RoR: Forum

But there have been nothing but empty theories and foolish academic exercises to support the absurd claim that anarchy could ever work.

The fact is that today, public police represent only one-third of all protective services, measured either by dollar volume or manpower.⁴ Similarly, in real estate as well as many other sectors, contracts include clauses requiring arbitration in preference to suits in public courts. The American Arbitration Association is the largest such firm in the world.⁵ Organized as a non-profit corporation, the AAA is 80 years old, employees 775 people in 35 offices, and relies on a network of over 8,000 arbitrators and mediators worldwide. In 2004, they handled over 2 million cases. The AAA has assets (and liabilities) of about $117 million and income (and expenses) of about $75 million. Simple arithmetic shows that they garner about $30 per decision, far less than the cost of settling a traffic ticket.

4. William C. Cunningham, John J. Strauchs, and Clifford W. Van Meter, �Private Security: Patterns and Trends,� National Institute of Justice: Research in Brief (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1991). Cited in Why Crime Declines January 1, 2000 from Bruce L. Benson in The Freeman http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=210

5. For basic facts, annual report, etc., see http://www.adr.org/ the website of the American Arbitration Association.

"In responding to and resolving the criminal behavior of employees, organizations routinely choose options other than criminal prosecution, for example, suspension without pay, transfer, job reassignment, job redesign (eliminating some job duties), civil restitution, and dismissal...
     While on the surface, it appears that organizations opt for less severe sanctions than would be imposed by the criminal justice system, in reality, the organizational sanctions may have greater impact... In addition, the private systems of criminal justice are not always subject to principles of exclusionary evidence, fairness, and defendant rights which characterize the public criminal justice systems. The level of position, the amount of power, and socio-economic standing of the employee in the company may greatly influence the formality and type of company sanctions. In general, private justice systems are characterized by informal negotiations and outcomes, and nonuniform standards and procedures among organizations and crime types."
(THE HALLCREST REPORTS. 1. Private Security and Police in America, William C. Cunningham and Todd Taylor, Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1985. 2. Private Security Trends 1970 to 2000, William C. Cunningham and John J. Strauchs and Clifford W. Van Meter, Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1990.)   ("This publication reports a 30-month descriptive research project performed by Hallcrest Systems, Inc., MacLean, Virginia, under a grant from the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.")

I lived in one small town (Marysville, Ohio) where a convenience store posted the names of people who bounced checks. There was a big sign out front "If you see FILL IN THE NAME tell them to come get their check." There are a hundred ways to deal with the problems of predation. Retaliatory force is the last resort of the incompetent.

On the other hand, there is a curious overlap between public and private police.  In 1989, only about 6% of Americans declared having two or more jobs. At that same time, about 40% of all publicly employed police moonlighted as security guards -- 50% in Seattle, Washington D.C. and Dade County; 53% in Colorado Springs. This means in many cases, police officers wearing their public uniforms, carrying their public weapons, radios, and other equipment in the public cars, while being paid privately. In some cases, the police department itself handles the contracts. In some cases, the police union does the contracting. In some cities, police officers run their own private protection businesses. Obviously, all of this opens the floodgates to conflicts of interest and ultimately (as in the case of New Orleans) to corruption at all levels in all departments, including internal affairs.

The Market for Force:
The Consequences of Privatizing Security
Deborah D. Avant, George Washington University, published August 2005 by Cambridge University Press.
The legitimate use of force is generally presumed to be the realm of the state. However, the flourishing role of the private sector in security over the last twenty years has brought this into question. Deborah Avant is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for Global and International Studies

Patrol Beat 144 in Kansas City was a perfect example of a "hot spot": an area that receives a disproprortionate number of calls for police service and/or has a high crime rate. A study for the Minneapolis police department found that only 5% of the addresses in the city accounted for 64% of the calls while 60% of the addresses never called for any reason. A relatively small number of citizens in a community are extremely high consumers of police services. -- The Police in America: An Introduction by Samuel Walker and Charles M. Katz, Sixth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008, page 205.

"The biggest challenge is convincing the private sector owner-operators that they have to invest in their own physical protection.   Because the most I can do is leverage federal money to go to first responders. ... Well, the most I can do is sway other state officials to get the money to local first responders. But that is not going to protect the building that you are sitting in right now.
"I tell private companies that operate the critical infrastructure: you have to invest in your own security. You're the only person that can buy cameras and guards and barriers and reroute traffic, and have a redundancy plan to put your services in another building. So, in the end, I can do my job, get an 'A' from my boss, and still not protect anything."
-- James F. Powers
Director of Homeland Security
State of Pennsylvania

SECURITY INDUSTRY BUYER'S GUIDE
ASIS International (Formerly the American Society for Industrial Security)
http://www.sibgonline.com/
Full Company List (301)
Bodyguards--Armed (119)
Bodyguards--Unarmed (94)
Bonded Guards (77)
Canine Patrols (22)
Deputized/Commissioned Guards (31)
Maritime/Port Security (14)
Personnel--Armed (152)
Personnel--Unarmed (209)
Vehicle Patrols (132)

Private international law goes under the rubric "the conflict of laws." This was first formally addressed in the 5th century AD by the Code of Justinian which established a "third book of laws." (See http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Dissent/0058.shtml)

The above are all from the topic, "Police Forces and Courts of Law" in Dissent. Other topics address guading the guardians and private international law. Take issue with whatever you please, but do at least acknowledge that these examples are all from the real world, not academic theory. You place a nice ribbon on government when you say that it works well -- when it recognizes individual rights. I could place the same ornament on anarchy.

