So how exactly would you ensure that these private military corporations and volunteer groups wouldn't wage warfare over more territory? or become states themselves? What is preventing people from Civil War without a State such as ours?
In the Anarchic society of Tribal England, civil conflict was the norm among the Celts, Jutes, and other tribes. In a world of Private Property rights, why wouldn't land owners engage in conflict to obtain more land?
z1235:Not true on both counts. You can have government and sound money. And you can also have taxation under a sound money system. I don't see how sound money conflicts with government and taxation.
What will the government tax? What form will they collect it in if there is no legal tender? If your town decides to stop trading in gold, and start trading in silver, and there is no legal tender law, how will the state collect its payment in gold? What if the next town uses copper? And the next diamonds? And the next, squirrel pelts? What if individuals within a town start trading in different goods? Some trade buttons, day old heels of bread, dandelions or felt caps? How will that be taxed?
z1235:I'm not good with nomenclature (new to the field) so I'm trying to explain my thoughts with non-expert terms that carry minimal ambiguity. Are my arguments/questions unclear, or confusing?
No, you make broad generalizations without defining specifics. If you say there is a system that is in some way better than anarchy, then argue that system specifically. If you cannot, then you can't support the positive claim that it is better.
All I am asking, is that if you make a claim, make sure you can support it. When you claim human nature is violent, and then you claim you wouldn't necessarily be violent, then you're either refuting yourself, or making the case you are not human. Which can be very confusing.
z1235:The town,or if that's too much, just assume that we both do (50-50 ownership)
If we both own the path, we have a conflict because only one of us can own the path at a time. If we both have equal claim on something, that is the same as neither of us having claim on it in a dispute.
If someone owned the street, that person would be able to define the right of way for you and another party. If you and another party are moving across unowned land, you only control where you are, not where you are not. And so if there is a collision, the party initiating the collision would likely be considererd the aggressor.
z1235:Btw, how does one infer (prove, claim) ownership of the path without a tax-supported legal (court) system and property registry?
A line from first appropriation to possession if we're working from homesteading theory.
z1235:What happens if I think I own 100% (in my own non-monoply legal system) and you think you own 100% of it (in your own non-monopoly legal system)?
Conflict.
z1235:How does a "free market" "non-monopoly" legal system reconcile this conflict?
I can't answer precisely how it will be resolved because I am not prescient nor do I have perfect knowledge. I can suggest that negotiation or trade are possible and economically advantageous ways to resolve the conflict. We do it all day, every day when we walk down hallways or on state sidewalks. It is not going to be radically different once clear ownership (and hence rules of conduct on said property) are laid out.
We're way off topic now. I have to work, I'll be back later. In the meantime, I recommend you read the sources provided earlier in the thread.
liberty student: Anarchy, politically desirable or not, is economically sustainable.
Not if human behavior (nature, or character, on average and over large swats of the society's population -- Did this explain this term a little bit better?) forces society to allocate too many resources away from production and toward protection of freedom and property.
liberty student: It is actually a contradiction on your part. As far as claims to history, you haven't made any specifically. It is just more broad generalizing. That there was violence, does not mean there always will be violence. You have proven that with your answer.
I'm glad that you recognized that there is violence (and there has been through history). I was starting to get worried for a minute there. Do you actually want me to quote statistics for murder, theft, and fraud globally and over the last few centuries? As I said, get back to me in few 10k years after you have educated the masses that violence and stealing is not their optimal group strategy -- that they'd be much better off if they all just got along (the "cumbayah" argument) -- though (even then) violence and stealing may still often be optimal on an individual basis, that is, in absence of uniform laws and their enforcement to nudge their incentives in the right direction.
Z.
liberty student:What will the government tax? What form will they collect it in if there is no legal tender?
throughout history, even before the arrival of legal tender, governments have been taxing in kind.
