I can imagine that this could be one of the last port of call reasons for a state. It is reasonable to understand that wives and children who run the risk of getting abused or beaten by husbands and parents arguably can resort to the state and the social services it can provide as a counterbalance and a path for them to escape abusive relationships. Is there a risk that in anarchocapitalistic communties, these kinds of private tyrannies, often reinforced by cultures with particularly conservative backgrounds could become more entrenched? Or is the existence of the state helping or having no effect on such abuses? I would very much appreciate your replies, as I feel this is an important issue that deserves not to be overlooked.
"When the King is far the people are happy." Chinese proverb
For Alexander Zinoviev and the free market there is a shared delight:
"Where there are problems there is life."
Well the simple answer is just respect other people, especially your family, and don't behave wontonly towards them -one doesn't have to be unconservative to know this.
The state can't do much without a willing and cooperative victim. With a willing and cooperative victim, besides the state, there are plenty of other avenues for help such as family, friends, church, her insurance company and private security, etc. I don't see the state as required in this (or any) situation.
www.skylerjcollins.com www.libertysearch.info
Interesting, I think this question in some ways may be similiar to the kind where one asks where would the destitute and helpless be without government aid and the welfare state. Many of those in favour of such interventions are ironically enough part of private support groups and charities that help tackle these very problems and from whom the state ends up diverting resources from. So it's not because of the state that freedoms of women and vulnerable minorities are protected, but rather that these private humanitarian groups campaign so effectively to force the state to provide such protection. Yet the state may not necessarily be the best means to their end, often countering their efforts severely in climiates where ideas have not yet changed among the ruling elite, e.g. Iran.
Any more ideas?
Hope this is not too off target – but a similar question I have – I regarding the protection of children and animals if not for state force. How would private organizations have the power to protect the truly innocent? I have heard libertarians say that children are “owned” by their parents or that they have no rights until they reach a certain level of advancement. This turns my stomach. Help push me over the fence towards your total belief system. I have read some stuff on this, but would like to hear opinions from the smart folk here.
Be responsible, ease suffering; spay or neuter your pets.
We must get them to understand that government solutions are the problem!
Another option would be for the general public to treat the abuser as an outcast. For example, the restaurant owner could refuse to serve him food, the retail owner refuse to sell him goods, etc... I have read about how this method would be one way to deal with, say, the town racist. I would assume it would also apply to the man who abuses his family.
However, of course, this relies on public knowledge of the event. In this case it may be difficult to get accurate information to the public.
I can imagine that this could be one of the last port of call reasons for a state.
1) A victim of domestic abuse seeks protection.
2) The state currently offers such protection.
Conclusion: Only the state can provide such protection?
If a man beats his wife, I'd think most people would be OK with forcibly restraining the man and transferring some of his wealth to the beaten wife. Entrepreneurs, then, will feel secure in offering protection to victims of domestic abuse; they know society at large will not attack them for trying to help a beaten wife. Should this be a misogynistic society which tolerates assaulting women and children every now and again, why should we expect the state - particularly a democratic state - to do anything but support the men? If 'the people are the government,' and the people are total a-holes, then the government is going to make pro-a-hole laws. Are we to suppose a society of rapists is going to tolerate an anti-rape state?
I don't know of any modern, capitalistic society in which it is considered acceptable behavior to attack women unprovoked, much less children.
One solution: marriage contract. It says things like, don't hit the kids, don't hit the wife, the kids should go to school, and so on -- whatever the couple decides is right for their family. The contract could also stipulate penalties and which judicial agency would be responsible for settling domestic disputes.
I can’t see a nice ay to put it, so here it is: there is very little one can do to stop any such thing.
Anyone owning the house could very easily condition his wife and/or children staying by submitting to abuse, and there’s then on earth we can do about it.
Now, you could boycott this guy, and rating agencies will probably arise to mark them, or you could decide to live in communities with strict rules against domestic abuse (you’d have to forsake home ownership to live in a commune with enforceable rules, though).
But in principle I don’t see what could be done. I would not hold that communes where wife beating is seen as normal could not possibility evolve. All of the contrary, they probably would evolve in many places.
I've spent a lot of time on the problem of child abuse (see this thread). Eventually, I'll publish something solidifying the case for potentiality within the praxeological framework of libertarian law, integrate theories on needs similar to those of Maslow and Max-Neef with a libertarian theory of jurisprudence, and show how it relates to the penal system (of all things).
