If a person has a right to his own life, liberty, and property, nothing can justify forcing him to subsidize another person for any purpose, including for the purpose of police protection. FULL ARTICLE by Jarret B. Wollstein
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/12249/police-forces/
Police Forces
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In today’s world we see blind aquiescence to the belief that government police are the only answer to crime and that they are both above the law and above criticism. This article provides an outstanding counter to any doubters who believe that no alternative to government goons could deliver appropriate safety to the citizenry.
I have always enjoyed the writings of Mr. Wollstein and especially appreciate the wonderful pamphlets from him via ISIL as effective tools for putting the ideas of liberty and state alternatives in the hands of the masses. Great piece.
Great article. The naysayers and mini-statists will of course whine about it, but a world devoid of coerced socialism is possible…
This is hands down the best thesis on how a police/security force would work in a free society. The system outlined in this article is so agreeable simply because, each party is incentivised to act morally. This is beautiful. Unfortunately, the way society and its policing/justice system works today is so incongruent with the natural order of morality, that it is perverted. To any reader that reads the article above and disagrees, I implore you to think hard: do you instead agree in forced subscription (tax) to a justice system that convicts with impunity innocent people? I say, think hard.
While I am on board here, there is one question I feel like the author didn’t adequately address. That question being from who do the free market police derive the authority to punish the criminal and can that punishment be enforced so that the criminal must make reparations for the crime? Is that authority conferred to them through the contract for protection? Certainly they cannot simply claim authority, that is the nature of govt.
Basically, does the contract for protection services acknowledge that I as a non police individual have the authority to punish those who do violence to me or my property, and that I confer that authority voluntarily to the free market police?
I think that is the idea that Wollstein implied, but I would have appreciated a more explicit explanation of the locus of where the authority to punish comes from that can force compliance from the criminal.
Great question. That thought was nagging at me while reading the piece. After some thought, it occurred to me that the same question applies to government; on what authority does government exercise these powers? I have long argued that private enterprise can better perform most, if not all, of the “essential services” that government currently performs, i.e. police, fire, postal, education, etc. I wonder whether the mandate or moral authority could be derived from a community consensus, perhaps in the form of a state or even county level constitution? In any case, it’s clear to me that private services work, and work better. The author vaguely hinted at the added benefit of competition; if the private police agency was not performing to their subscribers’ satisfaction, there would always be competing agencies eager to take the business away, driving quality up while controlling costs, as competition always does.
Certainly they cannot simply claim authority, that is the nature of govt.
No it isn’t. If somebody attacks you, you have the authority to defend yourself; nobody has to “grant” you that authority.
@Jeffrey…
That is addressed in this collection. It’s a great starting point.
thanks. that looks good.
Great article, with simple, straightforward answers. I also appreciate that he covered the concept of “arrest”, altough I’m not 100% sure on that. I think there are other ways of compelling those accused of crime to go to court/trial, without coercion.
I’m still not convvinced that it would avoid abuses, mainly arresting and punishing individuals for laws that exist outside the realm of violating life, liberty, and property. What’s stopping a group of individuals hiring a police contractor to enforce a law against not showing up at the designated church every Sunday as was common during early American colonialism, particularly in Puritain societies? This is just one example. How would private law enforcement reduce this sort of behavior? I’m aware it’s just as easily developed in a statist method.
Once law enforcement is handled on a for-profit basis, instead of by the government, economic incentives come into place. Unreasonable laws tend to be more costly to enforce, especially if the penalty is high.
And then there’s the enforcer’s reputation to consider…
Actually, another thought occurs to me–if the society is utilizing a common or customary law form of procedure, then the way the laws are “created” (actually discovered) and enforced is by taking the accused to court and getting a judgement. Can you imagine someone taking someone to court because they didn’t attend church? What common/customary court would assign penalties for such behavior?
That’s true, but again I point at many times in history where this behavior was quite common. People have been thrown on pyres as heretics for the simple failure to attend the local place of worship all with near unanimous support of the population. We can’t assume that all behavior is rational since rationality is a subjective concept. You may think of it as a waste of resources to force people into places of worship, but it has happened and there are sizable populations today that would be willing to engage in such activities in their communities. One of the strengths of the private market is its ability to cater to significant minorities. Such a legal system can be privately created and placed upon others. The question is what sort of market mechanism could counter this behavior?
Sorry – it must be my day for half-finished thoughts. Positive rules and regulations, such as requiring regular attendance at a church, could only come from private organizations and only be enforced upon voluntary members, not non-members of the organization.
What of the reputation loss of ‘not doing what they’re getting paid good money for’?
What of the reputation of being thugs, i.e. getting paid for vandalising other people’s property etc? WHich is worse?
What are they getting paid for? Arbitration. Say someone takes someone else to court for not attending church. The court will want to know what harm or monetary loss has been suffered, or what contract has been broken, in order to make a judgement. That’s what a common or customary court is getting paid for, not to enforce some arbitrary edict issued by a private legislative body.
That’s why I said that such positive laws could only be enforced upon voluntary members of an organization, and not upon non-members, because then you would have a contractual agreement of some kind.
The essay describes the situation that existed before Sir Robert Peel invented the municipal police department. His invention became popular because it was more economically efficient.
Thanks for your useful contribution.
Maybe, just maybe, it became popular because it gave more power to government, and so power-hungry governments propagated it throughout their jurisdictions.
What? What personal biases could objective, neutral government agents possibly have that would cause them to seek the perpetuation of their positions and power?
You have limited understanding of criminology. This idea is pretty ridiculous if you considered some significant ramifications. Keep in mind that crimes are against the state, and people are victims. Instead of policing, you really are talking about protective services, security guards. Why doesn’t everyone buy this today? Well because its too damned expensive unless you are so wealthy, or paranoid, that it warrants it. However, this service is COMMONLY paid for today.Also police very rarely solve crimes, and not by investigation, its by centralization of information. So any police insurance would be a vast waste of money.So you caught the mugger? What do you get BACK out of it? Is it worth the cost of hiring your “policeman” -what’s that, you would only hire them if it was worth it? Well so most people wouldn’t hire a policeman for muggings, as long as it was low enough amount not to justify it? Ah… good business for muggers. Steal small, go unpunished. And what if you were, say beaten, instead of robbed? Well what do you get back there?Any real chance of working would be by “bounty” as in the old wild west. And we all want these vigilantes hunting down “criminals” right?Has anyone considered this from the “policemans” point of view… “Hmmm… I get paid more when there is MORE crime…” what incentive have you created? This is like computer antivirus companies created a demand by launching virus attacks that spread. $$$I agree with billwald.
And what about invasion insurance? Why have public subsidized armies. just hire mercenary armies, like in the old days too, right? That should work…
*sigh*
You have a limited understanding of what the author is saying, as you have no clue what background he is assuming. Give this site and its materials a read, it’ll give you more insight into what’s being said. Billwald is this site’s resident clown FYI. Give the Market for Liberty or Democracy – the God that Failed a read, it’ll put the above histrionics to rest.
The “common” of the state, city, municipality, etc. is just a group of people acting as property managers, who are nominal victims apart from the actual victim of a tort-type action. They fund their security police force through taxation, and thus have very little empirical evidence that the policing service is desired by the users of the common property aside from population fluctuations and voter outcry.
If you, as a private police force, initiated crime to generate business, you would be attacked from all sides by reputable agencies which would be quick to root out your impropriety. Just as an individual shoe manufacturer has incentive to have their shoe wear out as quickly as possible, competition forces the class of shoe manufacturers to make their product last longer. OTOH, with monopoly policing, there is every incentive to allow crime to occur on undesirable people and locales (poor areas, political adversaries) and no opportunity for redress from these harms.
Further, you entirely overlook the contemporary problem of victimless “crimes” that plague our communities, and harm the poor and minority populations disproportionately that would be entirely solved if one could sue the police for enforcing improper regulations, exactly analogous to the concerns about mandatory church attendance address in the comments above.
The solution proposed here isn’t giving the right to use aggression to conflicting agencies, it instead is about formalizing the ethics of proper defensive force to protect persons and property.
And if you’re new here, which you seem to be, you’re not going to win anyone over by suggesting that our “National Defense” is just, efficient, fair, or necessary to repel “invasion”.
Would that be the criminology theory you picked up in government-run schools?
There is no such thing as a crime against the state, because the state is an imaginary concept.
btw: everything is available at a lower cost when free markets are providing instead of the wasteful pretense of imaginary state “help.”
btw again: just look toward “quota filling” to see the imaginary state’s idea of creating crime out of thin air to justify all-too-real bureaucratic expansion. The big difference there being: government thugs understand that their immoral actions will not bankrupt their employer (the imaginary state) or cost them their jobs.
