I'd like to know how these "voluntary communities" are run by members. Are they run... democratically?
Saying "the US government is bad" is not the same as saying "private defense agencies are good".
no one implied this was the case. You imply defense agencies murdering and pillaging a community (like yours) is bad and you are looking for a guarantee that it won't happen, and all that is a hypothetical. So I say the hypothetical of the US Armed Forces and NATO doing the same thing to a community (like yours) would likely be viewed as bad by you and that, here too, there is no guarantee that it won't happen or that you have legal recourse.
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
No, the ancap society we (you and I) have been discussing would be run... VOLUNTARILY. It's all based upon voluntary interactions. Now, a MINCAP society might be ran democratically. Do you have a deficiency in understanding what "voluntary" means?
Sorry. Anemone brought up voluntary communities. That's mincap stuff.
Plus it's hard to be voluntary when defense agencies are constantly pillaging you with no reason to stop.
As for your pointing out the problems in Somalia, I would argue that mostly has to do with a large lack of understanding of the philosophy of liberty and economics. It is not something innate about the lack of a central authority.
No, an ancap society is also a voluntary community.
Further demonstrating that your argument has no feet to stand on, eh?
impala76: True, but there's always a lot more people whom would like to be left alone and purchase security than there are people willing to become bank robbers. If that were true, political stability would not be problem in many areas of the world without a central government. In the example you gave (Somalia), the balance is not very favorable to law and order.
True, but there's always a lot more people whom would like to be left alone and purchase security than there are people willing to become bank robbers.
If that were true, political stability would not be problem in many areas of the world without a central government. In the example you gave (Somalia), the balance is not very favorable to law and order.
Actually the problem in these regions of the world, and indeed the political problem generally, is forced cooperation and its corollary democracy.
By this I mean the idea that a small group of legislators, however elected, should be able to force laws on the entire populace.
This creates and exacerbates political frustration, leading as you rightly say in many areas of the world to outright war and rebellion.
Democracy, the god that filed indeed, needs to be supplanted with a concept which is actually conducive to liberty. I am building such a concept, it's called autarchy, and was first suggested, in bold strokes, by Robert LeFevre.
If you reject democracy and force cooperation (one and the same actually), groups would be free to split politically and rule themselves. We should end this idea of forcing groups to stay together for political protection.
The reason the US likes democracies is because they are easy to control politically. The US likes to place political pressure on X country's rulers to tamp down elements within that society causing pressure. Absent that mechanism, the US would be forced to commit far more troops and military resources than it possesses.
There are places where, absent that mechanism, war would likely result tho. Especially among many muslim people and places where conflict has brewed for thousands of years. The answer there is by no means easy and I won't pretend an easy answer. I would only say that the market for security in such places would be a healthy one and governments perhaps should get out of the way.
You haven't explained why defense agencies would defend clients rather than pillage them, other than be deterred by other defense agencies (as long as these agencies aren't doing the same thing).
Phi est aureum: Excellent post, Anenome! (; And I point out further, again, that what I was describing what and ANCAP society, as mustang19 continues to talk of too, though incorrectly. I do support the truth that a MINCAP society could have agreed upon laws, or legal recourse for breach of contract. And the point is, people would be free to join/form a MINCAP society or an ANCAP society... Hell, keep your STATIST society if you wish, just don't force me or others into it.
Excellent post, Anenome! (;
And I point out further, again, that what I was describing what and ANCAP society, as mustang19 continues to talk of too, though incorrectly. I do support the truth that a MINCAP society could have agreed upon laws, or legal recourse for breach of contract. And the point is, people would be free to join/form a MINCAP society or an ANCAP society... Hell, keep your STATIST society if you wish, just don't force me or others into it.
Thanks :) and I agree completely, the attitude we need is for everyone to oppose the idea of compulsory cooperation.
Even in my favored mincap society, I make room for those who would voluntarily build either a socialist or a total ancap society.
What I cannot abide are those whom would force any one system of government on me. It is always the statist systems that cannot allow any but their own kind in their society, who demand ideological purity at the point of a gun. Libertarianism has always been tolerant, and voluntaryism is the source of it.
That's why I think voluntaryism is a primary libertarian moral wedge. We should be pushing for voluntaryism as the highest political ideal. The great thing about that is, if done, all the corollary effects of it work their way out into libertarianism.
impala76: I'd like to know how these "voluntary communities" are run by members. Are they run... democratically?
