Every so often a book comes along that truly makes you appreciate writing as a subject; one that truly captures the imagery that we see and feel in our lives when we so often lack the time for reflection.
Wĭthûr Wē is such a book. Yet, such a recommendation doesn’t quite do it justice because its beautiful imagery is only a backdrop for a rich libertarian narrative and struggle of ideas.
Wĭthûr Wē is set several centuries in the future. We never learn the exact year but late in the book we discover that it must be the 28th century. Humans have colonized a small portion of the galaxy – perhaps a thousand light years across – but have yet to discover any alien civilizations. Only the three million year old Ruins on the planet Kaldis provide any proof that non-human intelligence exists, or at least existed once, in the universe.
Alistair Ashley 3nn, the main character of the tale and mouthpiece of Rothbardian philosophy, has just returned from his tour of duty on Kaldis, a human colony at war over their form of government. His experiences have obviously marked him, because those who knew him before he left remark on how different he now is, both physically and emotionally. Alistair has prepared well for his return to Aldra, his home planet, and its tightly regulated – and therefore wĭthûring – economy. Through a clever, and very sci-fi, technique, he smuggles instructions for making black market medicine and sells them to black market merchants. He demands gold, not the easily inflatable Aldran Credit which is nothing more than a bit of electronic information stored on a magnetic strip.
Alistair, who has disavowed the 3nn which the government tacked onto his name, was taught the principles of libertarianism by his grandfather who died while he was “off” on Kaldis. He returns angry at the atrocities he has seen and his anger only grows when he sees how much further towards serfdom his home planet has travelled in the four cycles (years) since he has been off. When his father’s home is stolen by the government in an Aldran version of eminent domain, he uses the money from his medicine sale to begin his own private rebellion. He begins by burgling the house of the politician who stole his father’s home, bitterly noting as he leaves that most people would consider Alistair the thief, and not the politician.
Part I is principally the story of rebellion, and the author uses it to show how oppressive government can be. Near the end, Alistair is captured, imprisoned and ultimately sent away to a prison planet
It is in Part II where we are shown an alternative to government, how things could be in a society where all relationships are voluntary and no single entity monopolizes security, law enforcement and arbitration. Alistair continues his rebellion against tyranny on Srillium, the prison planet, but this time there are no highly advanced, organized institutions of government terror, nor any long-standing loyalty to these corrupt institutions. Alistair is able to advance further in his cause than when he was on Aldra by establishing his own security and arbitration company. People begin to see things his way when they see the fruits of their labor. It is here they finally begin to understand his radical libertarian position.
Part III, the shortest part in the book, brings together many of the elements which have been developed throughout the story. Many of them have to do with science, many of them with economics and politics, and though there is no apparent connection, they all come together in one final statement about the evils of government, the initiation of aggression and the vital importance, if humanity or any intelligent species is to flourish, of the free market and voluntary relationships.
For many, a work of fiction becomes a bookshelf trophy, something that you clean but never quite have time to read (I believe it was Mark Twain who said that a classic is something everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read). This author sympathizes with such a plight. Time is always scarce and thus leisure-time is even scarcer. Each book inevitably carries an opportunity cost. But what if I were to tell you that your libertarian education cannot be completely filled only by our wonderful works of nonfiction? The reader must truly see these brilliant ideas in dialog and narration in order to identify with them; there is nothing as equal.
I cannot recommend this book enough. It is truly inspiring to watch a free society being built from the ground up and the applications of non-monopolistic arbitration are equally inspiring. There is one scene in particular, from chapter 62, that gives a good example of free market security and arbitration in action. It begins with Alistair explaining the new job to one of his employees.
“The key difference from your perspective is that no one is forced to pay for our services,” Alistair explained to Taribo while the latter sat across from him at the table in the hut. “If we don’t please people, I go out of business and you lose a job.”
“I understand this, my friend,” said Taribo with a disarming smile.
“I know you understand, but have you pondered the implications? You told me you were in the military.”
“I was.”
“Then you need to relearn things. This is not going to be like anything you have ever done or ever seen before.”
“How so?”
“Customer service,” was Alistair’s simple reply. To Taribo’s raised eyebrow, he responded, “You have to be polite to people. We have to make people want to hire us, because if they don’t want to, they don’t have to. Every incident needs to be handled with an eye towards making all parties satisfied with the outcome. It won’t always be possible, but that is the goal. Everyone needs to be treated with respect, patience, politeness, and a smile… Everyone is either a customer who deserves our respect or a potential customer who deserves our respect. This isn’t a state police force and it sure isn’t the armed forces. We don’t want to lose anyone’s business.”
