The ancedote on Oliver Wendell Holmes is
He did not have a curmudgeon’s feelings about his own taxes. A secretary who exclaimed ‘Don’t you hate to pay taxes!’ was rebuked with the hot response, ‘No, young feller. I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.’
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/13/taxes-civilize/
My initial reaction on first reading this comment was disgust and contempt. He was nominated by Teddy Roosevelt. Wikipedia seemingly has some contradictory statements regarding Holmes:
He also argued for judicial restraint, asserting that the Court should not interpret the Constitution according to its own social philosophy.
As a justice of U.S. Supreme Court, Holmes challenged a traditionalist concept of the Constitution that said that the written document does not change, so neither should its interpretation.
I guess this goes to my list of articles to write
Wheylous: I guess this goes to my list of articles to write
This is like the epitome of the superficial, sophist liberal-progressive-statist arguments. The questions are:
Do you have to pay taxes to have a civilized society?
What is a civilized society?
etc.
Here you go.
For a second I thought Kylio had returned.
Yes, we all want a civilized society. Without taxes the Law of the Jungle would prevail. You might even see large numbers of armed men scouring the countryside stealing 10%, 20%, even 50% of the incomes of the helpless masses.
...wait.
Minarchist: Yes, we all want a civilized society. Without taxes the Law of the Jungle would prevail. You might even see large numbers of armed men scouring the countryside stealing 10%, 20%, even 50% of the incomes of the helpless masses. ...wait.
"If men are not angels, then who shall run the state?"
"Wait..." says the minarchist. I must ask, have you finally become the anarchist you know you need to be?
I've been an anarchist for some time, since before I joined LvMI forum. My username (ill-conceived I'll admit) refers to my view that natural monopoly is possible (actually inevitable) in the market for dispute resolution services, and that the best we can do is to try to design a DRO firm which is least likely to evolve into a State over time, which model firm would look something like a minarchist State, sans the aggression. Believe me, I'm tired of giving this little speech, but I can't change my username now, so there you have it.
Minarchist: "Wait..." says the minarchist. I must ask, have you finally become the anarchist you know you need to be? I've been an anarchist for some time, since before I joined LvMI forum. My username (ill-conceived I'll admit) refers to my view that natural monopoly is possible (actually inevitable) in the market for dispute resolution services, and that the best we can do is to try to design a DRO firm which is least likely to evolve into a State over time, which model firm would look something like a minarchist State, sans the aggression. Believe me, I'm tired of giving this little speech, but I can't change my username now, so there you have it.
In the free market, sometimes companies require customers to have private licenses (sort of like a credit rating) before they contemplate trading goods. These private licenses are normally issued by the same firms, but not always.
Another example is Visa, Master, and Discover cards, some stores naturally prefer them over other cards but not always. So there would never be a natural monopoly over the entire market. I've read Anemone describe his large private island idea, I guess that would have a natural monopoly, but only over a small region already owned by one private property owner. So if one person bought all of Liechtenstein then he gets to pick what justice system to impose.
The question is really whether there would be massive economies of scale in protection and dispute resolution services. If so, natural monopoly, of a sort. If not, then not.
I don't see any reason to think there would be a natural monopoly in protection. It's a service that is inherently local and thus decentralized. It can't be served to the one from one central place like an internet service could be. You always need boots on the ground, without that there's no point.
Though, maybe with robotic police officers shot out of supersonic cannons one company could police a continent effectively... but that's a hundred years out still :P
Now, justice can be impersonalized and provided in a centralized manner since all that's truly required for dispute resolution is effective communication, which can be de-localized. You can have judges holding court via telepresence and the like. No one needs to be in the same room together.
But that doesn't mean you'd likely find a natural monopoly either. It just means you could have a couple very large and very good firms, like MS, Google, and Apple equivalent justice titans battling it out in the dispute-resolution world. None of those companies have monopolies, just large patronages.
As for my autarchy / seasteading idea, when it's small you might have sole providers. But I think any decent size would find natural competition in action. Also, I don't intend necessarily to own the whole thing myself and thus would not be picking anything in that manner.
Although, the more research on an actual seastead I've done to figure out how it could actually, really take off, it's become clear that until you can get a decent population permanently on the water, simply declaring sovereignty is worth jack. What you actually need to do is start a business and keep the governance within the business as a private structure, kind of like how a cruise-ship has its own courts and jail and services.
Then that privately owned system can at some point transition to a sovereign territory after critical mass has been achieved. What number is critical mass is a whole other question. I doubt it could be decided in advance. Could be as few as a thousand permanent residents? Perhaps a hundred thousand?
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
stsoc: What is a civilized society? "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
For the record I wasn't actually asking what a civilized society is. I was merely trying to imply that Holmes did not define it.
But since you've given a definition, what is harm? If it's defined as being destruction to one's property or physical damage to one's self, then I would agree.
If it's defined as being destruction to one's property or physical damage to one's self, then I would agree.
I find "one" in this sentence being a bit ambigious.
Do you mean:
Anenome:The question is really whether there would be massive economies of scale in protection and dispute resolution services. If so, natural monopoly, of a sort. If not, then not.
Monopoly in dispute resolution services (DRS) doesn't have to mean one firm globally.
It's a service that is inherently local and thus decentralized
Exactly, people tend to have more disputes with their neighbors than with people living far away, for the simple reason that people tend to interact more with their neighbors than with people living far away. From a free market in DRS, I think there would emerge many, relatively small, territorially-defined natural monopolies.
