Where Are the Rothbardian Defense Agencies?
I answer Gene Callahan’s objections in this post at Mises Canada. An excerpt:
As I said upfront, Callahan’s mistake here is forgivable, because even many Rothbardians have probably made it when discussing prohibition. So let me explain that intellectual error, then circle back to deal with Callahan.
We all have the empirical evidence in front of our faces that prohibition goes hand-in-hand with increased violence. We saw it in the U.S. clearly during alcohol Prohibition, with Al Capone and other gangsters ruthlessly running the liquor trade when it was illegal, to be replaced (of course) by peaceful, legitimate businesspeople once it was legalized. On the basis of this historical example, current proponents of legalizing marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. will argue that the violence currently associated with these illicit substances is due to the prohibition, not the nature of the drugs themselves.
So far, so good. But the problem comes in when the proponent of legalization wants to explain why drug prohibition goes hand-in-hand with violence.
The post was already getting to be long, so I didn’t make this point, which I think is another deadly one to Gene: For Gene’s position to make any sense, he has to look at the cocaine trade as being less regulated than the aspirin trade. In other words, to “test” the workability of pure laissez-faire, Gene is telling us to look at the cocaine industry to get the best approximation to the total absence of government involvement.
When I put it like that, does everyone see the problem?
I’ve read that the decline in violent crime has almost nothing to do with public law enforcement. Douglas Allen argues that public law enforcement has more to do with preventing crimes like theft.
“Those who prefer real-world experiments to sophisticated statistics may take note of the Montreal police strike of 1969. Within hours of the gendarmes abandoning their posts, that famously safe city was hit with six bank robberies, twelve arsons, a hundred lootings, and two homicides before the Mounties were called in to restore order.” (Pinker, Steven. 2011. The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. p. 122).
But I suppose empirical evidence never proves anything.
Good example that demonstrates that 6 hours is insufficient time for a free market in defense to evolve.
I should have said a few hours instead of 6 hours.
Sort of like Krugman’s penchant for claiming that any undesirable outcomes that occur in the short run, after a decrease in government spending or activity, is ipso facto proof that the decrease in spending and activity should have never taken place.
I wonder if these myopic “thinkers” believe that hangovers are proof that people should not stop drinking.
This particular metaphor is being milked relentlessly by no other than Peter Schiff. I’ve never seen anybody seriously denying it’s accuracy.
The metaphor isn’t being nearly milked enough by enough milkers in milker town.
I have always said that the concept of time is something that makes Keynesians blow a gasket. You can tell in the way they respond to those who say things take time. “Oh ya? What, you think it makes sense to wait 100 years for the market to fix the problem?”
does it make sense to wait a hypothetical 100 years in the hope that a market will fix the problem?
Does it make sense to deny each individual their freedom to choose to fix their own problems on their own time, by initiating violence against them?
oh right, I forgot that Major Freedom land is a 100% pure bullshit zone. My mistake for presuming that adult debate might be possible with you.
Why is it “bullshit”?
Why is it not “adult”?
Seems like you’re retreating because you have no substantive response to offer.
Why are you blaming me for that?
If you had made some sort of substantive point beyond your usual juvenile tripe then adult debate might be possible.
The reason people tend to ignore your comments on other blogs is because you are an insufferable ass. That’s all there is to it really.
“If you had made some sort of substantive point beyond your usual juvenile tripe then adult debate might be possible.”
Why is my response “juvenile”?
Why is it “tripe”?
“The reason people tend to ignore your comments on other blogs is because you are an insufferable ass.”
People do not tend to ignore my posts, and even if they did, how does that constitute an actual rebuttal or refutation?
“That’s all there is to it really.”
How am I an “ass”?
Juvenile:
unpleasantly childish
reflecting psychological or intellectual immaturity
Tripe:
something that is worthless, unimportant, or of poor quality
Ass:
a stupid, obstinate, or perverse person
People ignore you because you and your pointless diatribes display the above characteristics.
Hey Philippe, I realize it has been anarchy around here in the past, but I’m going to start zapping stuff like this. So please police yourself.
How so?
Murphy, have to say: Even if you did start to zap comments like from Philippe, it would not be inconsistent with anarchy, any more than a private homeowner ejecting rude guests.
Anarchy is not antithetical with private property rights, despite what our archist socialist friends would have you believe.
Since that’s irrelevant to LK,s point, which was directed ata claim of Finegold’s, so what?
Who said everything has to be relevant to the same thing. I just made an observation.
Ok, fair enough.
Don’t economists use the term “path dependency” to describe how peoples’ behavior are determined by long standing customs and practices? Michael Munger has an article in the Freeman that describes how nobody in an African village could fix a broken pump because the government always did it, and then the state collapsed. The point being that when the government provides a service, they crowd out private alternatives and leave nobody with the skills to provide them once the state cannot function.
Heres the article
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/what-are-we-for#axzz2nmHXCbIW
Empirical evidence only proves the truth of history.
It does not prove any economic theory true or false.
A good example: Back during the 1970s-1990s, the “empirical evidence” suggested that technical analysis, in the form of trend-following trade rules, would generate excess profits. A crude empiricist such as yourself would conclude that this empirical evidence “proves” the economic theory that trend-following trading rules generate excess profits.
However, by post-1995, such models, when utilized, no longer fared well. Why? Because humans learned and adapted. Any and all “empirical evidence” is past and settled. Events that took place in the past are not, merely by virtue of taking place, sufficient to argue that these events will take place again in the future.
In the natural sciences on the other hand, history and theory overlap. For this aspect of the universe, past events can be replicated again and again, because atoms and molecules and material objects do not learn. The subject matter of physicists is non-physicists, i.e. not the researchers themselves. The researchers presume they are not guided by constants in relations because that is what learning in a priori unpredictable ways implies. They study things because they don’t know something before they learn it. After they learn it, they themselves have changed. They are not the same subject matter as before.
Thus, your silly suggestion that economics is constrained to “empirical evidence” makes you a HISTORIAN, not an economist. An economist studies human action that changes over time. You as a historian refer to past events.
Now, since history is meaningless without a theory to interpret it, since we have to settle a theory in our minds before we can even make sense of the past, this is where you constantly go awry. You are using a flawed a priori theory to interpret history, but your blind to it, because you falsely believe that all you have to do is think of history, and that is supposedly enough for you. You believe you don’t have to self-reflect on your theory, because you believe history has a monopoly on all thought.
Thus, you make false inferences from history, such as conflating correlation for causation. You constantly claim that growth in government spending being correlated with economy growth, is sufficient for you to conclude that the former causes the latter. Even though the theory that the latter occurred DESPITE the former is also fully consistent with history, you nevertheless remain completely oblivious to your own a priori theory. You then believe that anyone who questions your theory, are denying historical events. Ergo, to you the Austrians are denying empirical evidence whereas you are not.
But we have never questioned history as you have posted it here. I fully accept every data entry you have ever posted here. What I do question is your a priori theory that you are using to interpret history. That is where you constantly go wrong.
The entire record of history is FULLY, TOTALLY, 100% consistent with the theory that the economy grows DESPITE the presence and activity of government. Nothing that has ever happened in the history of mankind has ever falsified that theory. And, by the same token, nothing that has ever happened has ever falsified the theory that the economy grows BECAUSE of the presence and activity of government.
History will never, on its own, be sufficient for one theory to be rejected while the other is accepted. In order for THAT to occur, there has to be a non-historical element added to thought, namely, the necessary truths of the being doing the thinking and the interpreting of history.
One of your false a priori theories that you use to interpret history is that some individuals in society, who you call the state, must make decisions for everyone else and those decisions must be obeyed or else violence is initiated. This is your ideal of human life. Some humans have coercive control over every other human, because those who are controlled should not make their own decisions.
Another one of your false a priori theories is that money spending drives economic growth.
Yet another is the false a priori theory that if prices don’t adjust at a speed to your personal liking, then the market process is corrupted, flawed, depraved, and hence a coercive money inflator and spender that prevents changes caused by lack of prices changing as quickly as you want, is something that should be imposed by violence.
None of your Keynesian theories are proved by history. None of your Keynesian theories are falsified by history. You have accepted Keynesian theory for non-historical, non-empirical, IDEOLOGICAL reasons, and you hilariously claim that your theory has a monopoly on explaining history.
“The entire record of history is FULLY, TOTALLY, 100% consistent with the theory that the economy grows DESPITE the presence and activity of government. Nothing that has ever happened in the history of mankind has ever falsified that theory. And, by the same token, nothing that has ever happened has ever falsified the theory that the economy grows BECAUSE of the presence and activity of government.”
lol:. “Empirical evidence never proves anything” — to Austrian a priorists.
Thanks for proving my point
“Empirical evidence never proves anything”
Contemptible straw man. Read the very first thing I said:
Empirical evidence only proves the truth of history.
Thanks for proving my point.
“The entire record of history is FULLY, TOTALLY, 100% consistent with the theory that the economy grows DESPITE the presence and activity of government.”
Like the Romans, you mean.
Like every government I mean.
oh, you’re talking about your imagination, not anything that has actually happened in history. I see.
Obligatory link https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso
“oh, you’re talking about your imagination, not anything that has actually happened in history. I see.”
