Torsten: On putting anarcho-capitalism into practice... Knight_of_BAAWA:Why does one need to when one does not have the burden of proof? I see no reason to do it.Because it's not about proving something, but about living ones dream. Knight_of_BAAWA:Why should we?Because you anarcho-capitalists say that their model is better then any statist model. Knight_of_BAAWA:And look at where their ideas have gotten us, especially when they claim it is empirical evidence that a state makes life better, etc.Well, obviously the state doesn't make live miserable enough otherwise people would establish a territory with an alternative idea, like anarcho capitalism, being practiced. Knight_of_BAAWA:And yet it's precisely the same from burden-of-proof standpoint. I hope you're not verging on a special pleading fallacy. your comparison was a category mistake. Question to all the armchair anarchists here: If you don't want to start such an anarcho capitalist society yourself, would you at least move into territory once anarcho-capitalism would be established in it?
On putting anarcho-capitalism into practice...
Knight_of_BAAWA:Why does one need to when one does not have the burden of proof? I see no reason to do it.
Knight_of_BAAWA:Why should we?
Knight_of_BAAWA:And look at where their ideas have gotten us, especially when they claim it is empirical evidence that a state makes life better, etc.
Knight_of_BAAWA:And yet it's precisely the same from burden-of-proof standpoint. I hope you're not verging on a special pleading fallacy.
Question to all the armchair anarchists here:
If you don't want to start such an anarcho capitalist society yourself, would you at least move into territory once anarcho-capitalism would be established in it?
Torsten, you are right that there needs to be an actual attempt to establish a free society as we are discussing here. I founded the Liberty Colony with the goal of achieving this reality. You are also right that most of the people here don't even advocate doing anything let alone are actually doing something that will lead to creating a free society.
Most of the strategies that are advocated are really just a cloak for doing nothing. People argue that they are educating people and this will somehow lead to freedom or that people should try not to pay taxes or paticipate in the underground economy (translation smoke dope in their basement) when in reality these so called actions are just cover for doing nothing.
Finally, many of the posters have a view of the world from either the U.S. or Europe or so they don't have much practical experience in how societies work outside of those areas. For example, the idea that participating in underground markets will destroy governments and the idea of government is ridiculous. At least half the people on the planet are participating in the underground economies and governments are not nearing collapse as a result.
Jon Irenicus: Here's my advice to you - learn to write in concise paragraphs, or you will get no responses, and definitely none from me. I certainly do not have the time nor the patience to wade through walls of text on online debates, especially if all you're doing is rehashing familiar arguments against anarcho-capitalism and amateurish crap like "rights dun exist coz I can't see them!". Oh, and by the way, we're libertarians too - we're just consistent. -Jon
Here's my advice to you - learn to write in concise paragraphs, or you will get no responses, and definitely none from me. I certainly do not have the time nor the patience to wade through walls of text on online debates, especially if all you're doing is rehashing familiar arguments against anarcho-capitalism and amateurish crap like "rights dun exist coz I can't see them!". Oh, and by the way, we're libertarians too - we're just consistent.
-Jon
Thanks for the advice. It seems to me you dont have time for, or just dont want, a debate. If you think these arguments are old, or invalid then you should have no problem debating your point, without the name calling.
So taking your bent words..
"rights dun exist coz I can't see them!"
back to
"laws that are not enforced do not exist in reality"
And we could have a debate about it. You cant just dismiss it by calling it amateurish crap. If you think so, then tell me by what logic.
The point that laws have to be enforcable to fill their purpose, is key to the debate wheter anarcho capitalism is just an idealistic system or if it can actually work in the real world. Laws that are not enforced, are laws that dont make a difference in the real world. Many laws need to be enforced by violence. And if a party is going to enforce a law by violence, he has to be stronger than the violating party. For a party to be able to enforce laws within a society the enforcing party has to be the strongest of all. And now we have our monopoly on violence. Now we have our state.
The resoning above is logical and i see not where I have made a misstake. If you disagree then pinpoint where you think it breaks.