Certainly not. Anyone can put up an initiative, like a suggestion, and the others in that community, having access to and perhaps having read the initiative, can choose to fund it or not. This would be facilitated via online mechanisms. Thus, i've likened it to kickstarter.
The community joins together on the basis of individually accepting similar laws. Once so joined, they are quite likely to respond in kind to many stimuli. So, say a bandit group attacks, one member proposes to hire a security firm to deal with it, and estimates (ala kickstarter) the cost will be say 10,000 bitcoin. Members of that community, concerned over news of the bandit attacks, toss up money voluntarily, or choose to leave the society itself to escape the bandits. There would be no taxation.
By such a mechanism of voluntary cooperation, any community can perform the same functions that today many think only accomplishable by government action.
So what if community members fund competing projects or law systems? Can't these systems conflict?
impala76: Further demonstrating that your argument has no feet to stand on, eh? You haven't explained why defense agencies would defend clients rather than pillage them, other than be deterred by other defense agencies (as long as these agencies aren't doing the same thing).
Why do banks not steal from their own valuts.
If we assume that vast, vast majority of people will remain law abiding, >90%, which is statistically correct, then it stands to reason that the vast majority of security firms will also be law abiding. And that those which do go bad would also then lose 90% of their workforce in the process.
This one fact alone means that some small percentage might go bad. Add in the likelihood of being prosecuted or killed--probably much higher in a community not being served by a monopoly police-force, and the percentage drops even further. Now we're probably talking less than 2% of security firms might try aggression.
But it's unlikely even to be that high. As the risk of aggressing in one area increase each time you aggress.
You keep asking what's to stop firms from becoming warlords, but what stops them now? Whatever stops them now would be basically no different from what stops them in an ancap society.
Now there is police protection. In an ancap society there would also be police protection--except it would be better and cheaper and more professional because it would be privately provided.
To assume that an ancap/mincap society would be less protected from rights-violations than a statist society flies in the face of Austrianism. Such a society would likely be far more secure just like a market is served better by many competing firms than by a single government-granted monopolist.
Again, that assumes that areas without central government are only subject to warlordism because of, as you call it, an incorrect understanding of liberty. If the condition of those areas is, instead, normal human behavior, then the idea doesn't work.
The state?
impala76: So what if community members fund competing projects or law systems? Can't these systems conflict?
If they have the same aim, of stopping the bandits, then they'd likely be mutually supportive, just as police and SWAT work together to solve a hostage crisis.
If you mean more generally, like what if the community members wanted to build a bridge and there were two competing plans, couldn't the plans conflict?
Yeah, sure, but remember that in such a society there is no community property, which means the decision will be made by market and not by any political process, and I'll explain what I mean.
Suppose, of the two plans for bridges, that one gets more funding than the other, or one is better managed and secures a deal to buy the land the bridge would be made on before the other, then the decision has been made.
Or suppose, despite securing the land, the other plan still thinks their bridge superior, and buys land adjunct to the first bridge and builds two bridges. Well, sounds wasteful, but ultimately two bridges may be fine, it's private property after all and the commuters will choose whichever bridge is cheapest to cross. Now we have bridge competition!
As for law systems, dispute resolution too can be privately provided.
The one area I'm still researching is how to deal with criminal law where one party will refuse to come to the table.
The ancap answer that such would be shunned doesn't strike me as effective enough to allow a large scale society to develop around it. My short answer is, if anyone in that society wants to start a competing community and comepte for citizens, nothing prevents this, and it is in fact encouraged. In my mincap community proposal, jurisdictions do not have physical boundaries, their boundaries are determined by the property boundaries of the members of the community that voluntarily accept and take on the mantle of that jurisdiction. This allows explitly voluntary community action, encourages foot-voting, and creates competition among communities for excellent governance.
This is what I'm asking. How does it work?
If the law systems cannot agree on private arbitration, they will conflict.