My claim that there would be natural monopolies doesn't rest on there being huge firms. I understand very well that large =/= monopolistic. The issue is that DRS has very unique characteristics. For it to work at all, there cannot be unlimited appeals. That's not an ethical statement; i.e. I'm not saying "there shouldn't be unlimited appeals." It's that, if there were unlimited appeals, no dispute would ever be resoled. Therefore, it follows logically that for DRS to exist at all, there must be in all cases a final arbiter. We can debate about why a given firm would have this role rather than others, but that doesn't really matter. All that matters is that some firm will have this role, necessarily. We can know this a priori. And that firm will be de facto monopolist for as long as it has that role, because there's no reason for any consumer of DRS to hire any other firm if they know that the firm in the role of final arbiter will simply overrule any other firm in the event of inter-firm dispute. Consider how different this is from any other market. Pepsi doing business does not prevent another cola firm from doing business, whereas a DRS firm in the role of final arbiter does absolutely prevents any other DRS firm from doing business.
The only way to get around this problem is to suppose that no one firm will occupy the role of final arbiter for very long, so as to become established as the de facto monopolist. But I think there are problems with that supposition. For one thing, that is not the usual argument against natural monopoly. The usual argument says that no matter how dominant a firm might be in a market, a new firm can always enter, and this prevent the dominant firm from acting like a monopolist. Whereas, the argument against natural monopoly in DRS rests on their not being any such dominant firm, so it's a much weaker argument. Put another way, we can be sure that no monopolist will develop in the cola market regardless of how the market develops in detail; whereas, we can only be certain that a monopolist won't develop in the market for DRS if the market behaves a certain way: i.e. if for some reason no one firm occupies the role of final arbiter for any length of time (because, if it does, then by definition its a monopolist).
Taxation is theft. It is uncivilized to steal. I believe in following God's teachings, speficially the 10 commandments. Bad results happen when you do not.
We will continue to get bad results by supporting theft.
Minarchist:The issue is that DRS has very unique characteristics. For it to work at all, there cannot be unlimited appeals.
Granted.
Minarchist:That's not an ethical statement; i.e. I'm not saying "there shouldn't be unlimited appeals." It's that, if there were unlimited appeals, no dispute would ever be resoled. Therefore, it follows logically that for DRS to exist at all, there must be in all cases a final arbiter.
The way Rothbard solves this, and what I've come to accept, is that dispute participants could agree in advance how many ruling agreements are necessary to end the case. For minor disputes with poor participants, they might mutually agree to just one judgment, not wanting to pay for an appeal over small amounts of money, etc.
Larger disputes could go with the rule of two, where two judgments is needed to confirm a ruling. Thus you could have up to three trials, which would produce two rulings either way. Similarly, companies might want to be very vigilant and the cost of a trial not be much of a factor to them, and they might decide on a rule of five or seven rulings or more do decide an issue, and they'd be using specialized business courts too.
I find that a far more palatable solution that giving any entity the power of final arbiter, since that creates all sorts of new problems and temptations right away in many different ways.
Minarchist:We can debate about why a given firm would have this role rather than others, but that doesn't really matter.
In Rothbard's proposed solution, there's the advantage of not knowing who the final arbiter will in fact be, making it far harder to obtain favor or bribe them. In a two-ruling lawsuit you might choose three acceptable court services but choose them in random order to be sure.
Minarchist:All that matters is that some firm will have this role, necessarily. We can know this a priori. And that firm will be de facto monopolist for as long as it has that role
But this could be done on a case by case basis; there's no reason why it should need to be a monopolist over everyone. And wouldn't it be more in line with freedom to allow participants to choose their final arbiter for each case?
Minarchist:because there's no reason for any consumer of DRS to hire any other firm if they know that the firm in the role of final arbiter will simply overrule any other firm in the event of inter-firm dispute. Consider how different this is from any other market. Pepsi doing business does not prevent another cola firm from doing business, whereas a DRS firm in the role of final arbiter does absolutely prevents any other DRS firm from doing business.
Not if it's done on a case by case basis and left up to the disputants to choose their final arbiter.
Minarchist:The only way to get around this problem is to suppose that no one firm will occupy the role of final arbiter for very long, so as to become established as the de facto monopolist. But I think there are problems with that supposition.
Okay, you've caught my interest.
Minarchist:For one thing, that is not the usual argument against natural monopoly. The usual argument says that no matter how dominant a firm might be in a market, a new firm can always enter, and this prevent the dominant firm from acting like a monopolist. Whereas, the argument against natural monopoly in DRS rests on their not being any such dominant firm, so it's a much weaker argument.
Huh? I think you're still assuming it's not being decided on a case by case basis. In Rothbard's scenario, the final arbiter is a court just like any other, it's only whether or not its decisions line up with other courts that decides the final case.
Minarchist:Put another way, we can be sure that no monopolist will develop in the cola market regardless of how the market develops in detail; whereas, we can only be certain that a monopolist won't develop in the market for DRS if the market behaves a certain way: i.e. if for some reason no one firm occupies the role of final arbiter for any length of time (because, if it does, then by definition its a monopolist).
I just think you've limited your scenario to the idea that one court must serve as arbiter over a region for a period of time, when the method Rothbard lays out could just as easily be used, is perfectly workable, far more flexible than what you give here, and avoids monopoly entirely.
Thanks for the explanation tho. Cheers :)
Here's a new innovation: simultaneous trials.
In the internet age, we wouldn't need successive trials. If two rulings would decide a matter why not pay for three simultaneous courts to hear evidence and testimony in parallel. They'd have to coordinate proceedings a bit. You could even have each judge be 1 of 3 votes for things like overruling objections and the like, making bribery and influence peddling even harder.
Then, they could give simultaneous verdicts.
I see no one in here read Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents...
If I were to wager a guess I'd say it probably has something to do with having sex with your own parents, or something like that.