Someone asked me a question over the weekend:
What if, under the anarchist system of protection insurance, all insurances find a particular person uninsurable? I.e., he is too high liability for the companies, because, for example, he lives in too dangerous a neighborhood (e.g., a Black person living in a White supremacist neighborhood). And the premium required to pay for his protection is too high for him to afford, while no charity organization in town is willing to pick up the bill.
My answer was: first, in the case when all these things pile up, the person has to move to a safer neighborhood or live with a reality of no protection. That sucks, and his rights to live in peace should not be violated, but such is the reality. Also, what's the alternative? Forcing all the citizens of the town to pay for his insurance or, worse yet, accept some sort of monopoly of a protection agency that will cover him too?
Second, under the government, the situation may not be any better. When Blacks moved in to many communities in Brooklyn, NY or Roxbury, MA, many Jews had a choice whether to move or continue living there despite the increasing crime rates. Most moved to Boroughpark, NY or Brookline, MA, but some communities stayed. They made a decision to live in a place of greater crime, and there is a lot of crime (lots of assaults, robberies, rapes, etc.). So, a) it was their decision to stay, and they must pay the price in terms of reality of things, b) though they are supposedly protected by state police, it's almost as if they were not.
I was wondering if anyone has anything to add to my answer. (The other part of the question was: what if he is too rich and too prone to being robbed? My answer was that he has to pay more for protection.)
FlyingAxe: What if, under the anarchist system of protection insurance, all insurances find a particular person uninsurable? I.e., he is too high liability for the companies, because, for example, he lives in too dangerous a neighborhood (e.g., a Black person living in a White supremacist neighborhood). And the premium required to pay for his protection is too high for him to afford, while no charity organization in town is willing to pick up the bill.
Let me pose a slightly different question:
A man lives in an area prone to dangerous forest fires. Naturally, the insurance is incredibly high, too high for him to afford paying. Think about the questions you were asked but with this scenario instead. Why would it be okay for this man to force other people to pay for his reckless decisions?
The whole essence of the question is that under anarchy, some citizens will remain unprotected because they are too poor and/or because they live in unfavorable conditions. That is why, the argument goes, a minirchist system is better: it will not leave any citizens unprotected in principle. (That, by the way, also includes children, old people, and the homeless, whose protection scheme under anarchy is also not entirely clear to me.)
It will not be able to protect everyone. Even so, do we really want to subsidize risky behavior? Look at the quote in my tag. Is that really what we want? To fill the world with reckless people? At the expense of those who don't take unnecessary risks?
Helloween: It would be good to forcefully shut down a competing justice system which violates negative rights, and replace it with one which instead protects such rights. I would not call it "aggression", but an act of protecting peoples freedom. Just like it's good and right to forcefully shut down anyone who initiates force upon others.
It would be good to forcefully shut down a competing justice system which violates negative rights, and replace it with one which instead protects such rights. I would not call it "aggression", but an act of protecting peoples freedom. Just like it's good and right to forcefully shut down anyone who initiates force upon others.
Pick an issue which is not black-and-white from the point of view of natural law. Possible candidates: abortion, or "rescuing" a child who is a victim of alleged parental abuse.
Take the view that you have about one of these issues. Do you think it's good to shut down forcefully a competing justice system that ruled according to an opposite legal philosophy? (I.e., if you believe that abortion is naturally legal, they ruled that it's not, or vice versa.)
Flying Axe:Right. There is no guarantee either way.
Indeed. Sad, maybe, but nevertheless true.
Flying Axe:Look, I think the images that come up in my head (and possibly those of some other people) when one says "anarchist law" or "mob rule" are that of the South and Black Codes/Jim Crow laws. But one has to keep in mind that those laws were legislated as a result of the local people's views. So, there is no difference here between public or private law-making/discovery in this case.
Not only that, but who's to say whether such laws were really legislated as a result of clear majority preference? It's clear to me that laws are passed routinely in so-called "democracies" without anywhere near even a simple majority of "citizens" actually supporting them. So I find it hard to believe that common-law legal systems would be just as bad as statist ones.
