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The reason why I thought of a tariff is political viability, not economic sanity. I understand that the people will end up having to pay an indirect tax due to the increased price of goods, but I think that a tariff would be easier to sell than another revenue-raising measure. If there must be taxes, they should not be "easy to sell." They
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For a minarchist State, courts could be financed purely with user-fees. But to fund a military, I'd favor a universal capitation tax. The advantage of a capitation tax is that it's extremely regressive, which means that in a society with a republican form of government, it would be extremely difficult politically to raise the capitation tax
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For whom does guilt need to be established? If the goal is a society that adheres to the NAP, then guilt needs to be established for whomever would use coercion against the accused: i.e. it must be established that the accused is actually guilty before any coercion is used against him to get restitution/retribution for the alleged crime, otherwise you
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The U.S. is a federal system meaning the national government allows the States to have the powers it wishes them to have. It's not really decentralized. And there's the fundamental paradox - there is no such thing as "real decentralization." At one extreme, we have a fully centralized State. Moving towards decentralization, powers
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The likelihood that the individual has committed a crime is irrelevant. All that matters is whether the individual is actually guilty or not. Let's say Mike in fact steals from Bob, but Bob did not catch him in the act. Now, you're saying that Bob deciding that Mike is probably guilty of the theft does not justify Bob's arrest (false imprisonment
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The error in your reasoning is that your premise is false. Technically, your argument follows modus ponens (if p then q). You have a valid argument. As I said, your premise is flawed. There exist people today that do not care to have absolute certainty of someone's guilt in order to punish. These people can range from District Attorney to a Mafia
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You can't just attach "anarcho-" to anything and have it mean something. Fascism is socialism is the antithesis of any kind of stateless society.
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If this is true... guilt can never in principle be established with absolute certainty. If a person can only be justifiably punished when their guilt has been absolutely established, then a person can never be justifiably punished in any case whatsoever. ..then this is true. ....to put this view into practice would mean to eliminate all possibility
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I don't think there's any a priori reason to prefer one approach over the other in all cases. The easiest route to anarcho-capitalism depends on the factual circumstances of the society in question. Whether you attempt to deconstruct the State through the central State reforming itself, or through a decentralization, I think gradualism is required
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I agree with you, the distinctions between possibly, probably, and certainly guilty are arbitrary, and guilt can never in principle be established with absolute certainty. If a person can only be justifiably punished when their guilt has been absolutely established, then a person can never be justifiably punished in any case whatsoever. But this is