentralization as a purely formal, non-content-based specification for a social order (since the rule of submission is itself a spontaneous rule). Rather, we must actually take a position and engage in ideological advocacy to alter people’s opinions. And this means taking a stand on issues such as IP, abortion, slave contracts, and so forth.
Or maybe we could just engage in market activities and evolve the tools and processes to replace coercive government with voluntary orders.
Zavoi:I welcome your comments.
Sounds like libertarian strategy central planning style.
By not working to shape the subsequent society, they are shaping the subsequent society. Remember, there is no such thing as purposeful non-action
Haha "I dont really care. Let them decide."
Good plan
You seem to be saying that although you don't know what the “market-correct law” is, there is such a thing, and the current legal environment is not that. While this is true for cars, restaurants, etc., I've argued (in section 2) that there is no “market-correct law” in the same sense, because the kind of law that emerges is not determined solely by individuals' preferences.
Nonsense. Dispute-resolution necessarily reflects the preferences of the individuals involved in the dispute. Law emerges from the body of successfully resolved disputes. Nothing else is law. Specifically, statutes are not law. Statutes are simply the announced policies of the government, which it may or may not follow. Statutes are intended to override any applicable law derived from case history (real law). You can think of a statute in this way, "This statute is a declaration of how a dispute about XYZ between any private individual or organization and us will be resolved." For example, tax statutes are a declaration of how much money the government will take from anyone involved in a dispute with the government and by what rules the government will calculate this amount, rules which it may or may not follow in any given actual dispute.
zavoi:Right. I suppose my criticism is of those who propose the abolition of government but do not want to play any part in shaping the subsequent society.
zavoi:Well, the speed limit is a market issue, like an automobile's specifications or a restaurant's dress code. The question of law is: “Who has the authority to determine the speed limit on this road?”
t is likely that the NAP and respect for homesteading would arise spontaneously on the market.
It is? Explain Sumer...
Cus everyone has more stuff if you follow those rules. There might be an individual desire to cheat on the rules and be a criminal, but its all just a matter of how you sell/defend liabilities.
liberty student:The road owner?
If two people each claim to be the road owner, how can this dispute be resolved?
liberty student:Could you please identify 3 people who fit your criticism?
The people quoted in the OP, although they would probably dispute this.
liberty student:Why?
Because otherwise nobody will have an incentive to deviate from the status quo, just as you have no incentive to unilaterally stop using government fiat money. The “libertarian society” is an equilibrium, but then again so is the current situation.
liberty student:Or maybe we could just engage in market activities and evolve the tools and processes to replace coercive government with voluntary orders.
Is there a role for ideological advocacy or legal theorizing in this?
Clayton:Dispute-resolution necessarily reflects the preferences of the individuals involved in the dispute.
What do you make of the claims of Schelling and Hume that the choice of equilibrium depends on psychological traits (that are not preferences)? If you and I are to play a game of chicken, as in Cowan and Sutter’s example, our individual preferences are clear (I prefer CB > BB > BC > CC, you prefer BC > BB > CB > CC), but there is no way of deducing from this what the actual outcome will be.
Sieben:If there were some service that I have no idea how to provide on a free market, I will still advocate it because I have "faith" in the market process. Does this make me an idealogue?
Is law a “service”? The nature of dispute resolution is such that somebody always gets something they don’t want, so it’s not clear how consumer choice can play a role in a “market” for legal systems.
Sieben:It makes economic sense to not bash up the factors of production, so it is likely that the NAP and respect for homesteading would arise spontaneously on the market.
As Cowan and Sutter say, “The costs of conflict provide an incentive for a peaceful resolution of the confrontation…, but do not determine which equilibrium will prevail.” Once a peaceful resolution is achieved, it is costly to provoke violence by deviating from it, but ex ante there is no clear economic reason to expect one peaceful resolution (e.g., NAP) to prevail over another. Non-NAP equilibria don’t necessarily have to involve bashing up things.
By the way, Sieben, I saw you post about your views on IP contracts in another thread; what do you think the purpose of this type of thinking is?