Post 1

Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 9:53pm

"You place a nice ribbon on government when you say that it works well -- when it recognizes individual rights."

***

A shit sandwich also "works well" if you remove the shit and replace it with something else. I'm sure the people selling said sandwiches, sans replacement, would love to convince you of this: "Well, the bread was good when I took it out of the bag a bit ago, so why don't you go ahead and eat that sammitch? Most of it is edible."

Minarchy was good when we "took it out of the bag" right after the American Revolution, but it didn't stay that way long before what appears to be the inevitable mission creep that is part of minarchism kicked in.

But, I have no objection to heading toward minarchy as fast as possible, and then having that debate about the last 5% or so of the federal government that is, in fact, constitutional, when we get in striking distance of minarchy. Until then, debating minarchy versus anarcho-cpaitalism is a moot point, when what we have is a vastly expanding socialism leavened with enough capitalism to keep the shaky enterprise sort of afloat for now.

Post 2

Sunday, September 21, 2008 - 10:28pm

Jim,

Logical arguments work real well, if you don't lard them up with irrelevant non-sequitur analogies about shit-sandwiches.

Our typing back and forth with computers and multiple layers of software, hardware, and interlinked networks represents a chain that is not just technical but business transactions, property rights, contracts, all working because of the degree of individual rights protection that abounds in our system. A system of complex laws going back in tradition to the Magna Carta, the ideas of Locke, English Common Law, the efforts of the founding fathers, the Constitution, our existing courts... all sustaining a stable environment for people to act and even flourish. But don't let that get in way of implying that minarchy has been tried and didn't work. Don't let that get in way of throwing out unproven assertions that government can never work, how did you put it, "the inevitable mission creep that is part of minarchism kicked in."

Post 3

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 5:36am

Steve, you pick and choose without a standard: Locke, but not Hobbes or James Charles Stuart. (I'm serious. Read his address to Parliament on the Divine Right of Kings. The man was intelligent and not to be passed off with modern libertarian rhetoric.) Machiavelli... Plato... Even Aristotle, because A defined the state as the natural combination of independent families. The idea that the government has a monopoly on the use of force comes from Max Weber c. 1890. No one else put it in just those terms before that. Social contract theory -- Locke, Hobbes, Pufendorf ... -- was slightly different. The word "police" appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution.

The system of property rights associated with computers now and with the machine age before was developed independently of the government. Real estate is called "real" because land was the only real form of property that the courts recognized. Lex Mercator (Lawe Marchaunt; commercial law) developed independently. In fact, private international law goes back to Justinian, but commercial law only goes back to the Middle Ages. When you buy a home, you get a Title (Duke of York). That is why it is called real estate -- ex state; from the state; title comes to you from the state; the crown gives you your title. You do not get that when you click the "I Agree" box on Terms of Service for an email address. I agree with you that capitalism is based on trust and contract. Those are independent of the government, both historically and logically.

Perhaps the earliest case in White Collar Crime is from the 14th century in England. A waggoner had opened a bale of wool and sold it. The owner took him to court. The waggoner argued that there was no law against what he did. The case went to the Star Chamber. In point of fact, merchants, couriers and "vecturarii" had settled this before the 12th century. Contracts between the shipper and carrier from the 1100s specify that the freight is the property of the merchant and the waggoner promises not to open it. Now, you will ask, "Where was the enforcement if the waggoner violated the agreement?" Good question. Enforcement was purely social and commercial. Medieval commerce was held together by complex associations of merchants, families, and other "socii" such as guilds. The government (such as it was) had no interest in any of that.

I suggest that you read the Magna Carta. Most of it is a clear statement by the barons that they will fix their own bridges. When called to duty, they will serve or they will pay a fee, but the crown cannot deny them the right to serve and demand the fee. It also goes into the conditions under which Jews can be depnived their contractual rights. The Magna Carta is an interesting point in the history of government, but it is not the document that libertarians wish it were.

The Uniform Commercial Code was developed in the 19th century from the actual way people really did business, not from legislation. Now, there is some debate as to whether the UCC is or should be maintained according to actual practice or whether it is or should seek to be an unchanging standard.

I highly recommend that you visit the websites of Wolf De Voon. A lawyer, De Voon asserts that the law preceded government both in historical fact and in any rationalist derviation of rights. That to me is reflected in Aristotle's maxim that tradition is stronger than law.