A grin sprouted on Taribo’s face, and by the time Alistair finished it bloomed into a full smile accompanied by a delighted laugh.
“Customer-friendly police!” he chortled without derision.
“That’s how it has to be,” said Alistair, a grin of his own forming.
“I like it. Customer-friendly!” Taribo laughed again. “I will arrest you politely.”
“And everything else politely.”
“We are the polite police!”
“Can you manage that?”
“They are only one letter different: polite and police.”
“Close in spelling,” Alistair agreed.
“It was an ironic coincidence until now.”
Later, Alistair pronounces a man guilty of severely beating another man, and Taribo is called to administer the punishment.
“Mr. Bernhard Rachmann, it is my opinion you assaulted Mr. Yusuf Hassan. You turned a heated argument into a physical assault with a smaller man who could not defend himself and who had no desire to engage you in combat. I am declaring you guilty.”
Bernhard rolled his eyes.
“Mr. Hassan, do you wish to grant Mr. Rachmann any clemency?”
“What is clemency?”
“Do you wish to forgive all or part of the punishment?”
“I want the full punishment,” insisted Yusuf with a defiant look at Bernhard.
“There’s not even a jail here,” spat the other with dismissive arrogance, and he folded his arms even tighter to his chest.
“Mr. Rachmann, we don’t anticipate needing to use a jail very often. We offer a different service here, and now we are going to deliver the justice Mr. Hassan has paid for. First of all, you have physically assaulted Mr. Hassan without his permission. This action on your part is a declaration that you consider such violence permissible. As a first course, Mr. Hassan has the right to do to you what you did to him, or to hire someone to do it. Taribo will be doing the honors today, unless Mr. Hassan wishes to do it himself.”
“He’s bigger,” Yusuf declared with an encouraging nod to the muscular West African.
“Wait a minute… what the hell are you talking about?” For the first time Bernhard’s tone betrayed some alarm.
“They’re going to beat the hell out of you, stupid ass!” Yusuf barked.
“What the fuck!?” Bernhard yelled, rising from his stool. “You can’t do that!”
“Mr. Rachmann,” said Taribo, “we regret we cannot allow you to leave now that Mr. Ashley has given the pronouncement. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you and ask you to remain seated until directed otherwise.” Taribo finished with an expression of satisfaction.
Bernhard stared for a moment at Taribo’s hand which pointed to the stool he had just vacated. Eyes wide with fright and taking rapid breaths, he considered the large men before him, most of them even larger than him, and sat back down.
“It is demonstrably untrue that we cannot beat you, Mr. Rachmann,” Alistair said with the flat tone of a lecturer. “Just as you beat Mr. Hassan, we can beat you. Whether or not this is a proper course of action is, ultimately, Mr. Hassan’s decision, but you certainly have no room to argue you should be treated more gently than you treated Mr. Hassan.
“In our justice system, after a neutral party determines guilt, the aggrieved party determines the punishment, the maximum permissible extent of which the perpetrator himself determines at the moment he commits his crime. You determined the type, intensity, duration and amount of the beating the moment you delivered such to Mr. Hassan. While you wait for your beating, Mr. Mpala will consult with Dr. Lushington so that an accurate punishment may be administered.”
In what was a supremely satisfying reaction for Yusuf, Bernhard’s lips quivered and his cheeks lost their color.
“But that is just the beginning. We beat you with the permission of Mr. Hassan, a permission he received from you when, by your actions, you declared such things permissible. But when you beat Mr. Hassan, you acted without permission. In other words, our beating is a response and yours was an initiation. The pain to follow is a consequence of your own actions, but the pain Mr. Hassan must endure is unjust, something he should never have had to go through in the first place. You will therefore be made to pay a fine upon which interest will accrue for every moment it remains unpaid. This will be compensation for Mr. Hassan’s unnecessary suffering.”
Bernhard’s jaw, already wide open, threatened to drop to the floor.
“If you refuse to pay the fine, your property will be taken from you and its title transferred to Yusuf until the debt is cleared. If you do not have property enough to settle the debt, and if no one will lend or give you their property to help you, you will be forced to work off the debt. However, in such a case that you refuse to pay the debt on your own, we will be forced to charge you for the trouble of having to force you to work off the debt. This will only make it more expensive, and the accrued interest will be much greater as well. You may at any time, of course, reach an agreement with Mr. Hassan to settle the debt, both the money or property owed and the beating.”
It was not entirely clear whether Bernhard fully comprehended what was happening, but he had realized that, short of a sudden desire to be merciful on the part of Yusuf, he was going to be severely beaten and then would have to pay a fine on top of that. The shock on his face morphed into pleading as he looked at a gloating Yusuf Hassan, and then quickly became anger as he gripped the edge of the table and stared down at the floor.