Zavoi: liberty student:The road owner? If two people each claim to be the road owner, how can this dispute be resolved?
Have you not read David Friedman on polycentric law?
Zavoi: liberty student:Could you please identify 3 people who fit your criticism? The people quoted in the OP, although they would probably dispute this.
Why would they dispute it?
Zavoi:Because otherwise nobody will have an incentive to deviate from the status quo, just as you have no incentive to unilaterally stop using government fiat money. The “libertarian society” is an equilibrium, but then again so is the current situation.
So people won't have any incentive to improve their lives unless you tell them how?
Zavoi:Is there a role for ideological advocacy or legal theorizing in this?
Do you think people are willing to pay for it? Can you honestly make the case that the best use of your time is to argue about legal theorizing, as opposed to testing legal theories in the market, and gaining valuable experience dealing with real shortcomings and issues?
I agree with everything in this quote. You used me as one of those people abdicating responsibility (which seems fair enough), but I never believed there was going to be universal equilibrium of libertarian law. What you have to remember is that law doesn't have to be the same everywhere or even for all the people in a given area. For much of history, different law has applied to different ethnic groups living within the same empire (even in the same neighborhoods)!
I think in a "state of nature" there would be many different kinds of law (so many different equilibria). There would probably be many who would opt for Sharia or Roman-style law, but there would also be localities that converge on an NAP-type legal system. There may be violent conflict between proponents of different legal systems, but the is no reason to think it will be any more likely than war between modern nation states (and some reason to believe that it will be less ).
Multiple conflicting conventional rule systems isn't really a utopia, but it is probably better than the current monopolistic nation-state system of rules that we currently operate under.
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
I'm not familiar with this. I would be highly interested to read more about it, can you point me in the right direction?
Zavoi:Is law a “service”? The nature of dispute resolution is such that somebody always gets something they don’t want, so it’s not clear how consumer choice can play a role in a “market” for legal systems.
Zavoi:As Cowan and Sutter say, “The costs of conflict provide an incentive for a peaceful resolution of the confrontation…, but do not determine which equilibrium will prevail.” Once a peaceful resolution is achieved, it is costly to provoke violence by deviating from it, but ex ante there is no clear economic reason to expect one peaceful resolution (e.g., NAP) to prevail over another. Non-NAP equilibria don’t necessarily have to involve bashing up things.
The NAP is not stable in all scenarios, say for example if you have a deathray gun and a high time preference. But it behooves entrepreneurs to try and come up with some way to gaurantee the NAP for as many members of society as possible in order to maximize economic productivity. A blunt solution could be that a firm invests liabilities in a basket-of-goods, so that its incentive becomes the peaceful cooperation of all economic activities.
Zavoi:By the way, Sieben, I saw you post about your views on IP contracts in another thread; what do you think the purpose of this type of thinking is?
liberty student:Have you not read David Friedman on polycentric law?
I’ve read Machinery of Freedom; do you have anything specific in mind?
liberty student:Why would they dispute it?
I don’t know; that’s why I started this thread.
liberty student:So people won't have any incentive to improve their lives unless you tell them how?
Libertarianism would be an improvement for some and a harm for others. Legal theorizing can still change things by changing the informational structure of the bargaining situation, like an X on the maps of two lost travelers who are trying to find each other.
liberty student:Can you honestly make the case that the best use of your time is to argue about legal theorizing, as opposed to testing legal theories in the market, and gaining valuable experience dealing with real shortcomings and issues?
I don’t think it’s possible to test the core of a legal theory on the market, because of the peculiar characteristics of law as distinct from other products. However, the procedural window-dressing (e.g., jury trials, contract terminology, appeals systems, etc.) could certainly be market-tested through trial and error, to make refinements that would be difficult to anticipate from an armchair.
Solid_Choke:What you have to remember is that law doesn't have to be the same everywhere or even for all the people in a given area. For much of history, different law has applied to different ethnic groups living within the same empire (even in the same neighborhoods)!