No, I’m talking about every real world governmental society that has actually existed.
“every real world governmental society that has actually existed” inside your mind.
“every real world governmental society that has actually existed” inside your mind.”
No, that has ever actually existed whether I am alive or not.
Why do you say it’s only in my head?
because you are a delusional individual who uses silly ‘theories’ to try to justify your angry feelings.
How exactly are my theories “delusional”?
How do you know I am “angry”?
Of course, if these people were living in a private neighborhood with private streets, no criminals (or dopers) would be allowed in. Problem solved.
The problem with how these discussions are framed by libertarians is to presume a continuation in the future of government streets and government schools to which everyone has free access. Under such a regime, it’s quite logical for the public to assume that under drug legalization they will soon be living next door to meth cookers whose kids will go to public school with their kids.
Wait, simply because everything is privately owned somehow no criminals will get in? WTH?
Private ownership precludes violations of private ownership (criminal behavior).
It’s a basic point.
He’s not saying that private ownership societies will empirically exist, he’s saying IF they exist, then violators of private property would not be welcome by implication.
Most criminals won’t get in. Just being there prior to committing a crime would be trespassing. Be serious.
It’s funny how Ken B and LK believe it’s non-controversial for country governments to keep out murderers and rapists from other countries, but for some reason private ownership communities doing the same thing is crazy talk.
When did I say any such thing? I live in a members only community myself.
I agree that unlike Bryan Capln I think Canada should be able to refuse entry to Charles Manson should he win parole.
@Ken B
“Canada should be able to refuse entry to Charles Manson should he win parole.”
Who is this Canada person, exactly?
Oh, you’re talking about the group of people who like to think they pretend to own a massive landmass that encompasses the house that I’m currently living in. No, I don’t think those pretenders should get to decide who enters other peoples’ property, especially my own, and don’t see why you would grant them that privilege had you the ability to, either.
Hi Lord Keynes,
You give a good example of what happens when people are conditioned to believe the only reason to keep ones hands to themselves and to respect private property, is the fear of the State.
Fear of getting busted/caught/punished.
Some of us, the peaceful ones, have greater motivation.
Lord Keynes
at
“Those who prefer real-world experiments to sophisticated statistics may take note of the Montreal police strike of 1969. Within hours of the gendarmes abandoning their posts, that famously safe city was hit with six bank robberies, twelve arsons, a hundred lootings, and two homicides before the Mounties were called in to restore order.” (Pinker, Steven. 2011. The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. p. 122).
But I suppose empirical evidence never proves anything.
Its not the praceful ones we worry about.
Well stop creating/multiply violent ones then.
I try, but you and Bob keep defending *that book* as a guide to life and behavior.
If libertarians are interpreting the Bible as a libertarian document, then it makes little sense to fear that those libertarians will turn into theocratic dictator advocates, and ignore fearing non-libertarians who want to turn the country into a dictatorship for other reasons.
So believers only push their book to libertarians?
“So believers only push their book to libertarians?”
Libertarians can’t “push the Bible” in a non-libertarian manner, without ceasing to be libertarian.
So assuming they are libertarians…
Omg, people disagree on how to interpret the evidence, who would have thought?
Not razer http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2013/12/where-are-the-rothbardian-defense-agencies.html#comment-115383
Here’s Douglas Allen (who, as far as I know, is not a libertarian or an anarchist — but, I could be wrong),
(1) the sharp fall in violence from the Middle Ages onwards was in the context of the rise of modern centralized states that “nationalised” the justice system and provided new arbitrators and keepers of the peace, and stamped out private feudal anarchy, e.g., Europe had 5,000 political units in the 15th century, 500 by the early 17th century, 200 by the time of Napoleon, and by 1953 fewer than 30 (Pinker 2011: 74).
(2) And homicide rates have fallen significantly from the 19th century onwards — which suggests that public police and law enforcement are important factors.
Of course, for Jonathan Finegold all these facts are swept under the rug — because they spoil his libertarian fantasies.
Do these rates include the homocides committed by centralized states? Or rather, the democide?
Yes. The 20th was a peaceful century relatively speaking. That should give you an inkling of how violent pre modern times were. And why glib statements about how violent the funding of public schools is do not impress.
Just because the overall rate of homocide has decreased doesn’t mean that the rate of homocide attributed to the type of security production employed has decreased. There may be different factor-rates operating within the general rate of homocide.
Indeed. Tribal murders are way down. But the overall rate is down in tHe 20th compared to earlier times, despite two noticeable large scale events.
You consider yourself living in a tribe.
But thankfully enough of other people besides yourself do not, and hence are the reason you are living in a world with fewer murders.
Tribal murders are not way down. Gang tribes, family tribes, country tribes, these constitute the majority of murders.
But how do you know that the decrease can be attributed to the type of security production? What if the rate of homocide attributed to the production of security has actually increased, while other factors, such as the relative increase in private property rights and the lowering of time preferences has actually been responsible for most of the decline in homocide rates. What if people have generally realized that voluntary cooperation is more beneficial then murdering your neighbor, regardless of how security production is determined?
Ken, for a man of numbers you should get yourself informed.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
The totals are massive, Rummel comes up with 262,000,000 murders for the 20th Century.
Admittedly the birth rate was also higher, but that doesn’t really make a moral argument (although in practice it makes it easier to perpetrate such astounding murders).
Tel
When we are talking about how violent a period is we mean per capita.The usual stat is the likelihood your life will end violently.
It’s hard to get exact numbers but in China the Taiping rebellion and Europe the 30 years war. Pre modern society was pervasively violent.
Pinker interviewed:
H:I suspect that when most people hear the thesis of your book—that human violence has steadily declined—they are skeptical: Wasn’t the 20th century the most violent in history?
P: Probably not. Data from previous centuries are far less complete, but the existing estimates of death tolls, when calculated as a proportion of the world’s population at the time, show at least nine atrocities before the 20th century (that we know of) which may have been worse than World War II. They arose from collapsing empires, horse tribe invasions, the slave trade, and the annihilation of native peoples, with wars of religion close behind. World War I doesn’t even make the top ten.
Also, a century comprises a hundred years, not just fifty, and the second half of the 20th century was host to a Long Peace among great powers and developed nations (the subject of one of the book’s chapters) and more recently, to a New Peace in the rest of the world (the subject of another chapter), with unusually low rates of warfare.
The horrible idea that the 20th century was less violent on a per capita basis is simply repugnant statistical vomit. People do not suffer on a per capita basis. They suffer as individuals and if fewer people in raw numbers are suffering less then that is what we want to see. We do not want to see more people overall for the grinders to take a smaller percentage.
Then the only answer is mass sterilization.
Nah, people behave better because they can get what they want via capitalism rather than aggression…
“the sharp fall in violence from the Middle Ages onwards was in the context of the rise of modern centralized states”
In other words, states existed the whole time, and so the sharp fall in violence was for necessarily non-state reasons.
“In other words, states existed the whole time, and so the sharp fall in violence was for necessarily non-state reasons.”
Apart from being a non sequitur, there is that historical “necessity” again.
M_F warms the heart of every vulgar Marxist and Rothbardian.
He claims to know with logical necessity that all the decline in violence had nothing to do with states when the empirical evidence says otherwise.
“Apart from being a non sequitur, there is that historical “necessity” again. ”
Not only is not intended to be a sequitur, thus rendering your claim that it isn’t a moot point, but I did not make any historical necessity claim by saying that states have existed in the past (which is not necessarily indicative of the future), and that the sharp fall in violence was not due to the existence of states.
There is nothing here that would make that argument a “historical necessity” argument, such as “human history must go through the stage of capitalism and then they must go through the stage of socialist revolution, and finally communism.” THAT is a historical necessity claim.
“M_F warms the heart of every vulgar Marxist and Rothbardian.”
You make every vulgar Keynesian cring
e with embarrassment.
“He claims to know with logical necessity that all the decline in violence had nothing to do with states when the empirical evidence says otherwise.”
You claim to know that the decline in violence had something to do with states, when the empirical evidence is fully consistent with the theory that violence fell DESPITE the existence of states, and not BECAUSE of the existence of states.
“private feudal anarchy”
What is this supposed to mean? Private implies that feudal lords were not arms of the government, but they most often reported directly to the monarchs of their realms. In such cases where they did not, they were not feudal lords, but themselves monarchs of a territory.
Anarchy implies that these feudal lords were not centralized rulers with a monopoly on violence within a territory (excepting the monarch they often reported to).
Feudalism was a creation of the state – one lord of an area strengthened control the others had through the offering of fealty. It was further upheld by primogeniture and entail LAWS, until it was destroyed by the conversion to market capitalism – not in the Middle Ages, but around the late 1600s!
“Europe had 5,000 political units in the 15th century, 500 by the early 17th century, 200 by the time of Napoleon, and by 1953 fewer than 30”
Correlation =/= causation.
John Locke, for instance, tried to implement versions of feudalism in the American colonies, as did some of the other colonial governments in the New England area.
The reduction in Europe of the number of monarchs does not have much to do with the reduction in violent crime. Nor does the transition to constitutional monarchies and democracies. These are wholly unrelated trends, in fact.