“You can’t do it!” he hissed. “I never hired you! I’m not part of your… damn… shit!”
“Mr. Hassan is our client; that is all that matters.”
In the end, there was nothing Bernhard could do. He was taken to a holding area next to the hut. He waited there while Taribo spent a few minutes in discussion with Gregory, whose manner and glances towards Alistair betrayed his disapproval. When he felt ready, after Yusuf again declined to forgo the beating in favor of clemency or a monetary settlement, the West African soldier came for Bernhard, guarded by Miklos and Ryan, and led him to a tree with a rope tied around its trunk. A crowd gathered for the spectacle, and excited chatter ran through. There were a few voices expressing disapproval, more that expressed their enthusiasm, but mainly it was a neutral sort of curiosity and excitement.
“If you’d be so kind as to raise your arms,” said Taribo as if he were a tailor.
Bernhard, numb with disbelief, raised his unsteady arms and Taribo tied the other end of the rope around his abdomen and then again around the tree, leaving the Austrian firmly secured to its base. The man’s stoic visage shattered as fear overcame him.
“It is better to stand still for this sort of thing,” suggested Taribo in a chipper tone. “If I miss a target body part because you try and duck, it only means I have to hit you again until I get the target. Are you ready?”
Bernhard was not listening, and when Taribo drew back his hand the man cringed.
“Wait!” he implored Taribo. “Wait! I don’t want this. I’m sorry I… I didn’t mean it.”
“We understand this is unpleasant for you,” Taribo said in a voice to calm a crying child. “We wish there were another way, but we have to remind you that Mr. Hassan did not want to be beaten either. Hopefully, in the future, this sort of thing will be unnecessary.”
With the terror still shining in Bernhard’s eyes, Taribo readied himself to commence. The crowd, tense like fans before a kickoff, hung on his drawn fist. Bernhard gritted his teeth to stop the chattering, looking helplessly for support from the onlookers. Then, the first punch landed like a blow from a sledgehammer. The resultant cry of pain was cut short by a left to his midsection, and the beating was under way. It was a methodical and precise beating, controlled, with Taribo taking care to position himself just so, or to turn Bernhard’s head or lift his arms so that all blows landed on their targets. By Taribo’s furrowed brow one could see him counting punches, checking off body parts that received their due and proceeding to the next. A rough piece of stone was scraped over Bernhard’s left side, from his ribs to his ankles, and in the end Taribo grabbed hold of his ample chest hair and ripped it from his body, finally leaving him slumped and nearly senseless, held up only by the rope binding him. When this was untied, Bernhard fell to the ground where he weakly moaned.
“On behalf of Ashley Security & Arbitration, I would like to say that we hope no such action will be required in the future,” said Taribo, breathless, as he rubbed at his sore knuckles. His chest heaved from the exertion and sweat drenched his body and soaked his clothing, but he was nonetheless exhilarated. “Furthermore, we must warn you against any reprisal against Mr. Yusuf, on whose behalf we have acted with justice today.” Taribo paused to gulp in some more air. “We’d like to offer you our services which, you must agree, are quick and effective. We aim to make any violation of our customers’ property rights an unthinkable proposition, and we encourage you to take advantage of our protection. Your score with Mr. Hassan is well on its way to being settled and, that being the case, we can accept you as a client with the full right of property like anyone else. Your fee for service will be higher than others, of course, due to this precedent and the increased likelihood of intervention it entails.”
There are many episodes like this throughout the book, demonstrating libertarian ethics, non-monopolistic security and arbitration, and Austrian Economics. All of these are woven into a science fiction setting and a larger, epic story that I think any libertarian can enjoy.
I highly recommend it as a look into a possibility, if we don’t shed the shackles of government, of wĭthûr wē, the human race, could be headed.
Purchase the book in hardback or for kindle here. Sample the book here
Originally from Toledo, Ohio, Matthew Alexander conceived Wĭthûr Wē as a platform for demonstrating Rothbardian, Natural Law libertarianism as well as sound principles of Austrian Economics, similar to how Atlas Shrugged was a platform for Objectivism.
{ 42 comments }
First of all, congratulations to the author!
The novel looks very interesting, although I hope that there’s not too much profanity (a bit of a turn-off for me). I’ll wait a little longer for a larger consensus to build up before purchasing. The sample above, though, has definitely peaked my interest.
And will the Mises Institute offer this book in its bookstore sometime in the future?
At the facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Withur-We/116571361716271?ref=ts – there is a professional review reprinted in the discussion tab. Also, there is a post here in the forum where several people have given their opinion on it.
