Reddit reviews The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State
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Used Book in Good Condition
These are all must reads if you haven't already
>For a New Liberty by Murray Rothbard
>Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt (free online)
>Chaos Theory by Robert Murphy (free audio online too)
>Power and Market by Murray Rothbard (this book doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves around here)
>Markets Not Capitalism (free pdf and audio on line too)
>Lessons for the Young Economist by Robert Murphy (free online too)
>Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block (audio and pdf free online)
>The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State by Bruce Benson (needs more love!)
It is great that you are reading Human Action. That book is amazing. These articles compliment it very well. They really helped me understand praxeology better. They are also good for anyone who didn't get a clear idea of Robert Murphy's position during his debate with David Friedman.
>Praxeology as the Method of the Social Sciences by Murray Rothbard
>Praxeology: The Methodology of Austrian Economics by Murray Rothbard
The other articles in part one here are good too but the ones I linked helped me the most.
I suppose it wasn't cool of me to simply turn your own question back on you. Clearly, that response was unsatisfactory.
The reason I believe society can be self-regulating (without political authority) is that most people want to live peaceful lives. Thus, you have a demand for security. In modern society, people find ways to satisfy their needs for security in areas where our police forces fall short. For example, many home owners own guns which they keep in their houses in the event that a burglar breaks in. In malls, security guards are hired to discourage and stop shop lifters and rowdy shoppers. At Disneyland, there is a security staff to ensure that the place runs peacefully. This has even occurred among low-income neighborhoods. The anarcho-capitalist economist and philosopher, Murray Rothbard reported that,
>On West 135th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues is the station house of the 82nd Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Yet the august presence of the station house did not prevent a rash of night robberies of various stores on the block. Finally, in the winter of 1966, fifteen merchants on the block banded together to hire a guard to walk the block all night; the guard was hired from the Leroy V. George protection company to provide the police protection not forthcoming from their property taxes.
Source
Things get far more interesting as you look into history. People have historically come up with a variety of innovative ways to solve disputes and discourage the anti-social elements in their societies from causing significant chaos.
Medieval Iceland 930-1264 developed ways of resolving conflict (see section 9) and even formed associations that provided social insurance (see section 7).
In the "Wild" West people found ways to settle disputes and enforce law in areas where the U.S. government was virtually non-existent. The article I linked to gives the cases of Land clubs, mining camps and wagon trains.
Here is a book that reports the development of English customary law. In it, the author argues that laws historically have not always been created and enforced by states. Often, law emerged from the norms of the communities, and were enforced through non-state means.
It would be dishonest of me to say that non-state legal systems are flawless, and the article I provided on the "Wild West" did confess that there were some pretty nasty cases where non-state law enforcement fell short. I beg you to ask the question, however, "Compared to what?" Ask yourself whether State legal systems are perfect or can be made perfect. If you've ever taken a history class or read Clarance Darrow's (who was not a Libertarian himself) Resist Not Evil you would know that State enforced legal systems often fail to bring about justice and in many cases cause the worst injustices in the world themselves.
I just happened to have written an article on that subject. Quick note on the article,"Voluntarism" is a non-government philosophy (sometimes called "anarchism").
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Private Security and Dispute Resolution in a Free Society
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Preface & Concepts:
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Alternative Security and Dispute Resolution
Lastly...
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History
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Recommended Videos:
Yeah I'm researching now, and I've forgotten that of course what's needed is a combination of tort AND contract law.
I think I've found what I'm looking for, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State - Bruce L. Benson
I'll be going over this article as well by Kinsella: A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability
Historians get their knowledge of ancients societies from the sources like tribes living on isolated islands. For those interested in the topic of decentralized law in history, I recommend a book The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State by Bruce Benson. The author is austrian economist. It is ancap-safe reading, doesn't trigger a reader by statist propaganda.