This sort of thing would almost certainly happen in an anarchist society, but this is not really the kind of “law” I’m talking about. You’re talking about different groups of people who mutually agree to resolve their conflicts by a certain method (e.g., Sharia courts) while leaving non-members out of it. This “agreed-to law” is different from the more fundamental law that tells us, among other things, who is bound by the Sharia rules in the first place. By saying “Only members of the Sharia court have to wear hijab, and non-members don’t,” you are making an argument about this fundamental law, which (supposedly) cannot itself be opted out of.
The Cowan/Sutter arguments apply to the extent that people interact with each other. To that extent they have to agree on a common law between them. For example, the local Christian and Jewish communities in ancient times might each have different rules regulating marriage and family, and nobody cares because there is no intermarriage. However, if there is commercial activity between the Jews and the Christians, then there will be pressure to settle on a common law, at least for the purposes of commerce. The more globalized people’s activities become, the more there will be a tendency towards a common law, and we’d better make sure it’s not “Do whatever the government says.”
Clayton:I'm not familiar with this. I would be highly interested to read more about it, can you point me in the right direction?
I’m getting most of this from secondary sources, but I’d recommend checking out Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict, particularly Chapter 3 “Bargaining, Communication, and Limited War.”
Sieben:I would argue if you are violating the NAP you are engaging in violence. It might not be the traditional blood'n guts type, but pollution of someone's water supply is definitely aggression.
The economic/game-theoretic analysis is indifferent to the NAP or any other method of determining whether a situation is “aggressive” except whether the parties are actually resisting each other. In this view, if the Mafia threatens to break your legs if you don’t pay tribute, and you acquiesce, this is not “actual” violence because nobody is actually struggling against another. All we can see from this perspective is that the mafioso said some words, you handed over some money, and the mafioso left. If we’re going to call this “aggression,” we need some value-laden definition of aggression (such as the NAP, property rights, etc.).
Sieben:But it behooves entrepreneurs to try and come up with some way to gaurantee the NAP for as many members of society as possible in order to maximize economic productivity.
Coase’s theorem states that any allocation of property rights will result in an efficient outcome, so how can any particular allocation scheme be singled out by the goal of maximizing productivity?
Sieben:Just preface your sales with a "don't share" clause and you have IP rights again...
Well, claiming that a contract like this can give somebody “rights” is already making a legal argument; but maybe you don’t disagree with this.
Zavoi: Sieben:But it behooves entrepreneurs to try and come up with some way to gaurantee the NAP for as many members of society as possible in order to maximize economic productivity. Coase’s theorem states that any allocation of property rights will result in an efficient outcome, so how can any particular allocation scheme be singled out by the goal of maximizing productivity?
Good-will towards men? It might be a weak structure to ground all of entrepreneurial NAPism in a productivity argument, but personally I'd rather live in an anarchist society permeated with cordial relations as opposed to volatile ones.
"Coase’s theorem states that any allocation of property rights will result in an efficient outcome, so how can any particular allocation scheme be singled out by the goal of maximizing productivity?"
That isn't what either the Coase theorem or the analysis of which it is a small part says. You left out the essential condition for the theorem's conclusion--zero transaction cost. The point isn't that all allocations of rights lead to efficient outcomes but that the reason they don't has to do with the differing transaction costs of getting to an efficient outcome from different starting points.
Consider two ways of defining property rights to a thousand acres of farmland. Rule one says all hundred people own all the land, and it can be used only with the unanimous assent of all of them. Rule two says each of them has absolute ownership of ten acres. Do those rules result in the same level of output? If not, why not.
You can find a fairly detailed explanation of Coase's analysis of externalities and related problems at:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Coase_World.html
cognitivist:Good-will towards men? It might be a weak structure to ground all of entrepreneurial NAPism in a productivity argument, but personally I'd rather live in an anarchist society permeated with cordial relations as opposed to volatile ones.
Zavoi:(The post I wrote grew rather lengthy, so I put the rest in a PDF in a ZIP here. Let me know if you have trouble with it.)
Zavoi, this thread vibes with much of what I've been discussing (thinking about) over the last year. Yours (and the references provided) looks like another angle of explaining why/how power (force) cannot simply be considered as just a good/service amenable to free market forces. (And I'd rather not enter one of those discussions here again.) But I'm having trouble opening your file. Could you pls provide a link to the pdf itself?