I suspect you got this from law books which divide offences into criminal and civil. However that is a post-hoc justification for the system already in place. The reason for the division is historical development. From point of view of a citizen the distinction is impractical. More useful would be the division into breaches of contract and property right violations. For the citizen (consumer of protective services) it also doesn’t matter whether his property was invaded by a common thug or a foreign military force. That would be more like the distinction between common crime and organised crime.
The “crimes against the state” are actions depriving the government employees of their privileges. The non-privileged people are not victims of “crimes against the state”. Yet another reason to reject the argument.
Not mentioned in the article but present in other treatises of private protection services, even if you can’t afford anything and noone wants to cover the cost of damage, you can still sell your compensation demand to specialists (presumingly at discount). By pooling the resources, just like insurance companies, they are able to overcome the issue of costs and recidivists would experience the cummulative penalties of their actions.
Also, recidivists would experience the problem of increasing social costs, as less people want to deal with them and in the end noone would want to insure them. In that case they become outlaws and can be killed without legal consequences.
I have a question for you guys.Let us say that police forces are totally privatized, well and good because I understand that police is not the final authority to judge the crime. So with this methodology also we need an All Powerful Judiciary , the concept of private courts may not work. To say something philosophically, We all need the final Judgement to be given by God who is omniscient.So do you guys agree with something we need, like the Judicial system which is free from the free market forces ? If no, why not? I humbly think liberty might be needed from free market also, for the highest authority delivering justice by pronouncing a judgement which is binding on people.Don’t Ask me to read this entire website. But I would like to get an answer to this from the lovers of liberty without contradicting their own principles.
Also less importantly, on a Sidenote I would like to see if the Crime doer is also part of the same Private Police Department. What will be the way to deal with such scenarios?
Indeed, it would be ideal to have an omniscient judicial service, but unfortunately, we don’t have an omniscient judge to call upon at will (and from whom we can realistically expect a prompt answer). Under a private law system, we’d have to make do with private courts because there would be no other kind. They’d work thus: two (or more) people have a disagreement regarding property rights; they (or their security providers) come together and choose an arbitrator with a reputation for prudence and impartiality; they bring their respective cases before the arbitrator, who decides their case, and whose decision is enforced by either the people’s security providers or a third-party security firm. While this system would of course not work as smoothly in practice as in theory, it has no problems beyond those of the present system, and competition would provide extra incentives for the courts to be fair and just.
In the case that the criminal is a member of the victims’ security provider, the threat of competing firms taking away the client’s business would encourage the firm in question to discipline the wayward employee.
Also, no one actually claims that a private law system would be perfectly free of abuses and injustices, merely that it would be preferable to the present system of state law.
To say that there must be a final authority or ultimate judge over matters is essentially to say that someone, somewhere, must have the power to coerce other individuals. This is essentially what a government does, and is the reason it is flawed. In freedom, there can be no such final authority, no one has superior rights and privileges over others.
It is the economic incentives and the competition of a free market system that helps to minimize abuses and encourages voluntary acceptance and support for judgements. If the people who go to court accept a particular arbitrator for their case, they are much more likely to accept the judgement of that arbitrator. By refusing to accept the judgement, or by refusing to accept any particular arbitrator, they are hurting their reputation, and their ability to deal with other people in the marketplace, and even, as Thinker has noted, risking becoming considered outlaws, or people who are “outside” the protection of the laws. True ostracism by society can be devastating, especially in a highly-specialized, technology society.
@Clem “By refusing to accept the judgement, or by refusing to accept any particular arbitrator, they are hurting their reputation”
But I can state that all the judges are communist or something (read about what Berlusconi says of judges in Italy).
“and their ability to deal with other people in the marketplace, and even, as Thinker has noted, risking becoming considered outlaws, or people who are “outside” the protection of the laws. True ostracism by society can be devastating, especially in a highly-specialized, technology society.”
So what? How do you enforce this ostracism? By forcing everyone to show to everyone their private-police records? By forcing people to wear RFIDs so that everyone can electronically peek into everyone’s private life and decide if they have to be ostracised? By marking people with tattoos?
Let’s say that I have to be ostracised, but I have a shitload of money; how many people would not sell me their goods? How do you convince people to ostracise me? Do you have any idea about how organised crime works?
It is likely that something akin to a “personal liability” insurance system would develop. Kind of warranting that you are basically a good guy, for example for the purposes of getting employment, for getting any kind of credit, renting or making an offer on somewhere to live, buying a firearm, registering/insuring a vehicle for use on someone’s private road and so on and so forth.
Such insurance may also cover claims against you for damaging the person or property of someone else (i.e. cover for accidents you may cause) and in particular to provide you with legal support in a situation you are accused of something and have to defend yourself.
But each time you do slip up and are hauled before an arbitrator, and especially when convicted, it’s likely the cost of such day to day private liability insurance would rise until the point that nobody would insure you as a bad risk. I see no reason why such insurance arrangement might not include permission to share information – so your employer, landlord, bank, perhaps your utilities supplier if you are on a contract and so on might be informed in appropriate cases. Of course these organisations would have discretion not to take any action on such reports but often, being insured against risks themselves, will wish to preserve their own reputation and low premiums by not dealing with wrong-doers.
So, if you are a fairly ordinary person, dependent on your work, your bank account and so on, you will already begin to feel life quite uncomfortable, and if you end up having to pay some hefty retribution or investigation/arbitration costs it may very well bankrupt you. In such circumstances there would probably be the “insurance” equivalent of “Capital One” to help the reformed wrong-doer wanting to “go straight” with way of rebuilding his “insurance credit”, and which, in the direst circumstances might involve them offering to put you up and feed you and hire you out for work to pay for the accommodation and slowly pay off your debts.
That company’s incentive would be to not mistreat you – else you could apply to be moved to another company’s facility – and to put you out to work to the best of your skills so they have to keep you for as short a time as possible to maximise their profits.
Now, you suggested what about the person who has loads of money when he is convicted – could he survive, indefinitely, “scot free”? Well, as I said, the arbitration company that convicted you might have notified your bank, who would likely preserve their reputation by freezing your access to your funds. All sorts of services could still be denied you, fairly automatically. Unless you were living “off grid” completely, you’d likely still have a hard time functioning normally. Even assuming cash still existed and you had lots of cash available, your movements could be restricted, for example by road operators being informed and preventing you accessing their roads and so on.
And ultimately, in such a society, where crime is more likely to be solved and the effect of justice (i.e. restitution) more of a financial penalty, it is less likely that someone could accumulate “loads of money” whilst pursuing a criminal career. As for organised crime, of course currently most organised crime revolves around activities that are “malum prohibitum”. Once there is a free market in drugs, prostitution, fire-arms, once the free market makes honest work more rewarding anyway, I don’t see a lot of scope for organised crime personally.
@Coats “It is likely that something akin to a “personal liability” insurance system would develop. Kind of warranting that you are basically a good guy”
This does not answer my question: what if I refuse to be judged by most of the arbitrators and accept only to be judged by my wife’s brother? On which basis can you say (in a pure free-market society) that I am a bad guy? Is it economically convenient for your insurance guys to classify me as “bad” if I am rich and pay their high prices?
“I see no reason why such insurance arrangement might not include permission to share information – so your employer, landlord, bank, perhaps your utilities supplier if you are on a contract and so on might be informed in appropriate cases.”
In a pure free-market society, who decides which ones are the “appropriate cases”? And how do you enforce them? How can you stop the “if I pay, I know” logic? And what about social networking gone bad (= organised crime): insurance guys teaming with private firms to protect some and exclude others? This is how mafia works. In a pure free-market society you cannot give employers, loandlords, banks, … more rights than “common” people; it would no more be a free-market society, no?
“Now, you suggested what about the person who has loads of money when he is convicted – could he survive, indefinitely, “scot free”?”
Mafia bosses who are never convicted (you have to catch them first), live totally “off the grid”. Officially they own nothing, but some of them have gold taps in their bathrooms. This happens because they drive social networks orthogonal to the “official” society. In the years he was “latitante” (on the run), mafia boss Provenzano went to France to have prostate surgery; he did it by having minions in his social network provide fake identity papers, and it worked for him. Ostracism did not work. How do you convict such people? In a pure free-market society how can you convince witnesses to step out and denounce them at the risk of being killed? Are you aware of the social behaviour called “omertà” (I do not know how to translate it in english)? Now that is ostracism that work; but it is not driven by impersonal rules, it is driven by power, violence and fear.
“And ultimately, in such a society, where crime is more likely to be solved”
Huh?
“and the effect of justice (i.e. restitution) more of a financial penalty, it is less likely that someone could accumulate “loads of money” whilst pursuing a criminal career.”
Less likely yes, but not impossible; you just have to carefully select your targets for robbery and kidnapping. In the italian region Sardegna, for many years we had the Anonima Sequestri, social networks of people kidnapping rich ones and demanding ransoms; a lot of money went into ransoms.
