Political Theory

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Inquisitor — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:57:23 GMT

Brett, I think it's ultimately a matter of semantics. I use rights to designate those things a person may do without being hindered and which should never be violated, provided they violate no one else's rights, with self-ownership and consequently a right to appropriate unowned resources being the only such rights. Being allowed to dispose of your property (including in yourself) in whatever fashion you please, provided you harm no one, is how I would define liberty (e.g. the "right" to free speech.)

Mr Jekyll, definitely. Something companies often do, is when they cannot get their client to pay up a debt, they hire a debt collection agency. It would be interesting to see what similar sort of services arise in a free market.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Brett_McS — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:44:13 GMT

Yes indeed. In "Origins of the Common Law", the author (Arthur Hogue) gives some background on English courts - essentially local affairs which operated in such ways as described in A-C, until they were subsumed by the introduction of the Royal Courts of England. Whether or not that was a tragedy at that particular time, they do give a nice historical example.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

MrJekyll — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:30:46 GMT

There is no STATE in a A-C society. Not in the sense that there is today anyway. The whole ideal is that society will shun someone who creates an offense of physical coercion of person or property. So in your example, the person stealing the car would have little reason to do so. Society would shun him if he tried to sell a stolen car. Which equals no money. You obviously would report it to your insurance right away. If he tries to use it for personal use, he would not be able to insure it and it would be flagged in an insurance system. You would file a claim with an arbitrator. They would try to contact the individual that you are accusing. If no response is given, the arbritraiter would go to a judge and ask for a judgement against the accused person's property for damages. If the accused has no property, then a police force or you could go after him and arrest him. Or hire a PI. Most likely the insurance would do that as they would be the one's paying out.

I liked the answer someone before gave ( I think Rothbard). That being shunned by society is a lot worse than being in jail.

An A-C society is not some hippie mentality. If you wrong someone, they have every right to take action against you. But if they are wrong that it was you and it was someone else, you can take them to court. Hatsfield kills McCoy. McCoy's son has every right to kill Hatsfield. But if Hatsfield's son takes son of McCoy to court because father Hatsfield didn't do it or was in self defense, McCoy would pay the price. There also would be some sort of enterprise that you could notify that would make it known who the theif was. The free market would make all kinds of things for any need that would arise. Plus, even now you can lowjack your car doing it DYI for under a hundred bucks. Let him drive it away and track him on Google Maps. Work smart not hard.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

aludanyi — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:50:49 GMT

I agree. However, unfortunately I don't believe there is any free country left right now on the globe. :( even if you can buy and own property, freedom means a lot more.

Etatism (statism) rules these days, big time. :(

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Brett_McS — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:33:09 GMT

aludanyi:

I don’t think so… you have the right to property, what you are actually buying is the property, not the right for property. When you reserve a picnic table, you don’t buy a right, you rent a table for a period of time, and you buy a table for a limited period of time. If you don’t have rights to property you wouldn’t be able to buy any property or to reserve a picnic table at all. Slaves throughout the history were deprived from right to property, they couldn’t buy a property and they couldn’t reserve a picnic table. We should make a distinction between right to property and property itself, it is a huge difference. The first told us if we working and make property it is ours to keep. The second is a socialist (leftist) idea that everyone should be entitled with house, education, etc. this is actually because they don’t understand the difference between property and property rights. You don’t have to produce property rights it is there naturally – given by the Creator if you wish, but someone has to produce property it isn’t come from the heaven.

I don't think there is any real disagreement. Let me put it this way:

In a free country I am at liberty to buy property. In fact I am at liberty to do anything else, so long as I don't destroy the liberties of others in the process.

In a non-free country, some people (slaves most particularly) are not at liberty to do many such things. The authorities specifically supress their liberties.

If we then adopt Inquisitor's term "title" to describe what we get when we buy property, we can say that renting is buying a time limited useage title, for example. In this way we can leave the rather over-used term "rights" out of it.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Brett_McS — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 07:51:00 GMT

Inquisitor:
In the case of property, it is the title to it that is exchanged. The right is inalienable, and it is the right to appropriate unowned resources.

See, now I've got you using two completely different words for the two completely different concepts: you used "title" for one and "inalienable rights" for the other. That's good. (I used "rights" and "liberties" respectively)

But then you dropped the adjective when discussing rights and spoilt the clarity. Something that is commonly done, as I noted before.