Cheers
No, the burden is on you to educate yourself. I have no obligation to cure your ignorance. No "name-calling" was involved. I've no problem debating, when the other discussant keeps their posts concise.
So taking your bent words.. "rights dun exist coz I can't see them!" back to "laws that are not enforced do not exist in reality" And we could have a debate about it. You cant just dismiss it by calling it amateurish crap. If you think so, then tell me by what logic.
I can, if it fails in understanding what rights are. Besides, I never quoted that particular statement. I questioned the validity of your assertion, which was that rights do not exist. What the law is, or is not, is irrelevant.
Then explain why a monopolist will not abuse their power, will not sell low quality at high prices, and why we should not have one world state. You've far from demonstrated that, unlike any other market, law and order need a monopoly.
To darkness I condemn you...
Thanks for the reply. I'll only comment on one point you made as i think it goes to the heart of it.
"That's a really nice strawman. The private law enforcers couldn't do anything about it because they are weaker? So you assume that a more powerful warlord is going to rise up in a peaceful society to dominate the populace and NO ONE is going to be able to stand up against them? Highly unlikely."
Yes, I absolutely assume that a powerful warlord will show up. Anarcho capitalistic society has to be able to survive everything a regular statist society is able to survive (otherwize the statist society is a more effective form of law and it will compete out the anarcho capitalistic societies). Bad people, violence, and immorality are always going to exist, people are animals after all. Surely you dont suggest that anarcho capitalism will change humans nature so that all people are peaceful and nice all the time?
In a society where one party has a defacto monopoly on violence, the party is very powerful and can just about beat anything that is thrown at it. However in society where this power concentration is splintered into many small autonomous groups, any one of these groups is going to be relatively less powerful (even assuming they dont get into conflict with one another about law and start a civil war).
Take a small society, a village, it does not take a big local mob to kill the local law enforcers off. Maybe its just the local school bully and his buddies that grew up and got some guns. And if you say that law enforcers would be a bigger group, so that they could handle the local mob. Then what about a neighbouring town that decided to kill you off. You would need a even larger and more powerful law enforcement group to be able to withstand that attack. And what about a neighbouring country? In the end the group has to be as big and powerful as possible to be able to enforce its law. And eventually you end up with just one big law enforcement. You end up with a monopoly on violence, and then you are stuck with your statist system again.
Maxliberty:Torsten, you are right that there needs to be an actual attempt to establish a free society as we are discussing here. I founded the Liberty Colony with the goal of achieving this reality. You are also right that most of the people here don't even advocate doing anything let alone are actually doing something that will lead to creating a free society. Most of the strategies that are advocated are really just a cloak for doing nothing. People argue that they are educating people and this will somehow lead to freedom or that people should try not to pay taxes or paticipate in the underground economy (translation smoke dope in their basement) when in reality these so called actions are just cover for doing nothing. Finally, many of the posters have a view of the world from either the U.S. or Europe or so they don't have much practical experience in how societies work outside of those areas. For example, the idea that participating in underground markets will destroy governments and the idea of government is ridiculous. At least half the people on the planet are participating in the underground economies and governments are not nearing collapse as a result.
I thought that if we spend all of our time defining what "isms" and "ists" we are, then we will eventually overcome statism. That's the myth isn't it? That the state will eventually collapse and we just have to wait for that?
I've started to spend less time on this forum. Lots of interesting thinkers, doesn't appear to be many doers.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
Jon Irenicus:Then explain why a monopolist will not abuse their power, will not sell low quality at high prices, and why we should not have one world state. You've far from demonstrated that, unlike any other market, law and order need a monopoly.
I dont disagree with you that the state is the enemy of the individual. The state will most certainly abuse people. It will only treat individuals with respect if it benifits them. The state lives off your taxes. So if its smart, it will not steal all your money as that would be killing their cash cow, they just make lots of small cuts.. It will treat you relatively well because it does not want to hurt the hand that feeds it to bad. That way the cash cows stay healtier, more passive and are able to generate more money for them.
