Juan:Nathyn, I highly doubt that 'miniarchists' believe in voluntary funding of their gov't. Can you provide some references ?
Most actual Minarchist Libertarians do advocate voluntary taxation. I'll see if I can dig up a better reference than Nozick, but that should be good enough, since I'm sure you're aware of his influence.
"Austrian economics and freedom are not synonymous." -JAlanKatz
Juan:I admit I always thought that minimal governments were supposed to be funded using taxation. I can't imagine how a minimal government based on contributions would work. It would still be a monopolistic provider of services, SO, its services would be low quality, SO people won't pay. So, what's next ? Some people set up a competing government ? Wouldn't that be market-anarchism ?
That's sort of the position of Objectivists. They propose to make the funding voluntary yet they still want to maintain a territorial monopoly, I.E. they would forcibly outlaw competition. So if only they would give up the territorial monopoly they would be market anarchists. As soon as they grant genuine competition in their so-called "governments", it becomes anarchism.
JonBostwick:You mean what person has the final say and can bring violence upon any person who disagrees with his decision?
That is what I'm wondering. Is violence the end result?
Nathyn:Also, this thread belongs in the politics forum.
The question asked is economic. I'd like to know if enforcement is possible without violence. As far as I can tell a defrauded party would have to take the law into his own hands, thus creating a rule of man, rather than a rule of law. We all know where that leads.
reidbump: JonBostwick:You mean what person has the final say and can bring violence upon any person who disagrees with his decision? That is what I'm wondering. Is violence the end result?
Well yes, anarcho-capitalist don't ban the use of violence but say that it can be used for protection. In the case when someone breaches the contract he is agressing against the other party and therefore to protect latters interests violence is justified. Without any possibility to force the agressor to compensate the world society would consist of people trying to trick each other. Anarcho-capitalist don't expect that in order for the free-market society to work people would have to be completely moral.
One night I dreamed of chewing up my debetcard - there simply is nothing like hard cash in your pocket!
reidbump: Nathyn:Also, this thread belongs in the politics forum. The question asked is economic. I'd like to know if enforcement is possible without violence. As far as I can tell a defrauded party would have to take the law into his own hands, thus creating a rule of man, rather than a rule of law. We all know where that leads.
In a system of justice it is irrelevant what one man intends to do. What matters is what everyone else does in reaction. If one man decides that another man has injured him, he may try to do justice himself. If everyone else decides that the other man is in fact guilty under the law, they will not protect him. The conflict is then limited to these two men. If the first man does not like to produce his own security, he may appeal to his preferred authority for justice, and this authority will then pursue justice from the criminal, who once again will not be protected by everyone else should he have broken their laws.
Minarchism failed because it is socialism || A challenge to minarchists || Private roads and cities || A two-stage strategy for freedom
reidbump: The question asked is economic. I'd like to know if enforcement is possible without violence. As far as I can tell a defrauded party would have to take the law into his own hands, thus creating a rule of man, rather than a rule of law. We all know where that leads.
It's not easy to give a succinct answer to the question of law and justice.
Third party arbitration is part of the answer, especially when it comes to contractual violations and torts. For crime and other such things, it's a little trickier to explain. Of course, defensive force is allowed. Retaliatory force, on the other hand, can only be allowed after a public proceeding (court trial). That's specifically to avoid vigilanteism and confusion about who is initiating force. Why should criminals submit to trial and restitution? The main answer there is ostracism. The degree of ostracism must necessarily be appropriate to the crime to provide enough incentive for the criminal to participate in the proceedings. Ostracism and peer pressure can do much in this regard, especially WITHOUT the coercive power of government.
For more info, you might want to read up on common law courts, Merchant law, arbitration, etc. Bruce Benson's book The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State is an excellent book in this regard, although it's a rather tough read. David Friedman has also written some good stuff in this regard.
Hope that helps to answer your question.
I was trying to preempt your follow up. The only person who can bring violence against any person who disagrees with his decision is the government.
For someone who lives in the modern world saturated with institutionalized violence to think that market justice would increase the amount of violence in society is absurd.
How will people work out problems peacefully? You see plenty of examples of it every day.
Brainpolice: Juan:I admit I always thought that minimal governments were supposed to be funded using taxation. I can't imagine how a minimal government based on contributions would work. It would still be a monopolistic provider of services, SO, its services would be low quality, SO people won't pay. So, what's next ? Some people set up a competing government ? Wouldn't that be market-anarchism ?That's sort of the position of Objectivists. They propose to make the funding voluntary yet they still want to maintain a territorial monopoly, I.E. they would forcibly outlaw competition. So if only they would give up the territorial monopoly they would be market anarchists. As soon as they grant genuine competition in their so-called "governments", it becomes anarchism.
Furthermore, government (like other monopolies) doesn't have absolute control. For instance, even if taxation is theft, the government has to mislead the public by how much they're actually stealing through a complicated tax policy. If the people knew, they wouldn't tolerate it.Under Minarchism, then, there isn't any problem because everybody knows what the government does: providing basic security and protection of property rights through civil law and that's all. Under such a system -- assuming Neoclassical ideas -- there wouldn't be any problem with the government being a "monopoly." If the government tried to grow any larger than Minarchism, the people have the natural right of revolt (as described by John Locke) and they would do that, because it's in their subjective self-interest.
The government, as it stands now, is not to be understood as a problem because it's a "monopoly" anymore than large firms should ber regarded as problematic for having large market share: The problem is that it's gotten out of hand, where it infringes on liberty and the public isn't aware of it. Under Minarchism, both of those conditions would not exist, thus "tyrannical" government would not exist.
Nathyn:Juan, it's supported by the same naive idealism that seems to support Market Anarchism: Libertarians either deny the existence of public goods or they say that self-interest is a driving force in establishing public goods and government just stands in the way.
Most libertarians do not deny the existence of public goods. I don't think most market anarchists do either. You must realize that the traditional barriers to voluntary provision of public goods can be overcome in a variety of ways, and that any government provision of ANY good must overcome the economic calculation problem.
Governments need not provide public goods any more than they need to provide for mail delivery. I suppose arguments could be made that the efficacy of government provision of public goods is greater than market solutions, but I haven't really heard anyone directly and thoroughly compare the two institutions in that regard. If anyone has read anything on it, please let me know.
I believe minarchism will generally fail for Hayekian reasons. People will always perceive problems that they'd like to see fixed. Due to the distribution of knowledge in society, only a small subset of a population will understand these problems (if they are indeed problems at all). As society advances, this subset will grow smaller as knowledge becomes more specialized and problems more exotic. Non-experts, as Bryan Caplan has pointed out, have little incentives to actually hold unbiased opinions. Since the vast majority of the population will always be non-experts concerning a particular "problem", the majority of the populace will often believe "someone needs to do something". The medias will always tend to report the most news to the widest audience, so expecting accurate information to come from them is likely foolish. Government, I think, must grow by demand.
The only things that I could think of that would stop this are a deontological libertarian ethic instilled in most people, or an education in how our society actually works (e.g., how prices aggregate knowledge and signal action). I suppose market anarchism wouldn't be any more stable to the above mentioned problems, though.