The link cut off too soon… cut and paste the entire thing to get to the facebook page.
lmao those quotations make this sound like the dumbest thing ever written. i mean like some how even dumber and more poorly written than atlas shrugged.
hahahah this is so awful.
“Customer-friendly police!” he chortled without derision.
“That’s how it has to be,” said Alistair, a grin of his own forming.
“I like it. Customer-friendly!” Taribo laughed again. “I will arrest you politely.”
“And everything else politely.”
“We are the polite police!”
“Can you manage that?”
“They are only one letter different: polite and police.”
“Close in spelling,” Alistair agreed.
“It was an ironic coincidence until now.”
honestly im considering renouncing libertarianism over this. it seems clear now that the government must regulate who can and cannot be published.
“honestly im considering renouncing libertarianism over this”
Please, do us all a favor.
Chill…
While your at it, renounce your life by playing in traffic
dsfdfas, when will you be posting the first chapter or two of your latest novel online for us to read? We need to evaluate your skills as a novelist and offer you some criticism.
So this is like Heinlen but way amateurish?
Actually, Heinlein only wrote one book with a libertarian theme, and even it was hardly what I’d call truly libertarian in nature. The revolution in TMIAHM was conducted in a far different manner than the one in WW.
The tiny samples here are hardly the entirety of the book; it’s a rather large work at ~685 pages of what looks to be about 8pt type.
Well, that’s wrong! Heinlein also wrote ‘Starship troopers’, with its’ theme of voluntary citizenship. that came out quite clearly in the movie- despite their attempt to make the future world seem like a Nazi theme park.
Sounds promising. If it becomes available in ePub I’d give strong consideration to making it my first purchased eBook (all the others are from here or Project Gutenberg or, rarely, Google Books). I got a Sony Reader in preference to Kindle because I don’t care for Amazon’s practices in that regard, though I do business with them otherwise.
Econ Student has a point — it would be neat to be able to buy it from the Institute.
It’s available as a free PDF at the book’s web site. http://www.withurwe.com.
LOL, I guess to each his own. To me it doesn’t sound that horrible. I’m more interested in whether it’s entertaining or not than being a bit goofy, but then I’m an anime fan, so I have to be able to bare huge amounts of cheese on regular occasion
Sometimes cheese is Camembert; sometimes it’s Velveeta.
Definitely worth a look.
If that’s “libertarian ethics,” the state suddenly begins to look good.
Bernhard Rachmann’s protest was:
“You can’t do it!” he hissed. “I never hired you! I’m not part of your… damn… shit!”
But no condemned criminal hired the state either! The state is no different in this respect.
To David K.
“If that’s “libertarian ethics,” the state suddenly begins to look good.”
David, do you refer to a State Prison where ‘Bernhard’ would have had his liberty taken away for 4 years to live in a concrete hell hole and live beside murderers whilst being raped anally 3 times a day and made someones “bit%h”….yes…..looking REAL good…….not like the evil horror and disgusting depravity of making ammends for your crime by being punched 10 times and paying a fine…..then going home…..just no comparison at all mate.
I disagree that the state looks any better. I think the text does a good job explaining the punishment is exactly the same as the crime, to the degree this can be done I’d say it’s appropriate. No one can fairly claim that they initiate force and then for their own personal gain suddenly be against use of it against their person. Punishment of that sort is reactive, so it does not violate NAP at least in my view.
“Every so often a book comes along that truly makes you appreciate writing as a subject; one that truly captures the imagery that we see and feel in our lives when we so often lack the time for reflection.” — yes, but this doesn’t look like that book. Sounds awful.
I read the first couple of chapters last night. The author does dialogue very well for the setting; one gets a genuine sense that the speakers are fluent speakers of the reader’s language (English, for the sake of argument), but with an unplaceable syntax (if it were spoken I’d use the term “accent”) that creates the impression that the speaker is “from somewhere else,” someplace unfamiliar to the reader. I will be RingTWT, as the yoots on the intertubes say.
I’ll buy the book because I’m really interested in the idea of presenting what a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist world would be like (and Neil Smith’s gun-o-phile vision isn’t it) as an alternative to logical argumentation as a way to spread these ideas, but criminy, telling people that criminals will be beaten up in a cold-blooded inhuman assault is A) certainly *not* a way to get people on board, and B) *not* a world I want to live in (and I want to live in an AC world)!
Saying that that is at least “better than the state” is the fallacy of the false dichotomy: those *aren’t* the only two options.
