Political Theory

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

pairunoyd — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:07:37 GMT

Does my preemptive contract not solve this billionaire issue?

Also, it would help clarify things if contracts were named. If you see a contract that doesn't have a familiar name that would go a long way toward your decision to enter said contract. Also, there could be certain pre-defined portions of contracts that make them more agreeable or clearer. You could submit the contract name into your cell and get a reply from a contracting agency that represents you. A computer could quickly view the contract and if portions are outside the domain of 'predetermined clauses' it would be flagged.

Oops, gotta run. But I think theres all sorts of ways that a heavily contract-based society could thrive.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Bostwick — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:30:50 GMT

Trianglechoke7:
However, any conditions in a voluntary contract, no matter how perverse, are legitimately allowable according in a anarchist-libertarian world.

Not true. Contracts are not promises or agreements. They exist as legal documents involving rights to property.

In the words of Rothbard. "Those contracts which do not involve implicit theft should not be enforceable in a libertarian society."

Also see "Punishment and Proportionality," pages 85-96, in The Ethics of Liberty.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Bostwick — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:22:20 GMT

Trianglechoke7:
Now, imagine a crazy billionaire opens a store and on the entrance of the store he has a typical contract stating, "By entering this establishment you hereby agree to not steal, kill me, blah blah blah... Then at the very end of the contract it says in small print I hearby reserve the right to extinguish your life forces for no reason whatsoever if you enter this building.

That would be murder and the owner would be treated as a murder by private courts.

You have fallen for a grand fallacy: that people respect decency because of governments. In reality, people force governments to respect decency more highly than governments otherwise would.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

allixpeeke — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:01:58 GMT

Trianglechoke7,

If I have not threatened your or anyone else's life, or raped you or anyone else, or signed a contract saying you may kill me, then you may not kill me. I don't forsee many private arbitors deciding in favour of the homicidal rich dudes, and I don't forsee many customers patronising the private arbitors that do.

Your argument does not convince me that government is any less threatening than this scenario you propose. However, if you wish to advocate a voluntaryist government a la Auberon Herbert (one without the power to tax or compell coercion), that's perfectly fine with me.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Inquisitor — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:29:45 GMT

And, as I said, by the same token, then, a society based purely on legislature and/or with a Constitution is equally susceptible to this problem, if not even more so. The common law has long found ways to deal with such issues, as have various civil law systems. The vagueness of language applies equally to any and all legal systems.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Nathyn — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:56:05 GMT

Inquisitor:
My point is that the argument that 'language is vague' is no real defence of minarchism vis-a-vis anarchism. Clearer now? As for gangs, we have one now monopolistically claiming power and calling itself a State, and which offers little in the way of justice. So how, precisely, is it preferrable to anarchism?
As for your pre-emptive rebuttal, it is again, pointless. Austrians base their defence of markets on their cooperative nature. Typically the phrase 'society does not exist' refers to some entity above and apart from individuals.

It is because Market Anarchism relies upon assumptions of clarity of language. If language isn't clear and two people can read a contract carefully, sign it, but still walk away with completely different beliefs about what just happened, then a society based simply on contracts isn't workable. This, as I said, goes against mainstream philosophy and mathematics -- both a priori schools of thought you can't reject on anti-positivist grounds.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Jackson — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:29:33 GMT

the problem you have with our 85iq having dead man is that he did not comprehend the contract the crazy billionaire was offering. there was no meeting of the minds. he did not agree to being shot just as an illiterate person staring at the sign would not have been consenting to death by walking into the building.

as far as assisted suicide is concerned...yes, there can be assisted suicide between two concenting parties. if the suicider backs out on the suicidee and does not recompensate the suicidee (a refund or something of the like), then he should be penalized and/or his business will suffer accordingly.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Inquisitor — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:29:20 GMT

My point is that the argument that 'language is vague' is no real defence of minarchism vis-a-vis anarchism. Clearer now? As for gangs, we have one now monopolistically claiming power and calling itself a State, and which offers little in the way of justice. So how, precisely, is it preferrable to anarchism?

As for your pre-emptive rebuttal, it is again, pointless. Austrians base their defence of markets on their cooperative nature. Typically the phrase 'society does not exist' refers to some entity above and apart from individuals.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Nathyn — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:58:46 GMT

Brainpolice:
Had to butt in on this one.

Political theories based strictly upon economics -- which currently Minarchism and Anarcho-Capitalism seem to be -- is largely a mistake because "human action" is not strictly economic.

Libertarianism in general is not based strictly on economics. It also has plenty of ethical considerations. Murray Rothbard himself argued that utilitarian economics by itself is not enough to establish the basis for a libertarian system of thought, and may very well be used to justify the status quo in the absence of any genuine ethical theory of rights.

Libertarianism isn't strictly economic, but the arguments for Minarchism are because they weren't exactly laid out by a diverse group of scholars.

The two most influential arguments for Anarcho-Capitalism come from:

* Murray Rothbard, "Man, Economy, and State" -- an argument on the basis of natural rights

* David Friedman "The Machinery of Freedom" -- an argument on the basis of utilitarianism

Both men are economists. Although Rothbard invokes a lot of Classical Liberal political theory, he invokes it very sloppily and he still largely relies upon his background as an economist. That should be clear enough from the title itself.

Why exactly it should be, "Man, Economy, and State" and not "Man, Society, and State" isn't quite clear.

And don't give me that "society doesn't exist" nonsense. Libertarians, even here, have pointed out how the idea of "society" is pretty obvious and in no way contradicts methodological individualism. Libertarian hostility towards the word "society" seems to result from the fact that the field of Sociology has been historically dominated by Marxist theories about "classes" and "social groups" apparently acting as conscious entities. Even today, such theories seem to predominate in Sociology. However, theories of society can be based upon individual human action and you pretty much have to invoke society if you're talking to talk about what things will be like for people under any particular political or economic system. A very basic definition of society is "what things are like for people."

