Good so far…

“But in a privatised world this situation would be exacerbated.”

Why? What reason do you have for believing this? The government personnel who work in the current system have very little reason to be responsible to you the small defendant. The judge won’t face election for years, and the laws/regulations are extensive and complex so that you must have a lawyer to compete, but one who will almost certainly not compete with the oppositions corporate team of lawyers.

As far as bribes go, our current system doesn’t show (visibly) too much direct issues like that but because of the extent of laws and regulations it doesn’t need to. They can eliminate the small guy just by making it nearly impossible for him to understand how to defend himself.

That’s the current system.

Now in a private system, who would accept arbitration where they couldn’t argue for their position or where there were hundreds of regulations they didn’t even know about affecting their activity? It would be a sham. And would you as a customer go to a private court of law if you knew they rendered decisions based on who paid them the most? Absolutely not. Neither would anyone else.

Even if it was under the table deals you know that if it happened often many consumers would complain about outcomes and demand 3rd party audits of the books of the arbitration agency (in fact, most of them would want to know this was happening before even agreeing to that arbitration agency!)

Arbitration agency’s have to function on the trust of consumers to their impartial and fair decisions. If the customers even get an inkling that they are being mistreated due to favorite status on someone’s part they won’t use that agency. It will go out of business.

(I currently work at a finance company and created a database for a team which handles arbitration processing between car dealerships who purchase/sell vehicles via the internet. So I know that opposing factions can seek alternative arbitration outside the government. It’s extraordinarily rare that there are any lawsuits involved in this process because almost every buyer/seller knows that this process is faster and fairer than anything the blunt force government could provide.)

sometimes, when I observe how you react, I am reminded of a bad AI that cannot perform more than one iteration in following a chain of reasoning. How on earth is a guy who wants to earn money by speculating on a market with a very specific commodity (i.e. buying something with the intent to sell it more expensively) comparable with a guy who wants to prevent anyone from offering services that run counter to his plans, forever? It’s more like if he bought out all the lead production for one year with the intent to make bullets more expensive. Only someone who already has enough power to prevent competition by force can actually prevent it. So you’re using circular reasoning.

Furthermore, you do not realise that monopolising “justice” does not solve any economic problems. Just like any other service, producing “justice” requires scarce resources and making decisions about what and how to produce. By monopolising and preventing competition, you eliminate the data (price mechanism) required for rational decisions, leaving irrational decisions as the only option.

Actually I was trying to tell you about the other devil– the one I know but obviously you don’t.

Whenever you have an area with no central government you find large, well armed bands of predators. Because there’s no one to stop them. And they’re really more than just a bother. They set the tone.

“Get it in your head that we’re not advocating some kind of benevolent, utopian La-la land. What we ARE advocating is the idea that society will be largely less violent and less criminal if we as a society stop supporting the aggression that government is fundamentally based upon..” etc.

Offer your basis for imagining that might be so. That is, with some concrete example. In recorded history, it has always been MORE violent in anarchic times.

Mr Clem: This is a great comment. A real primary indicator. You have obviously never lived in an uncivil society. How fortunate.

Life in middle America is predatory. The claws are just clad in elegant gloves. We haven’t seen it because we’ve never had a real period of incivility. We haven’t seen the creatures that come out in the daytime once the police are no longer on patrol.

I understand that most of you don’t champion there being no law at all. You just have this idea that we are all reasonable people, and that all will subscribe to minarchy once its virtues have been pointed out to us.

It would be tempting to set aside some part of the planet for you, so you could build your leaderless society and all have the full experience of where that leads.

A good way for Libertarian Anarchists to diverge from their various oppressive societies would be to form a common language, alphabet, and countless unique “shiboleths” to keep the heathen collectivists blasphemes at bay. We could synthesize an American language based on North American Native pictographs and Robert Heinlein novels. TANSTAAFL, anarchy requires additional effort to overcome the dominant archy and its destructive entropic effect.

It’s funny how when I say that, everyone tells me I’m full of crap. But when Allen quotes Mises as saying that, all you can say is that he misunderstands Mises.

It looks like he’s saying it plainly enough to be understood quite clearly. Anarchy is a lack of effective government and doesn’t work. Minarchy, as you describe it, is something little different. It’s a societal condition where Joe has his vision of justice, Bill has another and Sam a third. Boy, nothing could EVER go wrong with that plan.

The chapter you point to is on ‘Involuntary Servitude’. And it covers slavery (which we no longer have), forced military conscription (which we no longer have) and the selling of one’s labor under conditions where one is forced to accept less than he might desire in a better market. Which, at first glance, is at the core of our economic system.

Or, as the book puts it:

“For what is slavery but (a) forcing people to work at tasks the slavemaster wishes, and (b) paying them either pure subsistence or, at any rate, less than the slave would have accepted voluntarily. In short, forced labor at below free-market wages.”