There are many other, better options than “an eye for an eye”. That isn’t even *libertarian*, since libertarianism is about using force *only in self defense*, and someone who has been chained to a tree can hardly be said to be a threat. I think libs and ACs spend far too *little* time really working out how things might play out in the real world, but the compelling narratives I have seen have involved the victims of force being compensated out of insurance that they have paid for and the insurance companies then extracting recompense from the perpetrators.
The logic here is atrocious as its revolting conclusions should have indicated. If a perpetrator poked out someone’s eye, our civilized response is to poke *his* eye out? I’m not saying he somehow “doesn’t deserve it”, but it has nothing to do with what people do or don’t deserve; it has to do with market forces and the choices that people make. An insurance company that is spending valuable resources trying to beat people up and poke their eyes out is necessarily going to have to charge more than one that is just focused on getting fair value back, and thus isn’t going to do as well in the market. And that’s the best result for such a company. At worst, an insurance company/defense force that initiates force like this – note that in the story not only is the person beaten up, but *then* they are forced to compensate the victim, so in essence, they are double dipping and thus stealing – is going to run afoul of others’ insurance/defense companies who are working for the people so robbed. Left out in the section quoted here, in other words, is the possibility that the perpetrator now being beaten up had *already* contracted with their own defense force/insurance company and the possibility that they now would see this defense forces’ actions as something they need to defend their people from. Since such conflicts between insurance companies/defense forces would be common, the ones that worked out ways to resolve them, e.g. binding arbitration, will survive in the market better than those that don’t, and no libertarian-arbiter who makes their money attempting to find the best application of “libertarian justice” is going to come down on the side of someone who beats unarmed, chained people.
This defense force would not last for long in a free market, iOW.
I hope the author is not *advocating* this as the way an AC world would actually work. And I’m frankly embarrased that TMI is quoting this approvingly.
I don’t know if they are the last word on these issues since they wrote their stuff in the 70s, but the Tannehill’s seem to have a much better grasp on how this kind of market would play out.
A lot of what you say here is dealt with in the book. No one can exactly know how an AC society would work, and it is likely that there would be cultural differences in different areas. I disagree that a firm like this could not survive, but then it doesn’t matter what I think: the market would find the best way. I hope you enjoy the book and maybe it will give you food for thought. At any rate, I appreciate the support.
My main motivation for this reply is to address your embarrassment about The Mises Institute quoting this approvingly (although this is the work of one man connected to the institute). The ethics that Alistair applies in his security company is right out of The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray Rothbard, a book sold by The Mises Institute and which provides the backbone for the libertarianism advocated by Lew Rockwell, Walter Block, Hans-Hermann Hoppe and other notable radical libertarians. I don’t know this for a fact, but I suspect they would approve of the ethics (although the mode of punishment is something that should be left to the victim to decide, something made clear in the section above).
I’ll look to the book to add more context.
I am a longtime libertarian but fairly new to AC, so I am not as well read on Rothbard and some of the other authors you mention. I’ll want to read deeper into that literature to understand their arguments for something like “the mode of punishment is something that should be left to the victim to decide”, but my current reactions are A) disgust and revulsion: retribution is the fulfilling of the basest and most childish human emotions and has no place in a civil, rational society, B) again, I claim that is *not* any sort of libertarianism since libertarianism is about *self defense* as the only reason for force, not *retribution*, C) the way I’ve pictured “justice” in an AC world is two-fold: there is an obligation to repay all parties upon whom force was initiated for the damages done, and the “punishment” that an offender then faces in addition is *market-based*, e.g. people will not want to deal with him, he will have to pay more for insurance, he won’t get bilateral agreements as easily because he can’t be trusted to be bilateral (rather than unilateral), etc, etc. When punishment is naturally occurring because it is market-based, it is merely “the consequences of one’s actions”. When someone takes it upon themselves to *create* some sort of “consequences”, then they are just another initiater of force, doing so essentially because it makes them feel better. Libertarians and ACs reject the initiation of force for the purposes of making one’s self feel better, just as they reject state-sponsored charity that makes the people that advocated the law “feel better”, just as they reject censorship by those who want to censor things that bother them because it makes them “feel better”, just as they reject minimum wage laws advocated by peole to whom it “feels better” to imagine that they’ve helped someone.
Again, I’ll keep an open mind as I read further, but it’s going to take a fair amount of twisting and turning of the framework within which I am thinking about this to convince me.