However bad the state is, the individual can not kill it off. Its not just a parasite, the bully does serve one purpose that individuals need it for. Individuals need it for protection services. And only the biggest baddest group in the society will do the trick.
Just like the biggest bully at school, its good for you to make friends with him (maybe pay him some bribe money).. that way noone else dares to mess with you. You need the bully but he is not your friend. Or just like prison gangs, when you get in there you better make friends with the most powerful gang leader quick. That way you can be sure noone will mess with you. Maybe the price for this protection servive is be very high, you have to do unthinkables to pay for it. Well you might pick to go at it alone, or pick a less powerful and small group that does not charge as much. Well you might just end up dead if one of the more powerful groups want it.
Side tracking.. come to think about it. The balance in power between gangs in prison and the protection services they provide for their members is probably the closest thing to anarcho capitalism i can think of. Maybe even if the gangs are separeate, there are some unwritten laws between the gangs, and if one gang breaks it the others might combine temporarily in the punishment. However if the balance of power changed, and one gang got bigger than the others they would probably kill the other gangs off.. and they would rule the whole prison. As far as the prisoners where concerned it would be the state , it would be the law.
But states need not limit themselves - and democratic ones absolutely will not do so. Individuals in the government are in it for quick gain. They will create as much conflict as they can get away with, to extract as much rent as possible from society at large. There is no escape from the verdicts of the state, save those of another state. Within its territory there is no competition in terms of provision of law and order, hence services will deteriorate and costs will rise. Why should anyone have to put up with an institution that can externalize the cost of nearly all its actions, whose prime source of income not only derives from using force but cannot be derived otherwise? I fail to see how a competitive order is in any way deficient compared to this travesty.
liberty student: Maxliberty:Torsten, you are right that there needs to be an actual attempt to establish a free society as we are discussing here. I founded the Liberty Colony with the goal of achieving this reality. You are also right that most of the people here don't even advocate doing anything let alone are actually doing something that will lead to creating a free society. Most of the strategies that are advocated are really just a cloak for doing nothing. People argue that they are educating people and this will somehow lead to freedom or that people should try not to pay taxes or paticipate in the underground economy (translation smoke dope in their basement) when in reality these so called actions are just cover for doing nothing. Finally, many of the posters have a view of the world from either the U.S. or Europe or so they don't have much practical experience in how societies work outside of those areas. For example, the idea that participating in underground markets will destroy governments and the idea of government is ridiculous. At least half the people on the planet are participating in the underground economies and governments are not nearing collapse as a result. I thought that if we spend all of our time defining what "isms" and "ists" we are, then we will eventually overcome statism. That's the myth isn't it? That the state will eventually collapse and we just have to wait for that? I've started to spend less time on this forum. Lots of interesting thinkers, doesn't appear to be many doers.
