I need some help intelligently discussing justice in a stateless society.
I've had conversations with friends regarding the Philosophy of Liberty video . My friend says that sometimes the ruler with the fancy hat has to use force to take property or life from those who have commited crimes. Now, giving him the benefit of the doubt that he is talking about real crimes against people, how do I discuss this with him?
I have said that stateless ≠ lawless and suggested that the video seems to me to be a description of things in general and does not address abnormal conditions like crimes. He is concerned that a stateless society must be the same as total chaos and violence and the strong preying on the weak unchecked.
Can you help me form my thoughts into cogent statements on this subject?
Thanks!
The state can also cause disorder and lawlessness. See Nazi Germany and USSR. The state won't make unequal things equal nor will it make equal things unequal for the long term. People go against the will of the state all time and they don't always get punished. Slavery could never have existed for long without centralization of state power, because of all of the costs in maintaining it. Plus some people have morals even if slavery was affordable without centralization of power.
Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper
Law without Government
I made a video series about stateless law that may help you here.
In part 1 I provide definitions and explain the difference between stateless and lawless:
In part 2 I look at a case of crime (mugging) and what might happen following it:
In part 3 I look at what might happen in case of a disagreement about what punishment is suitable after a crime has taken place:
Hope this helps!
Graham, the videos are brilliant! Thank you!
The question of how a stateless society would manage crime without the State was the impetus for my signature: challenge the premise.
No2Statism was alluding to my answer. The premise of Statists is false: that the state provides security and order where the absence of the state "implies" chaos lawlessness and crime.
The plain fact is, the State is the ultimate criminal. The State is the reason for disorder. The State is crime on a massive scale. We see it every day in the news and around us. Fundamentally, we are taught to support this myth that we need a gigantic mafia to protect us from potential random smaller mafias. It's a "necessary evil". Paradoxically then, though we realize and accept that fundamental truth, we are trained never to actually consider this fact, "Because," we are perpetually reminded, "statism is, after all, better than the alternative."
On contrast, the free market, the stateless society, is based on hard law: the nonaggression principle, mainly. The stateless society can scarecely be comprehended and accepted as possible and, indeed, necessary, without an understanding of economics. Economics and liberty are inextricably intertwined, thus Rothbard's epic realization: anarchy + capitalism. Anarchocapitalism. They are one and the same so why the need for redundancy? Because without the understanding of both, either is meaningless.
http://www.danann.org/library/law/breh.html
Just one real life example.
'' The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.'' Stephen Hawking
+1
I'm reminded of the thread on "metal theft" being solved by government - the whole line of thinking presupposes that individuals do not care to keep their property secure. As Hoppe describes it, the Hobbesian myth is essentially the idea that a permanent underproduction and underconsumption of security services will obtain in the absence of the State. But there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe this and many reasons to believe that it is false.
Clayton -
Thanks for all the replies. They have been a real help!
First I'd distinguish between economic violence and non-economic violence.
By economic violence, I mean violence with economic motives. The mafia, the State, and ordinary thieves engage in economic violence.
By non-economic violence, I mean violence with other than economic motives. In this category is the husband who kills his cheating wife in a fit of rage, and the wife's brother who in turn kills the husband out of revenge.
Cases where individuals engage in isolated instances of either economic or non-economic violence are in themselves not much of a problem. Firstly, there's no way to stop them, with or without a State. There will always be muggers and robbers motivated by profit, and spouse-murderers motivated by jealousy, hate, whatever. The problem is in the consequence of either kind of violence. If the aggressor is not checked (either by his would-be victim or by some third party), the violence will expand indefinitely. The extreme case for economic violence is a thief living in a world of pacifists. There's nothing to check his lust for ill-gained profits, and so he won't be checked. He'll gradually amass more and more until he become the dictator, and the owner of everything and everyone. The extreme case for non-economic violence is the eternal vendetta between families. 400 years ago a Smith killed a Johnson out of anger, and now the Smith and Johnson families devote most of their time to killing each other: for the purpose of revenge.
Neither outcome is desirable, obviously. Both economic and non-economic violence must be checked by something. If you want a stable and libertarian society, you have to either explain how both forms of violence are self-correcting (i.e. their own internal dynamics somehow bring the expansion of violence to a halt), or you have to explain how some kind of third party (e.g. the State) intervenes to stop the expansion of violence.
Again, no society is going to ever be free from violence altogether. Even a hyper-totalitarian society cannot stop all acts of violence among citizens. The traditional logic behind the State is not that it can stop all violence, but that, through punishing acts of violence, it can stop the expansion of violence: i.e. it can prevent the petty thief from making himself a king, and it can prevent the crime of passion from turning into a family vendetta. For anti-statists, the challenge is to explain how this task, of checking the expansion of violence (aka of resolving disputes), can be managed in the absence of the State.
Also note that for anti-statists the problem of economic violence is probably more severe than the problem of non-economic violence. The latter tends to remain confined to the "parties concerned," i.e. friends and family having a personal stake in the quarrel. Because the violence is motived by things like honor and revenge, it remains limited. Whereas, economic violence has no such limits; the thief doesn't care who he exploits. The ultimate expression of unchecked economic violence is the total-State.
Rothbard said that in a statless society people would follow NAP everywhere. How? How are you going to make jewish property owners to follow NAP, because circumcision is against Rothbardian ethics? Rothbard is advocating the monopoly of law. David Friedman said that in anarchocapitalism property owners can choose which law they will follow, so there would be free markets in law too and no monopoly. Monopoly of the law is not anarchy.