Economist here! A common definition of a government/state is a "legal monopoly of coercion." Anarchy is simply a situation where that is absent. And just as some governments have been awful and others benevolent and good, anarchy per se is neither. The real question is whether anarchy can allow a flourishing and peaceful society to exist? Of course there are also important normative questions: is a radically decentralized system of power likely to be better or worse than one with fairly centralized authority?
A great place to start is Bruce Benson. There are people who write about "Anarcho-Capitalism" mostly from the Austrian economics enthusiasts, and as fringe as these folks are, there's something to it. Benson attacks an important part of the problem by asking about the workings of the legal system in a state setting and in non-state settings.
A book I haven't read, but that I've heard good things about is The Invisible Hook. Ask yourself this: where do you least expect social cooperation with decentralized authority? Maybe a place filled with short-sighted, uneducated, criminals. An 18th century pirate ship is just such a place. And yet it turns out pirates were among the first to establish checks on central authorities with constitutions.
Another hard case is the case of prisons. And yet the prison economy is flourishing with drugs, cell phones, and other contraband changing hands in a market dependent on trade and cooperation. This happens in spite of a central authority outlawing this activity. Think Soviet black markets in music, except instead of innocent Russians you've got some pretty un-peaceful dudes.
All of these situations shed important light on the possibility of anarchy. They show that some of our basic assumptions about the role of government rest on shakier foundations than we might have thought. People can, and probably will cooperate. Just as surely, they will try to rip each other off. But of course that's true in government too.
Anthony De Jasay is one the most smartest yet underappreciated libertarians I guess. Just look up on his books. Besides that Edward Stringham and Peter Leeson are important figures. I always liked Bruce Benson's works. You should also read his article enforcement of property rights in primitive societies
This article on wild west is excellent. It's based on their book Not So Wild, Wild West
I mentioned Peter Leeson, his article on pirates An-Arrgh-Chy is a different perspective on organization outside the state, his book on same subject, The Invisible Hook is a must read. Also his article on Somalia, Better off Stateless: Somalia Before and After Government Collapse is perfect.
And this is another article on law and justice by Bruce Benson.
I also hope automod doesn't harass me for linking here, but you might also really enjoy a book called The Enterprise of Law, which is dedicated to this topic, and perhaps To Serve and Protect, another work by the same author (Law Professor Bruce L Benson).
Insurance, arbitration, private security, bounty hunters, mutual aid societies, there is actually quite a bit of work on the private production of justice and defense.
https://mises.org/books/private_production_of_defense.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law
http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
Wenn es dich wirklich interessiert, haste hier einige Buchvorschläge:
Justice without a State Über Herkunft und privatrechtliche Alternativen im Staatswesen
Oliver Janich mEn einer Meinungsbilder im deutschsprachigen Raum
Stirner klar einer der Vordenker des Individualanarchismus
Die Österreichische Schule Wiki einer der Hauptströmungen
edit: Voluntarismus eine Weiterentwicklung basierend auf der Idee der Freiwilligkeit - das "V" im Video
Freedom and efficiency are both important.
If the consequences of endorsing complete freedom (i.e. anarchy, since all governments take away peoples' freedoms) were disastrous, then, in the name of efficiency, we should support taking away peoples' freedom and establishing a minimal state to avoid that disaster.
Fortunately, the consequences of endorsing complete freedom are far from disastrous. Anarchy need not be a Hobbesian war of all-against-all. As Michael Huemer says, "We're nowhere close to the case where government would be justified."
However, the point remains that if the consequences were bad, then taking away peoples' freedoms to avoid those consequences in the name of efficiency would seem justified. Therefore, efficiency is also important.
Now, you say that freedom is more important than efficiency. But what does this mean? There's a presumption in favor of freedom, but efficiency considerations can override that presumption depending on how inefficient and disastrous the consequences get by allowing people their freedoms.
Unless you want to argue that only a strict consequentialist believes that efficiency is more important than freedom and everyone else believes that freedom is more important, then I think the correct view is just to say that they are both important, but not that one is more important than the other. That would simplify the issue too much.