Property rights in cyberspace exist by convention, not by legislation. The law has not caught up. Such legislation as exists is laughable, wrong, or ineffective. In fact, here in Michigan our computer crime law -- authored by a Ph.D. physicist -- made bugs such as unnested do-loops illegal (unknowingly causing a computer to malfunction). Practice leads to convention. Convention becomes law. The government of the moment takes credit for what went before.

Consider the radio spectrum. Rand begged the question, accepting the government's perception of wavelengths as being like land that could be assigned to unique and mutually exclusive owners. But "choppers" are time-sequenced, so you can have two or many more users on the same wavelength at the same time -- and that was in the analog days. With digital, there are even more ways to "share" what is considered by legislation to be the "same" wavelength. In fact, it was Thomas Edison who first multiplexed telegraph signals. The contract terms of use were even then light-years ahead of legislation.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 9/22, 5:54am)

Post 4

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 6:04am

Altamont, Anyone?

There is no better proof of the essential benefit of government than this: "The fact is that today, public police represent only one-third of all protective services, measured either by dollar volume or manpower."

The reason we trust private security forces not to misbehave is because one can always resort to the police. If a security guard roughs you up, or commits a crime, you report him to the police. Without police, the natural response to the presence of security guards with now unchecked powers is either avoidance of commerce or to go armed yourself.

Post 5

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 9:48am

Michael,

Your posts are often such manic bursts of scattered facts, each fact like some polished pebble or unusual pearl and only loosely related to the others. They are pushed forward like you need us to see this feverish gathering and offering as special (and they often are)... but they also are often not responsive to the heart of the argument. Where is the answer to the original argument - our absolute need for a single set of laws for a given area? And the simple fact that justice can NOT arise out of a free market until the market is made free by enforced laws based upon individual rights.

Post 6

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 1:54pm

Logical arguments work real well, if you don't lard them up with irrelevant non-sequitur analogies about shit-sandwiches.

Uh� So if you agree, it's a logical argument, and if you disagree, it's an irrelevant non-sequitur?

That's the main problem with Objectivism. That reality is objective, but that people can't agree on what view of reality is right. Everyone believes that his view is logical and reasonable, and everything he disagrees with is sophistry or intellectual dishonesty.

But don't let that get in way of implying that minarchy has been tried and didn't work.

Doesn't have to be implied. It's an obvious fact.

Don't let that get in way of throwing out unproven assertions that government can never work�

You're right! How dare those anarchists claim that the small matter of 10,000 years of human history is any evidence at all?

Today, I jumped from a second-floor window twenty times, but of course I will never consider the twenty resulting hard landings evidence for the unproven assertion that I can't fly! Right on!

If we were living in happy, capitalist anarchy, people would say, "There have been nothing but empty theories and foolish academic exercises to support the absurd claim that government could ever work. On the other hand, anarchy is already working, and working extremely well in every area where it is aligned with individual rights.

�

"You can point out all the things that are wrong, like those substandard service providers like Acme Security, or criminals and terrorists trying to pass for legitimate rights protection companies � and we would agree. But each of these, capitalism diminishes to the vanishing point until there is no complaint left except a claim that anarchy itself is bad even if it no longer does ANYTHING bad. And there is nothing sensible in that!"

Always the devil you know.

And the simple fact that justice can NOT arise out of a free market until the market is made free by enforced laws based upon individual rights.

First, what is the evidentiary power of shouting "not"?

" 'I strenuously object.' Is that how it works?

" 'Overruled!'

" 'No, I strenuously object!'

" 'Oh, then I'll reconsider!' "

� A Few Good Men

Second, the evidence presented by those "scattered facts" (again ad hominem at somebody you disagree with) is that all rights, rules, and laws that work were discovered in the free market, and not by popular vote or by some ruler.

OK, next canard going down is the Objectivist sophistry (I call it that as I don't agree with it, those who agree call it logic) that anarcho-capitalism (get the tautology, anybody?) solves the problem by having a market for the market. Now, here Objectivists try to be right by definition: they define a market as the sum of voluntary interactions. However, that is not the market where might makes right. Underlying the market for voluntary business transactions, backing it up, is the market for force. Here, too, capitalism is at work: Force controlled by the mind usually triumphs over brute force. That's why the freer countries in history consistently won out over the less free ones. If competition is no longer restricted to some two hundred governments, most of the problems we freedom-loving folks like to complain about will go away.

If anarcho-capitalism is wrong, so is the US. After all, the US are founded on the principle of federalism, with the states as laboratories for finding the best laws through trial and error. If there are objective laws that can be easily discovered by philosophers of the law, then the only moral government is a centralist, totalitarian government that dictates those "objective" laws to everybody who disagrees.

The difference between federalism and freedom is that under federalism, you have less competition. People have to physically move between states and countries to get a new security provider, the best providers refuse to accept new customers at the behest of their established customers (immigration restrictions), and for a new competitor to enter the market, it takes secession or a revolution.

The second argument against government is that the government's monopoly claim to be a sovereign lends it a mystical air in they eyes of the sheeple, which leads to fascism. (Fascism, in my definition, is the idea that man belongs to the state.) That can't happen in a country where security is a utility like any other. People go to war for their nation state or their tribe, but who would go to war for their ISP?