There wasn’t a sharp fall in violence. There were the Napoleonic wars, the various colonialist wars, the massacre of the American Indians at the hands of settlers, then moving on to the British concentration camps in Africa, World War I, World War II and the German concentration camps, the Soviet gulags, the atomic bomb, the Vietnam War, and a bunch of others too numerous to list.
Indeed, there never has been a century quite as violent as the 20th, but the string of three 18th, 19th and 20th put together were by far more violent that the entire earlier part of human history right back to living in trees (if you are Atheist, but living in a garden if you are Christian).
Read the comment you’re responding to. None of my opinion is in it.
I should also mention that I’m not an anarchist, and don’t have any “libertarian fantasies.” In fact, there’s probably a lot of people that wonder whether I’m really a libertarian: What is Limited Government.
I’m curious as to why put the word “nationalized” in quotation marks.
“(1) the sharp fall in violence from the Middle Ages onwards was in the context of the rise of modern centralized states that “nationalised” the justice system and provided new arbitrators and keepers of the peace, and stamped out private feudal anarchy, e.g., Europe had 5,000 political units in the 15th century, 500 by the early 17th century, 200 by the time of Napoleon, and by 1953 fewer than 30 (Pinker 2011: 74).”
Ah, see I always thought it was the massive decrease in child abuse, which has been identified via neuroscience as the most significant biological determining factor in the development of violent and antisocial tendencies in the brain.
But I suppose the soft social sciences are far more reliable then those upstart neuroscientists and biologists who think their empirical evidence means anything in the face of correlative statistics, which of course can be used to conclusively determine causal factors, as of course correlation implies causation as a logical necessity.
All sarcasm aside, you know statistics is hardly a reliable source of knowledge, right?
And, in fact, your “evidence” doesn’t show anything other than that in a vacuum, the sudden disappearance of public justice will allow violent criminals to commit more crimes than otherwise. Only LK would cite that as definitive proof that the rise of public security has to do primarily with violent crimes.
Well, there’s Pinker, whom LK was quoting. Details.
Yes, I’m sure Pinker presents a much better argument than LK does. But, Pinker is actually someone interested in presenting a persuasive argument.
Ok, but you seemed to argue law enforcement only cuts crimes like theft not robberies or murders. Against that claim LK’s cite is relevant, no?
LK, I could see how you would come to this conclusion. Not because you are right, but because it is typical for a Keynesian to look at only the immediate causes. I would be interested to know if the empirical evidence tells us anything about the personalities of those Montrelians who were rioting. I would be very surprised if these were individuals with high standards of personal responsibility and understanding of the importance of private property rights and their relationship to civilization. My guess is that the rioters were those individuals entrenched in the welfare system and the government-education complex. Where as a non-Keynesian might ask the question, “Could it be that the government may have had a hand in creating this type of riot personality-mentality in the first place?”, you will simply conclude that it must be because the government-supplied protection services disappeared.
How does this relate to Keynesianism? Where as a non-Keynesian might ask, “Could it be that the central banking system may have caused these economic problems in the first place?, you would conclude that recessions were caused by the immediate effect of the restriction of credit and not the more distant cause of the expansion of credit.
Maybe it is just because I lack the necessary amount of moral courage, but when I look at the public “defense” agency I see infinitely more bloodshed than the drug cartels could ever cause.
Apparently, for Gene, there is some type of moral distinction between drug-related killings and execution at the hands of a police officer because you physically defended yourself when he tried to put you in a cage for failing to pay a parking ticket.
The latter strikes him as just, the former is evidence of how violent and brutish those nasty private agencies can be! Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees!
I’m thinking it’s time for libertarians to drop the term “laissez-faire”. It’s practically substanceless.
Kind of like your post? Substanceless that is.
Samson, how many times do I have to explain this feature/bug thing?
I’m not sure since I don’t believe you’ve explained even once.
I’m making a joke at the Libertarians’ expense. I am saying the vagueness you detect is useful in making equivocation easier for those you are criticizing. For them its a feature not a bug.
Ditto for your lack of knowledge.
When you aren’t knowledgeable of the substance of a concept, then of course it would seem substanceless to you.
Besides cocaine being psychoactive and aspirin not, the only other thing I can think of would be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking
Think logically, government can’t keep their hands out of anything. Why in the world would they allow a massively profitable industry to sit under their noses, untaxed and able to operate without interference? It would be completely out of character.
What’s that thing Ken B waves around all the time? Occam’s Razor.
Next you’ll tell us the feds ran guns for Mexican cartels!
It’s even more direct than you portray Tel. Civil forfeiture.
Excuse me. Those guns were walking, not running.
You didn’t do anything, but we thought you might have, so we’re taking your money.
You didn’t do anything, but your family member who was visiting did, so we’re taking your house.
You didn’t do anything, but your husband picked up a hooker, so we’re taking your car.
LAND OF THE FREE (stuff for the cops)!
Isn’t the drug trade dominated by ruthless gangsters who are not anti-murder (borrowing from Michael Huemer’s, The Problem of Political Authority, here)? And wouldn’t that change if the drug trade were operated by “anti-murder” businessmen?
Pure laissez-faire? Huh? Gene is talking about access to law and law enforcement. When that becomes DIY is when you get a problem. It isn’t about more or less regulated, its about outlawery.
Now I learned an interesting thing in econ 110. Monopolies undersupply.
When I put it like that, does everyone see the problem?
Lord save me from an oversupply of protection.
The claimed monopoly is of course on (most cases of) violence. As even Murphy notes, Chinese merchants left to the mercy of Rothbardian gangs can install steel grilles as *protection*.
It’s not violence.
This locution, “protection” for the right to torture alleged killers or seize the homes of the poor, is Orwellian.
It’s deeply dishonest to call what MF say wants “protection”, unless you mean like the Black Hand supplied. He wants private ENFORCEMENT sold to the highest bidder.
I respectfully disagree with you there Ken. There are few trades more widely understood and accepted than the protection racket. The Romans were at it, the Muslims institutionalised it, the Feudal Christians did it, every modern nation state is onto it, the local motorcycle enthusiast chapter dabbles, as do all manner of other collective entities.
Even the occasional talented amateur has a go from time to time, “Your money or your life!” You can’t tell me that there’s people who don’t know the deal. You might find them grumbling over prices, but you hear the same grumbling in the fish market.
Did I miss the irony of your first comment? It looks like I did.
You missed the recursive irony.
“There never was such a thing as absolute justice, but only agreements made in mutual dealings among men in whatever places at various times providing against the infliction or suffering of harm.” (translation from Epicurus).
The implication being that where no agreement exists, no justice exists either. But what you find in practice is that when one group of people are very powerful and others are not, then most people feel inclined to agree with those in power. Thus, the King always offers justice by definition (so long as he can remain King) and should the King make a mistake and end up defeated, then no problem, “The King is dead, long live the King.”
When the land is at peace, tax is paid as part of the agreement… pay your tax or get hurt.
When the land is under threat from invasion this is an insult to both the common folk and to the King as well. The common folk require protection, and the King who cannot keep order in his dominion will no longer be King.
Feudalism ended, not because we discovered a better way of thinking about morality, but for the more mundane reason that rifles, machine guns, tanks, and carpet bombing created an environment where elite warriors were not as valuable as a well-organized mass attack. The battlefield became dominated by numbers and logistics, not by skill at arms.
If numbers are everything, then just have a vote and settle it the easy way. No more need for trial by combat. The requirement for protection never changed mind you, just the way it was delivered.
From there, the Nanny State, the Welfare State and all sorts of envy management procedures. All for your own protection mind you, and yes I do expect you to pay for that.
All part of the service. 🙂
“The claimed monopoly is of course on (most cases of) violence. ”
No, the monopoly is a monopoly in protection and security. Violence without qualification is a weasel word that suggests both aggressive and defensive force.
A personal body guard for example does not offer “violence” for their client, as if they are offering to rob banks, steal from people on the street, or rape and murder people. A bodyguard is there to protect their client FROM initiations of violence.
You have to separate violence into protective violence and aggressive violence.
Tel is saying he is not afraid of an oversupply of protection, which of course is not the same thing as an overproduction of rape, murder and theft, but rather, an overproduction of security measures designed to stop such initiations of violence.
It is deeply and fundamentally dishonest of you to assert that protection against violence includes initiations of violence, such as “seizing” people’s property, or torturing innocent people.
Yes, I do want to be free to solicit whoever I want to protect me. What the hell gives you the justification to compel me to purchase protection from your desired provider? Am I demanding that you purchase protection from my desired provider? No. But you are demanding that I obey your choice of provider. Can you not see how it is you who is being the aggressor here, not me?
Yes, I do want to be able to private enforcement, and if that means I can outbid you for that service, then tough shit. You do that to me every time you spend your money, which raises prices for goods that prevent me from buying everything offered by sellers.
Poor people are outbidding rich people for goods, and yet you’re too dimwitted to understand how. To you, rich people by everything, and poor people can’t buy a loaf of bread or a pot to piss in.
