Just to be devil's advocate, how would children be protected in anarcho-capitalism? Presumably they would be under their parents' private defense agency, but how would they be protected from being raped or murdered by their parents. Also, how would child abuse be defined in a libertarian society?
shazam: Just to be devil's advocate, how would children be protected in anarcho-capitalism? Presumably they would be under their parents' private defense agency, but how would they be protected from being raped or murdered by their parents. Also, how would child abuse be defined in a libertarian society?
O_o;...
Well. Wow. lol. Anyway I don't think I'm going to go into any lengthy discussion - but its as if your statement presumes that children aren't in possession of their own bodies. I don't agree with the term 'self-ownership' that brings to mind the idea of god having authority over you, your parents for having 'labored' to produce you - now own you..
Now self-possession - I like that idea.
I would say that when such a vile act happens there are many key things that would need to be addressed.
The kid is in possession of their body. They have a right to report to others what is happening. I would presume that 18 may be the drawing line for free restitution/retribution services needed for the extracation of poor individuals as themselves. Then there's personal retribution.. I would not hold it against the child, to find some way to punish their parents for it.
Now murder.. well. Obviously there's no going back on that one. So if they succeeded, I'm sure somebody would eventually notice. Because as it stands, if there are privatized court/mercenaries, so there must be privatized census/scouts. I haven't been posed this question before...so I'm going to brew on this overnight, maybe come up with a more concise response! Thanks for the thought - if gruesome ;p
It is not slavery to moral or governmental authority which produced the means of transportation, communication, production, exchange, and all the thousand and one contrivances of civilization.It is the business of Self-Interest.
One of Murray Rothbard's most contraversial statements was that children should be under the control of their parents until those children decide to leave or run away from home, at whatever age. When they do, they should be regarded as individuals with all the individual rights of their own. Until they do leave children are effectively the property of their parents. This allowed a Rothbard to be attacked as effectively sanctioning child murder, child rape etc.
This is an interesting area for libertarians and I look forward to reading the posts. I do not think it has been adequately addressed by libertarians to date. (I see that there is a similar post on what happens with animal cruelty in a libertarian world.)
Remnant: One of Murray Rothbard's most contraversial statements was that children should be under the control of their parents until those children decide to leave or run away from home, at whatever age. When they do, they should be regarded as individuals with all the individual rights of their own. Until they do leave children are effectively the property of their parents. This allowed a Rothbard to be attacked as effectively sanctioning child murder, child rape etc.
Children are vulnerable to be raped and murdered whoever their guardian is. There is no absence of evidence that state guardians can commit crimes against children.
The issue is very clear cut. Parents are the best guardians for children. Children are not responsible for themselves. Children must belong to their parents.
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If I was being beaten or abused by my parents, I would run away. It stinks that they would be pushed to do that, and it is even unfair, but it is the only way. I agree with Rothbard on this one 100%.
...And nobody has ever taught you how to live out on the street, But now you're gonna have to get used to it...
Disclaimer: I haven’t read Rothbard’s ideas, so I’m basing my assumptions about Rothbard on Remnant.
I would imagine that various charities would exist, just like they do today (think of charity as a good or service, that when underprovided, becomes more valuable as a PR stunt).
Naturally, charities trying to help abused children would also exist, and they would certainly pay a handsome amount of money to people who found abused children. Perhaps this would create a niche market for a profession whereby one looks for abused children. If we stick to Rothbard's idea of denouncing your parents as the necessary step in acquiring individual freedom, then this detective's job would be to find abused children, and tell them they can denounce their parents. Presumably, in order to maintain control over their children, parents would create an information vacuum, and brainwash them into thinking that they can gain no rights by denouncing the parents. When they do denounce them, they can fall under the protection of the aforementioned charities, and the detective also receives a handsome finder's fee (financial, psychological satisfaction, or a bit of both).