The Liberty Colony is freedom in action my friend. If you are looking to do something and are tired of just talking, then come join the revolution. If you haven't seen the site the link is here www.libertycolony.com
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
DriftWood: Thanks for the reply. I'll only comment on one point you made as i think it goes to the heart of it. "That's a really nice strawman. The private law enforcers couldn't do anything about it because they are weaker? So you assume that a more powerful warlord is going to rise up in a peaceful society to dominate the populace and NO ONE is going to be able to stand up against them? Highly unlikely." Yes, I absolutely assume that a powerful warlord will show up. Anarcho capitalistic society has to be able to survive everything a regular statist society is able to survive (otherwize the statist society is a more effective form of law and it will compete out the anarcho capitalistic societies). Bad people, violence, and immorality are always going to exist, people are animals after all. Surely you dont suggest that anarcho capitalism will change humans nature so that all people are peaceful and nice all the time? In a society where one party has a defacto monopoly on violence, the party is very powerful and can just about beat anything that is thrown at it. However in society where this power concentration is splintered into many small autonomous groups, any one of these groups is going to be relatively less powerful (even assuming they dont get into conflict with one another about law and start a civil war). Take a small society, a village, it does not take a big local mob to kill the local law enforcers off. Maybe its just the local school bully and his buddies that grew up and got some guns. And if you say that law enforcers would be a bigger group, so that they could handle the local mob. Then what about a neighbouring town that decided to kill you off. You would need a even larger and more powerful law enforcement group to be able to withstand that attack. And what about a neighbouring country? In the end the group has to be as big and powerful as possible to be able to enforce its law. And eventually you end up with just one big law enforcement. You end up with a monopoly on violence, and then you are stuck with your statist system again. Cheers
Great so you just demonstrated to me that you don't understand basic anarchist philosophy nor do you understand market forces. If there are several different agencies vying for customers why are they going to try to rise up and subdue them? What economic benefit would that have? If they became heavy handed then their customers would stop paying their bills, cancel their services and go to someone else. Oh, but what about the bully who grew up and took over a small town. Fine, so what? He took over a small town. Why is that a big concern to myself? Is he going to take over my town? Does my town want to be taken over? Perhaps my town has seen that he has taken over another town and our local militia has contacted the local militias over several other towns and alerted them to what is happening. Perhaps we decide we should go and put a stop to this guy before he gets too big for his britches. Oh but wait, the local towns people have already taken care of the problem by offing the guy. Oh well, I guess we didn't need to do anything anyway. Or, perhaps for some reason everyone in the town who has a gun has decided they want this guy to be their ruler and so opt to live under his rule. So why is that a concern of mine? They made their own (bad) choice to reestablish a State. Not my problem. Uh oh! I just learned that he wants to "annex" my town. So I make the rounds again contacting all of the other militias out there and we decide to march down to his town and wage war. He's got 300 men whereas we raise an army of 1,000 men. So we kill him and all of his men. Life goes on as normal.
Now, let's use your little wonder world.
You have a government but that government has come under attack from some other government. Appealing to national pride and love of state your government gets the Congress to pass emergency measures and begins actively expanding its military. To combat the attack from the other government your government has decided that it will initiate martial law to "protect the people." Now your government beats the other government but doesn't do away with martial law. In fact it starts hunting down anyone it thinks might have been sympathetic to or aided the other government. A few years go by and 40 million people are dead. They had to be purged because they were disloyal to your government. Can't happen? It's called Soviet Russia and that is what States do best -- kill people -- their own people.
You're the Utopian here my friend.
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. " -- Samuel Adams.
DriftWood: Just like the biggest bully at school, its good for you to make friends with him (maybe pay him some bribe money).. that way noone else dares to mess with you. You need the bully but he is not your friend. Or just like prison gangs, when you get in there you better make friends with the most powerful gang leader quick. That way you can be sure noone will mess with you. Maybe the price for this protection servive is be very high, you have to do unthinkables to pay for it. Well you might pick to go at it alone, or pick a less powerful and small group that does not charge as much. Well you might just end up dead if one of the more powerful groups want it.
So essentially you're just a wuss? You never stood up to your bully in school? We had a bully in middle school. Big brute of a boy. Liked to push me around.
A group of us got together and found him down at a convenience store one day. After the doctor set his bones and put casts on his arm and leg he became a real nice guy.
Funny...the biggest guy in the school was beaten up by all of the "nerds" in school because they got tired of it. I guess we didn't need a bully after all.
Hello Everyone,
As a fellow libertarian and Austrian, I'm very interested in this topic. Hopefully, I can make a small contribution, for what it's worth.
Personally, I don't see a problem with conceding that the statists may be correct in suggesting that the program of legal enforcement or the systematic distribution of punishment requires a monopoly on violence. But an interesting question could be raised at this point: What do libertarians have to lose by conceding this? Why do libertarians, who presumably want a free society, need to hold dearly to the principle of legal enforcements and/or systematic distributions of punishment?
My personal understanding is that the idea of legal enforcement and systematic punishment distribution is an idea that is rooted in the principle of political monopolism. This is the essential idea that there must be one law for all the land, and that a plurality of legal arrangements are somehow inconceivable, or at the very least, not allowable. From this perspective, those acting out of accordance to this universalized legal code must be penalized somehow, for the sake of preserving cherished institutions.
