How Are Contractual Rights Enforced in Anarchism?

Nathyn, I highly doubt that 'miniarchists' believe in voluntary funding of their gov't. Can you provide some references ?

Juan:

Nathyn, I highly doubt that 'miniarchists' believe in voluntary funding of their gov't. Can you provide some references ?

I admit that what with the term "small-l libertarianism," there are a lot of Conservatives who try to call themselves Libertarians to sound cool the same way Rothbard wanted to call himself Anarchist while supporting the social contract.

 I've read most of "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" and in it, Nozick argues for voluntary taxation. His arguments are the most widely influential argument for Minarchism and, in the past, the LP openly advocated voluntary taxation.

After the movement became poisoned with political Conservatives calling themselves "small-l libertarians," they revised their platform to include the opinions of these non-Libertarians, by eliminating the demand for taxation to be voluntary and the demand for borders to be entirely open.

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.

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 ?

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.

Such a position, monopoly and voluntary funding at the same time sounds contradictory to me....

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.

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.

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.

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? 

 

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. 

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 ?

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.

According to Nozick, if regulation was minimal and taxation was made voluntary, we wouldn't need to radically abolish the government. Radically abolishing the government would lead to chaos -- ironically, Rothbard acknowledges this. Like I said, from what I've recently read about Rothbard's beliefs on constitutionalism, I don't really see how Nozick or Rothbard had genuine disagreements, just disagreements over semantics -- mostly just that Rothbard was incoherent in calling himself an "Anarchist."

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.

OK, maybe this is one disagreement between Nozick and Rothbard: Nozick seemed to have a Neoclassical view of monopolies. He acknowledged they existed, but he didn't think they were bad because they only exist to begin with due to economies of scale and price is driven downward by potential competition.

 To apply this reasoning to the "monopoly" of government: Governments only develop because large amounts of INDIVIDUALS support them, because they believe in principles of coercion. In a democracy where over 50% of the voting population are Libertarians, it's not clear how the mere existence of government as a monopoly would lead to oppression.

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.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning Nathyn. Also, are you advocating miniarchism ? Or just discussing the theory ?

Have you read these ?
http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/Molinari/Thesis.html#RTFToC21
http://praxeology.net/GM-PS.htm

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.

reidbump:

So the arbitrators, insurance and security companies would have executive branches with powers of enforcement?  And is that power to enforce given to those entities through the parties' contract, thereby making it voluntary enforcement?  What happens if the breaching party refuses to recognize their power of enforcement even though he agreed to it by the terms of the contract?  Are there any consequences imposed, or does the free market supply the consequence (i.e. people will hear about him and refuse to do business with him)?

 

Well, that is certainly one option. Another option I would pay attention to is forced mandates. A similar question could be asked about the state. If I refuse to show up, so what? What can the state do? Force me to show? Yes.

 

Now, there are problems with that, and they certaintly are not all simple ones to work out in a deductive way. I think you'd have to simply go with empirical analysis. What happens today? Could that be similar to what would happen in a contractual society? 

Juan:

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning Nathyn. Also, are you advocating miniarchism ? Or just discussing the theory ?

Have you read these ?
http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/Molinari/Thesis.html#RTFToC21
http://praxeology.net/GM-PS.htm

 

 He's just calling Rothbard incompetent and rambling on about how Market Anarchy leads to chaos in accordance to some quote he doesn't understand by Rothbard, no real intellectual substance.

 
As for public goods, that's really quite ridiculous. First, how are you defining public goods? Are you defining them as goods that cannot be provided on the free market? If so, which ones would those be?

Or is this an argument about some goods not being profitable on the free market, in which case you beg the question. Perhaps goods not applicable to free market pressures due hold some value, but certainly on the free market not enough value making them allocatively inefficient projects, thus sucking away resources and social welfare.