Regarding a husband and wife, the case isn't much different than any others of assault and battery. One noticeable difference between our solution and state approaches would be that there is no limit on punishment ex post facto, or after the fact. If the police have been called out to a beaten wife 10 times, but she only pursues punishment the 10th, and she can make a prima facie case for her feeling terrorized having been the reason for not pursuing punishment the last 9 times, the husband could be punished for all 10 instances of abuse, rather than just the last one.
The task of libertarian theory is to assign an allowable maximum punishment. It doesn't tell a judge or security firm what it must do with it, or a victim that they must pursue it fully. A Tolstoyan pacifist victim could well totally forgive the aggressor. A big influence on this theory is the Apriorische Rechtslehre, or pure theory of right, of Adolf Reinach. What I have been looking into, though, is influences on Reinach, such as Ernst Beling and Rudolf von Jhering. These two are German legal philosophers whose concepts of delict-types (delict is similar to tort) closely resembles Reinach's legal philosophy.
So, how this applies to the case of a battered wife is as follows. I'll ignore the discussion of an underlying legal schema (Tatbestand or typus regens) and its praxeological basis for the sake of simplicity, but I'm sure that you are able to intuit it. If we can call a certain case "battery", as a matter of necessity, the schema must be realized in certain actions on the part of the offender and certain consequences by the victim. Furthermore, the actions and results must go along with definite types of mental attitudes of both parties. The social act of forgiving or waiving a claim, has a certain type of psychic episode associated with it to be called such. So, we could anticipate a case where someone "forgives" another ostensibly, but the underlying mental state is not one of forgiveness but of fear. If a victim can make a case that such an attitude led to them representing forgiveness only out of fear, the whole case can be reevaluated.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
Animals are property, ergo it's up to the owners to do whatever they please with them. Unowned animals are fair game, liable to be homesteaded.
Since children are people, abusing them is aggression. That doesn't mean that someone taking away your kids like the contemporary Child Protective Services does now would be lawful. The most someone could do would be to help a kid leave home and press charges against the parents when said kid feels they're being abused; what happens now is a total disregard for the young person's wishes.
Of course asking the kid is impossible when dealing with a toddler, right? But when you're a neighbor and see signs of violence, then I think a case could be made for intervening on the toddler's behalf analogically to how it would be lawful to help someone who's being mugged or otherwise assaulted.
Ehm, no. Never, parent´s have nothing. At most they have the honour and luck of being able to take care of kids, as long as the kids choose to stay with them. For example, Homer Simpson using force to stop Bart from leaving to the Flanders would be a crime, aggression.
Yes and no, the problem is not that someone takes your kids, that you own them before and now get angry because someone else is owning them, no.
The problem is that someone is kidnapping the kids, is using force to take them away. Before that they were at home when they were free and staying voluntarily, if not, how could we claim the moral high-ground?
ERO:The task of libertarian theory is to assign an allowable maximum punishment.
And who/what would allow this maximum?
What? You don´t see what could be done? It´s very easy, he who beats his wife or kids can be killed any second by the victims in self defense or by anyone who chooses to help them (risking their lives, legally and physically). Anyone hearing screams or suspecting it could call specialized agencies who would love to help, or he could do it himself, the agencies would have more experience and know-how to help in the situation. The only way he could get away with it is living in Siberia or chaining them and never letting them out of the house, even so, someone could suspect it, and spy on him, legally, outside of his home, contact social agencies, his protection agency, start a campaign demanding his peers, his friends and his business partners to ask him to allow an investigation. And he could also risk himself trying to enter the home, if he were right, he would have the law on his side by helping the victims, if not it would have been his choice. How would rating agencies just mark him? If he was known to be a beater, he would be prosecuted or killed, not "rated", indeed, those who protect him from his former victim would be criminals!
z12345:And who/what would allow this maximum?
Who/what "allows" any legal code? A rational basis for punishment being foreign to you is not an argument for its unacceptability by the public at large.
ERO:A rational basis for punishment being foreign to you is not an argument for its unacceptability by the public at large.
So if I hit you with 2.5x "max punishment", then you would be justified to punish me back with 1.5x "max punishment" to even out the score? What if I convinced enough people that my initial 2.5x max punishment is a better, more proper max? Can I than consider your 1.5x max punishment as aggression and punish you for it? What would be the max punishment for that?
If I remember correctly, this issue is addressed by Stefan Molyneux in Practical Anarchy. So every individual has a DRO card. The better that individual behaves in society, the lower prices he can pay for different goods and vice versa. Essentially, the price system is applied to human behavior itself to allow for economic calculation. That is, individual man can decide if his personal decisions are profitable or not. With regards to domestic abuse, the possibility of which should be considered in marriage contracts as common practice.