The fundamentals of grad and markets will guide you to the answer, thus I didn't think it was necessary to elaborate, and I don't. But I'll start a very short description:
it is much easier to gain from trade than it is through plunder. Plunder requires the use of force, and the countering of victims defending themselves, as well as plunder almost always results in the destruction of wealth. So, people can gain more from voluntary trade with much less effort and losses than they can through plunder. Why doesn't McDonalds just take your money and then refuse to provide you with food? Because it will create a mentality among the people to try to steal from McDonalds. And then Burger King says (and demonstrates) that they will accept voluntary trade and provide food for money. So burger King gains, while less people go to McDonalds and many others begin attacking or stealing (back) from McDonalds, which becomes ever more difficult as more of their employees die, and it becomes harder to entice new employees to join, and there is less and less capital available for the hiring needs or the defense/offense needs, all while Burger King is serving and living large.
@Anenome
I am very much in agreement on that too; that voluntarism being viewed as the highest ideal, political, philosophical, and economical, will lead to the quickening of the liberty movement. It's tough when so many are indoctrinated to believe that not only does voluntarism not work, but that it's impossible to have a society based on it. Gotta love the work of the Mises Institute!
If people gain more from trade than plunder, then why don't warlords go out of business?
Plunder allows you to take all a person's property rather than what they're willing to pay you for a service. And it's simpler to get money through threats than through providing a service.
Note that McD/Burger King are not proper analogies as both are constrained by a state legal system.
impala76: If we assume that vast, vast majority of people will remain law abiding, >90%, which is statistically correct, then it stands to reason that the vast majority of security firms will also be law abiding. And that those which do go bad would also then lose 90% of their workforce in the process. Again, that assumes that areas without central government are only subject to warlordism because of, as you call it, an incorrect understanding of liberty. If the condition of those areas is, instead, normal human behavior, then the idea doesn't work.
I wasn't the one who used the phrase "an incorrect understanding of liberty." I think what he means by that, however, is that these people's traditionally submit themselves to regional dictators. If they understood that they are free, they would not rely on dictators and political freedom would follow. Rose Wilder Lane's book "Discovery of Freedom" points out that most people think they must be ruled. You too think this, as is evident by your inability to grok life without a central authority...
impala76:You keep asking what's to stop firms from becoming warlords, but what stops them now? Whatever stops them now would be basically no different from what stops them in an ancap society. The state?
Government does not stop warlords now, rather community action to provide police force and justice stops them.
Culturally, Americans will not put up with living under a warlord. Other cultures have known no other way of living. This is partly responsible for why those regions continue to live as they do. Thus, his statement about inadequate knowledge of liberty is basically true.
I think an ancap society might indeed face warlord problems. Thus, my proposed minarch society is designed to provide a minimalist cooperative voluntary framework of jurisdiction to institute voluntaryism and prevent anyone from deciding a region is ungoverned and therefore they might try to put together a statist regime. At the same time, it gives people a political identity while, again, encouraging voluntarism, and provides a mechanism for community action.
So basically, you're expecting the community to not fund competing legal systems and instead agree on how to run law and order?
Well, I hope you're right.
I am arguing that 1) it is not simpler and 2) you don't get to take all of a person's property.
As for 1) it requires weapons and trained pirates, which require capital on a consistent basis to maintain, and the use of force, which is usually, if not always, messy. Then the thieves must deal with those that fight back (and it is likely that most will resist in some form or another). Then once the band of thieves is widely recognized, the resistance becomes stronger, as people not only prepare to defend themselves more forcefully, but many will likely actively go out looking to capture, kill, or drive off the thieves. And all of that means even more capital is needed to remain successful.
Which brings me to 2) people will begin to hide their property, making it more difficult (capital and labor intensive) to steal. They will begin converting some, and perhaps much, of their property into defensive capital like guns, bombs, booby traps, security cameras, etc. which makes the task of plundering even more capital and labor intensive. Then in many scuffles, some property will be destroyed, whether through gun shot damage, fire damage, etc. And then, some people will take the "if I can't have my property, no one can!" attitude and deliberately destroy property so the thieves will have nothing to take from them.
Voluntary trade allows for not only the creation of new wealth, but the preservation of old wealth. Plunder does neither.
impala76: As for law systems, dispute resolution too can be privately provided. This is what I'm asking. How does it work?
In early America, dispute resolution was provided by traveling circuits of judges and lawyers. Abraham Lincoln was involved in one such circuit. They'd go town to town, offering adjudication for a fee.
In a free society, something very similar would be done.
impala76:If the law systems cannot agree on private arbitration, they will conflict.
You mean in my suggestion of communities? In any honest disagreement, two parties whom want to resolve a dispute can always find a reputable third party to settle to dispute, and agree to bind themselves to the decision. It's not really a problem and never has been in much of the world.