And what about people who became rich honestly and then turn bad because they do not want to loose it? Once you are rich there are plenty of ways to build social networks to seal the society around you and establish some form of neo-feudalism. I could write names of italians living this way; some say that prime minister Berlusconi is exactly like this, but there are others who destroy economic value but are not ostracised at all.
“As for organised crime, of course currently most organised crime revolves around activities that are “malum prohibitum”.”
True.
“Once there is a free market in drugs, prostitution, fire-arms, once the free market makes honest work more rewarding anyway, I don’t see a lot of scope for organised crime personally.”
The scope is the same as always: to be powerful and rich without merit and hard work. Free-market rules are “rules” just like state rules; and there will always be someone who wants to escape them have more.
So, all you are saying here is that the private law society may not be able to solve some serious issues that various state enforced legal systems have not been able to do. Nobody claimed it would be *perfect*.
Again, if there’s an accusation outstanding against you and you do not agree between yourself and the counterparty a mutually agreeable arbitrator it seems there could be a couple of options – that the victim’s insurance’s arbitrator goes ahead and tries the case in absentia and puts out the word that you have been convicted, if that’s the case, and that businesses of good repute who want to retain that repute should deal with you carefully if at all. Again, this is likely to make life pretty hard for you and your incentive is likely to be to present yourself and make your defence if you have one and, depending on the alleged crime of course, it is feasible that any restitution settlement would weigh less heavily on you than a total lock down of your assets and ability to trade with others, or, as mentioned in a previous reply, even your ability to travel on the private property roads.
And on that subject – everything in this anarchist society is dealt with by contract – and for many things contracts would be standard, just as they are now, so, for example, a road owner wanting to make sure he provides a safe environment for his paying users is likely to include in their standard (and therefore presumed) contracts for *anyone* using their road, that you, the user, agrees that if anyone comes and wants to arrest you for an alleged crime then he, the road provider will not be held liable for your security, and that you agree to go peacefully. If you don’t, you prima facie break that contract as well as any one you are accused of already.
And finally on this bit – people also tend not to get rich by *overpaying* for things, and you are suggesting that because you can pay a lot an insurance agency would take you on whether you were a bad risk or not, yes? Well, if I were some other, law abiding, wealthy person discovering that my insurance provider helps alleged criminals escape justice, why would I want to deal with that firm? Not just on cost grounds but on reputation by association. For the insurance company, therefore, it is likely that their best economic option would be to keep the well off well behaved clients rather than take on the odd bad one who could screw their reputation.
Who decides the appropriate cases? You do, together with your insurance provider, in the contract between you. I don’t understand what you mean by “‘if I pay, I know’ logic”. Firms that collude, if they are found out, would suffer a massive risk to reputation and with it financial viability. If people are on the receiving end of something they perceive to be unfair, they are in any case likely to move to an alternative provider, and if they have any evidence, then to arbitration against the colluding firm. Nobody is giving anybody more “rights”, if I have written you an insurance policy that says “If I receive a notice, authenticated by such and such an arbitration agency(ies) whom I as an insurer trust to have done their job properly, that you have been convicted of something, or accused of something and refuse to answer the accusation, I have the right to inform others whom either I believe you deal with, or with whom I deal in some connected capacity (such as with other clients of mine where if you committed something further on their property I might also be liable) so that they can decide whether to continue doing any business with you, allowing you on their property etc.” and you accept that contract, you have given me just such a right. Nobody has *taken* a right – you have consented, by contract.
Regarding your stuff about unconvicted mafiosi – well, as you say, they have escaped justice even with a powerful state apparatus supposed to police the society they operate in. However, I return to the point that most of the mafia’s power comes from its engagement in already illegal activity, most of which would not be illegal under a private law system. At the very least it is likely their power would be substantially diluted. But otherwise, the anarchic society would be under no greater a disadvantage than the current system.
Ultimately, in a truly anarchic society, I’d suggest that if there really are some groups of people who wish to live effectively as outlaws, and can find a place to do so (such as, perhaps Sicily), they can go there and do as they please, but their ability to interact with the rest of the law abiding world will be severely limited and it’s not likely to be a terribly glamorous life. I suspect many will see the benefits of living a more or less law abiding life in the anarchic society properly and want to rehabilitate themselves.
Yes, that’s what I said. It stands to reason really – a network of for-profit organisations with financial liabilities if people are not caught, or if people are not justly convicted, and who are actually enforcing a much smaller “law code” in any case, have much stronger economic incentives to do a more thorough job of investigating, catching and convicting the right perpetrator than the monopolistic state system with no means of judging its efficiency and no real liability to victims if the crime against them goes unsolved, and millions of lines of victimless crimes they are also having to enforce.
So you acknowledge it is likely to be a better, if not a perfect system. Thanks!
Now, I acknowledge that there are issues about what happens to great wealth during the transition to an anarchist society, but, assuming we are starting from some kind of a blank sheet for now, it is far less likely that such stratification of society and such great disparities of wealth will actually arise or be sustainable for long. Most such wealth, certainly including Silvio’s no doubt, is rooted in state granted privilege allowing certain people or classes of people to build up disproportionate wealth by artificial monopoly, protectionism, or exemptions from some obligations that fall on others instead. So again, as you say, these things happen under the current system of heavy handed state policing, indeed are much easier because of the ability of the already rich and powerful to manipulate legislation to their benefit or to influence monocentric legal systems. Under polycentric private law, implementing what is effectively only one simple ultimate rule – the non-aggression principle – this is a much less likely scenario, and something that in reality is very expensive – again, not the best way to keep your wealth!
…and finally…
Is italian your first language then? “Scope” means “opportunity” – you seem to take it to mean “incentive”. I agree, it is absolutely natural for humanity to want as much as possible for as little in return. Indeed, that simple truth is what much of libertarian thought is founded upon. It is the state, above all, that fosters the ability of some to exploit others instead of having to work for themselves, and it does so on a vast scale. I say again, the opportunities for “organised crime” will be vastly reduced by simple fact that most of things that “organised” crime thrives on will not actually be “crimes” and in a legitimate free-market reputable operators will most likely be the successful ones.
Have you read/listened to “Answers to 10 objections to Anarchy” by Roderick Long?
http://mises.org/media/1250
The problem with “freeing” anything from “market forces” is that it begs the question, just what is it being “freed” from? Accountability? Competition?
Commonly the argument for non-market structures is that there will somehow be less negative incentives. If there has ever been any indication that a non-market structure has been “freed” from things like corruption and bias, I would like to see it.
“So do you guys agree with something we need, like the Judicial system which is free from the free market forces ?”
No. Being “free from market forces” means being able to initiate force against others. So
if one group is allowed to set up some all-powerful court, then why not others? You have
no way of knowing if what they’re doing is good since no one is allowed to compete and
let people decide freely.
No one anywhere, as far as I know, likes or even wants to use the “justice system”. The
very thought of it just drains the life out of you. It is bureaucratic, corrupt, ridiculously
expensive, ridiculously slow, and just flat out scary. It is just absurd to think that such
MONOPOLIES are good providers of justice.
The idea that a state, which is simply a monopoly on force, is somehow “independent” is
false and illusory. And it is not and cannot act as a just “final arbiter” since it is always a party
to the case. It cannot even pretend to function as an arbiter between you and the state
since all the judges are appointed and get their paychecks and their paid vacations and
their retirement and all of their other benefits FROM the state. They ARE the state. Therefore, they are not some kind of disinterested and independent final arbiter.
You can get an appeals process and an independent arbiter through contract. Whoever
makes the best just rules and runs the best court system will attract more business and
“force” others, through the market that is, to adopt these better standards of arbitration
and restitution or lose market share.
And by having a market, you will have specialization. You will probably have one best way
of dealing with your neighbors regarding property disputes and local crime, and another
way of dealing with everyone you buy from and sell to. There will probably be merchant
courts, family courts, real property courts all pre-arranged by contract. Contract enforcement
can be had in various ways. Perhaps you will have to post a bond when you sign up. Perhaps
merchant associations will refuse to do business with people who fail to accept merchant
court decisions and promptly pay fines or make restitution, etc. It is not hard to imagine
how groups of interested parties will enforce against violators in an orderly way when they
have the power of free association.
Ok, Lets extend the logic. By birth you are say a citizen of USA. Now you being its citizen, will enter into a binding contract with the Constitution, its Criminal Procedure Code and also Civil Procedure code. You have no other option to choose a South African Constitution living in USA. You are made to choose this. So to say that free market forces decide which contract we enter into, also rubbishes the very idea of having a constitution. And Having a Constitution is often termed as having Liberty by most of the Libertarians. So which one of the points you guys discard.
Although the cases you said for the need of arbiters to be selected by a group of people or the parties involved in the case is nothing wrong, particularly in civil litigation matters. We can have them run parallely with a jurisidiction in civil matters like finance. And there is no need of any appeal to any higher authorities if the two parties choose their own arbiter. It is perfectly ok.