Sieben:If society builds up a reputation for attacking farmers, agriculture will be discouraged.
But if violence is an essential element of the profitable business, you don't have incentive for NAP anyways, i.e. Somali piracy.
I've read Rothbard on private defense firms adverse to confrontation. I understand his assertion that the NAP will prevail. But NAP is obligatory for the weak, poor, etc. It is not obligatory for someone weilding considerable market influence, i.e. Moguls or the State (most often hand-in-hand). Hence, piracy again proves my point. The English, it can be stated, are a prime historical example of an overgrown pirate society.
Wait, they call it a "Royal Navy".
Somali piracy represents not only physical danger and confrontation, but a real profit-loss risk in competition with commercial, State-sanctified suppliers and transport.
cognitivist:But if violence is an essential element of the profitable business, you don't have incentive for NAP anyways, i.e. Somali piracy.
cognitivist:I've read Rothbard on private defense firms adverse to confrontation. I understand his assertion that the NAP will prevail. But NAP is obligatory for the weak, poor, etc. It is not obligatory for someone weilding considerable market influence, i.e. Moguls or the State (most often hand-in-hand). Hence, piracy again proves my point. The English, it can be stated, are a prime historical example of an overgrown pirate society.
Another worry is that the rich would rule. After all, won’t justice just go to the highest bidder in that case, if you turn legal services into an economic good? That’s a common objection. Interestingly, it’s a particularly common objection among Randians, who suddenly become very concerned about the poor impoverished masses. But under which system are the rich more powerful? Under the current system or under anarchy? Certainly, you’ve always got some sort of advantage if you’re rich. It’s good to be rich. You’re always in a better position to bribe people if you’re rich than if you’re not; that’s true. But, under the current system, the power of the rich is magnified. Suppose that I’m an evil rich person, and I want to get the government to do something-or-other that costs a million dollars. Do I have to bribe some bureaucrat a million dollars to get it done? No, because I’m not asking him to do it with his own money. Obviously, if I were asking him to do it with his own money, I couldn’t get him to spend a million dollars by bribing him any less than a million. It would have to be at least a million dollars and one cent. But people who control tax money that they don’t themselves personally own, and therefore can’t do whatever they want with, the bureaucrat can’t just pocket the million and go home (although it can get surprisingly close to that). All I have to do is bribe him a few thousand, and he can direct this million dollars in tax money to my favorite project or whatever, and thus the power of my bribe money is multiplied. Whereas, if you were the head of some private protection agency and I’m trying to get you to do something that costs a million dollars, I’d have to bribe you more than a million. So, the power of the rich is actually less under this system. And, of course, any court that got the reputation of discriminating in favor of millionaires against poor people would also presumably have the reputation of discriminating for billionaires against millionaires. So, the millionaires would not want to deal with it all of the time. They’d only want to deal with it when they’re dealing with people poorer, not people richer. The reputation effects – I don’t think this would be too popular an outfit. Worries about poor victims who can’t afford legal services, or victims who die without heirs (again, the Randians are very worried about victims dying without heirs) – in the case of poor victims, you can do what they did in Medieval Iceland. You’re too poor to purchase legal services, but still, if someone has harmed you, you have a claim to compensation from that person. You can sell that claim, part of the claim or all of the claim, to someone else. Actually, it’s kind of like hiring a lawyer on a contingency fee basis. You can sell to someone who is in a position to enforce your claim. Or, if you die without heirs, in a sense, one of the goods you left behind was your claim to compensation, and that can be homesteaded.