The real issue is how to deal with disputes where one part won't come to the table, criminal disputes.
Then once the band of thieves is widely recognized, the resistance becomes stronger, as people not only prepare to defend themselves more forcefully, but many will likely actively go out looking to capture, kill, or drive off the thieves. And all of that means even more capital is needed to remain successful.
Unless people altruistically donate time and money to forming a militia or something, these individual precautions aren't going to give them any military organization.
Which brings me to 2) people will begin to hide their property, making it more difficult (capital and labor intensive) to steal.
You can't hide land, labor or (significant) capital. Those are the kinds of things that warlords exploit. You can't hide boat off the coast of Somalia, and the cost to defend it is so high you might as well just pay the money the bandits demand.
I guess I should have figured that, instead of trying to frame a legitimate argument, you resort to a comment like that.
I still think my example applies to the point I am demonstrating. It is a hypothetical situation where there is no State threatening McDonalds, as is evidenced by the fact that in my example, no authority showed up to arrest the offending restaurateurs. Is it the names you disagree with in my hypothetical? Fine, let's replace "McDonalds" with "Liberty's" and replace "Burger King" with "AnCap Burger."
And now we are back to you being unable to grasp the possibility of a free society dealing with a social problem like the one provided in my example.
I still think my example applies to the point I am demonstrating. It is a hypothetical situation where there is no State threatening McDonalds, as is evidenced by the fact that in my example, no authority showed up to arrest the offending restaurateurs.
I just think that warlordism would be rare if it wasn't profitable. That's all.
Whatever you want to call it, it is fiscally sustainable and a viable business model in many parts of the world.
impala76: Then once the band of thieves is widely recognized, the resistance becomes stronger, as people not only prepare to defend themselves more forcefully, but many will likely actively go out looking to capture, kill, or drive off the thieves. And all of that means even more capital is needed to remain successful. Unless people altruistically donate time and money to forming a militia or something, these individual precautions aren't going to give them any military organization.
Unless the band of thieves isn't as treacharous and overreaching as you seem to imply, I see no reason to doubt that most people would focus their energy of defending their property.
Did you just purposefully ignore the rest of my post so you would feel as though your argument had a glint of hope? No, one cannot hide land, but they can booby trap it, as I said. Labor cannot be stolen. And significant capital can be sold for weapons, cameras, etc. (as I said) or could be destroyed so there is nothing to steal in a "if I can't keep it, no one can have it!" mentality (as I said).
You can steal labor; slavery is common in Somalia. Then they get these slaves to work the minefielded land at little cost. Destroying or liquidating capital is costly to the owner, and in cases like piracy it's cheaper to just give over the money.
impala76: Whatever you want to call it, it is fiscally sustainable and a viable business model in many parts of the world.
Well, these warlords might take steps to prevent that effective competition, whatever you mean by that.
do you know what makes it more profitable than it would otherwise be in some parts of the world? The fact that many citizens are not "legally" permitted to be armed, even for self-defense (a policy pushed for and implemented by statist regimes).
*rolls eyes* Slavery is not stolen labor.
And again, many people that believe deeply in their liberty would refuse to just pay the fee. I'm not saying all, nor am I saying it is wise. I'm saying some instances of such occurrences will happen. Just like people that, to their core, believe that they are free are much more likely to fight back rather than just paying the fee, even if that means converting a large portion of their capital to weapons and others forms of defensive/security capital. Again, it doesn't have to be all, but many likely will. And this is in the hypothetical of a free society existing first, before thieves and pirates emerge to attempt plunder, meaning that in the beginning, people believe deeply in their liberty.
impala76: Well, these warlords might take steps to prevent that effective competition, whatever you mean by that.
And a meteor made of solid gold might hit the earth and destroy our way of life by inflating the supply of gold and blocking the sun with dust. It seems like you might be grasping at extremely abstract straws here. Whats your point?
Well, the various ancap proposals generally involve something to prevent the emergence of aggressive legal systems. Suppressing these agencies is a restriction on consumer choice and competitive behavior.
The agencies themselves are a barrier to the emergence of aggressive legal systems, they arent even the only one.
Yes. Agencies are a barrier to legal competition because they hinder the emergence of aggressive legal systems. This restricts consumer choice.