Which is something we don’t have either. We have a system where applicants for employment have to choose the wages offered them in a free market where labor is commonly at a disadvantage relative to management. Or choose to remain unemployed. I except, of course, talent in fields where desirable labor is in very short supply. Capable, photogenic film actors, for instance, command a very high premium, as do CEOs with a solid track record of success.

For many of the rest of us, it’s normally free market voluntary servitude. We choose the not-quite-enough over the nothing-at-all.

Likewise in the case of Nixon’s declaration that strikes are illegal is not an example of involuntary servitude. Striking workers are offered their choice: desist and go back to work, or persist and go to prison. It’s their option to choose.

The tax system is another example of voluntary servitude. The principle is that if you live here, you enjoy the services the various levels of government provide. And if you enjoy and benefit by the services, you are required to pay for them, in the form of our various taxes. You have the option of going abroad and electing not to enjoy the services provided to the public in this country.

In the courts, testimony may be coerced, under penalty of law. You could, of course, pull a Judith Miller and elect to go to prison on principle. So it’s a matter of choice.

Likewise jury service. Only here you get a fine, not jail time.

Then there’s involuntary psychiatric commitment. This one is problematic, all right.

All in all, it’s a fairly short list of impositions on your total freedom. The only major one is the requirement to pay your taxes. But it’s hardly likely to imagine you’re going to be able to get them to change their kinds on this one. Far easier to move to Hong Kong, where the tax you owe is at least a small one. And I’m sure you can still get an excellent mai tai. Check this page out:

http://www.guidemehongkong.com/hongkong-tax-calculator

Yet note that when governments have disputes, such as having their property or resources taken from them, they employ sufficient force to defend themselves (or else lose out).

Yes, a government, when threatened in its power, defends itself. Primarily if it feels threatened by the very people it claims to be protected. Also against other governments. Such issues however do not arise so much between citizens of different states. Or, to rephrase it better, they are usually not solved by violence.

An anarchist country could not defend its trade for the same reason that it cannot defend against foreign aggression, namely it lacks the monopoly power of government.

This is a non sequitur. It can, of course, happen, that an underpowered defender succumbs to an overpowered attacker. It does not follow though that this accurately reflects the state vs. non-state situation. Theorists have addressed this problem in books already. Apart from a simple comparison of force, you need to consider other aspects of warfare, such as sabotage, propaganda, all the good old cloak and dagger methods, bribery, all kinds of economic measures, and others. And don’t forget the nukes.

I think the main reason why we don’t see full fledged anarchy is simply that there is an insufficient number of anarchists. People accept anarchy in all kinds of everyday activities, but have come to believe the “noble lie” with relationship to other activities.

Force, force, force…

Mr Clem: I mean this in the nicest way. You folks really do need a different planet. Around here, reason and courtesy are fine principles with which to deal with the many reasonable and principled people you meet. For everyone else? Blunt force trauma. It’s the only way.

That’s why we have laws with penalties. And IMO the United States is really far too nice. We have so many criminals because we’re just so damn tolerant of them. Justice, to be just, should be certain and swift. And currently, every criminal in America knows that either a good lawyer can get him off or, if he can’t, that he can then get reversed some day on appeal. Justice is way too tentative and defensive, not up to the job of dealing with the battle hardened types out there.

True SOBs, once identified, should be shot. Really.

Let me ask you a question: when was the last time a government employee used actual force on you? Maced you, tear gassed you, beat you up down at the station, knocked you around in the back of the patrol car? Ever?

The police do shoot entirely too many innocent people. Just try being a deaf-mute when the cops says “Okay, MF, hands in the air!” He’s a dead one every time.

I still like the odds against experiencing true violence in the states far better here than I would over in Yemen. Even though the regulatory burden is oh, so much lighter there. I think the whole thing, is, you just don’t want to have to pay taxes. ‘Violence’ is actually the code word for ‘taxes’.

Again, maybe Hong Kong is really the place for you. Don’t try to screw up our thing over here, we actually prefer it this way, with lots of services and moderately high fees.

If you really look like you’re going to finish the job of messing up our government some day, I think a lot of people are going to turn on you. It’s our protection we pay our mild predators to save us from the even worse predators.

First thought: I find a lot of people around here thinking More regulation = bad; Less regulation = good. As though regulation was just some fungible product, like coffee beans.

Instead, if you actually talked with anyone on the other side of the table, you’d find them saying Well crafted regulation = good; Poorly thought out regulation = Not so hot… or even, Invitation to steal. They don’t think of regulation as being something quantifiable.

A good way to imagine what those strange leftist beings actually think about is this: if it sounds too stupid to be believed, there’s probably very few people who actually believe it. I also like to remind people on the left to not think of you all as being absolute morons. No matter how inscrutable, you do have some rationale behind your exotic belief structure. It is something to be understood and worked with, not just ridiculed and dismissed.Hence my fieldwork here. I seek to understand.