Man is not infallible, and there's no such thing as perfection (Platonism). There's no way you can get a majority to agree on a set of rights or "objective laws." (And there's no way you can find enough dictators that are both benevolent and reasonable. In fact, the worst atrocities in history have been committed "to help people.") But market anarchy utilizes the power of capitalism to supply the best solutions humanly possible. You might as well get used to it. There ain't anything better.

All the arguments (sophistry, as I don't agree with them) Objectivists have against market anarchy boil down to one thing: Ayn Rand didn't like it. But the fact that one's guru, one's favorite philosopher, couldn't get over living through the Russian Revolution is no rational argument.

The reason we trust private security forces not to misbehave is because one can always resort to the police.

You got it exactly backwards. Who do you call against the police? In a free, anarchistic country, your security guards. Today? Blank out.

Post 7

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 2:09pm

AB wrote:If anarcho-capitalism is wrong, so is the US. After all, the US are founded on the principle of federalism, with the states as laboratories for finding the best laws through trial and error. If there are objective laws that can be easily discovered by philosophers of the law, then the only moral government is a centralist, totalitarian government that dictates those "objective" laws to everybody who disagrees.

Wowsers. I don't know why that never occured to me. You know, after my wife took a political science class, some time later, it was feeding time for the cats and she put down this organic stuff and they walked away. "They're voting with their feet," she said. Yes, we do, indeed have competing governments ... but the thing is that market protection services are NOT competing governments. Germany invading Poland, that's competing governments. When I walked over to the next parking lot and asked the guard there to call her supervisor so that I could tell him that he had a car staking out his building, that is not competing governments, but market entities cooperating for mutual profit.

Post 8

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 2:39pm

Steve: "... each fact like some polished pebble or unusual pearl ... Where is the answer to the original argument - our absolute need for a single set of laws for a given area? And the simple fact that justice can NOT arise out of a free market until the market is made free by enforced laws based upon individual rights."

Thank you for the nod. I polish long and hard. Glad you appreciate the pebbles and pearls., because, Steve they are for you.

Steve, we seem to have a consequential disagreement here. I maintain -- and I have shown -- that free markets exist before government codification of the rules of commerce -- if that ever happens, the UCC being alone. It is the absence of governments that makes the markets free. You think that a government demarcates an area and declares it free of outside instrusion and internal fraud and therefore a free market is able to exist. I think you have the effect before the cause and I think that I have historical precedent to validate my claim.

As I have said, I am working on this article about the fairs of medieval Champagne, and I have a tonne of ancilliary information from peer-reviewed academic journal articles -- not the Cato Institute or the Von Rothbard Society or whatever -- that discuss lawe marchaunt. I have articles about trans-Alpine trade in the 12th century. Steve, this was a time of 1000 polities. The Holy Roman Empire and the Church were only as strong as the man of the moment. There was no law... but there was custom... and market sanctions for people who did not follow them... and sometimes someone got sued over a contract and sometimes he was back in business after paying everyone off to restore the balance. That is justice.

It is not just the middle ages.

I could do the same thing for 19th century America. Get it: the law was behind the technology. The contracts existed and were enforced without government because the state (city, Congress) did not even perceive the technology. So, too, in our age. BBSes existed before the laws that attempted to regulate them to the benefit (scroll down) of the the telephone monopolies. The WWW burst on the scene fulllblown like Athena. No one expected it. No one could have predicted it. Click. You have agreed. Click. You have posted. Click. You have purchased. Where is the law AHEAD of that? Ahead, Steve. You claim that government creates free markets. I claim that at best -- at best and admittedly true now and then --- governments protect markets once someone creates them... and that includes the market for force.

Post 9

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 2:58pm

Ted Keer: "... There is no better proof of the essential benefit of government than this: "The fact is that today, public police represent only one-third of all protective services, measured either by dollar volume or manpower."

The reason we trust private security forces not to misbehave is because one can always resort to the police.

Ted, you need to understand the history of policing in America.

First of all, the word "police" appears nowhere in the Constitution because the first police department in the world was London's in 1827. The first US police departments were New York, Philadelphia and Chicago in the 1830s. They were not continuously renewed, so there is some argument among the three cities for the honor of the "first" police force in America.

It was not until after the Civl War that blue uniforms were popular enough to allow city police forces. The appointment of officers was political, hence both police departments and cities were organized by "precincts."

At first, the tax-supported public police only guarded rich peoples' homes.
Then, the rising labor classes of the post-Civil War era demanded police protection for eveyrone and the rich people hired private guards.

Allen Pinkerton started out as a private detective. More effective than the government secret service Pinkerton won President Abraham Lincoln for a client and mostly kept him alive until the Secret Service got him killed.

Publicly paid police were ascendant in community law enforcement -- with Pinkerton, Burns and many others serving the private sector -- until about the 1960s. From that point -- and the stats are not complete, were never complete -- private patrols began to over take public police.

Today, in California, three out of four patrollers are privately employed. Nationwide it is two out of thrree. The largest private patrol organization in the world is Securitas of Stockholm with over 200,000 guards in over 30 nations.