As one of many questions that arise when I think about this: what about accidental initiation of force? If I accidentally let my car slip out of park and it hits someone and breaks their leg, doesn’t it follow that I’ve initiated force against them and by this reasoning, my legs are now open to being broken? and that’s “civilized”? It’s proof by contradiction in my mind: I take it as a given that any system that advocates that a person’s legs can be broken as a calculated, purposeful response to an accident is brutal and barbaric and clearly their is a logical flaw in that system. If your retort is “well, there’s a different between an accident and something on purpose”: how can we tell? Is it really an either/or? Aren’t most things on a sliding scale? When does an accident become negligence? Far more sensible imho is to ignore “intent”, since it can’t be discerned with any accuracy anyway, and build a system that is a black box based on consequences: if you take an action and it results in consequences that are an initiation of force against others, you are responsible for those consequences, no matter what your intent. With that framework in mind, we *know* accidents are going to happen, and allowing one of our reactions to them to be retaliatory force is not at all a place that I want to live nor that I would want to sell to others.
Again, I claim that “an eye for an eye” is an initiation of force by the retaliatory party. You don’t get a “pass” just because someone else also initiated force. Two people can initiate force against each other, even if one was first. It isn’t sufficient to say that the other did it first; you have to show why your force *is necessary for immediate self-defense from another initiation of force*.
The Tannehills make the argument that when you initiate force against someone, you forfeit the value of that aggression of your own property, so that if the victim forcibly takes that value from you in return, it is not an initiation of force since that property is not actually “yours” anymore. I’m not certain I buy that, either, but it’s more palatable than “you beat someone up, so you are implicitly saying that it is ok to beat you up.” I don’t know that the Tannehill’s suggestion is necessary: in a truly free market, it is conceivable that an insurance/defense company would be more profitable concentrating on actual *defense* along with good actuarial science than actually chasing down those few people that actually initiate force against their clients and that the opportunity cost of aggression would be sufficient motivation to keep aggression miminal. After all, it’s not clear to me that were I one to consider aggression in an AC society, that the fact that *if* I’m caught, not only will I basically screw myself from all other business opportunities – and that might very well mean things like *no one will sell me any groceries* – I’ll also have to pay back what I stole. If I’m stealing something small, that additional disincentive may be very small comparatively speaking. And presumably, the one thing the big companies *could* effectively prevent is the really *big* aggressions.
“the mode of punishment is something that should be left to the victim to decide”
It’s like Alistair said: the perpetrator determines the maximum permissible punishment when he commits his crime. The victim, or the victim’s heirs, can demand restitution and retribution up to, but no further than, that point. They may also forgive all or part of the offense.
“A) disgust and revulsion: retribution is the fulfilling of the basest and most childish human emotions and has no place in a civil, rational society”
You have every right to feel this way. So does my character Gregory. I feel differently. The thing with libertarianism is you have to ask yourself what you are willing to do to stop someone from doing something you don’t like. If I see a man raping a woman, what am I willing to do? For me, anything up to and including killing him. What about a man who has been beaten by another man, and now is returning the beating that the other man initiated? What right do I have to use force to stop him? The other guy gave him permission when he declared such things permissible. He has no coherent objection, i.e., he is estopped from objecting (For more on that, see Stephan Kinsella).
“B) again, I claim that is *not* any sort of libertarianism since libertarianism is about *self defense* as the only reason for force, not *retribution*”
There are lots of people who call themselves libertarians. The radical, Rothbardian branch has the clearest, best definition, and that is a system of property rights in which you may dispose of your property any way you wish, but you may not dispose of another’s property without their consent. Rothbardian libertarianism is my brand, and that is what I am dealing with in my book. Restitution and retribution are very much a part of this brand of libertarianism.
“C) the way I’ve pictured “justice” in an AC world is two-fold: there is an obligation to repay all parties upon whom force was initiated for the damages done, and the “punishment” that an offender then faces in addition is *market-based*, e.g. people will not want to deal with him, he will have to pay more for insurance, he won’t get bilateral agreements as easily because he can’t be trusted to be bilateral (rather than unilateral), etc, etc. When punishment is naturally occurring because it is market-based, it is merely “the consequences of one’s actions”. When someone takes it upon themselves to *create* some sort of “consequences”, then they are just another initiater of force,”
I highly recommend The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard for a good approximation of my beliefs on this issue. My short answer is that when someone creates consequences, they are not initiating force, they are responding, by definition.
“As one of many questions that arise when I think about this: what about accidental initiation of force? If I accidentally let my car slip out of park and it hits someone and breaks their leg, doesn’t it follow that I’ve initiated force against them”
In this case you must pay restitution, but the other has no right of retribution. You pay damages, in other words, but he may not break your leg.
“purposeful response to an accident is brutal and barbaric”
Rothbard’s response to this was that asserting it was brutal and barbaric is not the same as proving it is wrong. Alistair’s response is that he bets barbarians have low crime rates. At any rate, you are absolutely entitled to have this objective opinion about the punishment used in the chapter. But what are you willing to do to stop someone else from getting retribution, however much it disgusts you?