Selling goods in the open market does NOT imply that poor people can’t buy those goods. Every time poor people buy goods, they are actually out-competing wealthy people. Wealthy people can’t buy everything because they don’t have all the money. When a poor person rents a $300 a month apartment, he is actually outbidding Bill Gates, despite the fact that Bill Gates could, if he wanted, rent that same apartment for more. But because Bill Gates desires other goods, he can’t rent the apartment for a price he is willing to pay. It is quite possible that the highest price he would be willing to pay is $1 for that apartment. So he lets poor people outbid him for that apartment.
Same damn thing with protection. Just because wealthy people could afford, in the short run, the best protection, it doesn’t mean they will buy up ALL the protection offered in a free market. Poor people, as long as they are demanding protection with money, will be a source of profits to offerers of security. The concept of “the highest bidder” is not a universal, monopolistic concept. It refers to the specific time and specific place and specific trading partners.
A landlord is selling shitty $300 a month apartments to “the highest bidders”, who happen to be poor people. The highest bidder does not mean only wealthy people.
Ken B, if only you put as much effort in learning economics as you do in snark and bad humor.
Ken B:
“Monopolies undersupply.
When I put it like that, does everyone see the problem?”
Ken B, I’ve already explained to you the problem with that “rebuttal.” Is your memory that bad?
The problem of monopolies is not that they “undersupply”, even though that might occur (not the fiat money monopoly though!)
The key problems of monopoly is a tendency to increase in costs, and a tendency to decrease in quality.
Isn’t the logical end point each person enforcing his rights as he sees fit, and being enforced against in turn? Rothbard’s sainted private enforcement armies all of size 1, each appealling to himself as judge and arbiter? If this can’t work, and you are more than welcome to broadcast this possibility far and wide seeking to convince others it can, please do, then Rothbard’s idea would seem to have a fatal flaw.
Read Callahan’s thread.
You have misidentified the logical end point. All subsequent conclusions are therefore in error. Retry.
Not at all. If the argument works for groups of any size it should work for size 1. Assuming, as I am assured is true, 1 is a number.
Yes, the logical conclusion is every individual enforcing his rights as he sees fit.
How is that any different from the present situation? Oh that’s right, it isn’t. It just appears that way to you because to you everyone not in the state is not doing any thinking or acting on the matter.
No, I concede the point some people feel totally screwed, and the state quashes them. Whether that’s good or bad depends on the state and the people.
Good and bad are not mere points of view, Mr. Slavery is OK if enough people believe it so, cousin of Mr. Genocide is good if enough people believe it so.
Yes, the logical conclusion is every individual enforcing his rights as he sees fit.
And there’s the problem. You can’t enforce your rights in any way you see fit at all.
Exactly my point. So each individual becomes his own righteous avenger in this most extreme of Rothbardtopias. Rothbard can’t handle even the most obvious example of his dream.
“Exactly my point. So each individual becomes his own righteous avenger in this most extreme of Rothbardtopias.”
How is that any worse than one person or one small group of people becoming their own righteous avengers vis a vis everyone else?
“And there’s the problem. You can’t enforce your rights in any way you see fit at all.”
Why not?
I’ve been reading this thread and trying to understand what is being claimed. Am I right that a number of people on this site believe that a free market society would regulate itself in the absence of courts or a police force, or that business could function without a mechanism to enforce contracts other than private action? To me this seems fantastic. I know this may seem like a very unsophisticated question, but what would one read if one wanted a primer on these theories.
Murray Rothbard, Bob Murphy’s books, literature that’s posted online at the LvMI’s website, etc.
Yes, that is what they argue.
No, that isn’t what we argue at all.
We argue that a private property society can have private police, courts, and contract resolution. It is not a war of all against all.
Stop lying.
Ignore the “other than private action” bit did we?
Judge for yourself John. When major freedom says “oh no we just have private cops courts laws” is it a lie to say “yes they want it all done through private action”?
Ignore the “or” bit didn’t we?
“Judge for yourself John. When major freedom says “oh no we just have private cops courts laws” is it a lie to say “yes they want it all done through private action”?”
We want it through means that aren’t themselves initiations of violence Ken B.
That’s all.
If we want to stop A from aggressing against B, because aggression is wrong, then it makes no sense to aggress against C in order to acquire resources needed to stop A from aggressing against B.
A private property society is one where its supporters believe it would be unjustified to aggress against C to help B.
A monopoly in protection society is one where its supporters believe it is justified to aggress against C to help B.
I don’t see the controversy of wanting to stop aggression against C, given that we have already agreed that it is wrong for A to aggress against B.
Seriously, what is the intellectual hangup? It’s pretty darn reasonable.
John, a free market society would have regulation, just private regulation. Private police, private courts, private mechanisms to enforce contracts.
Ken B wants to deceive you so that you don’t choose to become an anarchist yourself. So he is lying to you that a free market society has no rules and no enforcement.
Like I haven’t pointed out a thousand times you favour enforcement by private gangs for hire.
Like you didn’t just lie to John by claiming that we believe that
“a free market society would regulate itself in the absence of courts or a police force”
I read John to mean government run courts and police. You call private “protection” gangs for hire police, and private for profit adjudicators judges. I don’t think that’s what John meant by courts and police.
Seriously? If so, my bad, sorry.
But isn’t it too obvious to point out that a private property society would not have violations of property based institutions like government police or courts? I thought it was so obvious that John must have been referring to something a little more complex, if only by one iota.
No no no. You can only claim a monopoly on violence when you WIN silly.
If one were enforcing his rights, how would it possible for another to enforce their rights against him? I think you confuse aggression with defense, a common error among statists. I’m sure your answer is to give the monopoly of force to our overlords in the state because that always works, doesn’t it?
Think harder next time please.
Once again the absurd assumption that everyone always agrees on everything.
If you understand that not everyone agrees, then why on Earth would you want a MONOPOLY, which is an attempt to force agreement on those who will remain in disagreement?
Wouldn’t it be better to allow people to disagree in peace?
That’s the question isn’t it: would it be in peace?
It can’t get any more violent than now, since the violence is perpetual in monopolism.
You have just gotten used to it.
PAGING LORD KEYNES, DANIEL KUEHN, SAMSOM CORWELL, KESHAV SRINIVASAN.
It can’t get any more violent than now.
“It can’t get any more violent than now.”
Why would a private ownership society necessarily be, or more likely be, more violent than what exists today?
A hundred thousand people slaughtered in the middle east…is that even possible without a government with control over resources stolen from millions of people?
Ken B, I think Major_Freedom was just being hyperbolic. Of course he doesn’t think that we’re having the maximum possible level of violence right now. But I do think he believes, as a matter of praxeological certainty, that government action cannot possibly make us better off. (For the record that sounds ridiculous to me. Just look at externalities and market failures, for example.)
Keshav:
Governments are externality creating institutions. If the government wants to stop A from aggressing against B, then it aggresses against everyone else in order to procure needed resources and labor in order to do that.
Neither market failures nor externalities are eliminated, let alone reduced, with the introduction of governments. The introduction of governments makes externalities MORE pronounced, and multiplies the negative consequences of “failures” in cooperation.
At any rate, the argument for anarchy is not in any way refuted or challenged by pointing to externalities or market failures. Private property rights protection is what stops externalities instead of creating them (as it does with government), and any market failures you perceive, are really just you not being able to get what you want from others by dealing with them peacefully and in cooperation.
Major_Freedom, I gave you this example in a previous thread, but I didn’t get a satisfactory response from you. Suppose an asteroid is headed to Earth, and if it strikes then all life on Earth would be wiped out. And suppose the only way to stop it is for the government to collect 10 dollars from each person in the world in order to make a device that can stop it. If the government asks for voluntary donations, and it doesn’t get enough money because people are hoping that other people will contribute, then would it be a Pareto improvement for the government to impose a tax of ten dollars per person and save the world from the asteroid.
Here is an argument for why it is a Pareto improvement. Suppose you have a policy X which makes it so that the state of the world at time t is state B rather than state A, which it otherwise would have been. And once the world is in state B, let’s say you give everyone on the planet a magic button. If even one person presses their button, then the world will magically change to state A. Then if no one presses their button, then I’d say that policy X qualifies as a Pareto improvement.
And by that standard, the the government policy I described would qualify as a Pareto improvement, because presumably after the policy is enacted, no one would press a button that would put the world in the state that it would have been in if the government had not saved the world from the asteroid.
Keshav, i do not think he is being hyperbolic, I think he is being essentialist. He might if pressed agree that The harm done by the violence I envisioned is greaterthan the harm done by the state, but he believes that the level of violence perpetrated by the state being ubiquitous is as high as it can get.
Btw Keshav it does NOT sound ridiculous to me. I can imagine a world in which all markets function and so all intervention does is pareto damage. I think it is abundantly clear we don’t live in such a world, but I am confident I am a lot closer to landsburg on this than you are for example.
Ken B, I think he believes that the violence produced by the ubiquity of government isn’t likely to be exceeded by any other arrangement, but I don’t think he believes that it’s logically impossible.
To be clear, what sounds ridiculous to me is the notion that there is no conceivable world in which government action can make us better off. I certainly agree that it can be possible for no government action to be a Pareto improvement.