> A Pigouvian tax need not be "perfect" to be Pareto improving -- just because policymakers calculate the optimum does not mean that they can't enact benefitial policies.
Yes, but it doesn't mean that they can, either. It's a shot in the dark, at best, even if you leave out the political incentives involved.
> Interpersonal comparisons of ordinal utility are impossible, but von Neumann and Morgenstern's formulation and Nash's existence proof may offer a way out of this problem.
I endorse Murray Rothbard's response to von Neumann and Morgenstern, excerpt below:
>The errors of this theory are numerous and grave:
>
>1. None of the axioms can be validated on demonstrated preference grounds, since admittedly all of the axioms can be violated by the individual actors.
>2. The theory leans heavily on a constancy assumption so that utilities can be revealed by action over time.
>3. The theory relies heavily on the invalid concept of indifference of utilities in establishing the numerical scale.
>4. The theory rests fundamentally on the fallacious application of a theory of numerical probability to an area where it cannot apply. Richard von Mises has shown conclusively that numerical probability can be assigned only to situations where there is a class of entities, such that nothing is known about the members except they are members of this class, and where successive trials reveal an asymptotic tendency toward a stable proportion, or frequency of occurrence, of a certain event in that class. There can be no numerical probability applied to specific individual events.
>
>Yet, in human action, precisely the opposite is true. Here, there are no classes of homogeneous members. Each event is a unique event and is different from other unique events. These unique events are not repeatable. Therefore, there is no sense in applying numerical probability theory to such events. It is no coincidence that, invariably, the application of the neo-cardinalists has always been to lotteries and gambling. It is precisely and only in lotteries that probability theory can be applied. The theorists beg the entire question of its applicability to general human action by confining their discussion to lottery cases. For the purchaser of a lottery ticket knows only that the individual lottery ticket is a member of a certain-sized class of tickets. The entrepreneur, in making his decisions, is on the contrary confronted with unique cases about which he has some knowledge and which have only limited parallelism to other cases.
>
>5. The neo-cardinalists admit that their theory is not even applicable to gambling if the individual has either a like or a dislike for gambling itself. Since the fact that a man gambles demonstrates that he likes to gamble, it is clear that the Neumann-Morgenstern utility doctrine fails even in this tailor-made case.
>6. A curious new conception of measurement. The new philosophy of measurement discards concepts of "cardinal" and "ordinal" in favor of such labored constructions as "measurable up to a multiplicative constant" (cardinal); "measurable up to a monotomic transform" (ordinal); "measurable up to a linear transform" (the new quasi-measurement, of which the Neumann-Morgenstern proposed utility index is an example). This terminology, apart from its undue complexity (under the influence of mathematics), implies that everything, including ordinality, is somehow "measurable." The man who proposes a new definition for an important word must prove his case; the new definition of measurement has hardly done so.
>
>Measurement, on any sensible definition, implies the possibility of a unique assignment of numbers which can be meaningfully subjected to all the operations of arithmetic. To accomplish this, it is necessary to define a fixed unit. In order to define such a unit, the property to be measured must be extensive in space, so that the unit can be objectively agreed upon by all. Therefore, subjective states, being intensive rather than objectively extensive, cannot be measured and subjected to arithmetical operations. And utility refers to intensive states. Measurement becomes even more implausible when we realize that utility is a praxeological, rather than a directly psychological, concept.
I highly recommend that entire paper, by the way.
As for Nash, the fact that we can know there is a Nash Equilibrium has no implications as to whether we can actually calculate it. Hell, mapping Nash equilibrium for a simplified poker game is a PhD thesis in itself.
>This is backwards -- positive externalities should be subsidized, not taxed (negatively taxed). A Pigouvian official would pay the artist to create and display art in her yard.
Interesting. Who knew there could be subsidies without taxation?
>This is what I don't understand. Who, in a stateless regime, is doing the "focusing?"