This is not a libertarian idea. So why are so many libertarians embracing it? More importantly, what happens if we stop embracing it? What are the implications for libertarianism if we abandon the principle of political monopolism?
For one thing, it suddenly comes to be of no consequence to libertarians if statists make the claim that legal enforcements and systematic distributions of punishment require a monopoly on violence. There will be no problem with conceding this, once the principle of political monopolism is abandoned. But it will do something more.
It will allow libertarians to begin thinking about alternative approaches to a free society, ones that do not rely on the very principles that statists understand to be fundamental to their own political philosophy.
Only if libertarians believe that there is some role for legal enforcements in a completely free society will they not want to concede to the statists the idea that a monopoly on violence is the only way to achieve systematic distributions of punishment. But I would just as soon let the statists have these static and institution-minded concepts, as they do not help us envision a truly free society in any case.
What I would advocate, as an alternative approach, is to think about how penalties work in the market place. In that realm, penalties are very real, but are not based on the idea of imposing systematic distributions of punishment. In the market place, there are no "laws that can be broken," but instead, there are only "windows of opportunity that can be exploited." What this means is, the idea of "defense" does not have to be conceived in terms of absolute rights, but instead can be understood in terms of entrepreneurial risk. One allocates resources to defense efforts in varying proportions, according to a personal assessment of prospective benefits vs. expected costs. One may turn out to be incorrect in this assessment after the fact, and suffer the consequences. If he is victimized by another, then his defensive solution was clearly inadequate in some way. But he needn't waste valuable resources trying to make someone else sorry for exploiting this miscalculation. He can instead, to the extent that he is able, seek to correct his error, and then proceed, just as any entrepreneur does after suffering losses on the market.
This is a very rough illustration, and should not be taken as a complete theory, but rather, as an alternative grounding principle. Nevertheless, it does illustrate at least one possible way that a penalty can be conceived other than in terms of legal enforcements or systematic distributions of punishment. One cannot become a better defense entrepeneur by seeking to induce suffering in another via legal enforcements. One can only become a better defense entrepreneur by making superior investment decisions which would improve his future prospects for defensive welfare. Failure in this regard will only mean that resources were allocated inappropriately, such that the misallocation was exploited by aggressors. As such, the error can only be corrected with a reallocation of defensive resources. The more rapidly an error in resource allocation is corrected, the more rapidly the penalized entrepreneur can begin avoiding losses.
This seemingly radical vision may hold the key to an alternative approach to libertarian social theory, one that does not begin from the principle of political monopolism.
Richard D.
I agree with the above analysis as an economic one, and with most of the points. Rights merely ground why one has the right to enter a contract or accumulate property in the first place, or answer why one may defend themselves against violence. They are not guarantees or promises of the enforcement of justice though, nor could they be. There are no positive rights, such as one to having legal judgments enforced - that, like all other things, must be obtained voluntarily, via the market or otherwise. Thus they are ethical first principles, and are complementary to analyses such as the one above, not exclusive of it.
DriftWood:Knowing what is right and doing what is right is two very different things. One lives in the world of ideas, and the other is reality. Just about everyone knows and agrees violence, murder and theft is morally wrong. But people do it anyways. So anarcho capitalists must have a way to stop or punish murder that does not rely on self regulation threw morals, reason, contracts or promises. It must be a coercive law, one based on the threats of violence.
So what? No one's saying everyone would be good all the time. And no one could ever confuse a contract-based law enforcement agency with a government.
Your problem is that you're attacking a strawman. Please correct your error and try again.
Hi, Jon. Thanks for reading my post.