Flying Axe:One could make an anti-federalist argument that this is why it's good for the Federal Government to step in when the local law is immoral, but that assumes that the most cases of the Federal Government "stepping in" (or, to abstract, the rule of the benign majority over the immoral local minority) will be beneficial in terms of the natural law. But I don't know if the reality supports this and not the opposite.
From what I understand, it's been the opposite more times than not. Even desegregation was more of a state-vs-federal (i.e. jurisdictional) issue at first.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Helloween:It would be good to forcefully shut down a competing justice system which violates negative rights, and replace it with one which instead protects such rights. I would not call it "aggression", but an act of protecting peoples freedom. Just like it's good and right to forcefully shut down anyone who initiates force upon others.
What about competing court systems that don't violate negative rights? Those were implicitly included in my original question, as I made no distinction among competing court systems.
I just watched an interview with Alan Derschowitz: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/#47034974
One of his last statements is something like "The shame of this situation is that US is the only country in the world where we elect prosecutors and elect judges". And in the whole interview he alleges that the prosecutor in Zimmerman case is trying to win a beauty contest to become a judge.
But what's the alternative? That a judge is appointed by some bureacrat or a politician (who himself is trying to win a beauty contest)? I think if the Supreme Court judges were elected by the States, the situation would be much less out of control.
@Malachi
Suppose I murder someone, and the heir of the victim files suit against me and wins the case. But I'm of the opinion that murder is not criminal. I manage to find a firm (a "bit player" which serves a niche market - folks who don't think murder is a crime) to agree with me that murder is not criminal, great. Now what? Do you think the heir of the person I murdered is just going to say, "O well, I guess he's right, murder isn't criminal." No, he's going to go ahead and act on the decision from his firm, and execute me (or force me to pay restitution), and he'll do it with no problem at all because the majority of society will agree with him. And the same in the inverse. Suppose I'm a plaintiff and I'm trying to get restitution from Bob for selling "my book" (IP), but the majority don't believe in IP, and I get some firm to agree with me that Bob should pay me restitution for selling "my book" - and what now? You think Bob's going to say "O you're right, I do owe you money." Of course not, he's going to refuse and society is going to agree with him. And if I try to take restitution from him by force, they're going to agree with him when he gets a decision from an arbitrator saying that I robbed him. Do you see how this works? The minority opinion on any given question of law is going to lose - the law is going to reflect the majority opinion on every legal question.
doublepost....
With all due respect, I don't see how we're finished with the "drunk driving" scenario, so I'd appreciate it if you'd actually address the points I raised in my last post, instead of trying to change the subject.
Are you talking to me? Assuming you are...
Just a couple of things real quick: 1. In the case of "drunk driving" where no one's hurt, who's the plaintiff exactly? 2. It's one thing to consider "drunk driving" per se to be a crime, but it's another to satisfy a certain level of evidence that a given person was "drunk driving" at a certain point in time. Note: I put "drunk driving" in quotes because, of course, the term is dependent on an arbitrary threshold (one's blood alcohol level while driving).
Just a couple of things real quick:
1. In the case of "drunk driving" where no one's hurt, who's the plaintiff exactly?
2. It's one thing to consider "drunk driving" per se to be a crime, but it's another to satisfy a certain level of evidence that a given person was "drunk driving" at a certain point in time.
Note: I put "drunk driving" in quotes because, of course, the term is dependent on an arbitrary threshold (one's blood alcohol level while driving).
Yes, drunk driving is not criminal - obviously. I was just using it as an example - probably not a very good one since it makes little sense in the absence of public roads. Look back at the comments where I used drunk driving as an example and substitute abortion.
EDIT: oops, I see that Autolykos was not talking to me. But I'm leaving this comment up because it is true that drunk driving is not a particularly good example. So for anyone raising an objection to me about my use of drunk driving as an example previously, do substitute abortion.
@Helloween:
You asked in one of the previous posts about how we should create private law that will be in competition with the state law. Well, private law has existed among public law. One example is, as I mentioned before, the Jewish law. For the last two millenia, religious Jews went to their own religious authorities for arbitration. There is no monopoly; in fact, a beis din (Jewish court) can consist of any three Jews who keep Sabbath. (Although normally, of course, it consists of competent rabbis.) To see a recent example of such a case (and decision making), see p. 82 of this journal issue.