In America, you and I speak english, eat cheeseburgers, and have a strong regard for liberty. In the Middle-East, they speak Arabic, eat kebab, and have a strong regard for Islamic theocracy. Recognizing these facts in no way contradicts individualism. We simply have to recognize their individual component parts. "You" and "me" speak English, as individuals, because we were born in America. The individual people in the Middle-East speak Arabic because they were born there. There's no problem in recognizing, then, that there are "English-speaking countries" and "Arab-speaking countries." There isn't any problem with this, except when collectivists start treating these groups as conscious entities in and of themselves rather than groups made up of conscious entities.

As noted elsewhere, "society" is no more intrinsically collectivist than "economy."

Also, a quick note: The last two paragraphs weren't attempts at straw-mans -- just a pre-emptive rebuttal to what Libertarians tend to say, when the word "society" is invoked.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Brainpolice — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:28:07 GMT

Had to butt in on this one.

Political theories based strictly upon economics -- which currently Minarchism and Anarcho-Capitalism seem to be -- is largely a mistake because "human action" is not strictly economic.

Libertarianism in general is not based strictly on economics. It also has plenty of ethical considerations. Murray Rothbard himself argued that utilitarian economics by itself is not enough to establish the basis for a libertarian system of thought, and may very well be used to justify the status quo in the absence of any genuine ethical theory of rights.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Nathyn — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:08:32 GMT

Inquisitor:
If language is so 'vague' what is one to make of minarchist constitutions?

I think his claim about language being "vague" falls under Mises' claims about human behavior being uncertain.

Language is vague. You have to admit that was one thing the positivists definitely proved. See their contributions to Linguistics, such as Godel's Incompleteness Thorem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorem

Once you fully understand the full scope of what Godel's theorem means, then you can try to defend the idea that language is perfectly clear and can be objectively interpreted -- an idea not held the majority of philosophers and mathematicians today.

Mises himself acknowledged that human behavior is not mechanistic. His followers frequently seem to forget this.

So, to say, "Under Anarchism X would happen" or "Under Minarchism X would happen," is self-contradictory -- not that I'm saying the same isn't true of Statism. My point is simply that if you truly accept Austrian uncertainty, then that implies that the establishment of Anarchism and Minarchism doesn't guarantee a particular society, because it is always made up of individuals who are free to act however they want.

If they decide individually to be mostly bastards and coerce eachother, Anarchism and Minarchism will break down because, to some degree, even Minarchism and Anarchism rely on the majority of people actually practicing contractualism and actually respecting property rights.

Political theories based strictly upon economics -- which currently Minarchism and Anarcho-Capitalism seem to be -- is largely a mistake because "human action" is not strictly economic. Mises understood the power of culture, hence he appreciated the work of Weber -- at least from what I've read.

So, despite being a Libertarian, he still supported the Austrian monarchy, for instance, as a pragmatic defense against Nazism -- even though the Austrian monarchy was in opposition to liberty as well.

Similarly, I see no contradiction in Minarchism, for Minarchists to see "Government" as a pragmatic defense against violation of property rights, even though government violates property rights themselves.

The organized, orderly theft of government in the form of taxation may in fact be preferable to the roving chaotic mobs of violent gangs that may emerge from Anarchism. Since human behavior is so uncertain, the precautionary principle seems to apply.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

pairunoyd — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:38:29 GMT

I'd imagine if weird stuff like 'billionaire killers' started occuring there might emerge some sort of pre-emptive, ubiquitous contracts. People would join contracts en masse that covers all of the sorts of rights a sane person would expect to have (like a Bill of Rights) and they would be non-negotiable. (Any negotiable terms would require a certain procedure that would make the new terms clear) They would present their card or contract to anyone whose property they're planning to enter. If the land/property owner doesn't agree to this contract, the contract holder will not enter the premises. After a while, the business owners would either have to accept these pre-emptive contracts or go broke. Also, I'd imagine it would become popular for land owners to only sell properties to persons that respect such preemptive contracts or 'bill of rights' or risk being ostracized, boycotted, etc.

P.S. I think another thing that would help with general contracts is if contracts had proper names. Maybe the one which I mentioned above would be named, The Commonsense Contract. I guess you could start adding numbers to the names, but fraud could creep in. Maybe if they limited it to 1 change or set of changes per year. January 1st the, The Commonsense Contract 2007 would become, The Commonsense Contract 2008 and people would know they need to read it each year. But, simpler is almost always better.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

libertarian — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:12:32 GMT

People would abuse contracts such as write a long terms & conditions so people do not have the incentive to read that long of a thing. Of course, near-perfect competition would createst short contracts.

Murder and property abuse is subjective. Every individual has different subjective opinions of what is considered murder. Therefore, to collectively compete on a definition of murder would be absurd.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Grant — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:05:23 GMT

The real question is under what conditions should contracts should be interpreted literally? Contracts themselves are a means to an end; the end being the cooperation over the use of property. What the billionaire did was to purposely pervert the the nature of contracts in order to be able to murder someone legally. It may be that some court would hold the billionaire innocent (although I'd serious doubt that), but if so it does not call into question the philosophy of market anarchy (which relies on contracts as a means), but rather the court system that made such a judgment.

In fact, market anarchism guards against such absurd court decisions very well, since any such decision would be a sign to competitors that the court's market share was ripe for the picking.

Re: More Anarcho-capitalism reductio's

Inquisitor — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:21:13 GMT

If language is so 'vague' what is one to make of minarchist constitutions?