My understanding is that the goal of positive rights theories in general (of which I consider the libertarian private property ethic to be one example) is to establish which of the various social actions that people might perform are legally allowable, and which are not legally allowable. This goal is often pursued by seeking to arrive at a grounding principle that is objective in nature (meaning indisputable). The belief is that, if followed consistently, such a principle will allow members of society to flourish, in general. So the goal of such theories is to arrive at a universal principle, on the basis of which it will become clear how to effectively devise permanent social institutions, ones which will then positively enforce some notion about what particular actions should be tolerated in society, and which ones should not be tolerated.
So right away, we can see that this kind of approach to the problem of social conflict is political in nature. By this I mean, it aims at understanding how the conflicts between members of society can be addressed by recourse to various allowances or restrictions.
My personal approach to the problem of social conflict, however, is fundamentally different. I do not see my approach as political in the above-mentioned sense. Nor do I see it as “complimentary” to such an approach. I believe there is some important sense in which an economic approach to social matters, and a political approach to them, are diametrically opposed ways of looking at things.
So when you say “I agree with the above analysis as an economic one,” I believe you may be correctly sensing that my analysis is inherently a-political in nature. My approach does not seek to establish which actions should or should not be allowed by members of society. Rather, it seeks to understand what comes along with systematic distributions of punishment, if anything. My goal is to apply the praxeological method to the problem of social conflict itself, to see if anything is logically necessary if and when systematic distributions of punishment are pursued by members of society in general.
But when you say, “Thus they are ethical first principles, and are complimentary to analyses such as the one above, not exclusive to it,” I wonder if you are meaning to suggest that the pursuit of a positive rights theory naturally follows from my a-political analysis. Just to be clear, my goal is not to create an a-political basis for any particular positive rights theory. By focusing on the problem of social conflict a-politically, I hope to solve a problem I believe arises from a strictly political focus.
Why would you consider natural rights positive, if I may ask? Regarding what I meant by saying the above analysis is complementary, all I meant is that it illustrates what particular form a libertarian society would take, how justice would work &c., as natural rights are formal and abstract principles, so they could take any number of particular forms (especially homesteading rules.) If anything, they don't dictate a particular structure of society, although they do exclude ones in which they're systematically violated as justifiable. This is contrary to what a lot of rights theorists (e.g. Nozick), including libertarian ones, believe, but it seems to be the correct approach to me. Are you trying to examine whether a given social arrangement is justifiable or not with your approach, or is it a purely praxeological (be it economic, political or sociological) one? NR fulfill the former role, and thus could only be displaced by another ethical principle.
I think you might be overlooking a single, very important point. A central requisite for there to be market anarchism is for there to be a wider distribution of the capacity to do harm. Nuclear-armed nations do not attack each other because they fear the consequences of aggression - namely, they fear nuclear retaliation. Ultimately it is might that decides how a conflict is to be solved.
Now, you may disagree with a person's drug use enough to attempt to coerce them into not using drugs; however, this person will likely take exception to your moral code in this case and may very likely have contractually arranged beforehand to purchase insurance against aggression. The protection wing of their chosen insurance company may defend them against you beforehand or retaliate after the fact, provided the cost of defense-retaliation does not excede how much the company has agreed to pay in the case of aggression (this would be arranged by contract and would be variable with the insurance premium/deductible). Furthermore, that drug addict may have chosen to arm his or her self and to take instruction on the safe and effective use of firearms, as these two actions combined may very well be rewarded by their insurance company with a lower premium.
The threat of violence against person or property is generally enough to deter most crime. Do not assume that people simply will not defend themselves against others with more intrusive ideas about morality. In this same case, your insurance company will certainly not insure you against injury you suffer while attempting to coerce someone else, any more than they would insure you against burning your own house down. Injury that was entirely avoidable is simply something that will not be insured; any company that does so will promptly go out of business due to people purposefully injuring themselves to collect money from the company.
Further, consider the extreme case that the drug addict has no insurance and no private protection. Without statist anti-discrimination laws or public land or roads, people who knew about your aggression and were fearful for their own safety could easily discriminate against you to the point where you become an outcast and have no choice but to leave and go somewhere else. They could purchase insurance against tresspass by known violent individuals, and the insurance companies would be making a profit forcing you to find somewhere else to go.