Keshav:
“Major_Freedom, I gave you this example in a previous thread, but I didn’t get a satisfactory response from you.”
I thought I showed you that your advocacy was not actually a Pareto improvement.
“Suppose an asteroid is headed to Earth, and if it strikes then all life on Earth would be wiped out. And suppose the only way to stop it is for the government to collect 10 dollars from each person in the world in order to make a device that can stop it. If the government asks for voluntary donations, and it doesn’t get enough money because people are hoping that other people will contribute, then would it be a Pareto improvement for the government to impose a tax of ten dollars per person and save the world from the asteroid.”
If I choose to keep that $10, because I am willing to take on a high risk of death for the reward of $10, then it would not be a Pareto improvement for you to steal that $10 from me. For while you would be better off, I would not be, because you are forcefully preventing me from taking on a risk that I want to take on for a reward that I am willing to accept, i.e. to keep my $10.
Pareto improvements are only improvements that consist of someone being better off without anyone else being worse off. Clearly by stealing my $10, you are making me worse off, because by resisting your theft, I am showing you that I am better off keeping the $10, to compensate me for the risk of death.
What you are actually arguing has nothing to do with my well-being as I see fit. What you are arguing is how to improve your own situation coercively at my expense. You want to be able to incur less risk of death by stealing from me, whereas I am willing to take on the risk that you will willingly pay $20.
You feel that because my life can continue to exist like yours can, if you paid $20 and I paid $0, that this is “unfair.”
You want to be able to save your life by coercing me, even though I am perfectly willing to incur a higher risk of death for a reward of keeping $10.
If you don’t pay $20, but you only pay $10, and as a result the Earth saving machine is not built, and the human race ends, then that is in fact a Pareto improvement, because everyone got what they wanted GIVEN that the existence of everyone else’s wants were not forcefully eliminated.
If you want to claim that the end of the human race is undesirable, then that is YOUR individual desire, that has nothing to do with me. If I am willing to live my life, and then die on my own terms (vis a vis the natural world devoid of coercion from other individuals), then you are not helping me by coercing me to save yourself. You are not making a Pareto improvement by coercion!
“Here is an argument for why it is a Pareto improvement. Suppose you have a policy X which makes it so that the state of the world at time t is state B rather than state A, which it otherwise would have been. And once the world is in state B, let’s say you give everyone on the planet a magic button. If even one person presses their button, then the world will magically change to state A. Then if no one presses their button, then I’d say that policy X qualifies as a Pareto improvement.”
Suppose I am willing to press that button because I would rather keep the $10.
“And by that standard, the the government policy I described would qualify as a Pareto improvement, because presumably after the policy is enacted, no one would press a button that would put the world in the state that it would have been in if the government had not saved the world from the asteroid.”
If that is the case, then no coercion would be necessary in the first place. The very fact that you are introducing coercion in a world where you also state everyone would be willing to pay $10, contradicts your own premises that assume coercion is not necessary.
You’re just trying to ex post rationalize coercing others to save yourself. You’re falsely imputing your own subjective values into other people’s minds, thus eliminating their own subjective values.
Saving the world from an asteroid through coercion is not a Pareto improvement is there are people who would be willing to risk their own deaths if others choose NOT to pay more “on their behalf”.
Ken B:
“Keshav, i do not think he is being hyperbolic, I think he is being essentialist. He might if pressed agree that The harm done by the violence I envisioned is greater than the harm done by the state, but he believes that the level of violence perpetrated by the state being ubiquitous is as high as it can get.”
It’s more than that. An individual can do a lot more damage to others with violence if he successfully steals from everyone through state activity, than he could if he steals from others through a private institution that can only steal from a subset of the population.
Keshav:
“Ken B, I think he believes that the violence produced by the ubiquity of government isn’t likely to be exceeded by any other arrangement, but I don’t think he believes that it’s logically impossible.”
How can an individual do more damage in a world of private property where he can’t steal from everyone through a state, than he could in a world where he can steal from everyone “legally” through a state?
Just consider who are the world’s most murderous destructive people ever. I would guess that the top 100 murderers ever were acting through state authority.
“To be clear, what sounds ridiculous to me is the notion that there is no conceivable world in which government action can make us better off.”
How in the world can initiating violence against people make them better off? I find it MORE ridiculous how anyone can believe it can.
“I certainly agree that it can be possible for no government action to be a Pareto improvement.”
Assume there is no government. How can INTRODUCING a new initiation of violence in the form of a state, be a Pareto improvement?
If Pareto improvement is a mandatory premise, then it is necessary for there to be no states at all. The very introduction of some private property owners coercing other private property owners into hiring only ONE person or group of people as their protector, cannot possibly be a Pareto improvement. I challenge you to show otherwise.
I can imagine a world where one has violence used against them to make them better off, at least ex post facto. It’s true, violence ex ante is necessarily making someone worse off at the moment of the initiation of violence; however, couldn’t it be conceivable that someone after the fact might say, “meh, I guess I’m glad you initiated violence against me because I feel like I have gained more then I would have if I hadn’t been coerced into this action.”
But I don’t see this as justifying the existence of a legalized institution of coercion and violence. Even if someone feels like they are better off ex post facto, they should still have legal recourse if they choose, or not.
Sorry….the “or not” isn’t necessary.
“I thought I showed you that your advocacy was not actually a Pareto improvement.” Well, at least not to my satisfaction.
“Clearly by stealing my $10, you are making me worse off, because by resisting your theft, I am showing you that I am better off keeping the $10, to compensate me for the risk of death.” I think the problem is that you’re evaluating costs and benefits from an ex ante standpoint rather than an ex post standpoint.
“Suppose I am willing to press that button because I would rather keep the $10.” Major_Freedom, that makes no sense. Pressing the button would be 100% guaranteed to put you into state A, in which all life on Earth is destroyed and you won’t be able to enjoy your 10 dollars. So why in the world would you press the button? It would be a guaranteed suicide button.
“The very fact that you are introducing coercion in a world where you also state everyone would be willing to pay $10, contradicts your own premises that assume coercion is not necessary.” Where am I assuming that coercion is not necessary?
Keshav:
“I think the problem is that you’re evaluating costs and benefits from an ex ante standpoint rather than an ex post standpoint.”
All valuation is ex ante. Valuation of a good is established on the basis of its expected benefit, not its past benefit.
I don’t care if my gold benefited ancient Egyptians. I value my gold based on its expected benefit.
If a person chose to incur the risk of death in order to enjoy 1 minute and a half of skydiving thrill, then if he dies after, you can’t claim that pointing a gun at innocent people because they might die later on, benefits them.
You are conflating ex post events with ex ante well-being.
“Major_Freedom, that makes no sense. Pressing the button would be 100% guaranteed to put you into state A, in which all life on Earth is destroyed and you won’t be able to enjoy your 10 dollars. So why in the world would you press the button? It would be a guaranteed suicide button.”
You’re confused. The risk of death from an asteroid based on the assumption that others value their lives more than the risk of death in exchange for keeping more than $10, say $20, is not properly analogized by a button that guarantees everyone’s death.
If I am willing to incur the risk of my own death in exchange for keeping $10…NOW…then you are not helping me by stealing $10 from me. You are making me worse off, even if you are convinced that doing so would stop me from dying.
I take risks every day of my life. I don’t need you and I don’t want you to use violence against me to reduce the risks I am willing to take, even if you might save my life ex post.
For if I accepted that you would be benefiting me from doing so, then logically speaking, I should have to accept you putting me into a forced coma, so that I don’t risk death driving on the highway, or eating spoiled food/poison, or getting shot in the street from a mugger.
What you are doing, and what I keep trying to make you see but seemingly on deaf ears, is that you want to be able to impute your own values for your life, by rejecting the values being made by other people on their own lives.
If I am willing to risk my own death by keeping the $10, then explain to me how you are making me better off stealing that $10 from me. I am telling you that I am better off keeping the $10. And yet you are not listening to that. You are only listening to your own desire for life, and to harm me so that you stand a better chance of living.
“Where am I assuming that coercion is not necessary?”
By assuming Pareto improvement as a mandatory premise of course. Pareto improvements means you can benefit yourself without making me worse off. Yet clearly robbing from me makes me worse off, because of the very existence of my resistance towards your activity.
Or did you consider yourself the final judge and jury of other people’s desires?
“I can imagine a world where one has violence used against them to make them better off, at least ex post facto.”
So then you believe that putting everyone except you into a coma might make everyone better off, because you would be preventing them from dying from every cause of death that presupposes their being awake!
Ah, I think I see what happened.
I wrote, “I can imagine a world where one has violence used against them to make them better off, at least ex post facto.” when what I meant was, “I can imagine a world where one has violence used against them which after the fact, the victim decides that the violence actually was ‘for the best'”.
Or maybe I’m still missing the point because I also said, ” couldn’t it be conceivable that someone after the fact might say, “meh, I guess I’m glad you initiated violence against me because I feel like I have gained more then I would have if I hadn’t been coerced into this action.”, which should have clarified what I meant.
Ben B:
“I can imagine a world where one has violence used against them which after the fact, the victim decides that the violence actually was ‘for the best’.”
A world where violence is used against them? You mean using violence against everyone, after which everyone thanks you?