That was basically my point.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Inquisitor — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:45:06 GMT

In the case of property, it is the title to it that is exchanged. The right is inalienable, and it is the right to appropriate unowned resources.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

aludanyi — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:05:27 GMT

I don’t think so… you have the right to property, what you are actually buying is the property, not the right for property. When you reserve a picnic table, you don’t buy a right, you rent a table for a period of time, and you buy a table for a limited period of time. If you don’t have rights to property you wouldn’t be able to buy any property or to reserve a picnic table at all. Slaves throughout the history were deprived from right to property, they couldn’t buy a property and they couldn’t reserve a picnic table. We should make a distinction between right to property and property itself, it is a huge difference. The first told us if we working and make property it is ours to keep. The second is a socialist (leftist) idea that everyone should be entitled with house, education, etc. this is actually because they don’t understand the difference between property and property rights. You don’t have to produce property rights it is there naturally – given by the Creator if you wish, but someone has to produce property it isn’t come from the heaven.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Brett_McS — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:34:44 GMT

Yes, that was in my first post: I can buy a right to property. I can reserve a right to use a picnic table at a certain time.

I'm suggesting that it would be clearer to use a distinct word (not just a different adjective) to distinguish this "mundane" concept from what is a totally different category: The liberty to write a book; the liberty to hold and express a point of view; the liberty to do anything which does not diminish the liberty of others.

Then we can go on to consider what rights we wish to grant to (or with hold from) government, while insisting that it not diminish the liberties of the citizens etc, etc.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

WmBGreene — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 15:02:49 GMT

Brett_McS:
Are we talking about rights that can be obtained on the market or are we talking about "innate rights".

Sorry. Could you give me an example of a right that can be purchased on the market?

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Brett_McS — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 03:11:09 GMT

Sorry, that last comment was in response to aludanyi.

Haven't quite got the hang of the comments system here, yet.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Brett_McS — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 03:07:55 GMT

In fact when you buy property you increase both your and the sellers "supply", if you want to use that term standing on its own.

With respect, your second paragraph illustrates the reason why the word liberty should be used instead of some adjectival form (innate, inalienable) of "rights". People tend to drop the adjective and then confuse two very different things.

But that is a good point about the inversion that has occured. We the people, should be listing the rights we deign to bestow on the governmen, not the other way around.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Brett_McS — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 02:55:53 GMT

I think that if you list "the rights that we are born with" you will find that they fit the definition of a liberty that I gave (using your words).

The advantage of that distinction (between two types of "rights") is that it avoids confusion in discussion. Are we talking about rights that can be obtained on the market or are we talking about "innate rights". Some (actually, a lot of) people fall into the trap of using the two concepts interchangeably. But they are very different, and should have different words to describe them. Fortunately there already is an appropriate word.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

WmBGreene — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 04:10:09 GMT

Brett_McS:
I'm trying to make the distinction between a right and a liberty. We often buy (in one way or another) rights. Typically I buy a right to property. We can distinguish this from a liberty - something that I do not need to buy, since, as WmBGreene says, it doesn't diminish anyone elses "supply".

Thus, rights are seen as something that can be set purely within a market system. All rights can (and ideally, should) be bought and sold. Liberties are, on the other hand, self-evidently and logically non-saleable.

Does that make sense to you? It seems a useful distinction to me.

Don't like it personally. I believe we are born with rights that don't have to be purchased or gifted. They are human constructs to help us avoid conflicts.

Re: Courts in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Inquisitor — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:57:29 GMT

Brett_McS: I'm trying to make the distinction between a right and a liberty. We often buy (in one way or another) rights. Typically I buy a right to property. We can distinguish this from a liberty - something that I do not need to buy, since, as WmBGreene says, it doesn't diminish anyone elses "supply".

Thus, rights are seen as something that can be set purely within a market system. All rights can (and ideally, should) be bought and sold. Liberties are, on the other hand, self-evidently and logically non-saleable.

Does that make sense to you? It seems a useful distinction to me.

I think you're making a distinction between alienable and inalienable rights. The right to property is a bundle of rights - the right to appropriate cannot be exchanged; the right to a title of appropriated resources, on the other hand, can be. One's will is not alienable too, and thus slavery contracts are ruled out on a libertarian view. Rothbard is instructive in this regard.