The real issue comes up with criminal cases.
The point to be made is what will be the basis of awarding a particular sentence, whether be death sentence or of 10 days for a murder, ofcourse it cannot be the choice of individuals who are party to the case, as it might have wide spread ramifications to the entire society. That impact cannot be judged by a group of private arbiters. Private Laws based on market do not work out here. You need something which even these private courts have to follow uniformly, especially the criminal code. That is the books which have knowledge of years of human experience and their working and those books on jurisprudence & the constitution are termed as very close to being omniscient judges. Who ever pronounces the judgement is immaterial, whether be private or public if he follows such an omniscient law made by years of working. And when it comes something of this has to be binding on the private enterprise, there comes the State Police and Judiciary to uphold the values of constitution, which are in general agreed to be the principles of Liberty of mankind.
Having a competitive private constitutions, and criminal codes is unimaginable, is it the other way round? This i think must be the practical limit for the extent of Liberty one can achieve.
Anything beyond this will be termed as a conspiracy theory.
I do agree wherever the parties agree for arbitration of particular private court on particular matters, well and good let the parties go there. The parties might not always agree at a particular private court or something is in the matter of general interest to the public with widespread ramifications, then the need for the Federal court to summon them comes in to picture to uphold the values of liberty.
Indeed, under a private law system, there wouldn’t be any kind of constitution aside from contracts with specific security firms because there wouldn’t be any government–which is the point, after all. That some libertarians like a constitution is simply due to the prevalence of government that has to be limited in order to maintain any semblance of liberty (or it could be due to faulty reasoning; you never know).
As for criminal cases, private courts would work just as they would in civil cases. It is the arbitrators, not the feuding parties, who make the judgments. Under this system, judgments will tend to reflect societal norms about what kind of punishment is appropriate for various crimes; contrasted with a state system in which self-proclaimed ubermensch try to design the legal code for everyone else. Aberrations and injustices would undoubtedly arise, but these would be limited by societal norms–judges who make particularly egregious and unjust judgments would be ostracized by consumers, punishing them for their errors of judgment and encouraging other judges to continue applying the same basic legal code as before. This also allows for punishments to change over time as societal sensibilities change: if during one time period people believe theft should be punished with the loss of a hand, and during another time period people believe it should be punished with only a steep fine, the law will evolve along with society.
The problem of finding a mutually acceptable court is a fair point the make, however, with multiple, competing arbitration firms, it is likely that this would be a minor difficulty overall. It does become an important issue in the case of accused criminals–how do you convince an accused criminal to submit to arbitration? If the accused has a security firm, the matter is sorted out by the involved accuser’s firm and the accused’s firm. If the accused does not have a security firm, then it would be sorted out by the accuser’s firm and the accused themselves. If the accused is believed to have evidence that would affect the verdict, a system of warrants could be utilized whereby the court gives leave for a firm to search or seize the accused’s property, subject to return later. This warrant system would be subject to the same societal disciplining as all other aspects of criminal disputes–courts that abuse it will be ostracized by consumers, and courts that use them responsibly will be rewarded by consumers.
It of course would be ideal to have one omniscient and omnipotent court to correctly and justly arbitrate all disputes, but we don’t have one of those and so have to make do with what we do have–imperfect human beings. Also, it bears repeating that a private law system would not be perfectly just, merely preferable to the present system.
“Having a competitive private constitutions, and criminal codes is unimaginable”
There are how many countries in the world? Between 150 and 200, I think. All of them have different criminal codes. Within the US, there are 50 states with numerous subdivisions
below them in counties, cities, and towns. They all have different legislatures which
pass laws for their specific jurisdictions.
It certainly is not unimaginable; it actually exists.
And do you understand that the SAME PEOPLE who vote for or voice support for or
agree with major laws in existence now are the SAME PEOPLE who will be served
by free market justice providers? Do you think people will suddenly decide that murder,
rape, kidnapping, etc., are not to be punished? Of course not! The only difference here
is HOW society carries out its functions. It’s just a different (better) way of organizing.
The people are all the same, and those who would create justice firms are the same
people who probably work in the field right now anyway.
All the expertise and knowledge you cite still exists. The legal tradition still exists. It
won’t disappear, but it will be modified.
If you can now “sign up” with Singapore or the US or France or the UK by moving there
and being under their laws, why is it hard to imagine signing up with a firm which offers
you a more rational approach to dealing with crime because it’s in competition with
other firms for your patronage? Why on earth would you suggest that murder would
be dealt with by a 10 day jail sentence? Does that make any sense to you? Who is
going to pay for that kind of “justice” which has nothing to do with justice?
Wouldn’t you like to sign up with the best and brightest judges, retired judges, lawyers,
business leaders, philosophers, investigators out there who will be free to offer to the public at large a coherent code and/or a just set of principles and actions to deal with
criminals?
You have to try to understand that all it’s about is breaking the monopoly, the stranglehold
of unjust power that government exerts over the masses of people by imposing itself
on them. If you have a problem with this, just think of secession. Keep breaking down
the US or whatever country into smaller and smaller jurisdictions. Are you going to
tell me that the people in your state or region or city or whatever are incapable of implementing a law code? Groups of people have implemented law since people existed. There are no magic people. It occurs in society because it is recognized as being needed in society by anyone with a functioning brain.
You just have to go, in your thinking, from imagining unlimited territorial secession to a non-territorial system where there is no border dividing legal systems, only contracts. That’s hard for people to do at first, but keep working at it. Just remember that when you travel to another country, you are under their laws as well as your home country. This
seeming contradiction is resolved through treaty. It’s no big deal.
I think we all labor under a mythic view of the state. There is no omnipotent
wisdom which descends upon people because they won a political popularity contest
(ie, voting in “democracy”). Any moron can run for office, and many morons tend to
win. They win because they smile a lot, say pretty words, make inane promises which
will never be kept, have a lot of money, know the right people, or because no other
moron chose to run against them. These are the people who make laws. They make
HORRIBLE and RIDICULOUS laws. Just look. Go read the health care bill or the bailout
bill. Read any piece of garbage that legislatures throw together. It’s absolute junk –
and yet we still manage to deal with violent criminals well enough to at least still
have a civilization. There are dozens of ways to immediately improve how we
deal with criminals. All they do now is stick people in expensive cages and make
the victims and everybody else pay for it. You think that’s the best that we can
come up with???
You need to see the state for what it is. It is a GROUP OF PEOPLE. You can even
name them all if you had the time or the inclination. They’re not gods, angels, or
masters of the universe. Lawmakers are politicians. If you vote for politicians, you
are voting for what you believe will be one sort of law or another. So anyone who
praises “democracy” automatically acknowledges that average people “make” the
laws they live under by voting for one idiot over the other idiot. Then the idiots
get together with their parties and their lobbyists and write 1,000 or 1,500 page
bills having all sorts of ABSOLUTE NONSENSE in them including blatant giveaways to
friends and supporters. If anyone says that this is just or rational or good, they must be
crazy.
With a pure free market, you’re just talking about freeing up this natural societal
function to those best suited to do it. How do you know what’s best? Well, people
will “vote” for what they think is best. They’ll vote with their patronage. If something
about it is not good, others can innovate and offer a competing service. The only
thing which obstructs this process is arbitrary force.
There is really no economic or moral argument against a free society. There just isn’t. The only real “argument” is the fear of the unknown or the fear of the “chaos” of some imagined
transition phase.
I’d encourage to read more since it takes some time, some thinking and questioning
to get a grasp on what a free society really means. You need to understand that it
is about expanding your ability to make choices about your own life in your own best
interest, along with everyone else, without being coerced by a gang of people who
operate on only one “principle,” and that is power.
A society based on might-makes-right cannot possibly produce the best legal system since it is itself illegitimate. You’re talking about dealing with crime while the whole statist system is criminal in its very essence. It’s nothing but the end result of conquest, and conquest is not a rational standard for a just society.
I think the real objection people seem to have to liberty is that they don’t know what
it is in the first place! :-/
Hey Zorg, People do know about liberty, but the debate is about how much liberty can be given to an individual in a society so that he will not take away the liberty of others with his might, and how much force the society or the state can exert on the individual to uphold his liberty values without taking others.Anyway answer this, USA has 100 hectares of land and 85 hectares is not under any person or organization. Who is the de-facto owner of this property in a stateless society? Who will lay claim on this? Is it might of an individual or a private company the factor to decide the ownership of such thing? Even if people do competitive bidding they have to deliver the money or other benefits to the person who auctions it? Who is the auctioneer? Private Courts , Private police cannot definetely decide this.
Homesteading, my friend. Homesteading.
WHO IS GOING TO ENFORCE YOUR CONTRACTS?