There are those, like me, who would not thank another for shooting me in the arm preventing me from getting on an airplane that later crashes. I’d rather not be shot at and live in a world where I am at risk of death due to non-coercive means.
What you are really saying is that you can imagine a world with a benevolent, perfect forecasting dictator.
I didnt realize you were saying, “how in the world can initiating violence against [all] people make [all] of them better off?” I misread you as saying, “how in the world can initiating violence against a person make him better off?”
I did it again. I can imagine a world where at least one individual initiates violence against another individual, and then he believes after the fact that he is better off for being aggressed against.
I don’t know why I used “them” and “him” interchangeably.
So I’m not denying that in this world there may be individuals who would never ex post facto think that they are better off from the initiation of violence no matter what the benefits may be.
No, I can’t imagine a world with a benevelonet, forecasting dictator.
MF: “Pareto improvements are only improvements that consist of someone being better off without anyone else being worse off.”
This is wrong. Pareto improvements often make somebody worse off, but they make others better off by a greater amount. This is the whole point of competition.
In the unlikely event of the only options being stealing $10 from you or total world destruction, stealing your $10 is a Pareto improvement.
Putting it another way, if the idea of having $10 stolen from you is so distasteful that you would only accept $1M as compensation, then still it would be a Pareto improvement, as everybody else in the world would be prepared to cough up a fraction of a cent each to compensate you for the theft.
Harold, you’re wrong about this: “Pareto improvements often make somebody worse off, but they make others better off by a greater amount.” No, that is called a Kaldor-Hicks (KH) improvement. Kaldor-Hicks is the efficiency criterion Steve Landsburg always talks about. It’s where you add up all the benefits of everyone in society, measured in dollars using willingness to pay or willingness to accept, and then you add up the costs in the same way, and then if the social benefit exceeds the social cost, it’s a Kaldor-Hicks improvement. A Pareto improvement, on the other hand, is where absolutely no one is made worse off and at least one person is made better off.
Now what is true is that if you have a policy that’s a Kaldor-Hicks improvement, then there exists a set of voluntary transfers (i.e. the winners compensating the losers) which will make the policy into a Pareto improvement. But that doesn’t mean that a Kaldor-Hicks improvement is a Pareto improvement, because that set of voluntary transfers may not happen.
Keshav
Then has MF nailed you and must you amend your claim to Kaldor-Hicks improvment?
Keshav
I mean this point from MF:
“Where am I assuming that coercion is not necessary?”
By assuming Pareto improvement as a mandatory premise of course.
Or are you doing the calculation ex post?
Harold:
“MF: “Pareto improvements are only improvements that consist of someone being better off without anyone else being worse off.”
“This is wrong. Pareto improvements often make somebody worse off, but they make others better off by a greater amount. This is the whole point of competition.”
No, that’s wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency
To wit:
“Pareto efficiency, or Pareto optimality, is a state of allocation of resources in which it is impossible to make any one individual better off without making at least one individual worse off.”
How can you not even know the definition of a Pareto improvement?
The rest of your post is not even worth reading.
“All valuation is ex ante. Valuation of a good is established on the basis of its expected benefit, not its past benefit.” Yes, if someone is making a decision, they only make an ex ante valuation of benefits and costs. But that doesn’t mean that’s the only possible way to calculate their benefits and costs.
“If a person chose to incur the risk of death in order to enjoy 1 minute and a half of skydiving thrill, then if he dies after, you can’t claim that pointing a gun at innocent people because they might die later on, benefits them.” Well, if they’re in fact going to die, and if they would not sky-dive if they knew they were going to die, then it arguably does benefit them to stop them from skydiving.
“You are conflating ex post events with ex ante well-being.” I’m not conflating them, I’m just suggesting that ex-post preferences are the relevant yardstick for efficiency analysis rather than ex-ante preferences.
“You’re confused. The risk of death from an asteroid based on the assumption that others value their lives more than the risk of death in exchange for keeping more than $10, say $20, is not properly analogized by a button that guarantees everyone’s death.” I’m not trying to make any kind of analogy. I’m just using the criterion I gave, where if a policy makes the state of the world at time t into state B rather than state A, and no one in state B would press a button that would put the world into state A, then the policy would be a Pareto improvement. If you disagree with that principle, that’s one thing, but do you at least agree that I’m applying it correctly?
“I take risks every day of my life. I don’t need you and I don’t want you to use violence against me to reduce the risks I am willing to take, even if you might save my life ex post.” I’m not suggesting that stopping you from taking a risk would make you better off merely if you would have died otherwise. I’m suggesting that stopping you from taking a risk would make you better off if you would have died otherwise AND if after finding out that you would have died otherwise, you wouldn’t want to press a magic button that would put you in the state of the world in which I didn’t stop you.
“Pareto improvements means you can benefit yourself without making me worse off. Yet clearly robbing from me makes me worse off, because of the very existence of my resistance towards your activity.” The point is, you wouldn’t resist if you had a crystal ball telling the future. So the fundamental question is, does forcing you to act in the way that you would have acted if you had more information qualify as making you better off or worse off? Many economists and philosophers would say that it makes you better off, but I assume you disagree.
Ken B, yes, I’m doing the calculation ex-post. So I am talking about Pareto improvement, not Kaldor-Hicks improvement.
Well I agree ex-post makes sense in thought experiments like this, but MF will disagree.
I also think that when you are evaluating a coercive policy thought experiment like you asked about it’s pedantic to distinguish KH from P, as you can simply make the transfers an implicit part of the coercion.
OK – my definition was wrong, but in that case we are not at Pareto equilibrium at the point where you keep your $10.
“in which it is *impossible* to make any one individual better off without making at least one individual worse off.”
In our example, there is such a possibility – everyone could compensate you for the theft of your $10, leaving you no worse off, and everyone else better off.
Keshav:
“Yes, if someone is making a decision, they only make an ex ante valuation of benefits and costs. But that doesn’t mean that’s the only possible way to calculate their benefits and costs.”
It’s the only framework of which choice and action come into play, which is the subject matter of economics.
History is for the historian.
“If a person chose to incur the risk of death in order to enjoy 1 minute and a half of skydiving thrill, then if he dies after, you can’t claim that pointing a gun at innocent people because they might die later on, benefits them.”
“Well, if they’re in fact going to die, and if they would not sky-dive if they knew they were going to die, then it arguably does benefit them to stop them from skydiving.”
But you don’t know that. You’re talking hindsight, in which case you can always imagine shooting at people, robbing people, harrassing people, enslaving them, strapping them to a chair, doing all sorts of bad stuff, to stop them from doing what they did in fact do that they might have regretted, or might not have regretted.
“You are conflating ex post events with ex ante well-being.”
“I’m not conflating them, I’m just suggesting that ex-post preferences are the relevant yardstick for efficiency analysis rather than ex-ante preferences.”
But humans are always compelled to make choices and select courses of action ex ante. You’re taling about history, which is already past and settled. In the present is where we have to decide rights, exclusion rules, and right courses of action.
“You’re confused. The risk of death from an asteroid based on the assumption that others value their lives more than the risk of death in exchange for keeping more than $10, say $20, is not properly analogized by a button that guarantees everyone’s death.”
“I’m not trying to make any
kind of analogy. I’m just using the criterion I gave, where if a policy makes the state of the world at time t into state B rather than state A, and no one in state B would press a button that would put the world into state A, then the policy would be a Pareto improvement.”
But that is still history, which is past and settled. You’re claiming that looking back, people would have preferred B to A. But going forward, they value the risk of A and the risk of B.
“If you disagree with that principle, that’s one thing, but do you at least agree that I’m applying it correctly?”
You’re essentially just saying that it would have been moral to murder Hitler as a youth, assuming we have perfect prediction capabilities.
“I take risks every day of my life. I don’t need you and I don’t want you to use violence against me to reduce the risks I am willing to take, even if you might save my life ex post.”
“I’m not suggesting that stopping you from taking a risk would make you better off merely if you would have died otherwise. I’m suggesting that stopping you from taking a risk would make you better off if you would have died otherwise AND if after finding out that you would have died otherwise, you wouldn’t want to press a magic button that would put you in the state of the world in which I didn’t stop you.”
That again is hindsight. That is where ethics does not penetrate.
“Pareto improvements means you can benefit yourself without making me worse off. Yet clearly robbing from me makes me worse off, because of the very existence of my resistance towards your activity.”
“The point is, you wouldn’t resist if you had a crystal ball telling the future. So the fundamental question is, does forcing you to act in the way that you would have acted if you had more information qualify as making you better off or worse off? Many economists and philosophers would say that it makes you better off, but I assume you disagree.”
Yes, because you can’t know the future with certainty. Nobody has a crystal ball.
Harold:
“OK – my definition was wrong, but in that case we are not at Pareto equilibrium at the point where you keep your $10.”
Sure we are. Nobody is worse off.
“In our example, there is such a possibility – everyone could compensate you for the theft of your $10, leaving you no worse off, and everyone else better off.”
Compensating me for past aggression doesn’t erase my being made worse off when I was made worse off, which is when Pareto improvement analysis is made.