I primarily meant our focus as economists. Humans have a tendency, however, to create complex systems for the definition and protection of property rights, and these systems function best polycentrically. Most economists are quick to decry even the shadow of a monopoly in industry, but the same critiques (and more) apply to states as monopolies over the production of certain services within given territories. Bruce Benson's book is great on the history of private law, if you've ever got some time to kill. For less of a time investment, David Friedman's case study of the Icelandic Commonwealth is fascinating.
>Is there some kind of dialectical approach where the need for state enforcement of property will wither away, because I am not sure that I could be convinced that a sudden imposition of anarchy would result in clear, focused property rights.
No dialectic, and no "new [ideology] man." I agree that a sudden "imposition" of anarchy would not result in much of anything positive in the short run. People tend to respond badly to sudden impositions in any context. There are many theories regarding this. My ideal transition, for example, would be entrepreneurial advances in technology that allow the market to outcompete the state in the provision of various services despite the state's monopoly by providing higher quality, leading to a gradual decline of state relevance.
> Furthermore, I am not sure that property rights alone are enough to ensure functioning markets, especially in regards to distributive justice (the second welfare theorem). Market outcomes may be "better" without the state, but is this necessarily so if individual utility is a function of income distribution and relative wealth? I think it's reasonable to suppose that an other-regarding individual may choose a less efficient, more equitable state outcome than a stateless, efficient outcome, if given a Rawlsian choice.
I don't think it's at all self-evident that the market outcomes will be less equal than under states. On the indexes of economic freedom (primarily Fraser for credibility, though Heritage's isn't bad even if it carries their name) economic freedom actually has a negative correlation to economic inequality. That said, envy is cultural, but also contextual. If there's no nation, people will tend to look toward more realistic economic regions in comparing incomes. I also hypothesize that the culture of a propertarian anarchist region would tend to discourage such envy (as Protestantism did in Western Europe for centuries, and as seen in Jewish culture).
> How can you have criminals without laws or laws without a state.
Ancap society is not one without laws, but rather laws are privately produced by agreement with others.
Imagine a private city, it established rules of conduct and (financial) penalties for breaking those rules.
Any visitors coming in must agree to these rules in order to get in. Thus if they agree not to steal and are caught stealing, they agreed to pay the value of the thing they tried to steal to the person they tried to steal it from, or w/e was agreed on.
Here's a whole book on the topic:
https://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without-State/dp/1598130447
As I said, call it whatever word you want, the key aspect is consent. Here's a good resource on law in that context: The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598130447/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_44i2BbHJ4N8SJ
Well before the United States even existed, there were several examples of law, justice and accountability systems being provided on a societal scale without government involvement. As a matter of fact, some of western law today derives from some of these systems. Merchant law is a prime example.
So the idea that government is the only, or even the best method of holding companies (or even individuals) accountable ought to be very seriously challenged.
Asking how would the marketplace provide accountability without government is impossible to answer definitively as is any future theoretical concept. Many theoretical answers could be given and if you search diligently enough on the internet you'll find many scholarly writings from reputable sources. If you really want to know, Reddit probably isn't your greatest source. Here's a great book on the subject. And here's a free eBook that deals with this subject as well.
However, we don't need to know how problems in society could theoretically be solved in order to advocate for the end of immoral behavior (the government usurping power from the people and failing to perform). Did the people of the 19th century need to know that tractors and complex machinery would be invented to harvest and process the food we eat to advocate for the end of the chattel slave labor that was being used at that time to harvest food?
> everybody is only subjected to laws that they agree to.
You'd only be legally obligated to laws you agreed to.
> This is basically impossible. The whole reason that politics exists is that people disagree about things.
No it's not impossible. The link I referred to gave many historical examples which prove it's possible. For example, Merchant Law was not developed or administered by governments, but by private merchants and utilized private courts, enforcement and dispute resolution. It successfully resolved disputes outside State jurisdiction for hundreds of years and was integral to international commerce. There are many more examples.
I highly recommend Bruce Benson's "The Enterprise of Law" which is a historical and theory review of various types of legal systems: http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447
Benson would be the go-to guy: Enforcement of Private
Property Rights in Primitive Societies:
Law without Government and A Description of a Modern
System of Law and Order
without State Coercion, as well as a couple others. He also has a 400 page book which expands on those articles.