Personally, I think the women are also at fault when they get repeatedly beaten up and they remain with the bastard. Yeah, its due a large part to taking care of the kids, but kids in a free society would be much safer and women more empowered due to deeper inclusion in the workforce.
The market is the best way to deal with racism, sexism, or bigotry of any kind because all it cares about is your cash.
Don't forget of course women locked in "arranged" marriages by their own families, where they have very little say to begin with. For most of history they have actually been treated like objects owned and traded by their fathers and husbands respectively. The idea of a love marriage as anything more than an interesting novelty is a phenomenon of the last 200 years of western history, and continues to remain the exception in large parts of the world. I think we can thank capitalism, the industrial revolution for the large part it's played in putting an end to such oppressive social relationships, at least relatively in the west, as women gained employment and the possibility of independence. I feel many other societies and ethnic groups rather continue to shove this issue under the rug, engage in denial, and when push comes to shove; blame the victim.
So if I hit you with 2.5x "max punishment", then you would be justified to punish me back with 1.5x "max punishment" to even out the score?
Are you still not familiar with libertarian proportionality? Read here at least from pg. 12 for an introduction.
The basic formula is two teeth (or a tooth in cases without forethought of malice) + costs of (re)capture + a premium for scaring the victim. I'll stick with just the "teeth", since the latter two aspects are case-specific.
If I steal 10 oz. of gold from you, you have the right to be restored to your former condition as well as to do what another did to you. So, you get your 10 oz. back and can "return the favor" of the involuntary transaction to take a further 10 oz. from the criminal. I don't see what your basis for turning that into 50 oz. would be, but yes, if someone over-punished or punished an innocent person, they are open to punishment then themselves.
What if I convinced enough people that my initial 2.5x max punishment is a better, more proper max?
If I genuinely agree to be stoned to death for not wearing a head-scarf, I'm sunk. If the fashionable crime in your democratic republic is whipping someone for a victimless crime like smoking dope, you are open to punishment because no actual crime has been committed. Growing up in a territorial monopoly on force is not a form of contract with the monopoly provider.
Can I than consider your 1.5x max punishment as aggression and punish you for it?
Throughout common law times there was provisions, de jure, which insulated judges from such retribution. There's nothing in theory against going after someone who over punished though, no. If you are executing trespassers, there is obviously something flawed in your theory of punishment.
What would be the max punishment for that?
If the proper punishment is 20 oz. of gold to be returned and you extract 50, you are a thief of 30 oz. of gold + associated costs.
Kenneth:If I remember correctly, this issue is addressed by Stefan Molyneux in Practical Anarchy. So every individual has a DRO card.
Can you cite this? Molyneux is terribly wrong on a number of issues. There is no reason for a person to be required to hold a "subscriber card" to any security provider. See this thread for instance.
Many people prefer the known premiums of a life insurance policy to accumulating capital on their own in case they die. Many people would agree to certain terms in order to have an agreement in place with police who patrol their streets before something happens. Still, there is nothing stopping a victim of a crime from forging a new agreement with a provider after the fact.
ERO:If I steal 10 oz. of gold from you, you have the right to be restored to your former condition as well as to do what another did to you.
What if the 10oz. you stole were to repay my loan that had my house as collateral. Since your theft caused my default on the loan, I lost my house. Do I also get to torch your house, or claim ownership of it? What if the loan-shark killed my sister because I didn't repay the 10oz I owed him? Do I get to kill your sister + two aunts for good measure?
and an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind...
Someone just don't get it.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
For a picture of how serious dispute resolutions could and actually are resolved in certain parts of the world, please see the following lecture I had the pleasure of attending at Grove City College, by Michelle Carrera from the Universidad Francisco Marroquin:
http://www.vimeo.com/7478890
However cultural advancement, which often comes hand in hand with economic advancement I feel is just as paramount to human progress(e.g. with the abolition of slavery), and is something that is missing a certain factor of dynamism in a lot of these types of societies. I suppose it's what one can expect, when the only existing forms of private law are found in comparatively backward countries.
What if the 10oz. you stole were to repay my loan that had my house as collateral. Since your theft caused my default on the loan, I lost my house. Do I also get to torch your house, or claim ownership of it?
If "house" is a homogenous good (unlikely), you could claim ownership of the thief's house as part of the cost of REcapturing what was taken from you. Nobody firebombed your house, so you have no right to retaliate as such.
What if the loan-shark killed my sister because I didn't repay the 10oz I owed him?