And, as noted, you might want to do a google on "killed by police" and see where the alternatives were...

Generally speaking, here in America, you would be challenged to find any two private security forces engaged in armed conflict against each other. By contrast, private fire departments in NYC did brawl for the opportunity to put out a fire. So, private police theoretically could have fought, but in reality never did. It had nothing to do with the public police and everything to do with the way markets operate.

(Finally, there is unfortunately, only one policeman's diary from Boston c. 1880 and the officer served as a roving magistrate, keeping peace in the neighborhood. The common wisdom in policing is that "community policing" was invented in the 1960s, but it seems that any effective concern by any officer paid off in peace and quiet. Just to say, Ted, you need to research the history of policing in America before you offer a flat assertion.)

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 9/22, 3:04pm)

Post 10

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 4:14pm

Alexander,

You said, "So if you agree, it's a logical argument, and if you disagree, it's an irrelevant non-sequitur?"

Perhaps you are speaking for yourself because that doesn't apply to me. I gave an example of how large portions of our government are working - and the example supported the statement I had made. Jay disagreed but instead of a logical argument that explained what was in error in my example, he just tossed out his crude shit sandwich statement and let it lie there as a bald assertion.
-----------

Minarchy has not been tried. But maybe you know of some corner of the globe or distant point in history that had a government of minimal size based upon individual rights, in which case you can tell us about it.
------------

Referring to the anarchist argument that government can never work, you said, "How dare those anarchists claim that the small matter of 10,000 years of human history is any evidence at all?"

Do you really consider that a valid argument? The same argument could have been made about 100 years ago that heavier than air machines will never fly. And why would you want to ignore the vast differences between the freer nations that exist now, like the U.S., Switzerland, Singapore, etc. and the tyrannies past and present?
-------------

You said, "If we were living in happy, capitalist anarchy, people would say, "There have been nothing but empty theories and foolish academic exercises to support the absurd claim that government could ever work. On the other hand, anarchy is already working, and working extremely well in every area where it is aligned with individual rights."

It is hard to know where to start with so much wrong. 1) Capitalism requires minarchy, contrary to the fantasy entertained but never supported by anarchists. 2) Any area actually suffering from anarchy would never be referred to as happy - it would be likened more to a living Hell and as inappropriate to human survival as one could imagine. 3) One would have to be blind to not see the ways that government has, and is working - those who claim they only see the ways it is not working make themselves look foolish. 4) Anarchy can never be aligned with individual rights - it has no laws to align unless you are talking about the bizarre, unworkable concepts of competing laws - which are really a negation of the concept of laws.
---------------

You inverted my statement, saying, "You can point out all the things that are wrong, like those substandard service providers like Acme Security, or criminals and terrorists trying to pass for legitimate rights protection companies � and we would agree. But each of these, capitalism diminishes to the vanishing point until there is no complaint left except a claim that anarchy itself is bad even if it no longer does ANYTHING bad. And there is nothing sensible in that!"

This hardly need addressing - it starts by begging the question (presuming a working anarchy) and goes nowhere after that.
-----------------

You said, "...the evidence presented by those "scattered facts" (again ad hominem at somebody you disagree with) is that all rights, rules, and laws that work were discovered in the free market, and not by popular vote or by some ruler."

"Ad hominem" is the name for an attack on the person; please note that "scattered facts" characterizes his argument. After that your argument doesn't make sense since I was reminding Michael that he had not addressed the argument that justice cannot arise in a "free" market, until and unless, that market is made significantly free of coersion.
----------------

You accused me of ad homineum attacks when I was addressing the arguments not the person. Perhaps you are unaware that "canard" and "sophistry" both refer to purposely false or deceptive arguments. So they address the both the argument and claim that I'm purposely attempting to mislead.
----------------

You say, "Underlying the market for voluntary business transactions, backing it up, is the market for force. Here, too, capitalism is at work: Force controlled by the mind usually triumphs over brute force."

First, it is one or the other, not one backing the other up. Just as bad currency will drive good currency out of circulation, so force will drive voluntary agreements out of the market when the two attempt to appear in the same arena. It is too obvious to spend much time on. If I am negotiating with some one on what the terms are for some deal and a third party comes along with a gun, the negotiation is history.

Second, capitalism is not at work where initiation of force is present - that is a criminal event when under minarchy laws - if there is no single law preventing that force, it is anarchy and not capitalism - rule by brute force trumping voluntary agreement.