Major Freedom and Keshav:
I think I see the problem here. The original set up says ” the only way to stop it is for the government to collect 10 dollars from each person in the world” I specified the only options being stealing $10 from you or total world destruction. You say that no one is made worse off if you do not pay the $10, but actually the world probably ends and everyone except you is worse off by their own valuation.
Compare with a factory owner that offers a small wage cut or they will almost certainly close down. Everyone agrees except Union Bob, who says he has worked hard for decent pay and would rather see the factory close that see anyone take a pay cut. Is it a Pareto improvement to impose the wage cut? Well, no, because Bob is made worse off. Are we at Pareto optimum? Surely not.
In the asteriod case, lets see if I can sort out the ex poste / ex ante thing. We need to separate out the genuine individual assessment of the value of the mission, and attempted free-loading. Lets take just 2 people, Alice is very risk averse, Bob is not. Both would pay $10 if the destruction was certain. The best estimate is 90% probability of destruction. Alice is risk averse, so is happy to spend $9.98 – only slightly less than the $10 for certain death. Bob is more happy to take a risk and is only willing to spend $5. Surely Pareto optimum is some apportioning according to these figures. Say the actual cost is a bit less than the maximum they are prepared to pay to avoid certain destruction -conveniently the total cost is $14.98. So Alice pays what she thinks it is worth $9.98, and Bob pays what he thinks it is worth $5. Each is contributing what they think it is worth to mitigate the risk. Forcing Bob to pay the same as Alice would not be a Pareto improvement. Whether the asteroid hits is not relevant. Do you agree with this so far?
Now lets bring in Charlie. he has the same risk aversion as Bob, but he figures he would rather pay nothing and get everyone else to pay a bit more. He refuses to contribute, gambling on everyone else chipping in a bit extra. He is attempting to free-load. Is it a Pareto improvement to force him to pay what he actually thinks it was worth? No, because he is not actually being made worse off, except for that fact that force is being used against him, or yes, because of the force used against him? By resisting, he is showing that he is being made worse off.
Ben B:
For those people who are a victim of violence, but they later thank the initiator of the violence, they would still have a right to seek restitution, IMO. What an individual does with his right is up to him. If I am shot at, but I later thank the shooter, that doesn’t mean that I have granted justification to initiations of violence.
Yes, that’s why I said, “he should still have legal recourse if he chooses.”
I was using plural pronouns when I should have been using singular pronouns to refer back to the singular noun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPFQKpRnd0
I think Gene’s argument is a lot worse than you are exposing it for. When he says this
I really don’t know if he is failing to comprehend the issue or plainly twisting reality to fit his worldview. The simple point is that the problem of people buying and selling illegal drugs (or sex, or alcohol during Prohibition) were engaging in legitimate activities that had been criminalised by….guess who…. The State.
That, in simple terms, means that there exist agents of The State who may initiate force against these people and, given that the State has given itself a monopoly over the legal use of force, legitimised the initiation of force by its own agents, declared that it would not use legal force against the agents who initiate force and in fact declared that it would initiate further force against the could-be plaintiff.
This does not mean that the people buying and selling illegal drugs (or sex, or alcohol during Prohibition) were bereft of legal protection from The State. It in fact means that they are under threat from agents of the entire enforcing machinery of The State. To make matters worse, the monopoly of The State over the legal use of force ensures that they are left with no market mechanism to protect themselves from such aggressors.
The most fundamental prerequisite, therefore, of engaging in people buying and selling things like illegal drugs is the readiness to break the law. However, this automatically puts them under the constant threat of someone in the know ratting on them to agents of The State and bringing the might of The State on their heads like a 1 ton hammer hard on a measly coconut. As no such person is in a position to fight The State and win, the only option left for them is to keep things secret. Since there will always be people who
1. are so morally uncertain that having entered the criminalised profession, they suddenly come to the conclusion that the activity their employer is engaging in is wrong and that reporting to the agents of The State is the right course of action or
2. have scores to settle with the people running the criminalised activity and have no compunctions about using the might of The State to achieve their ends,
people who engage in criminalised activities are left with no option but to use force or the threat of force to keep their activities secret. The reason I used the word use rather than initiate is that they are not initiating force against their victims. Rather, they are using force in retaliation against those who are threatening to use the might of The State to initiate force against them.
What this in turn means is that eventually (not necessarily in the long run), only those ready to use force to keep their business dealings secret would enter such businesses. Is it then any surprise that only those who are more ready to use force engage in activities like selling drugs or sex?
IMO, Gene’s argument is lousy. And I am being very charitable to him.
You aren’t getting his point. He wouldn’t deny the root problem is the state banniing X. What he claims though is that the situations that arise from that offer a kind of experiment we can observe.
Analogy. We have overcrowded prisons. We can still look at what happens in prison to try to learn about certain things, such as homosexual attraction in men, or the effect of lack of privacy, etc.
And you aren’t getting mine. You say
What I said up there (which you completely failed to comprehend) is that while we can observe these situations, they are not an example of how PDAs would organise themselves on a free-market. What I said when I said this
was that The State, by enforcing its monopoly over the legal use of force, has made it impossible for a free market in defense to work. Therefore, my point was that Gene’s claim it as silly as silly gets.
Just to add to what I said out there, I was pointing out that Gene is pointing to a problem created by State intervention as the argument against removing that intervention. I doubt you can find something more ridiculous than that.
Except that is not remotely what he is doing.
Wrong. That is precisely what he is doing. He is pointing to “lawlessness” caused by State intervention that prevented a free market from existing and identifying it as an example of what outcomes would look like on a free market.
Bingo. Ken B is just trying to convince others (himself?) that what we observe in an industry of which private legislation and regulation is banned by the state, is what we will see if there was private legislation and regulation.
He’s obviously doing that because he wants to believe statism is better than anarchy. He’s just scared.
Bala wins.
Although I almost never agree with Ken B, he does strike me as quite intelligent. I’m very surprised by his interpretation of Gene’s post.
As an aside, I don’t even accept the premise that drug cartels are somehow worse or more violent than the State, although certainly, as Bala has repeatedly pointed out, they are in no way indicate of what would occur in a free market.
I agree they do not represent what would happen in a free market *for drugs*. That’s not Gene’s claim. His claim is that prohibition creates an artificial hothouse in which private enforcement can grow and the results are ugly. If you want to argue the artificiality makes a difference, then that’s an argument to make. just saying well the government created this hothouse so it doesn’t count is inadequate.
Why is it inadequate?
The scenario you are describing IS in fact a governmental one, is it not? Why should we think of it as something other than that?
Ken B,
Your argument is beyond laughable. Here is what Gene has said in his nonsensical piece.
Can’t you see how ridiculous this statement is? If so, you must be as blind as Gene. The ugly results you can see are not an example of firms that could have taken the Rothbardian path but chose, on their own, not to.
The Rothbardian path was NOT open to these people because the market was NOT free. There was a fully-armed monopolist in the production of defence hovering over the heads of those people.
The argument is NOT JUST that government created this hothouse but also that the consequences – the criminal gangs that are in operation – are a result of the government’s intervention that eliminated the possibility of their following the Rothbardian path.
The silliness, which you still persist in, is the claim that while the firms had the option to pursue the Rothbardian path, they chose not to do so. That claim is as silly as silly gets.
The point is this – Gene wrote out a truckload of nonsense. That you buy into it only reflects how charitable Robert Fellner has been to you.
Ken B, you’re completely confused on the point Bala is making.
Gene’s point, the one you believe is being misunderstood, is flawed. The heavy drug industry is not an example of free market in protection. For the state BANS final authority in legislation and protection to private parties. It claims a monopoly on enforcement. It disallows private regulation.
Thus, the violence you see in the heavy drug industry is correlated with what happens when private protection and regulation is BANNED by a coercive monopolist.
So it isn’t just that organized crime/drug dealing operates in conditions of anarchy, they operate in conditions of anarchy where government prosecution prevents them from reaching stable, peaceful, and profitable solutions? This is the point of Murphy’s article right?
“We all have the empirical evidence in front of our faces that prohibition goes hand-in-hand with increased violence. “
Oh lord, and we have empirical evidence right before our eyes that when states stop enforcing the law, crime waves happen:
“Those who prefer real-world experiments to sophisticated statistics may take note of the Montreal police strike of 1969. Within hours of the gendarmes abandoning their posts, that famously safe city was hit with six bank robberies, twelve arsons, a hundred lootings, and two homicides before the Mounties were called in to restore order.” (Pinker, Steven. 2011. The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. p. 122).
Not to mention plenty of our examples if you care to look.
Also, we have stark empirical evidence that stateless societies are horrendously more violent than state-based societies.
correction:
plenty of “other” examples
Nice to see you back on the anti Rothbard team LK, had me worried for a moment.
🙂
Yet more evidence that Ken B is at base a tribalist. Us versus them. Monopoly versus competition. Centralization versus decentralization. Good guys and bad guys. Violent coercers versus peaceful producers and traders. Impoverishment versus prosperity.
Actually I was teasing LK, because on his blog I referred to one of his arguments as making him sound like Rothbard.
As usual, LK is using a FLAWED a priori theory to interpret history.