The stupidity on display here simply astounds me. If security services were private, I can tell you the first thing I would do is to commit armed robberies, and then use the proceeds of my robberies to hire my own security force. It would be very expensive to stop me, because since everyone is in it only for the money, it would be very expensive for my victims to hire private security guards who would be willing to risk death just to return someone else’s money. Think Blackwater prices. In addition, I could cut the existing security firms, or at least their heads in for a cut of the proceeds of my robberies, giving them an incentive to protect me.
I could start demanding that businessmen pay me a tax if they don’t want to be robbed. Once I became powerful and rich enough, I could start demanding that EVERYONE pay a tax and stop robbing altogether except to get my ‘tax revenues’. You know what I’d be then? A GOVERNMENT, and a mean and nasty one at that. Your version of free market economics is really just pre-fascism, you’re merely proposing a short, anarchic interim period before the biggest, baddest, richest market player hires their own organized violence and becomes the government, you know, like Mussolini’s plutocrat coalition.
There is an alternative, however, and that is DEMOCRACY. The kind where each human being (not each dollar) has equal opportunity to define the community (and market) rules. Although democracy certainly would place burdens on the market, it’s also the only way to keep the market from self-destructing.
And by the way, your right to property only goes as far as is doesn’t interfere with the rights of others to life. This does in fact justify the confiscation of your property, if it is indeed the only way to save another’s right to life. Have a nice day!
“If security services were private, I can tell you the first thing I would do is to commit armed robberies, and then use the proceeds of my robberies to hire my own security force.”
Admitting that you’re a violent anti-social criminal is probably not the best way to
sell your communist utopia to others.
“Although democracy certainly would place burdens on the market, it’s also the only way to keep the market from self-destructing.”
I like the euphemism of “place burdens on” for brute force.
And the idea that the market will self-destruct unless it’s run by brute force
is absurd and contradictory. You destroy a market by introducing force, so you
cannot “keep the market from self-destructing” by having your gang arbitrarily
“place burdens” on it.
“And the idea that the market will self-destruct unless it’s run by brute force
is absurd and contradictory.”
I suppose there”ll be no second amendment in your utopia then, because markets don’t require brute force, right?
ALL markets have certain rules, enforced by ‘brute force:’ Is slavery allowed? What constitutes fraud? What constitutes a valid contract? How is liability assigned? There has never been a market in human history which existed without a set of collective, enforceable norms. The reason for the norms is either to level the playing field between the market players or to keep it crooked. The only question is WHO sets those norms, and by what process, and for whose benefit. In your system, the wealthiest will have no obstacle to buying a government into existence and then setting the norms in their own interest.
You should be happy to know that we currently have the type of economic system you’re proposing, just after the inevitable subversion of the “free market” by the dominant players. Our inability to have solidarity with our fellow citizens is the reason that first our government and then our free market collapsed. Even a return to the free market is now impossible without organized democratic action, so much more so its maintenance.
As for socialism, empirically it seems to work well when it’s democratic, as evidenced by the fact that all of the nations which score higher than the US on the HDI (or other demographic measures of quality of life) all have more socialism. I don’t think it’s really socialism that makes those countries better places to live though; it’s that they have more democracy.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
“I suppose there”ll be no second amendment in your utopia then, because markets don’t require brute force, right?”
This doesn’t even relate to what I said. You are talking about self-defense here
and I made a statement about your desire to *run* markets by brute force (your “democracy”
in which a powerful elite proclaim themselves rulers and enact “burdens” on
markets without the consent of market participants).
Can you tell me how your ruling elite acquire their power to “run” markets?
Oh wait, never mind. For a minute I thought you were against initiating
force against others.
As for “democracy,” don’t make me laugh. It’s the most indefensible position
in the world since even “democrats” don’t believe in it. What so-called
democrats believe in is the power to rule over others. None of these people,
and I’m sure you are included (judging from what you say and how you say it),
believe in any “right” to self-government. For whenever any group of people under them
become convinced of the value of self-government and democracy, and thus
wish to become self-governing democracies themselves, the only response from
the democracy-loving, self-government-praising utopian psychopaths who rule over
them is to engage in mass murder of the true believers in order to PREVENT democracy.
It’s all a sick sick joke. It’s NEVER about democracy; it’s about THIS democracy which
WE rule. If it were really about democracy, then you wouldn’t even be making
the statements you are making since all of us whom you criticize would be free to
extricate ourselves from your imposed “burdens,” and unite into our own democracy
which would stand for non-aggression and liberty and free markets.
I think most people here understand exactly what you mean by “democracy,” so
you’re not fooling anyone with this display. You know very well that the word is
meaningless as you use it.
Rofl you are a laugh indeed. I think Zorg obliterated most of the crap you posted (and the rest, based on the HDI? LOL Why should we even accept these figures?) Another democracy-worshiping loon. Give Hoppe’s Democracy – the God that FAILED a read to see why no one here will be swayed by entreaties to bow to your RIDICULOUS “god”. BTW dimwit, the reason the dominant players rise up to where they do and cause so much trouble is because of the monopolistic apparatues called the democratic state, of which they have no compunction in availing themselves…
Benjamin,
So, what you’re proposing is to just skip what you believe to be an inevitably lost struggle and start with the dystopia of an organized predatory gang that systematically violates everyone’s rights. I hope others are more willing to at least put up a fight against oppressive forces than you.
“And by the way, your right to property only goes as far as is doesn’t interfere with the rights of others to life. This does in fact justify the confiscation of your property, if it is indeed the only way to save another’s right to life.”
Once you understand that the right to life is, in itself, a property right (ie, self-ownership) you’ll see that any invasion of a person’s property rights is an invasion of their right to life. I suggest reading this and would like to hear your thoughts on it: http://mises.org/daily/2569
There are so many things wrong with this post, I don’t know where to start. But to take on just one of your issues, DEMOCRACY, check out the new post Freedom and Legislation – http://mises.org/daily/4154
If you go out and max out all 5 of your credit cards and then don’t pay, do the police come and arrest you to enforce the contract? Is Visa suing all the people that default on their credit card debt? If not, why do people pay their creditors? OK, maybe they’re decent people so I’ll ask you (since you admit that, absent a state-monopolized police force, you would commit armed robberies). Have you stolen a lot of money from creditors? If not, why not?
The rest of your post is meant as satire, right?
“There is no such thing as a crime against the state, because the state is an imaginary concept.”
Then there is no such thing as a crime against a corporation because “corporation” is an imaginary concept?
sincerely,
your resident clown
Yes. Most astute.
We don’t need police forces, we have the 2nd Amendment and it’s FREE.
Zorg,
“If security services were private, I can tell you the first thing I would do is to commit armed robberies, and then use the proceeds of my robberies to hire my own security force.”
That’s the exact definition of government.
Second Commandment,
Please don’t ascribe quotes of people I’m arguing with to me. Thanks. : )
Benjamin,
“I don’t think it’s really socialism that makes those countries better places to live though; it’s that they have more democracy.”
I suppose that I should be grateful to all those freeloaders who use democracy to vote themselves a large chunk of my paycheck and profits ?
I suppose that I should be grateful to all those liberals who use democracy to vote away my right to self-defense ?
Yeah, democracy works well, after all Adolph Hitler got elected.
Adolph Hitler got ‘elected’ because his ‘private security forces’ intimidated voters at the ballot booth, rigged vote counts and physically attacked other political parties. Adolph Hitler himself was a “private security force” for the richest men in Germany, and some very wealthy men elsewhere. Adolph Hitler is what happens when market winners (Thyssen/Krupp, I.G. Farben, various banks etc. etc.) purchase a government and run it for private benefit. Do you really believe that Adolph HItler made it to the top through personal charm and charisma and eloquent debate in the public arena? He made it to the top because he did the bidding of ‘market winners,’ and he used their funding to hire violent goons to do his bidding and suppress opposition.
Again and again I see no objection or solution to the problem of how to deal with an economic elite simply becoming the government in a laissez-faire economic system. I can propose lots of ways to safeguard against it, but I’ve noticed that libertarians almost never do. Perhaps libertarianism is simply ideological cover for corporatism?
“Again and again I see no objection or solution to the problem of how to deal with an economic elite simply becoming the government in a laissez-faire economic system. I can propose lots of ways to safeguard against it, but I’ve noticed that libertarians almost never do. Perhaps libertarianism is simply ideological cover for corporatism?”
I missed the part about how an economic elite become the gov’t in laissez-faire.
Is it similar to how the gov’t becomes the gov’t under a gov’t system or??? Gee, isn’t it
pretty simple? At some point, some group decides to initiate force and rule others, right?
And you think libertarians don’t deal with this? Hmm. Interesting. Unique perspective.
I guess the fact that libertarians are *always* talking about ways to safeguard against people
initiating force is not enough. Maybe we should do it always and then some, huh?
And I like the other part about how Hitler rose to power at the “bidding of ‘market winners’”.