In fact, Orthodox Jews in many cases are forbidden by Jewish law to go to civil courts (except as a last resort), simply because the courts in most societies operate according to legal principles and philosophies which do not always correspond to Jewish legal philosophies (most importantly, they are not based on Talmud). This idea is actually discussed in the above-linked journal issue.
For the most part the above applies to civil cases, but (although religious Jews are normally non-violent people) I know even of the cases of altercation, for instance.
So, one way to create a competition to public law is simply to do it! Libertarians should agree not to use the public court system ever and instead use private arbitration, choosing, each time, authorities from a list of competing candidates who use natural law as their guiding principle.
A private court based on libertarian values might be a good and feasible project! As far as I know, most governments today allow free competition for courts (arbitration boards) when both parties agree upon one in civil disputes. But...
Firstly, the laws of most governments about crimes and contract disputes are already quite reasonable from a libertarian point of view. I can't imagine how they could become much more libertarian in any substantial way. The main problem with government is its exceptions from such laws.
Secondly, what to do when peope do not agree on who should be the arbitrator? What if they have picked an arbitrator acording to the contract, but one of the party ignores even that part of the contract? I've seen ancaps start talking about it causing bad reputation and social exclusion and such, so that rational people would come to an agreement. Maybe that's true in a society with tight social control, like maybe jewish societies. But first of all there's the question of evidence, without a fair trial I wouldn't exclude anyone on hearsay. And especially when it comes to violent crimes, rationality is often long gone. I cannot imagine how that could be resolved by other means than the use of (retaliation) force in the service of negative rights. And anything but monopoly would at the best be ambiguous, and at the worst a bloody battle.
You didn't answer my question, Helloween. I'll ask it again: what about competing court systems that don't violate negative rights? Do you think a monopoly court system would be committing aggression by shutting them down?
Autolykos: I'll ask it again: what about competing court systems that don't violate negative rights? Do you think a monopoly court system would be committing aggression by shutting them down?
Autolykos:
I'll ask it again: what about competing court systems that don't violate negative rights? Do you think a monopoly court system would be committing aggression by shutting them down?
Yes. And why shut down those who produce that which you want to be produced?
The little part of government which minarchists can be said to want to conserve and develop, i.e. the basic criminal and contract laws and court system, already allows people to choose their own arbitration boards. As long as they agree upon it. Standard shipping related contracts often apoint a specialized private court in London or in New York as their arbitrator. I think that the courts in even especially oppressive governments like those of Saudi and Iran respect such contract clauses. That part is actually already managed in a very libertarian way!
Now consider variations of libertarian court systems. Many details of laws and court procedures cannot be categorized as either libertarian or non-libertarian. Within the realm of negative rights, many variations of the details are imaginable. In some abstract way, competition would be feasible there. And as I said, when mutually agreed upon, the parties of a contract may even today freely choose their arbitrator. However when they don't agree even on that, then what? For me it seems quite obvious that a court system needs monopoly on retaliatory force within its jurisdiction to have any value to delivier. Otherwise the "court" is just some guy with an opinion.
I want to add that the variation of details within a libertarian justice system, aren't really a matter for debate pro/con government. It's a matter of legal technicalities to be debated according to some secondary principles.
@FlyingAxe
While I agree that Orthodox Jews can use a private system of law, it is binding because of fear of excommunication (which is a pretty good reason). If any of them decided they didn't like the decision, excommunication is the only means of enforcing it in the current system, as to enforce it with violence would invoke the wrath of the state.
Helloween:Yes. And why shut down those who produce that which you want to be produced?
Okay, so how then would any court system have a monopoly if multiple court systems are operating within the same area?
Helloween:The little part of government which minarchists can be said to want to conserve and develop, i.e. the basic criminal and contract laws and court system, already allows people to choose their own arbitration boards. As long as they agree upon it. Standard shipping related contracts often apoint a specialized private court in London or in New York as their arbitrator. I think that the courts in even especially oppressive governments like those of Saudi and Iran respect such contract clauses. That part is actually already managed in a very libertarian way!