The problem with Rothbard's idea is that nobody can step in on behalf of abused children without violating property rights. Since the only way a child can free themselves from their parents is by denouncing them (running away, etc.), if the child does not realise that they can do this (brainwashing is hardly the child's fault) then nobody is allowed to tell the children that they have the right to secede from their parents. Because in doing so, whoever told them has violated the private property rights of the parents, who, according to Rothbard, own the child. It creates a situation whereby if parents plan things well, they could brainwash their child into being a slave for the remainder of their lives, and anyone attempting to free the child by telling them their rights could be sued.
I don't much like Rothbard's idea of children being their parents property, even after they exit the womb. I'd rather think of it as the parents, in having the child, sign an implicit contract with the child. They either provide for the child without abuse, or they put the child in a home. Anything else, such as abuse, would be considered a crime, just as it would be against any adult. I would say self-ownership should stem from being a sentient human being, independent of any particular parent (when in a womb, you are fully dependant on your real mother fur sustenance, when you are born, you are no longer dependant on that particular parent, but merely a parent). The problem arising from this is, what exactly does this implicit contract, with regards to parents, stipulate? How can courts enforce an invisible contract that the child never agreed to, or if they did, likely didn’t understand. This problem seems to fall into the same trap as theories of the social contract.
Any other ideas?
P.S. Stranger, saying that the government doesn't solve these problems is all very good, but this still doesn't provide an adequate solution for libertarianism. Perhaps there is no real solution, and in some rare cases child abuse will happen no matter what...
"What we do in life, echoes in eternity."
Perhaps we should look at some of the causes of child abuse in our current society? For example: What makes parents beat their children in the first place, and could any of these reasons be removed in the absence of government?
Just a thought.
mr_anonymous: If I was being beaten or abused by my parents, I would run away. It stinks that they would be pushed to do that, and it is even unfair, but it is the only way. I agree with Rothbard on this one 100%.
And what if you were, from a very early age, both brainwashed and fed drugs that reduced your independant thinking ability to such an extent that you would not even be able to think of seceding from your parents. Or perhaps your parents lock you up in a room from which you cannot run away. Or maybe you've been brainwashed into thinking all those beatings are for your own good. In these cases, and many more, nobody can help you without violating your parent's property rights claims on you.
If you're locked in a room with no way to communicate your situation to anyone else, and if no court or PDA knows of your possible condition or can offer any evidence for a search of your parent's private property, then you're screwed. The only way to save you would be to first violate your parent's property rights, but since nobody knows about your condition, searches would end up either not happening, or would be fairly arbitrary. It is surprisingly easy to hide the existance of children, and this system of child-ownership till secession seems to open up a lot of legal, and even moral (after all, it's just private property right? you can do with it as you please) abuse for children.
mr_anonymous: Perhaps we should look at some of the causes of child abuse in our current society? For example: What makes parents beat their children in the first place, and could any of these reasons be removed in the absence of government? Just a thought.
A good start would be Stefan Molyneux, for whom child abuse is a recurrent theme. Basically, child abuse is all part of a long chain of abuse. Your parents were abused, and so they abused your kids, etc. For stef, there are three pillars of abuse, the family, the state, and the church. Parents may abuse children for selfish reasons, with trains of thought such as "I don't want others to think of my parenting as bad", unduly restricting their freedom. Perhaps they will lash out at children, in an authoritarian attempt at control, to compensate for the fact that they themselves are often slaves to church and state. The root of the problem seems to be preference masquerading as ethics, and the attempt to conform, whether to your neighborhood, or some sort of cloudy ideas regarding morality and ethics, such as "Honour your father and mother", without any real explanation as to why, nor any conditional with regards to them deserving the respect. Your parents masquerade their preferences as morally right or wrong, but when asked why, cannot give any rational answer ("because I said so" is a popular one).
The government reinforces the child's compliance with authority by brainwashing them in state schools. Abuse that these children, when grown up, will later pass on to their own children. Organised religion, at least in the mainstream, seems to propagate the same unconditional respect for authority (mostly human representatives of deities).
I recommend reading his book "On truth: The tyranny of illusion".