That’s classic. As if the state didn’t exist and he didn’t take over the machinery of the
state using the ideology of the state. No, it was those darned “market winners”! Yeah,
ya gotta watch out for those guys who produce things people like; you never know when
they’ll foist a dictator upon you by the sheer force of their productivity.
“Perhaps libertarianism is simply ideological cover for corporatism?”
Well, I know that there are some evil libertarians lurking about who conspire to work
for a living and sell useful products and services to people for which they expect to
receive something in exchange from a willing buyer, so that may give you something to go
on. If you look hard enough, I’m sure you’ll uncover the secret plot to install the new Hitler there somewhere in there.
Because you’re clueless of our literature. You can think of lots of (fascist bullshit), yes, but it doesn’t mean it is a) justified b) workable or c) warranted. Oh and pray tell, how are you going to prove the NONSENSE you’re spreading about Hitler? By proclamations ex cathedra? Sorry darling, no one here is stupid enough to take your retarded proclamations at face-value. Your credibility here is going into the negative. Nazism was a system of significant state controls, regardless of who controlled whom, and has nothing to do with “private” security forces. I’ve studied the rise of Hitler to know well enough how he came to power. Germany did NOT have a laissez-faire system prior to his rise nor did it after. How you can fabricate such spin and blatant bullshiting is beyond me. No compunction against outright lying? Yeah, sounds like a democrat to me.
The author doesn’t consider the possibility of greater self-defence capacity with no gun controls (or controls for any weapons for that matter). Nor does the author consider people acting voluntary to defend some and apprehend or beat up other, i.e. vigilantes. The idea of a freelance police officer who asks someone who’s getting beat up if he want to pay for protection sounds suspect especially as the freelancer would have trouble telling if the beatee is innocent or not let alone if he has the ability to consent to a contract. Maybe he could just put his business card in the beatee’s pocket when the beating is over.
what about the state police officer who’s off duty, and is witness to an altercation, does he have to always intervene? should he weigh up his overtime allowance before intervening? maybe he should ring his on-duty colleagues and enjoy his break.
what about the homicide cop who sees a drug-deal, but doesn’t intervene because of the shit-load of paperwork that’d involve, and that belongs to the drug squad anyway?
can you really not think up something more substantive?
The current public police officer isn’t being paid (directly) by the beatee and doesn’t have to negiotate a contract or check if he is a private customer.
Why does he need to take into account better self-defence capacity – surely that is a given. You have the absolute right to defend yourself and your property with proportionate force. It is likely that there would be controls on weapons, in that your personal liability insurance, your housing insurance and so on are likely to take a view of your competence and judgement in handling different weapons because they are the ones likely to have to make a pay out if you take the paper boy for a burglar and shoot him dead. So you may end up with a lower premium if you are deemed a competent and level headed gun owner or a bigger premium if you are regarded as a bad risk with a gun in your hands.
As to vigilantism – we are assuming here that one of the fundamental natural laws any arbitrator with judge by is the “non-aggression principle” I assume. In which case, a local group of vigilantes beating someone up would also be liable for initiating aggressive force. Even if they are reasonably clearly the perpetrator of a significant criminal act, once the immediate threat to life or property is neutralised (by proportionate force again), any further aggressive force would be held against the group of vigilantes. Which is not to say that vigilantes would not be allowed – this may be the best way for a poor community to organise its mutual protection but wherever they cross the line into initiating force they could be held liable.
Again, with the person being beaten up while a passing officer decides whether to intervene, the only decision that really needs to be made is whether or not the person receiving the beating looks as if he himself is a danger (i.e. is the beater still in the course of defending himself or his property with proportionate force or does the victim look disarmed/subdued?).
I suspect that it would be unlikely that the officer would be solely responsible for covering his own pay as a “sole trader”, and that he will be part of an agency who would pay him regardless and either take the hit if there’s no way to cover the cost for that job or pursue one or other parties to the beating to recover costs.
Furthermore, though this bit is thinking on the hoof so someone may have a reasonable objection to it, I would have thought that if someone who would be capable of preventing a further aggression against a victim and whose job it would normally be to do so if he could tell immediately that the victim was covered held back simply because he could not tell immediately that the victim was covered could also be held at least someway liable for allowing the beating to go on unchecked.
Also, it is likely, and indeed is mentioned in the original article, that if this were in a street say, as opposed to on the apparent victim’s property adjoining the street, the owners of the street would likely have a contract for protecting the paying users of the street, or their customers (for example, shops or businesses fronting a street are likely to want to pay the street owner to ensure customers can get to them safely).
I found this article to be very two dimensional. It seems to ignore so many human elements to policing and basically tries to superimpose the authors elementary understanding of policing onto a supply and demand curve. What the author fails to realize is that money can not replace as an incentive, the pride of serving a greater good. Ask yourselves why anyone would take the job of policing in the first place? It can’t be wages that are the incentive. If wages become the incentive then police would serve the highest bidder and not the greater good. We see this type of behaviour in places like Mexico where drug cartels can buy the police for more than the public can. I would encourage the author to spend a few years working in the policing industry as a civilian employee or a volunteer and report back to us with ideas to make the system better in a meaningful way – rather than writing a nice piece of fiction offered up as a real alternative.
Actually, it very often is wages. And the pride in working for a firm can easily come about, perhaps more so than working for some anonymous, useless, unaccountable entity. His suggestions are “meaningful”. Don’t like em? Find your own way of doing things.
Haha. Did he hire you to come to his defense? Can I pay you more to defend me now. This is a great idea!
Tell you what: move to Somalia (where there are no government police ) and tell me how it’s workin for ya. My idea: don’t take what you have for granted. Increasing accountability is good but there is no need to come up with half baked radical ideas if the system is fundamentally working already. Again, if you need perspective go do a house swap with someone in Somalia – they can try our system on and you can try their ‘highest bidder’ model. I stand by our system.
do you live in a public housing estate? if not, then the income disparity means you’re comparing apples and oranges. of course everyone would prefer to live in wealthy country than a poor one. even the welfare-poor in america are far wealthier than the somalians, but are the figures for serious crime that much better in the government projects than in somalia?
in any case don’t worry, the usa is coming to the rescue in somalia, supporting the military attack by ethiopia. hey our democracy is so good, and our people are so happy we’re delivering it to the rest of the world on the point of the bayonet. with the intervention of the usa, surely somalians will soon enjoy the manifold benefits of state policing. the world is safe from dangerous experiments in statelessness.
@newson “do you live in a public housing estate? if not, then the income disparity means you’re comparing apples and oranges.”
This is no answer to contrarian. Do you think that Somalia is successfully self-organising? Or do you need a rich territory to to make the free-marker societies work?
“the world is safe from dangerous experiments in statelessness.”
You mean that Somalia is just “an experiment in statelessness” in the same way that Soviet Union was just “an experiment in communism”?
touché on the wording: substitute “episode” for “experiment”.there is no one guiding hand in the absence of the state, but a confluence of everyone’s plans. communism of course, is defined by central planning. the comparison couldn’t be more stark.
somalia is better off without the state.
What people forget when they use Somalia as a supposed example of “anarchy” is that first, the actual “anarchy” period in Somalia lasted for three or four years maximum before the “international community” decided that a stateless society was an affront to the “family of nations” and that some kind of state ought to be imposed “for their own good”. I’d argue that at least from the time of the US strike on Mogadishu there have been pretty constant external attempts to impose one faction or another on the country based on political preferences of those outside the country itself.
And second, you should judge that short period of anarchy (and to a lesser extent what has happened since even if not a real anarchy as it was for those three or four years) against what was happening previously. The so-called “scientific socialist” regime of Said Barre was one of the most predatory and partisan regimes even in Africa, which is saying something. There is little doubt, from even UN and World Bank research on the ground, that on a whole host of social and economic indicators Somalia did better during that short anarchy than the majority of people fared under Barre’s brutal regime.
Hi Newson,
I went to look up crime stats in Somalia to compare to the poor parts of the USA and it seems that the hired guns in Somalia had the statisticians killed. Without a government police force to investigate the crime and hold someone accountable – no one else applied to fill the vacancy (seems to me they feared for their personal safety).
I would say your comparison to crime rates in the US poor neighbourhoods to Somalia is completely out of touch with reality.
Point is hired guns equals anarchy and that is what this article proposed: hired guns.
As for your criticisms of US foreign policy (not to get off topic or anything); why is it that when the US stays out of a situation it is criticised for doing nothing, yet when it intervenes in a situation it is criticised for butting its nose into someone else’s business?
You really are dimwitted, aren’t you? Presumably this person works for a firm with a clientele and has a reputation to preserve. Now apply your thinking to a normal firm and please think through why what you say is stupid. Oh and stop using Somalia as a strawman. It compares well to other AFRICAN countries nearby. But dishonest trolls cannot comprehend this.