Another worry is that the rich would rule. After all, won’t justice just go to the highest bidder in that case, if you turn legal services into an economic good? That’s a common objection. Interestingly, it’s a particularly common objection among Randians, who suddenly become very concerned about the poor impoverished masses. But under which system are the rich more powerful? Under the current system or under anarchy? Certainly, you’ve always got some sort of advantage if you’re rich. It’s good to be rich. You’re always in a better position to bribe people if you’re rich than if you’re not; that’s true. But, under the current system, the power of the rich is magnified. Suppose that I’m an evil rich person, and I want to get the government to do something-or-other that costs a million dollars. Do I have to bribe some bureaucrat a million dollars to get it done? No, because I’m not asking him to do it with his own money. Obviously, if I were asking him to do it with his own money, I couldn’t get him to spend a million dollars by bribing him any less than a million. It would have to be at least a million dollars and one cent. But people who control tax money that they don’t themselves personally own, and therefore can’t do whatever they want with, the bureaucrat can’t just pocket the million and go home (although it can get surprisingly close to that). All I have to do is bribe him a few thousand, and he can direct this million dollars in tax money to my favorite project or whatever, and thus the power of my bribe money is multiplied.
Whereas, if you were the head of some private protection agency and I’m trying to get you to do something that costs a million dollars, I’d have to bribe you more than a million. So, the power of the rich is actually less under this system. And, of course, any court that got the reputation of discriminating in favor of millionaires against poor people would also presumably have the reputation of discriminating for billionaires against millionaires. So, the millionaires would not want to deal with it all of the time. They’d only want to deal with it when they’re dealing with people poorer, not people richer. The reputation effects – I don’t think this would be too popular an outfit.
Worries about poor victims who can’t afford legal services, or victims who die without heirs (again, the Randians are very worried about victims dying without heirs) – in the case of poor victims, you can do what they did in Medieval Iceland. You’re too poor to purchase legal services, but still, if someone has harmed you, you have a claim to compensation from that person. You can sell that claim, part of the claim or all of the claim, to someone else. Actually, it’s kind of like hiring a lawyer on a contingency fee basis. You can sell to someone who is in a position to enforce your claim. Or, if you die without heirs, in a sense, one of the goods you left behind was your claim to compensation, and that can be homesteaded.
cognitivist:Somali piracy represents not only physical danger and confrontation, but a real profit-loss risk in competition with commercial, State-sanctified suppliers and transport.
David Friedman:You left out the essential condition for the theorem's conclusion--zero transaction cost.
I was afraid someone was going to say that.
Firstly, the costs of transacting towards efficiency, although non-zero, will often be the same for a number of different allocation schemes. For example, if the “optimum” location for the boundary between A’s dairy farm and B’s sheep pasture is at 36°00’30”N, then it will cost the same for them to bargain here from an initial position of 36°00’00”N as it will from 36°01’00”N. They still have to do the same amount of meeting, negotiating, etc. in each case.
Also, new technology makes it possible to do previously high-cost transactions at a lower cost, thus diminishing the relative difference. (I’m thinking of the examples given by Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody, as well as “dominant assurance contracts” for collective action.) While this is by-and-large a good thing, it too could make the outcome of a legal market more indeterminate.
But suppose that transaction costs remain appreciable, and suppose that somehow a sub-optimal (from a Coasean perspective) set of legal norms becomes entrenched as precedent. The game-theoretic aspects of the situation suggest that overhauling the entire common law to “optimize” it would itself have a prohibitively high transaction cost (“under the Coasean floor”). So it’s important to get it right the first time, rather than disinterestedly say “the market will take care of it.”
z1235:But I'm having trouble opening your file. Could you pls provide a link to the pdf itself?
The PDF contains just the same text as this post up above. (The forum doesn’t allow users to upload files other than images or ZIPs.)
If you’ve had similar ideas, I’d like to hear them.
Sieben:Anarchy is better at following the NAP than statist institutions.
I’m not arguing against anarchy per se (and neither is cognitivist, I think); I’m challenging the particular strain of anarchism that is anti-government but not pro-anything. Showing that the State produces bad results does not suffice to show that anything other than the State will produce good results.
When Long says
Roderick T. Long:Do I have to bribe some bureaucrat a million dollars to get it done? No, because I’m not asking him to do it with his own money. Obviously, if I were asking him to do it with his own money, I couldn’t get him to spend a million dollars by bribing him any less than a million. It would have to be at least a million dollars and one cent. […] Whereas, if you were the head of some private protection agency and I’m trying to get you to do something that costs a million dollars, I’d have to bribe you more than a million.