Since they didn't have coined money, ancient households had to pay taxes in kind, and they paid different taxes throughout the year. Poll taxes required each man to deliver a cow or sheep to the authorities. Merchants transporting goods from one region to another were subject to tolls, duty fees, and other taxes. etc.
http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v48/n28/AncientTaxes.html
sound money is great and all but lets not kid ourselves we will be tax free after jumping that one hurdle..
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
z1235: liberty student: Anarchy, politically desirable or not, is economically sustainable. Not if human behavior (nature, or character, on average and over large swats of the society's population -- Did this explain this term a little bit better?) forces society to allocate too many resources away from production and toward protection of freedom and property.
You're still appealing to human behaviour without explaining what human behaviour is.
z1235:though (even then) violence and stealing may still often be optimal on an individual basis
Why would violence and stealing be optimal? If it is optimal now, why aren't you stealing and killing? Why isn't everyone?
nirgrahamUK:throughout history, even before the arrival of legal tender, governments have been taxing in kind.
Legal tender is not coin.
Look, minarchy is a nice idea, but it's just too dangerous for one agency to have a monopoly on the legal system. There needs to be some way to constrain police and courts from engaging in predatory, exploitative behavior. Polycentrism is the optimal solution because it has the checks and balances inherent in market competition. Paper constitutions are second-best because they can only approximate market competition (not to mention being interpreted and enforced by the very agency they are supposed to constrain!).
So maybe minarchy could work if human nature was altered, but given what we have, it's just too risky.
AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism
liberty student: nirgrahamUK:throughout history, even before the arrival of legal tender, governments have been taxing in kind. Legal tender is not coin.
throughout history, even before the arrival of legal tender, even before the arrival of coin, where trade was done by barter, governments have been taxing in kind.
nirgrahamUK:throughout history, even before the arrival of legal tender, even before the arrival of coin, where trade was done by barter, governments have been taxing in kind.
By definition, anything the state accepts as payment of debts must be legal tender.
GilesStratton:He messed up the quotation, Laughing Man said that, not me.
If only more of your replies were this succinct.
liberty student: nirgrahamUK:throughout history, even before the arrival of legal tender, even before the arrival of coin, where trade was done by barter, governments have been taxing in kind.By definition, anything the state accepts as payment of debts must be legal tender.
what's your point?, my point is that if we have government, they can certainly tax with or without explicit legal tender laws on the books, and they can tax with or without the institution of sound money. and not only can they, but they used to.
nirgrahamUK:my point is that if we have government, they can certainly tax with or without explicit legal tender laws on the books, and they can tax with or without the institution of sound money. and not only can they, but they used to.
They can do anything they want. They are a gang of crooks. However, the person I am debating with doesn't recognize them as crooks. They recognize them as a legitimate provider of law.
Thanks for derailing the discussion.
I recommend you read The Worst Case Scenario Under Anarchy, by Anthony Gregory
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/gregory/gregory17.html
liberty student: You're still appealing to human behaviour without explaining what human behaviour is.
What do you mean? Do you want me to list all possible and/or likely manifestations of human action/behavior? OK, how about everyone's self-interest for ones self and for his closest family?
liberty student: Why would violence and stealing be optimal? If it is optimal now, why aren't you stealing and killing? Why isn't everyone.
I have my own reasons, the same way the ones stealing and killing have their own, I'm sure. My actual optimality function is not the same as everyone else's, and I'm not even addressing how close my perception of that function is to the actual one. Are you claiming that violence and stealing do not exist, or that they do exist but are still not perceived to be optimal to the self-interest of the perpetrators?
liberty student: They can do anything they want. They are a gang of crooks. However, the person I am debating with doesn't recognize them as crooks. They recognize them as a legitimate provider of law. Thanks for derailing the discussion.
He wasn't derailing the discussion. I proposed minarchy + sound money as a more viable alternative to anarchy, to which you replied that sound money is somehow conflicting with government and taxation. Apparently it's not. Discussion back on rails.