Inquisitor,
I present a respectful exchange of ideas and you resort to name calling but it is I that is dimwitted?
Thank you, its been a long time since I laughed that hard. Your post was very theraputic.
@Inquisitor “And the pride in working for a firm can easily come about, perhaps more so than working for some anonymous, useless, unaccountable entity.”
Are you stating that people working for private firms can develop enough pride of it to die for? Sorry but this is unbelievable. BTW, police is neither anonymous nor useless, you are making this up in your mind.
by the way, the us has no problems with using mercenaries, who will trade off money for their lives. iraq.
@newson “by the way, the us has no problems with using mercenaries, who will trade off money for their lives. iraq.”
Yes, but they are paid a shitload of money by the state. They do now do it because of the pride to work for Blackwater. And if I am not mistaken, there are much-less-paid soldiers doing the really dangerous things. Mercenaries get the less dangerous part of it.
so why don’t the much-less-well-paid soldiers migrate to blackwater, and kick back? maybe it’s because they don’t have the talent or experience. unless you’re putting it to me that soldiers don’t care about money or risk, only the love of nation.
No, if they have enough pride to die for it that is likely a mental illness. Pretty much the same as being willing to die for a country. And I was alluding to the state, which IS all the above however you may wish to cut it.
contrarian says: “Ask yourselves why anyone would take the job of policing in the first place? It can’t be wages that are the incentive.
perhaps not in america, but in most parts of the world policing is a steady, reliable income with many perks. southern italy provides most of the nation’s carabinieri, a way into a career and out of the high unemployment and mafia-plagued south.
outside of the developed world, the police uniform offers an opportunity to shake down the citizens, well and truly making up for the poor official wages. open your mind to a broader reality or take a drive down to mexico and central america. pay off the police for minor or fictitious offenses or find yourself in a cell with time to muse on the state justice system.
there are plenty of cops who start out idealistic, but often the incentives are pitched all the wrong way. going with the flow is easier.
@newson “southern italy provides most of the nation’s carabinieri, a way into a career and out of the high unemployment and mafia-plagued south”
True (I am italian, I know). And it happens because it is a state job. But you do not get rich by being a Carabiniere who risks his life.
I have never been to Mexico, I understand that people here are stating that Police is corrupt there; and do you think that corruption would go away with private Police? How so? Because “corrupt” private Police would be driven out of market and “honest” private Police would make more money? How can poor people pay enough for “honest” Police services? I say that Mexico’s Police is corrupt because the country is poor. Private Police would not solve the problem; private Police does actually exist in America, too, no? How much do they get paid? Are they really more honest than State Police?
BTW since you mentioned Mafia, I suggest you get acquainted with this horrible cultural/social thing and then explain how could private Police fight it effectively. Would your private judges be willing to be blown to pieces like Falcone and Borsellino or shot like Livatino in Italy? Because of “private firm pride”? Believe me when I say that I know Mafia has strong state-connections, but do you think that it would go away without a government? Or become weaker? I do not think so.
P.S. Sorry if I missed it in the article, but in the pure free-market society who would pay for jails, or enslavement of the guilty or whatever?
Bravo! Well said my Italian friend
livatino borsellina et al are the exceptions that prove the rule. you know as well as i do that mafiosi conduct their operations under the benign gaze of the magistratura.
the mafia loves the state, just look at what they make from public works. easier than drugs – less killing.
also, i never claimed joining the state police is the way to get rich, merely that for many the steady and reasonable income prevails over dreamy notions of “serve and protect”. material incentives can’t be ignored, even though the state model would have it so.
@newson “also, i never claimed joining the state police is the way to get rich, merely that for many the steady and reasonable income prevails over dreamy notions of “serve and protect””
We agree that policemen do not get rich. The “steady and reasonable income” is a product of state-guaranteed job, funded with taxes. How can private Police guarantee it? In Italy private guards are not well paid, and do not have special job-protection rules; how is it in the USA?
of course, after massive italian taxes, assuming paid, there is not much money left for anything, let alone personal and property protection!
no state means no taxes, people enjoy much higher disposable income. strapping young judo experts will probably not want to buy any protection and save their money for more important goals, frail old ladies probably will want to spend a high proportion of income. the multiplicity of needs will be met, in the same way occurs in all other freely traded goods and services.
why should anyone be forced to pay for my protection, anymore than they be forced to buy me food and shelter?
as for the justice apparatus – fifteen to twenty years in parts of italy for a civil case to be decided? and this is the system you’re championing, except bigger?
You’re myopic to compare a market faced with state subsidisation to one that’d operate without such a “competitor” (leeching off 3rd parties.) Private police will not ‘guarantee’ anything because there are no ‘guarantees’ in life and it is time to get out of the entitlement mentality making us think there should be. However, like private healthcare, a free market without state-subsidised ‘competitors’ can provide for many customers at differing levels of service and given that their employees will not be serving marginal markets the state provider does not already ‘service’ there will be higher (and lower) salaries according to DMVP. Already in Norway (of all places) and South Africa private security are big industries, because the state cops are so fucking useless.
“Because of “private firm pride”? Believe me when I say that I know Mafia has strong state-connections, but do you think that it would go away without a government? Or become weaker? I do not think so.”
Yeah, it’d be substantially weakened. Newson explained why pretty well… oh and as for poor countries &c., do you think we should institute socialism in them because how in the world would the poor there pay for food etc? If so, you need to read up on some econ and if not realise the reasoning extends to policing too…
I agree with you. So are you saying that a free market model would eleviate these issues? I would argue that if these developing nations offered stronger wages and accountability the problems would be greatly reduced. Obviously these nations run on a system of bribery on many levels of goverment and bribery is another example of what happened when money alone is the motivitor. Free markets in policing would simply legalize what they are doing now but it would not change the outcome.
so bribery of corrupt state employees is a problem, and the solution is – more government? government employees are economic agents and respond to incentives. grant them monopoly power, and where is the incentive or discipline to shape their behaviour?
by the way, italy has much higher numbers of police per capita than many northern european countries – and yet police corruption stories are legion. the model is broken, and italy is a classic case.
@newson “so bribery of corrupt state employees is a problem, and the solution is – more government?”
“livatino borsellina et al are the exceptions that prove the rule. you know as well as i do that mafiosi conduct their operations under the benign gaze of the magistratura.”
The solution is not “more government”, it is not more state rules; it is the application of existing rules, it is the continuous search for people who are willing, for the greater good, to fight organised crime. In every human society there are forces that want to establish some form of feudalism; the only way to fight them, is to pick persons who are willing to do it and give them the tools they need. What is happening in South Italy, is that we search for those people and find too few of them, because of poverty and cultural heritage; the more this search fails, the more South Italy becomes like Somalia. There is no other way to do it, other than search for the good ones. Mafia is a social behaviour and I really do not see how private Police thugs could fight it; in a culturally corrupt society, what can private interest do? Mafia is private interest.
Do you know how the “pizzo” works? Mafia thugs force entrepreneurs to pay a form of “tax” for “protection”; different mafia social networks (“cosche”) fight for the control of the territory, for the “right” to ask the pizzo to the entrepreneurs in that territory; they kill people and burn down shops. How can you prevent private Police thugs from doing the same? How is it different from unjust state taxes? I am a private Policeman and I come to you and I say “Do you want protection? Fine. How much are you willing to pay? Give me a little more, give me a little more, give me a little more…” Asking for protection from another company (= turning to the free market) is like asking for protection from a different “cosca”, you can understand what happens…
pizzo works because the state will brook no competition in the administration of justice, despite being apparently unable, and especially unwilling to do so itself, the various criminal groups controlling large blocs of the votes that rome is so greedy for. the person who fights back doesn’t win state approval, but condemnation.
as i said before, the various mafia just love the state. without the state criminalizing the use of drugs, one of the most lucrative trades would disappear. without munificent public works, the criminal groups would be far reduced in influence, and that much more vulnerable to individual citizens fighting back, both individually, in groups, and with hired help.
by the way, searching for a solution by recruiting “good” state workers is flawed from the outset. (many of the concorsi are subject to corruption). this reasoning is often heard by true believers in socialism, the failings of which get falsely sheeted home to the brutes or the dolts who’ve managed to get to the top. if only it hadn’t been stalin etc. things would have been fine.
part of the problem is the vast quantity of legislation in the first place (take a bow the state), hundreds of thousands of norms, a veritable thicket where nobody knows where they stand. or at limit, where the rich can afford to find some cavil to get them out of any spot.
the state system has every incentive backwards; honest, hardworking, and courageous magistrates like borsellino and falcone get massacred; corrupt, lazy and inept ones are rewarded. people cotton on to this lesson – martyrs are few and far between, and certainly not enough to make any impression on the problem.
Just some general observations on this. I thought it was a very good article. However as some of the adverse comments show, one thing that it is missing – and of course this may be elsewhere in the chapter or book it is excerpted from – is a rigorous analysis of what is actually wrong with the current statist policing and “justice” system.