Except when it isn't.
Anyways, I think logically you must accept the conclusion that there would be no monopoly court system in a libertarian society, as such could only be maintained by waging war against competing court systems within the area claimed by the court monopolist as its "jurisdiction", and such waging of war would constitute aggression (presuming one or more of the competing court systems are not violating negative rights).
Autolykos: Okay, so how then would any court system have a monopoly if multiple court systems are operating within the same area?
Competing arbitration boards today base their existance on the fact that monopoly government court systems enforce contract clauses which designate them as the arbitrator of the contract, and then also enforce the conclusion of the arbitration board appointed. So, how could competing courts operate without monpoly justice system which enforces their right to do so?
If criminal and victim do not agree upon who is to judge their case, then what? Negotiation between insurance companies? Really!? Stinks corporativism and maffia to me... At the best, some brand name value caculus in the marketing department would replace the actual protection of negative rights.
That's funny, because I think it's the other way around!
When there is competition of retaliatory force, there will be wars waged. And peace will be established only when one has conqured everyone else, at least within some jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) such that it makes sense to operate a justice system within it. A justice system which does not command a monpoly on retaliatory force, is pretty useless. It would just be an opinon, and what if the convicted disagrees and refers to the opinon of a different court?
Basically, justice requires the use of violence and there cannot exist a market for violence, since a market is voluntary human action. Therefor justice must ultimately be produced in a non market fashion. And it takes enough of us individuals (within some jurisdiction) to understand, promote and enforce libertarian rights in order for those rights to be upheld. I don't see any shortcuts in the shape of allowing everyones "competition" with their non-libertarian laws.
Helloween:Competing arbitration boards today base their existance on the fact that monopoly government court systems enforce contract clauses which designate them as the arbitrator of the contract, and then also enforce the conclusion of the arbitration board appointed. So, how could competing courts operate without monpoly justice system which enforces their right to do so?
I'd say through the use of common law.
However, I think you're conflating legal systems per se with organizations (and even individuals) that follow them.
Helloween:If criminal and victim do not agree upon who is to judge their case, then what? Negotiation between insurance companies? Really!? Stinks corporativism and maffia to me... At the best, some brand name value caculus in the marketing department would replace the actual protection of negative rights.
I can only offer my own thoughts on the matter. If a person accused of a crime does not even come forward to answer the accusation (let alone consent to search and seizure of his property, questioning, etc.), then he'd be declared an outlaw. At that point, he'd lose any employment, insurance, and other contracts he has. He'd be unable to enter into any new contracts. More than likely, this will make things very, very difficult for him.
Along with being declared an outlaw, a default judgement might also be made against the accused. This would authorize (in the sense of granting legitimacy to) the plaintiff to recover damages from the accused. In fact, this would be the general outcome of any judgement in favor of the plaintiff - except the damages to which the plaintiff is deemed authorized to recover may change.
Helloween:When there is competition of retaliatory force, there will be wars waged. And peace will be established only when one has conqured everyone else, at least within some jurisdiction (territorial or otherwise) such that it makes sense to operate a justice system within it. A justice system which does not command a monpoly on retaliatory force, is pretty useless. It would just be an opinon, and what if the convicted disagrees and refers to the opinon of a different court?
As nearly everyone is capable of some kind of retaliatory force, it would follow that wars would be waged between nearly everyone nearly all the time. Why isn't that the case? I submit to you that human nature isn't nearly as Hobbesian as you make it out to be.
Helloween:Basically, justice requires the use of violence and there cannot exist a market for violence, since a market is voluntary human action. Therefor justice must ultimately be produced in a non market fashion. And it takes enough of us individuals (within some jurisdiction) to understand, promote and enforce libertarian rights in order for those rights to be upheld. I don't see any shortcuts in the shape of allowing everyones "competition" with their non-libertarian laws.
There can be a market for making judgements, which is itself not violent. However, I think human nature is sufficiently uniform for something of a "natural monopoly" to arise when it comes to common law. That in no way means that a single organization has to monopolize the actual making of judgements using that common law.