“If your retort is “well, there’s a different between an accident and something on purpose””
BINGO!
“how can we tell?”
I don’t know that we can. If we can’t, then I would advocate a presumption of innocence.
“Is it really an either/or?”
Yes. An action is composed of a physical act and an intent. If I am walking east on I-70, am I going to Pittsburgh, Gahanna, Baltimore, France? The action for all might be the same, it is my intent that determines where I am going as I walk. My action is to go to, say, Baltimore because of the physical movement and the intent. There is no sliding scale here: either something is an act or it is not. If my act is to release the break only, then when I break your leg, it is an accident and I only owe you restitution (unless the circumstances are such that it is determined you are at fault somehow). If my act is to release the break so as to break your leg, I owe you restitution and you can claim retribution.
“When does an accident become negligence?”
Criminal negligence is valid, I believe, but I don’t know that I could give you a great run down on that one. For right now we can ignore it as a separate case from a purely criminal act and an accident.
“Again, I claim that “an eye for an eye” is an initiation of force by the retaliatory party.”
By definition, if it’s retaliatory it is not initiation.
“you have to show why your force *is necessary for immediate self-defense from another initiation of force*.”
Why must I do this? I rather think that you must demonstrate why you are justified in using force to stop me from doing to another exactly what he chose to do to me. If you are unwilling to use force, you will be unable to stop me from doing it and you are left with just your moral objection, which is fine.
“in a truly free market, it is conceivable that an insurance/defense company would be more profitable concentrating on actual *defense* along with good actuarial science than actually chasing down those few people that actually initiate force against their clients and that the opportunity cost of aggression would be sufficient motivation to keep aggression miminal.”
You may be right. I would be perfectly willing to live with what the market decided. However, if the company has to chase down criminals for restitution, then the added service of retribution doesn’t seem cost prohibitive. If retribution turned out to be a deterrent, and there are excellent reasons to think that it would, then it could well be that Alistair’s system would triumph in the market.
Either way, our opinions on how barbaric it is are subjective. I am willing to let the market decide what would work better (and by the way, in the section above, the system has only newly been introduced. New companies emerge with different ideas about how to run a security company).
And yes, I am the author and would be delighted to talk to you some more!
Matthew, do you have a preferred mode of further correspondence? Your Withur We Facebook page perhaps? I’d give an email address if you prefer, though I can also do that on FB…
However you like. There is the Withur We thread in the Forums, there is the email from the Withur We site… however you like!
p.s. Jcrew, are you the author of the book? Would love to be able to pick your brain a little as/after I read the book.
sent you an email
I don’t see what is so wrong with criminals been beaten up. He received the same treatment as the victim, isn’t that fair? It is up to the victim to decide.
Imagine if you were locked up and torture by someone for 3 years. Now you are free and the criminal that did that was caught. Wouldn’t you want to torture him back? That’s totally fair from my point of view.
That’s not justice, that’s barbarism. What exactly is the purpose of it? To make the victim feel better? What if the victim isn’t satisfied with 10 punches and a fine, and wants something much worse?
It’s the victim’s decision, so he can decide what the purpose is. If he is not satisfied with the punishment up to what the crime permits, tough luck. No more is justified.
“That’s not justice, that’s barbarism.”
Why do you think they are mutually exclusive?
Maybe this method wouldn’t work in a free market, but the method is based on 2 things I think are perfectly valid and I don’t think you address them enough to explain why this is wrongheaded.
1) The fact that suffering is only measurable by the party who has suffered. All valuations are subjective. A simple insurance calculation of damages will never be efficient compensation for every case. It might be too much in some cases, too little in others but only the person who has suffered will know which is the case.
2) There is a need to establish an agreeable system for preventing people from initiating force. In this case, it’s a fine on top of the eye-for-an-eye punishment. I agree this is subjective, but ultimately the person who initiated force violated the core non aggression principle of the system. They’ve agreed in doing so that it’s ok to initiate force, so that the “theft” taking place is an action they were ok with when they were doing it themselves.
The part that’s not entirely clear to me is how you decide upon a fine that isn’t arbitrary. Obviously, you want to shoot for something akin to the price system there but I’m not sure how that would work.
“1) The fact that suffering is only measurable by the party who has suffered. All valuations are subjective. A simple insurance calculation of damages will never be efficient compensation for every case. It might be too much in some cases, too little in others but only the person who has suffered will know which is the case.”