Now we have a more complex legal problem of the loan shark murdering people who owe him money.
Do I get to kill your sister + two aunts for good measure?
This is hysterical nonsense. Try reading the article and making a sensible response once you grasp the rather commonsense theory.
ERO:Now we have a more complex legal problem of the loan shark murdering people who owe him money.
Um, no. We have a perfect example of how value (of 10oz, in this case) is BOTH subjective and variable with time. How do you reconcile your legal theory of punishment with the subjectivity and variability of value across agent-space and time?
It hasn't been overlooked. Kids are free to run away. It would be criminal for parents to imprison the child. The solution to dometic abuse is the child's freedom as a human to leave. A free society would have agencies that would pair unwated kids with families.
I seem to be missing your theory of punishment. All I see is histrionics on your part. I kept to the case of theft of objectively homogenous goods for the sake of simplicity. That subject does not give you license to introduce the third party, a murderous loan shark, then whisk it away from the chain of causation. Your "problem" is addressed in the published work on proportionality. I'm not going to try to spoon-feed indigent and hostile intellectuals though.
No amount of tired leftist slogans removes proportionality from its firm grounding in Misesean praxeology.
z1235:Um, no. We have a perfect example of how value (of 10oz, in this case) is BOTH subjective and variable with time. How do you reconcile your legal theory of punishment with the subjectivity and variability of value across agent-space and time?
I haven't seen a libertarian theory of justice yet which can compensate for lost time/opportunity. I'm not sure it is possible to come up with such a system.
All compensation is subjective, which is why I think ideas like estoppel and proportionality leave a lot to be desired. They are similar to a labor theory of justice in my opinion.
ERO:I'm not going to try to spoon-feed indigent and hostile intellectuals though.
So I'm an intellectual, now? Playing hard-ball, aren't we.
OK, I'm going go ahead and read up on "the published work on proportionality" to solve my "problem". Thx for the suggestion.
liberty student: I haven't seen a libertarian theory of justice yet which can compensate for lost time/opportunity. I'm not sure it is possible to come up with such a system. All compensation is subjective, which is why I think ideas like estoppel and proportionality leave a lot to be desired. They are similar to a labor theory of justice in my opinion.
hahahahahhahahahahaa ooo that is so funny
liberty student:All compensation is subjective, which is why I think ideas like estoppel and proportionality leave a lot to be desired. They are similar to a labor theory of justice in my opinion.
Same here. If most people feel that stoning to death is just "punishment" for adultery (or for painting your house pink), most adulterers (or pink lovers) would get stoned to death. No amount of "a priori deduced", "logically derived" legal theory of justice/punishment will convince them otherwise.
A million people saying that 2+2=5 does not make it the case.
ERO:A million people saying that 2+2=5 does not make it the case.
2+2=5 is the case in a mathematical universe premised on "X before the = sign is X+1".
Stoning adulterers is "just" in a society/market premised on extreme and prevalent valuation of fidelity.
and an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind...
Make it two eyes for an eye then.
Excuse me, but what does that have to do with proportionality?
Proportionality means - unless we're redefining the English dictionary now - pretty literally an eye for an eye, or the right to beat up the person who beat you up, or kill the person who murdered your spouse or relative. According to the principles of proportionality, the only thing the "crime" of adultery would conceivably entitle the "injured party" is sleeping around in turn.
z1235:Same here. If most people feel that stoning to death is just "punishment" for adultery (or for painting your house pink), most adulterers (or pink lovers) would get stoned to death. No amount of "a priori deduced", "logically derived" legal theory of justice/punishment will convince them otherwise.
That's a bit further than I would go. That's outside of property rights when you stone someone for doing anything with their person or property.
I am simply saying that "proportion" is subjective. We can come up with cultural norms for compensation, but those are not logically deduced. They can be derived from convention, experimentation and precedent. To dispute this, would be to dispute that exchange (since restitution is an exchange to restore value) is subjective. Where the legal system comes in, as a function of establishing social norms and conventions, is to keep someone from demanding everything from an individual who has committed the most trivial of property rights violations, as this would paralyze an economy, because property rights violations (both accidental and of mal-intent) are inevitable.
Proportionality means - unless we're redefining the English dictionary now - pretty literally an eye for an eye
Proportionality means a ratio between to quantities that is fixed. So two eyes for an eye is proportional as long as its held consistently.
Who says it should have anything to do with it? Even if it could bridge the gaping hole of subjective and variable valuation across agents and time, what does proportionality have to do with extreme anti-adultery or anti-pinkery as competing theories of justice/punishment?