Third, it is the degree of brutality that wins - and intelligence directing brutal force is nothing to recommend the intelligence or the brutality. The actual winner, all else remaining equal, is the person who is the least concerned with danger to himself and the most willing to use maximum brutality. As these forces compete, and the evolving trend is towards bloodier and bloodier results, voluntary transactions recede further and further.
---------------

This is a good point to quote from Joe Rowland's article on Anarchy, "The first reason given to support anarchism is the efficiency of free markets. By allowing competition between companies, they have to compete with one another through better value for your dollar. Why not allow governments to do the same thing? Why not allow competition, and then the world will get better and better? This is what Rand called the fallacy of the stolen concept. That means that the concept is used while denying or ignoring it's necessary foundation. In this case, a free-market doesn't automatically, magically provide good results. It's because the use of force is outlawed between the companies, and the customers are allowed to not deal with any of them, that they have to offer the customer values for trade, and they have to offer the most. If governments themselves compete, that assumption of freedom, and the inability to use force, is not valid. The governments are dealing with force. Some anarchists still try to claim that "market forces" will make it all work out, but it all rests on this false foundation."
---------------

You say, "If anarcho-capitalism is wrong, so is the US. After all, the US are founded on the principle of federalism, with the states as laboratories for finding the best laws through trial and error."

There is no logic in that statement. There is a clear and established jurisdiction between state and federal law such that there is no anarchy - mechanisms are in place to determine the proper law to be applied. Anarchy would be no states and no federal government... or a territory within the US where it was decreed to be free of any laws, state or federal.
-----------------

You say, "If there are objective laws that can be easily discovered by philosophers of the law, then the only moral government is a centralist, totalitarian government that dictates those "objective" laws to everybody who disagrees."

I'm sorry, but that is just a silly assertion. Is the unjustified killing of a person for the sole purpose of robbing their store wrong? If you answer yes, based upon a rational analysis of common values, then isn't a law against homocide committed during the commission of a felony robbery an objective law? And how is it totalitarian to make a law that prohibits murder? And why could such a set of laws only arise out of a centralist government? Everyone knows that anarchy, by not having laws, puts murder on the same plane as buying a car, or mowing the lawn - just another thing that is not dictated to everybody that disagrees.
-----------------

You say, " There's no way you can get a majority to agree on a set of rights or "objective laws."

But actually that is what is done, day by day, in democratic and representative governments - from town meetings in the North East to the state capitals to Congress. The quality of the laws varies by the intelligence and knowledge of the participants and the honesty and efficiency of the system, but it beats the ugly reality of competing mafia bosses that are somehow going to magically transform the unprincipled exercise of violence into utopia in the fantasy world of anarchists.
------------------

You say, "All the arguments ... Objectivists have against market anarchy boil down to one thing: Ayn Rand didn't like it."

What a foolish argument. Why would someone make an argument that is so false on its face? It just makes them look obtuse, rigid, shallow and disconnected from any reality. Almost all of the people that have publicly disagreed with Rand over significant points have still been clear in their lack of any intellectual respect for anarchy.

Post 11

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 4:27pm

What Michael? I can't hear you!

Post 12

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 5:00pm

Michael,

You have given me an argument rather than a scattering of facts and I do appreciate that.

You say, " I maintain -- and I have shown -- that free markets exist before government codification of the rules of commerce -- if that ever happens, the UCC being alone. It is the absence of governments that makes the markets free. You think that a government demarcates an area and declares it free of outside instrusion and internal fraud and therefore a free market is able to exist. I think you have the effect before the cause and I think that I have historical precedent to validate my claim."

First, "free" means the absence of coersive force. I'll quote again from Joe Rowland's article on anarchy, "The first reason given to support anarchism is the efficiency of free markets. By allowing competition between companies, they have to compete with one another through better value for your dollar. Why not allow governments to do the same thing? Why not allow competition, and then the world will get better and better?
This is what Rand called the fallacy of the stolen concept. That means that the concept is used while denying or ignoring it's necessary foundation. In this case, a free-market doesn't automatically, magically provide good results. It's because the use of force is outlawed between the companies, and the customers are allowed to not deal with any of them, that they have to offer the customer values for trade, and they have to offer the most. If governments themselves compete, that assumption of freedom, and the inability to use force, is not valid. The governments are dealing with force. Some anarchists still try to claim that "market forces" will make it all work out, but it all rests on this false foundation."

The law itself evolves and you are quite right to say that it most often follows behind new technology. But that doesn't change the fact that most often there was a working framework of laws that were being applied until new laws needed to be written. In the case of 'click' you have agreed - that is covered quite well with existing contract law - and where it isn't, there will be ruling in equity court that establish precedence - which functions as law - and new codes will be created where their is a need. All of this helps underscore the purpose, the use, and the value of law - it does nothing to show that law is not needed.

Of course people came before government and people engaged in transactions before there were laws to describe those transactions, but the law comes into being very quickly to remove the conflict that can only be resolved by violence in the absence of law. It is the valid purpose of government and it is the valid purpose of law.

I have no doubt that you will find some kind of "behavioral container" that moderated or prevented using force or theft as a currency in transactions - something like village rules, customs, belief that one had to submit to rulings of the village elders, etc. And, that these were gradually replaced with more objective laws, more explicit laws, as time went by. It isn't always easy to see this because there are two forces at work. On one side you have thugs using government and using laws to as their tools of coersion, and at the same time you have this evolving of the structures that make trade more free by writing the initiation of force, fraud and theft out of the market. You have to mentally separate them since they both exist inside of each government to date.