There can be no solution to this “problem”. How does letting a victim decide the perpetrator’s punishment guarantee that the punishment will match the “suffering”? How do we know that victim A didn’t suffer much at all even though he calls for the aggressor to be tortured? The thing about “subjective” things is that there is no way to objectively measure them, by definition. They simply cannot be brought into the world of the objective.
And you still ignore that initiating force against someone is still initiating force if they do not currently threaten you, whether or not they initiated force against you before.
2) There is a need to establish an agreeable system for preventing people from initiating force.
Well, no: that’s impossible. Initiation of force cannot be *prevented*. It can be dealt with afterwards, with those dealings hopefully discouraging such in the future, but it cannot be prevented.
In this case, it’s a fine on top of the eye-for-an-eye punishment. I agree this is subjective, but ultimately the person who initiated force violated the core non aggression principle of the system. They’ve agreed in doing so that it’s ok to initiate force, so that the “theft” taking place is an action they were ok with when they were doing it themselves.
So what? This isn’t about *their* actions, it’s about *your* actions in response. Sure, they were wrong, but two wrongs do not make a right. The second you initiate force against them, you’re just as wrong (and in AC society, very possibly at risk of having yet another defense firm nail you on it).
No one knows for sure, but I find it much more likely that 99% of the time, you’re not going to get compensation from the perpetrator, you’re going to get it from your insurance company, and they will then figure out how and if it’s worthwhile trying to directly get that back from the perpetrator. Meanwhile, in a truly free market society where you can get essentially *nothing* done without forming bilateral business relationships with others, others who have a stake in knowing to what extent you are a good business partner, reputation and history are going to be huge: they will be both huge to each individual to jealously guard and nurture, but they will also be a huge industry in and of themselves, keeping track of reputation, past business dealings, defaults, etc. The cost to initiating force is going to be a huge incentive to preventing it.
Or at least that’s what I think.
I know this: if we had a fully AC society, and there was an area in which this eye for an eye conception prevailed and another where something more like what I’m talking about prevailed, I’d live in the latter. And I *suspect* that my patch would “do better” than yours, because I think yours introduces inefficiencies that mine doesn’t, namely, yours would have more negative sum interactions than mine (the initiation of force always being a negative sum interaction). [understand that patch is in quotes for a reason, since it wouldn't (necessarliy) correspond to some contiguous land mass].
Actually, automotive wise, the term is really releasing the “Brake” on the vehicle, to “Break” a leg is totally different, but then of course I am not a scholar either!
Regards, CanadaNorth
This looks interesting, except for things like orthographic mistakes (which shows that automatic spellcheck has room for improvement). The main drawback for me is the time setting. 28th century? With the advances in AI and molecular nanotechnology, I think it’s safe to say that long, long before that, we will either be demi-gods or radioactive dust. I would prefer a time setting around 2050 and the prison “planet ” could be some solar system moon (like Titan). But I see why the author prefers a human society almost identical as the current one, only spread throughout the galaxy.
As for the crime prevention strategies, the author focuses on deterrence, which is indeed is arguably fair and quite effective. But I think the most usual mechanism would be fenced cities and preventive exclusion. That is, most cities would have the internal regulation that intimidating behavior may lead to expulsion, even if no actual physical harm or direct threat can be proven. People would flock to those cities where this criterion is applied with most equanimity, in their view. For instance, women who have experienced male-chauvinist violence would tend to live in cities where denouncing a man for vague threats or intimidating behavior is enough for his cautionary expulsion, possibly with monetary compensation to the man (so that men are not so discouraged from living there). Gun control fans would live in cities where only the (private) police can have guns, and so on.
Re: your second paragraph
I think you are onto the main issue: the freedom to form covenant communities and live freely in that context. Who knows what the actual form would be? The importance is the freedom to find what works best, to let the market test ideas.
Re: your first paragraph
2050 would definitely not have worked for what I was doing, but that can’t be clear from the small section in the review. And the problem you raised, about certain technology being way beyond what the book shows, is dealt with because I knew I needed an explanation for why some things weren’t as we guess they should be. Specifically, nanotechnology and its absence is explained.
Pass. Try Saramago’s “Seeing” instead.
The synposis of the book doesn’t look anything at all like Withur We. You appear to just be trolling.
Absolutely love Jurassic Park as a kid. Was completely stoked to find out that there is a PREHISTORIC CHANNEL. How perfect a concept is that. The Founder of PREHISTORIC CHANNEL has just released his first thriller book. THE ICE GORILLA book is being looked at by movie producers i read, and may be made into a movie. It all depends on how well the book in fact sells. Would be cool to see THE ICE GORILLA made into a movie as well as Jurassic Park 4. Then I could die in peace. LOL
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