This is the reason there WOULD likely be a consensus on what kind of behaviour is legally acceptable and what kind is not. Simply put, aggression is more costly than defense.
"Nolite confidere in principibus"
~ Psalm 146:3
Hello Jon. Your question about natural rights vs. positive rights is an important one. I think I know where the confusion lies now, and it may be my fault for neglecting to make it clear how my meaning of "positive" is based on a different theoretical distinction than the one from which you are most likely proceeding.
I gather that when you refer to positive rights, you mean to contrast this idea from something you might call "negative rights." And I imagine that what you mean by this distinction, is that positive rights are ones which require positive obligations (healthcare must be provided for all, irrespective of costs) and that negative rights are ones that merely require negative obligations (do no harm). From this perspective, it is clear that positive and negative rights, as well as the theories which seek to establish them, would be fundamentally different, such that they would never belong in the same category, just as you seem to be suggesting.
But there is another sense in which positive and negative rights theories are both "positive" in nature, in the sense that they both seek to assert, or posit the preferable status of particular social norms or a specific social arrangement. Both positive and negative rights theories are prescriptive in nature. They are both sought in the interest of telling us which behaviors either must be compelled (the typical meaning of positive rights) or which behaviors must be restricted (the typical meaning of negative rights). By seeking to arrive at definite dos and/or don'ts for members of society, both of these kinds of approaches would be of the same essential type, for they both focus specifically on establishing particular behaviors as the cause of various social problems, and then on prescribing specific behavioral arrangements which are thought to be necessary to discourage those behaviors, so that members of society can then succeed, in general.
So this is the sense in which negative rights theories are still "positive" in nature. They still seek to establish a particular social arrangement, the structure of which will be dictated according to very clearly specified rules. The fact that those rules will consist only of "don'ts" and won't consist of any "dos" does not fundamentally remove the meaning of the underlying goal, which is to arrive at particular behavioral norms for members of society. In contrast, my approach is strictly praxeological. I seek only to understand the logically necessary connections between means chosen and ends sought. Once those are known, prescriptions become unnecessary. Before they are known, prescriptions remain insufficient.
How can they become unnecessary? What justifies a particular arrangement remains an important question. Even a society in which everyone's self-interest is maximized still appeals to a normative principle - namely that the society which maximizes this is the justified/moral one. Praxeological analysis in the scientific sense is value-free, all it can do is illuminate what particular structure a society will take, given certain assumptions.
dchernik: Bad replies so far, bad.
Bad replies so far, bad.
That's not a subjective statement at all. Except that's a lie; it actually is.
Now the main point of contention seems to be my claim that we must have a rudimentary state to enforce judicial decisions. Consider this problem: a private protection agency breaks the law. It is sued and loses. Now who is going to enforce the verdict?
One or a few of the hundreds or thousands of other agencies, all of whom are competing to be better than each other, rubbing out corruption, inefficiency, and incompetence in the process.
In my scheme, on the other hand, if the mayor is sued and loses, the community can take the police power away from him, e.g., through the city council's impeaching and removing him. The city council in my understanding would be "the legislator of last resort," when private law-making negotiations have gotten nowhere.
The city council in my understanding would be "the legislator of last resort," when private law-making negotiations have gotten nowhere.
That is fallacious reasoning. "Some institution should resolve private disputes" does not, by any means, lead to "one instiution must resolve all private disputes".
It should be appropriately limited in powers.
Oh, good. When you find the magic potion that turns people given monopoly powers into selfless angels, let me know.
So, you see the pattern: the judicial branch can be fully privatized; the legislative branch, partially privatized; and the executive branch must remain monopolized.
I see no "pattern", nor do I see any coherent reasoning behind that idea. Monopolizing power always results in abuse. Competition at least provides an incentive for people to restrain themselves from abuse.
But why the HELL do we need a legislative branch in the first place?! The idea that governments can make law is possibly the most blood-stained notion ever to form in the minds of men.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
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