Where you say, "You claim that government creates free markets. I claim that at best -- at best and admittedly true now and then --- governments protect markets once someone creates them... and that includes the market for force."

I maintain that a minarchy government is responsible for the "free" part of the phrase "free market" - it, as its purpose, protects individual rights and that allows for a market that is "free" - i.e., has no force being initiated.

(As an aside: "free" today, is more "part free, part not" - even in the U.S. - but the principle stays the same.)

We both agree that people create markets and that, at best, governments protect them. But it is a major fallacy to think that force can exist in a market and still think of it as a "market" - volition is now endangered and no longer the ruler - it must hide when a swaggering bully approaches. Competition is now a matter of the greatest force, the ugliest force, the least fear of the force that might be wielded against one... that isn't a market - its a Hell.

There are many things that are hard to work with, even dangerous - particularly before we understood them: Nuclear power, electrical energy was before we understood how to control and use it, explosive combustion is now a natural result of turning the key to start ones car. Government is the most dangerous force man has ever dealt with - proven by history and the pile of dead bodies. But all of the social sciences lag far behind the physical sciences. That is no reason to decide that we should do without. In this case, it is a requirement, if men are to live in a society, that we enforce the ban on initiating violence, and that can't be done by throwing out the law and government. We can look at history and see the competition between those that would use government to initiate force and those that would use it stop that. We can see the long term progress that has been made. To ignore these facts in favor of anarchy's fantasy built on fallacy is just harmful.

Post 13

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 8:21pm

Steve, I see that we are going to have some kind of metadiscussion.

You prefer rationalist arguments to empirical evidence. That's fine with me. Necessary factual truth[1] demands that if the logic is right, then the data must be there. If we reason to some point and then fail to find facts, we must go back and recheck the arguments. Reality is the final arbiter. Given that stricture, I can go along.

I also like your analogy to flight. "Never before invented" is not the same thing as "impossible." So -- again, no examples -- although the ideal govenment has never been created, you think that you have a design that can work. OK. Let's see it.

Never mind the historical examples -- I have a ton of brightly polished rocks -- let's look at this rationally, reasoning from first principles. What does a limited government look like? Again, to the airplane analogy, if I asked in 1400 AD for a plan for an airplane, the answer could not be: "It would lift 500 people close to the speed of sound for over 1000 miles." The answer would have to be in terms of airframe and powerplant, i.e., how to achieve the goal of carrying many people great distances at fantastic speeds.

Do you have a design for an ideal state?

[1] Necessary Factual Truth by Gregory M. Browne.

Discussed on MSK's Objectivist Living here.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 9/22, 8:35pm)

Post 14

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 9:10pm

Michael,

I doubt that my view of an ideal minarchy would differ much from what others propose. The fly in the soup is the getting from here to there.

First, I know that it isn't realistic to have a government that is advanced far beyond the intellectual understanding, critical reasoning skills and self-esteem level of the population.

Second, a trend has to take hold more strongly than anything we see now - a trend going the right way. So let's assume that we get the educational system vastly improved (imagine that local communities started voting to have property taxes changed to school fees paid per student, per semester, and the rest of the services left as property taxes - soon parents would take more control - it would be as good as a voucher system); some entrepenuer has started a 'Rational Life' cable channel which is filled with romantic art, movies, plays, new made for TV material, book reviews, interviews, news and commentary; Atlas Shrugs has been made into a 5 part TV series and was well done - there are a dozen spin-offs (Dagney - the Early Years, etc.); the other channels see the light and start to improve, the universities have chucked out the socialists and postmodernists. We are talking about a period spanning a few generations on this scenario, and with some good people running for office, changes are made - several big changes every few years - mostly eliminating departments, and lots of laws and regulations repealed, others rewritten. Several generations pass and we are at a small enough government that two things are apparent - 1) the economy is booming so much that the tiny taxes are not in the least bit painful, and 2) people are working out ways to replace those few taxes with voluntary user fees.

There could be an extremely charismatic leader arise from a major crisis - something on the order of the Great Depression, and if he or she were Objectivist, that could shorten the time to get from here to there and is a plausible explanation of for a change in the direction of the current trend. But it would still require the educational and cultural changes to sustain any political gains from the crisis.
----

I have no idea what you wanted me to reply to your post, but it was fun painting a positive scenario rather than the one I think we will actually experience (but I think we will eventually get there, just not this 'cycle')

Post 15

Monday, September 22, 2008 - 9:34pm

New Union Constitution

Preamble
We the people of the New Union of States of America (NUSA), in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the New Union of States of America.

Article I -- the Legislative Branch
Lawmakers don't get free stuff (like free health care for life, and other stuff like that). They don't get to raise their own salaries by unanimous vote at midnight in their respective houses. Congress doesn't get to regulate interstate commerce, either. Members of Congress will be elected every 2 years by instant runoff voting. In order to be a potential candidate for Congress, you have to achieve a perfect score on a quiz on this very Constitution. Powers of Congress are enumerated (see Appendix) and limited to that enumeration.