2. I would say more than half the world has unregulated markets. These are all the places with weak governments, whose writ doesn’t go very far; all the tribal areas; all the war zones; and all the places so far out in the boonies the inspector doesn’t get there but once every decade or so. (And he’s poorly paid, so can be cheaply bribed.) When you enter into a business deal in such a place you have to keep in mind ALL the variables that can occur. Here? You can assume that the person you’re dealing with has probably calculated the odds on being sued and hauled in to court. So there are a smaller set of variables shaping the deal.

See? Already my vision looks different than that of the prototypical Bolshie with his lurid visions of a capitalist hell.

I lived and worked within this capitalist hell out of personal choice. And I didn’t do badly.

Now for truth time: “How many times did you find it to be in your best interest, overall, to act dishonestly? Were there times when you could have gotten away with deceiving someone, but at the risk of destroying business or personal relationships?”

This is the obvious question. All the time I was working for corporations I was being asked by superiors to carry out policies they wanted me to embody. They themselves would never have been the person to actually insert the knife in someone’s back and give it a twist. They liked to sub the dirty work out to subordinates. So I didn’t linger in such roles. I learned to tell them in the interview stage that I was bullheaded and obstinate, and had my own methods for getting results. If they didn’t like any of those results, they all had my name on them and no one else’s.

That way I got to use my own methods and my own situational ethics in delicate situations. And that approach worked pretty well for a long time (14 years).

But still I felt constricted. So I went into business for myself. And decided that instead of trying to compromise my own soul for a slightly enhanced margin I’d go in the other direction. I’d undercut the competition by charging a fair price well below theirs and by keeping accurate T&M on my books and their bills. And I found I got even more business that way than I’d have gotten by screwing every customer I managed to snare.

So I guess my answer would be that I found virtue to be its own reward. That was a really good question.

I can say the same thing over and over again, but it gets tiring, and sometimes a different point of view can help people see things differently. I shouldn’t have to say this to someone familiar with libertarianism, but the key idea is that it’s not okay to initiate force against people, that the only legitimate use of force is defensive or properly-justified retaliatory force. Government is an agency that claims a monopoly on the use of force, and theoretically, it is there to “protect” its citizens from force initiated by others (i.e. protect rights). But if government is fundamentally supported by initiations of force, then it is nothing more than a protection racket, given legitimacy by misguided but well-meaning people such as yourself. And once this organization has the legitimacy to initiate force, what’s the limit? What stops government agents from engaging in more initiations of force? What prevents corruption and ensures protection? Very little as far as i can see, as most people will object to the more outrageous acts but still support the underlying causes.
What I don’t mind as a deterrent is the idea that someone will use force if it has been initiated against them, or will have the help of others for defense or retaliatory purposes . What I do mind is granting a monopoly to a particular organization and naively assuming that they won’t abuse their power. Without a monopoly, any particular organization will be constrained by the “deterrent” that other people and organizations could have the means to defend against corruptions and abuse of power.
While I, too, have watched Mad Max, Escape from New York, and any number of other movies, you have to remember we’re talking about reality, not fiction. Have you read about “The Not So Wild West,” for example? The Wild West of the movies is fictionalized for dramatic purposes, actual history paints a much milder picture of the Old West.

and how much does the dictator want to take over also ?

(British accent on) Bad form, man, bad form! (British accent off)

It’s not that the rule of law will be used against him because he’s a criminal. It’s that the force of government violates his rights much more than any common criminals do, even though he’s not a criminal.

“What makes non-affiliated individuals necessarily more trustworthy than people we elect by common consent?”

But it’s not common consent. That’s where the force comes in. In wealth redistribution, for instance, the majority forces its will upon the minority, without any consideration of property rights.

Mr Clem: It’s interesting that when the talk turns to questions of the rule of law, you automatically assume it will be used against you– while I assume it’s there to protect me. It’s almost like you’re the one who wants to get away with something, while I’m the one who needs protection from guys like you.

“Call it a “deterrent” if you will, but by the same token, such deterrent can be offered without government.”

So you don’t mind threats and force, so long as they don’t come from the government? That’s a curious stance. What makes non-affiliated individuals necessarily more trustworthy than people we elect by common consent?

We have some really basic differences in POV.

Michael Clem wrote:
“Government in general is fundamentally provided for by the initiation of force (involuntary taxation and an expectation of obedience to its laws), which is why government is fundamentally flawed from the libertarian perspective.”

Ummmm, no, it’s fundamentally flawed from the anarcho-libertarian perspective. Other libertarians see the anarchist view as flawed.

I see two major problems with anarcho-capitalism:

1) If a free market cannot exist without a government, then free market arguments for anarcho-capitalism don’t apply, because free markets themselves cannot exist in a state of anarchy. Economic justifications for anarcho-capitalism implicitly assume that a free market can exist without government, which is precisely the point which is being debated. Basically, economic justifications for anarcho-capitalism are a sophisticated form of begging the question.

2) The assumption that defence agencies will not fight each other, to the detriment of the people, is a huge assumption, and flies in the face of all of human history, AFAICT.