Rothbard never said that children were the parent's property. He states explicitly in The Ethics of Liberty that the parent's ownership is not absolute, but of a guardianship sort. He then says that children may not be beaten, abused, etc. and that leaving their parent's home and living on their own is when they demonstrate their full self-ownership. He does state that neglect is not a legally punishable offense. I disagree with him here, and instead side with Walter Block: neglecting a child can be considered abandoning it, leaving the right to guardianship to be homesteaded by taking care of the child. But, if a parent neglects the child and refuses to let others take the child, the parents haven't really abadoned the child at all, and are thus illegally blocking the legal homesteading of the gaurdianship of the child.
Children would be protected the same way that everyone else is; by themselves, or by their agents. They would be defended by their parent's PDA and insurance until they came of age; that would probably include defense from their parents. The analogue to social workers could be hired by the insurance companies, as a requirement of insuring a house if you have children (all of this is voluntary, of course. No one is forcing you to let anyone inspect your property. But you can't force anyone to give you insurance, either).
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wombatron: Rothbard never said that children were the parent's property. He states explicitly in The Ethics of Liberty that the parent's ownership is not absolute, but of a guardianship sort. He then says that children may not be beaten, abused, etc. and that leaving their parent's home and living on their own is when they demonstrate their full self-ownership. He does state that neglect is not a legally punishable offense. I disagree with him here, and instead side with Walter Block: neglecting a child can be considered abandoning it, leaving the right to guardianship to be homesteaded by taking care of the child. But, if a parent neglects the child and refuses to let others take the child, the parents haven't really abadoned the child at all, and are thus illegally blocking the legal homesteading of the gaurdianship of the child. Children would be protected the same way that everyone else is; by themselves, or by their agents. They would be defended by their parent's PDA and insurance until they came of age; that would probably include defense from their parents. The analogue to social workers could be hired by the insurance companies, as a requirement of insuring a house if you have children (all of this is voluntary, of course. No one is forcing you to let anyone inspect your property. But you can't force anyone to give you insurance, either).
This I agree with. However, this does raise a problem. Since you say that the parents act as guardians of the child, what you mean is that in having the child, they've signed an implicit contract with regards to taking care of the child. If this is the case, then what does this contract stipulate? What are the boundaries of neglect? Does providing sustenance and shelter constitute sufficient care? Where does the child's self-ownership end, and the parent's guardianship begin? Are all of these problems to be resolved by various principles derived from libertarian axioms, or solved in an arbitrary manner by common law courts?
The question that renders most of these other questions moot is who defends the child when his rights are violated?
Inevitably this becomes a property dispute.
If a rationally consistent ethic, applied to its fullest degree, does not always produce the results for which it is intended, it is by no means any less true.
Certainly, children will be abused by bad parents in Ancapistan. Just as they are now, under the state. But that doesn't mean that the parents' self-ownership and their custodial ownership of their children is discredited.
So how would they be protected? Well, I would suggest that an emancipated child (an "adult", in fact, no matter their age) could bring suit against their parents for any past abuse. Keeping in mind that basic discipline does not necessarily constitute abuse, a court could investigate claims of past abuse and remediate the youth accordingly. Thus, parents would tend to treat their children more or less according to the golden rule, and if they are worth a pound of salt as parents, that will mean that their kids won't have anything to complain about. A parent who is inclined to abuse will have great incentive to put the kid up to adoption, rather than pay a costly remediation later.
Additionally, charitably-funded organizations could form, with the purpose of keeping an eye out for abused children. If a case of proven abuse were discovered, then those parents would have effectively renounced their custiodial status over the child, and the child could justly be taken from them for adoption if he or she desired it.
Note also that if the child decided to stay in the abusive home, they would still be eligible for remediations after they eventually do leave. A child, by definition, cannot give consent - therefore they cannot be said to be in a condition of voluntary submission to the abuse. The custodial ownership of parenthood extends only to providing, in the absence of a child's rational capacity, the rules and sanctions which a reasonable person could be assumed to have wanted.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Another question I had was where do you draw the line between obvious abuse (regular beatings, etc.) and simple punishment (spankings, etc.)?