Regarding Friedman, I'm confused by you saying you "know it's not true". David Friedman is an anarcho-capitalist, albeit of the neo-classical, consequentialist variety. His book Law's Order demonstrates that economic incentives founded on private property relations are sufficient for law and order.
Just type in polycentric law.
Edit: Mistakenly said Friedman is a neo-classical. He's more of a monetarist. Bryan Caplan is the neo-classical ancap.
> In this way, a conditional statement with the form 'If you do x I do y' is a law, where x is something I find undesirable and y is something you find undesirable.
A few points on this:
(1) That y is undesirable is not enough to make the statement a law. For example, if I live across the street from you and I say "If you do x, I will demolish my house so that the view from your front window is terrible," then I don't think this isn't a law in the traditional sense of the word, even though you don't want me as your neighbor to ruin the view from your front window by demolishing my house. (Maybe it is a law under some broader definition of law, but it wouldn't be like the laws that states make.) In order to make it a law in the traditional sense, I think y has to involve some use of something that is not your property in the eyes of the subject. So: 'If you do x, I do y' where 'y' involves you using something that I consider to be someone-other-than-you's property without that person's consent.
(Note: There may be good reasons to define "law" more broadly than the "traditional sense" I am referring to. IIRC Bruce Benson used a broader definition of "law" in his book The Enterprise of Law which I read a couple years ago. My intention is merely to point out the differences between your definition and the kind of law that the state makes (a kind that would also exist in an anarcho-capitalist society).
(2) x does not need to be something that you find undesirable in order for the statement to be a law. For example, the state may not find it undesirable for people to possess marijuana (on the contrary, they may want people to possess marijuana so that they can have an additional excuse to hire more police), yet their command "If you possess marijuana, we'll lock you up" is still a law due to what the state will do if you don't obey the command.
(3) y does not need to be something that I find undesirable in order for the statement to be a law. For example, I may love giving money to charity and find this very desirable, but if the state says to me, "If you don't give $1 to a charity of your choice, we will imprison you for a day" then this is still a law due to the kind of consequence the state will impose if I choose not to obey.
Because I believe that the answer to the problem of having violent individuals is not to lock them in cages (where they tear each other apart) and force the community to pay to house and clothe them.
There are a few good books about how you'd have security,courts, law and restitution to victims without a government that enforces a monopoly on these vital services. One of these is Bruce Benson's The Enterprise of Law: Justice without the State
http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447
There are better ways to dissuade violent criminals and better ways to punish them than what the state currently does. If you have a prison, it has to be paid for. If it's not private, then it's funded through taxation which is theft.
This isn't anything I've heard from another ancap, but I also hold the belief that the vast majority of violence committed by individuals, on individuals stems from either abuse, poverty or both. You just don't have well adjusted, well cared for children growing up to be killers or rapists (unless they're a sociopath, but that's a different animal altogether). So it's my belief that a stateless society, where the NAP and natural rights for every man, woman and child (including right to self defense) are championed would both produce and attract minimal numbers of individuals who intend to do harm.
Edit: Just as an afterthought, I wanted to emphasize that societies who centralize the security force, dissuade individuals from learning to defend themselves and houses and feeds violent criminals instead of encouraging them to pay restitution will attract and encourage violent criminals.
> Place is full of sick fucks that try to justify child rape
That's a violation of the NAP, so it's not justifiable under an-cap ethics. You're wrong.
>their whole world view collapses if they have to say some laws, like those preventing child rape, are needed.
An-caps favor private law and thus aren't against laws existing per se. Further, much libertarian thought has gone into how to protect children in a free society, how terrible violence (the use of which is required by the state) is for children, and critiquing the current regime that is clearly failing to protect children:
https://mises.org/library/legal-child-abuse
https://mises.org/library/case-against-government-child-care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf7uq9NUOnY