Whereas, if you were the head of some private protection agency and I’m trying to get you to do something that costs a million dollars, I’d have to bribe you more than a million.
he is presupposing that there is a system in place where there aren’t any bureaucrats controlling tax money. This is positive (“pro-”) advocacy. On the other hand, what if we had a legal agency under which bureaucrats could control tax money? Then this agency would be easily bribable (and would make a lot of money this way).
Zavoi:I’m not arguing against anarchy per se (and neither is cognitivist, I think)
I'm arguing against NAP as a productivity argument. I like anarchy.
Zavoi:So it’s important to get it right the first time, rather than disinterestedly say “the market will take care of it.”
Indeed comrade, the people cannot tolerate mistakes!
The Founding Fathers gave us a simple solution to this problem. It's too bad that their heirs didn't listen:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Clearly the Founders intended for government to have little influence beyond maintaining a military and local police forces, to provide for basic physical security or the citizen. Lawmakers in recent history have taken their intentions to mean that since the Constitution doesn't say you can't create bloated bureaucracies, saddle our great, great grandchildren with government debt, or take fractional reserve banking to a global scale, then it must be alright.
The concept of negation is a wonderful idea, but I believe most state and local governments lack the courage to challenge Federal law. In the end, I believe the solution will lie in massive demonstrations of simple civic disobedience. If everyone simply refused to obey arbitrary laws, such as the New York City transfat ban and proposed salt ban, they would be unenforceable and take their place with the other "blue laws" around the country. Daring to dream, this could also be done with things like the income tax if enough people would just refuse to comply. No matter how big they made the IRS, it could never be big enough to enforce its will on three hundred million people before it collapsed under its own weight. Police would be overwhelmed, and be forced to stick to their basic duties of serving and protecting. Once the police force is non-compliant (and likely more efficient because of it), then negation has just occurred without any need to convince politicians, or risk anyone's rights in the process.
Zavoi,
You are arguing that we ancaps are abdicating responsibility by saying 'let the market decide what the laws will be', and if we want to have an impact, we should be saying 'these are the laws we should have'? Am I right in thinking the issue here is about strategy?
The reason I'm asking is that your essay is about a 'mind-wiped' population, and how initial rules develop, which is an interesting imaginary / theoretical question, but quite irrelevant for strategy I would have thought.
I'd also point out that when you really get down to it, anarchy, the way we define it, is not a "purely formal, non-content-based specification for a social order", since our definition is: a free market in law. And by free, we mean in the libertarian sense: no one is to use aggression is to prevent new competitors emerging in the law field.
Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper
Law without Government
trulib:You are arguing that we ancaps are abdicating responsibility by saying 'let the market decide what the laws will be', and if we want to have an impact, we should be saying 'these are the laws we should have'? Am I right in thinking the issue here is about strategy?
Yes, that’s right. (The issue here is not about the metaphysical status of legal claims.)
trulib:The reason I'm asking is that your essay is about a 'mind-wiped' population, and how initial rules develop, which is an interesting imaginary / theoretical question, but quite irrelevant for strategy I would have thought.
On the contrary, I think it’s exactly the opposite. The “let the market decide the laws” view is implicitly based on the mind-wiped population, since only that way can ideological advocacy be avoided. It’s not interesting to say “A society of communists will develop communism, a society of authority-worshippers will develop authoritarianism…” or even “A society of libertarians will develop libertarianism,” since supposedly people are driven to libertarianism purely by self-interest, and it is not necessary to make people ideological libertarians first. This would be an interesting claim if it were true, but I think it’s untenable.
People who are not mind-wiped are always going to have ideologies, and those ideologies are always going to shape the society.
trulib:And by free, we mean in the libertarian sense: no one is to use aggression is to prevent new competitors emerging in the law field.
If you can define aggression in a way that includes some activities but not others (as you must if you are advocating a change from the status quo), then your precept here is already a substantive claim of fundamental law that is not itself to be subject to market competition. In which case, we don’t disagree after all.