Article II -- the Presidency
Presidents don't get free stuff, either. New NUSA presidents will be elected every 2 years with instant runoff voting. That way they can't cause too much damage (by doing too much "good") while they're in charge. Presidential powers are enumerated (see Appendix) and limited to that enumeration.

Article III -- the Judiciary
Do judges get free stuff??? No. Do they get to legislate from the bench? Hell no! Judges serve for 8 years. Judicial powers are enumerated (see Appendix) and limited to that enumeration.

Article IV -- the States
The States rock. They mostly get to do what they want to.

Article V -- the Amendment Process
The goal of the NUSA Constitution is the protection of Individual Rights, including the rights to Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness. If ever a case can be made that rights wouldn't be protected by this document, then this document will be Amended accordingly to achieve that overarching goal.

Article VI -- Legal Status of the Constitution
This sucker is legal.

Article VII -- Ratification
Ratification is a good thing. Let's do it!
====================

Ed, 22 Sep 2008

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 9/23, 6:43am)

Post 16

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 6:40am

Notice the 3 errors with the original U.S. Constitution, now overcome by this NUSA Constitution (in effect, perfecting it)?

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 9/23, 6:41am)

Post 17

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 7:11am

Ed, that was cute. A couple of points ---

Regarding your Article I.
We actually do have
AMENDMENT XXVII
Originally proposed Sept. 25, 1789. Ratified May 7, 1992.
No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.

That was part of the Reagan Revolution. And, yes, it took them a while to get around to it . According the Archives of the U.S. Government:

Notes on The 27th Amendment
The date of September 25, 1789, is correct. The amendment was initially ratified by 6 states (MD, NC, SC, DE, VT, VA), and the other 8 states excluded, omitted, rejected, or excepted it. The amendment was ratified by various states over time, and in 1992 was fully ratified as an amendment to the Constitution.
For more information see: United States. The Constitution of the United States of America : with a summary of the actions by the states in ratification thereof ; to which is appended, for its historical interest, the Constitution of the Confederate States of America / prepared and distributed by the Virginia on Constitutional Government. Richmond : Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government, 1961. 94 p
Follow the link from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/ to the Amendments and their links.

The 2-year cycle at least needs to be staggered, but basically, it misses the point of the actual consititution. I have argued that there is no objective reason for the rules: why 2 years and not 3? Why not elect the secretary of state to a five-year term? Why not -- as was proposed -- have the governors choose the President? Again, there is no objective standard -- but that does not mean that the way things are is not a good ad hoc remedy. The House, Senate and President serve different terms. Judges have lifetime appointments to ensure their independence from succeeding governments that did not appoint them.

"Legislating from the bench" is a buzzword of the modern conservatives who do not like certain rulings, including those that have defended or expanded your rights. In truth, "legislating from the bench" is exactly how the Anglo-American judiciary works. They work from principles stated as legislation and apply the law according the case. Case law is the Anglo-American way.

The other way is called "civil law." (Not to be confused with the same word meaning "torts" or "private law" here in the USA. See below.) Under civil law, used almost everywhere else in the world, the actual laws are spelled out in detail in the legislation and the judges have little leeway to interpret. The law what the law is. In those countries, lawyers get paid for actually knowing the laws, not for being clever enough to argue around them. That, however, has other consequences. Once the law is set in stone, it is, well, you know, set in stone. Bad laws are not overturned from the bench.

Also, if the states had rocked, the South would still be segregated. In fact, some states might still have slavery. Your right to keep and bear arms limits only the federal goverment. The second amendment has not been incorporated to the states. Eleven states have laws that prohibit atheists from serving on juries or running for office. In our day -- because of the federal government -- those laws are not enforced. (South Carolina's was just overturned by its state supreme court.) However... if the law is what the law is, then the law is what the law is -- no "legislating from the bench" under your system. The Fifth Amendment was incorporated to the states by the 14th Amendment. However, in the 1930s and 1940s, it took a Supreme Court ruling to make illegal the torturing of prisoners to obtain confessions in Powell v. Alabama and Ashcraft v. Tennessee.

I could go on, but I understand your intent and I appreciate your point of view. It's just that the problem is harder to solve than most libertarians think. Have you ever read Michael Oliver's Constitution for a New Country from the Atlantis Project?

USA                                                                  World
Criminal law                                                    Civil law
Civil Law                                                      Private law
Uniform Commercial Code                     Lex Mercator
Private International Law              Private International Law
                                                         (The Conflict of Laws)

Post 18

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 7:45am

Good points, Mike.

Regarding the lifetime appointments for judges -- it seems you're right (though I thought 8 years was enough, I didn't have an objective standard for that). The notion of lifetime appointment is objectively superior (note: we have the final answer) than is the notion for an 8-yr appointment.

Have you ever read Michael Oliver's Constitution for a New Country from the Atlantis Project?

No, but I'd love to get my hands on that sort of a thing.

Ed

p.s. And I know I can't force you to, but you didn't answer my second post. What are the 3 glaring errors of the original Constitution (besides anything addressed in the Bill of Rights or further Amendments) which are responsible for 80% of all of the troubles in the history of the United States?

Post 19

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 8:14am