Some of these have been covered by other posters, but, for example, Hoppe’s explanations start with why it is a bad idea to have a monopoly provider in much more detail. It was that that I founds personally convincing that moved me from being a minimal statist to a full blown market anarchist. He logically and coolly sets out how the perverse incentives of being a monopoly means it can never really produce “just” outcomes.
Also, private law is covered quite extensively in the Tannehill book “The Market for Liberty” in several chapters that cover all sorts of objections that have been raised here, as well as a more in depth look at restitution and punishment or incarceration in the rare cases where someone is judged a long term or even permanent danger.
But also people have to remember that in the absence of all those arbitrary laws established through years of legislation there will be a. a lot of things that are simply not crimes because they do not involve harm to another or another’s property and so the people who currently get into a cycle of criminality for breaching such laws would never need in the first place to get into that cycle of crime. Why, in a free market for drugs, for example, where the drugs that people would buy would be likely much cheaper than in the black market and open to competition on quality and price, would there be a culture of killing rival dealers on your patch? It would just be normal business competition.
Oh, and someone mentioned choosing jurisdictions – rather famously of course, you can already choose to have your civil libel action heard in the UK – and we have a burgeoning trade in what has become known as “libel tourism”.
@newson “so why don’t the much-less-well-paid soldiers migrate to blackwater, and kick back? maybe it’s because they don’t have the talent or experience. unless you’re putting it to me that soldiers don’t care about money or risk, only the love of nation.”
This is no answer. Does Blackwater want to hire a lot more people? Would Blackwater do what it does without the state soldiers doing the dangerous part? Do you know how state soldiers are recruited? Do they have a lot of other choices?
as to why states arise: the answer should be obvious – it benefits those who rise to the top. the bigger the state, the richer the spoils to he who controls it. that this tendency exists doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be resisted, or that one should be hoodwinked into believing that the state acts for the common good.
there are instances of statelessness that have been more lasting than the brief somalian episode. i think ireland clocked up around ten centuries without a state. admitedly, the last couple of centuries have seen the nation-state extend its reach to every nook and cranny. the pendulum swings however, and disaffection with the status quo at least has some people actually really questioning what they’ve been raised to believe.
Unfortunately I have no time to write detailed answers to everything. I try to sum up.
If anarchy is so good, why ugly regimes have often arisen everywhere? Why society does not self-organise everywhere and just stop regimes by itself? There are states everywhere because some form of central power always prevails; you cannot stop it; the only thing you can do is to try to turn it “good”. Somalia has briefly been a no-government region; it was not the first, there have been other temporary autonomous zones. They did not last long. Why if they where so good?
People here give too much importance to reputation; when bad social networks are in place, reputation means little. I seems to me that in many of these cases people have no other choice than to make business with bad-reputation guys. A democratic state gives some hope of coming out of it by electing “good” guys, without this possibility things would be worse. I do not say “just give me a state”, I say “give me a democratic state”.
On the specific case of private Police, I cannot fail to notice that nobody answered how can you stop private policemen to ask for more money and to then turn bad fighting to control their territory. With a democratic state there is at least hope that someone is elected and does what is needed to make things better: more good guys than bad guys in the state. Saying that Sicily can go his own way if it desires so, sounds to me as “as long as it does not happen to me, who cares?”.
sicilians have more to gain from taking control of their own destiny than from hitching their wagon to rome. the mafia has grown immeasurably stronger since the formation of italy as a nation. social democracy in southern italy is a disaster, elections are bought and sold.
in answer to the question about the security guards turning feral if wage demands aren’t met: in the same way that people are wary about changing doctors, and cast around for opinions, so too would firms’ reputation precede them. thuggish firms would find themselves without new clients, and the oppressed former clients would flock to more reliable competitors. honor and reliability would be a marketing edge for security firms and therefore duly rewarded, not a mark of folly or martyrdom as it is in the state system.
more good guys than bad guys in the state ignores that the gatekeepers are the bad and the lazy. this is the cause of the malaise, not its cure.
@newson “sicilians have more to gain from taking control of their own destiny than from hitching their wagon to rome”
Which means telling the state to stay away and then go for civil war on the island, good people against bad people? Or letting mafia take final control and then having it go at civil war against the rest of Italy? (Which is what is happening in Somalia, if I am understanding.) You speak lightly of “taking control of destiny”, but do you realise what does this mean?
“in the same way that people are wary about changing doctors [...] so too would firms’ reputation precede them”
If you do not pay, they burn your shop nightly; now you have no more source of income. How do you pay another company to get revenge? You have to step in the clear and demonstrate that it was “them” of course. Preventing this situation is the same as preventing mafia from asking the “pizzo”, or Afghan or African warlords from doing what they do. What can private Police do that tax-funded state Police cannot do? This is still unclear. Well funded state Police can work; despite the problems, there have been a lot of arrests of mafiosi.
“more good guys than bad guys in the state ignores that the gatekeepers are the bad and the lazy. this is the cause of the malaise, not its cure.”
Yes it happens, but not always: USA soldiers defended you from Soviet Union, no? And they did a somewhat good job, given what was at stake. And they used a lot of tax money. Despite the many problems we have and the fact that we were on the wrong side in 2nd World War, Italy, a democratic state, has become one of the most industrialised nations in the world (admittedly, in decline now), and we have no natural resources! No petroleum, no infinite Texas prairies. The state is not the cause of the malaise, bad cultural heritage is.
good luck if you think the model in sicily will work with more state involvement. so far all the evidence is to the contrary. without the vast drug and public works contracts the mafia would be a far smaller scourge. what do you think explains the vast numbers of half-built hospital, roads, etc that dot the south? rorted public works, administered by the same system that you’re championing.
how can you have a civil war when war, as opposed to individual acts of violence, is possible only with tax money. well-funded police (i mentioned the very high ratio of police per capita vis-a-vis other european nations, not to speak numerous arms of law and order forces) have already failed for generations in southern italy, how many more centuries will it take to prove this?
the ussr collapsed under the weight of its own stupid communism, not thanks to the american war machine, which, if anything has allowed imperial overreach to threaten the very financial integrity of the country. you’re serving up neocon tripe.
italy’s businessmen succeeded in becoming rich by ignoring and finding ways to work around the byzantine rules and regulations and petty bureaucrats that make life so miserable for the average citizen. italian entrepreneurs thrive all around the world because they understand that the state is to be feared, and to be avoided wherever possible.
gramsci was right: work to transform the mindset through the universities and school, and no revolution is necessary. people will accept being bossed around without a second thought.
“What can private Police do that tax-funded state Police cannot do? This is still unclear. Well funded state Police can work; despite the problems, there have been a lot of arrests of mafiosi.
”
LOL odd definition of ‘works’ you have – do you think the state itself is not just like the mafia? Oh and by the way, who needed defending from the big bad USSR, a more or less crumbling (from the interior) “empire”? Perhaps read some of Rothbard’s work on the USSR to disabuse yourself of the notion that the US citizenry needed protecting from it (btw a lot of its industry and financing came from the US, wonder why that is?) The state perpetuates and even instates this so-called ‘bad cultural heritage’ and certainly aggravates it. No need for it.
I didn’t say “Sicily can go its own way” by the way, I said that if there were groups of people who resolutely refused to be bound by any arbitration they would likely find their economic life in civil society impossible and could become, literally “outlaws” and sure, you could get whole communities of such “outlaws.” It would probably work something like an old fashioned penal colony – except of course its inhabitants would a have chosen to put themselves there not forced. But then longer term, not all penal colonies have turned out too bad – look at Australia!
One simple rule – non-aggression. If a policeman turned bad (and we have plenty of those in state run police forces of course) both he and his firm would be liable. At the very least, with competing protection firms there would be little chance of a whole precinct “covering up” for a bad cop or a bad firm – it would be in everyone’s interests to compete for their business instead.
I think you will find that in a sophisticated society “reputation” goes a lot further than you think. Already there are places where the economically excluded are effectively exiled from civil society because they cannot get credit, housing, employment, benefits etc. We’re not talking merely “word of mouth” reputation, but cutting people off from access from many essentials of every day life because many people will not wish to tarnish their own reputations by doing business with recalcitrant criminals.
Remember too, that when a whole territory is in private ownership and the right even to move around is contingent on consent from other owners of land in the form of street owners and so on, you are constantly under a voluntary contract to abide by their conditions of you using their space, so if you cause trouble and they then discover when they stop you causing trouble that you are in default on a judgement somewhere, likely their own insurance provider will have some arrangements for seeing to it that you get passed back to the firm you owe reparations to and so on.
If anything, whilst only actually having to enforce very basic natural laws, about non-aggression and respect for property (and thus contract), a private law society could be very well controlled and policed indeed, without coercion or violence.
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