The Montreal police strike is not an example of what happens in a world of private protection institutions. It is an example of what happens RIGHT AFTER protection institutions stop protecting. That could happen in a monopoly protection world or a private protection world. If protectors suddenly stopped protecting, then it is not surprising that violence would increase in the short run. All production takes time, including the production of defense. You can’t expect private police buildings, headquarters, branches, employees, equipment, the whole nine yards, to INSTANTLY appear after a monopoly system ceases to function.
“Also, we have stark empirical evidence that stateless societies are horrendously more violent than state-based societies.”
Again, conflating correlation with causation.
“That could happen in a monopoly protection world or a private protection world. If protectors suddenly stopped protecting, then it is not surprising that violence would increase in the short run.”
lol.. private protection agencies in Rothbardtopia do not enforce the law unless they are PAID to. All crimes are private torts: there is no criminal law.
Already you have a serious flaw: there are no private police out there enforcing the law throughout the community on a daily basis, unless someone pays them for a specific service.
“private protection agencies in Rothbardtopia do not enforce the law unless they are PAID to.”
Same thing with the state. If the state didn’t collect payment (in the form of taxes), then it could not offer any protection.
“All crimes are private torts: there is no criminal law.”
Not necessarily. Individuals who have different protectors can agree to what constitutes crime beyond private torts, just like different country governments agree to criminal activity the world over, such as genocide.
“Already you have a serious flaw: there are no private police out there enforcing the law throughout the community on a daily basis, unless someone pays them for a specific service.”
That’s because the state claims monopoly on final jurisdiction. It bans private legislation and regulation in protecting, adjudicating, and courts having final authority.
You have exposed no flaw.
“Not necessarily. Individuals who have different protectors can agree to what constitutes crime beyond private torts, just like different country governments agree to criminal activity the world over, such as genocide.”
That does not follow. Rothbard’s natural law ethics is a statement of what is moral in Rothbardtopia and what is not.
Now you are saying that people are free to ignore natural rights ethics and interfere in freedom?
So if some people agree that racial discrimination in hiring is a crime they can make private protection agencies enforce that against people who disagree?
“That does not follow.”
I didn’t say it did “follow” from the past comment. I only argued, correctly, that individuals CAN, and they DO, agree to criminal law despite being providers of security in different jurisdictions.
Contrary to your false claim, it is not necessary that ALL law be private tort law. Individuals who agree to hire different protectors, are not isolated in terms of communication and learning.
“Rothbard’s natural law ethics is a statement of what is moral in Rothbardtopia and what is not.”
Right. Initiations of violence are immoral, and using violence against violent people is not immoral.
“Now you are saying that people are free to ignore natural rights ethics and interfere in freedom?”
No, I did not say that. Natural rights is not inconsistent with criminal law beyond private torts. Individuals can agree that murder is wrong, even though those individuals do not have the same protector.
“So if some people agree that racial discrimination in hiring is a crime they can make private protection agencies enforce that against people who disagree?”
They can try, but they would be initiating violence.
If such initiations of violence are correctly identified as unjustified, then those who are pointing their guns at otherwise peaceful people would be rightly identified as criminals and punished. If they are incorrectly identified as justified, then it would simply be what we have now under statism.
Proven? Meh. Reason to beleve.
Religious cultists come in two broad types, lovers and smiters. It doesn’t matter so much what they say, it’s their attitude to outsiders. Falwell talked love but he was a smiter.
Rothbard, a cult leader for sure, was a smiter. Many of his followers, basking in talk of “my PROPERTY rights”, sounding like Calhoun, whom they admire more than Garrison, Douglass, or Lincoln, are smiters.
Nothing wrong with defensively smiting aggressive smiters Ken B.
Unless of course you want aggressive smiters to rule your life.
Calhoun. Fitting.
Oh I kid you not about Calhoun. Bob said once that if I want to call Calhoun “pro slavery” writer I have to logically call Jefferson a pro slavery writer too.
Now that’s just bad logic. Jefferson’s writings are not proslavery. He is therefore not a pro slavery writer, he is a hypocrite who owned slaves and wrote. But Calhoun wrote defending slavery. Calhoun argued slavery was good for the slave. But aside from the bad logic there is the impulse here, the reflexive desire to defend and apologize for John C Calhoun.
(To be clear because Bob is blowing a gasket as he reads this, I do not think Bob is a racist or a cryptoracist. But I think extreme southern apologetics afflict his movement, and many of its members are.)
How is Calhoun “fitting”?
JohCalhoun was a piece of crap. The Founding Fathers at least had cobflicting feelings about slavery. It was only into the eighteenth century that the South began to fawn over the institution.
Fitting or not, comparing John C Calhoun favorably to Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Wendell Phillips speaks eloquently about one’s moral judgment.
Yikes! Who has done that?
Samson
http://web.archive.org/web/19961102133048/http://www.dixienet.org/spatriot/vol2no5/abolish.html
http://reason.com/archives/2005/06/01/behind-the-jeffersonian-veneer
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/246eaokp.asp
the exchange starting here http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/12/econstories-attacks-mainstream-obsession-with-consumption-daniel-kuehn-cries-foul.html#comment-52693
Samson
I replied but due to having several lin ks the comment awaits Bob’s blessing.
I read the review on the The Weekly Standard’s website and all I can say is wow.
LK note how incompatible is the answer you get with the one I got when I talked about groups of size 1.
“Also, we have stark empirical evidence that stateless societies are horrendously more violent than state-based societies.”
And empirical evidence is meaningless without a comprehensive theory to back it in which the evidence clearly fits the theory.
When your hypothesis is “stateless societies are horrendously more violent than state-based societies, all else being equal”, and your theory offer a rough but reasonable idea of how this would work logically, but your evidence for this is a bunch of stateless societies that existed 2000 years ago compared to a bunch of state-based societies today, your evidence doesn’t match that which was spelled out in your theory (since you have not controlled for all possible variables) and therefore doesn’t lend any real weight whatsoever to your hypothesis.
You are literally the epitome of everything that is wrong with the science of economics, because you and the rest of your ilk clearly can’t construct a valid theory out of a hypothesis nor find actual evidence to support your theory even if your livelihood depended on it.
The country would be so much better off if we had a private police force working to maximize profits while their power is not limited by the Bill of Rights. Seriously, what’s the appeal? Do you want cops to be able to engage in racial profiling?
Torture. Seriously, check Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty.
The state tortures, and yet neither you nor LK are shouting from the rooftops.
I wonder why…
And why would you assume that? Not every one is an advocate of “revenge torture” like you.
Torture should be illegal for any state or private agent. Do you agree Ken b?
“And why would you assume that? ”
Assume what? I made a statement based on observing your posts, and then I asked a question.
“Not every one is an advocate of “revenge torture” like you.”
Not everyone is willing to punish torturers.
“Torture should be illegal for any state or private agent.”
And what if the state continues to torture people? Do you think that your absolute silence on the matter is going to change it?
Yes I agree.
Some things described as torture by activists are not, and their use can be argued, waterboarding, but most cases are clear.
Why is using force to take wealth from people who stole wealth justified, but hurting someone who hurt others not justified?
I’m not trying to set up any gotcha or anything, I’m being serious. I don’t understand why you are in favor of eye for an eye in so many thing except bodily harm.
If a person you know you can take punched your wife in the mouth, then would you not consider it justified to punch him in the mouth at least, and if he doesn’t relent, keep punching him to make sure he doesn’t attack her again?
That’s “torture”, strictly speaking.
I think you and LK need to seriously think about this more, because I don’t believe you are going beyond the image of an innocent man tied up in a chair while goons clip off his fingers in order to coerce him into telling where he hid the diamonds.
Would you allow physical torture against someone who only stole possessions?
It is consistent with my position that not all rights of property rights that different kinds of violations might be punished differently.
“Would you allow physical torture against someone who only stole possessions?”
I think an individual using force to protect their person and property from harassers and thieves is justified, but limited to eye for eye principle.
I said I think torture is justified against a torturer. Disagree?
“It is consistent with my position that not all rights of property rights that different kinds of violations might be punished differently.”
I don’t get this sentence.
Sure, I agree that not all violations of rights should be treated identically. One should not murder another if they stole a loaf of bread. But that is not inconsistent with all rights being property rights, and that any claim that there are other rights besides, are really just claims that property rights are not really rights at all.
Your provisos imply that not all rights have the same status. But by claiming that all rights of property rights that’s what you’re trying to argue. If there are hierarchies of “property” rights that we don’t need the word property applied to all of them it’s just syntactic sugar.
My claim is that there are some rights which are different from your right to own your refuse. Keshav’s right not to be beaten is not the same kind of right as you’re right not to have your garbage stolen.
Ken B:
“Your provisos imply that not all rights have the same status.”
How so? If all of these rights cannot be violated, there is no implied conflict in them.
“But by claiming that all rights of property rights that’s what you’re trying to argue.”
If all rights are property rights, there is no hierarchy of rights.
“If there are hierarchies of “property” rights that we don’t need the word property applied to all of them it’s just syntactic sugar.”
There is no hierarchy of rights.
“My claim is that there are some rights which are different from your right to own your refuse.”
Your claim, as explained above, is actually just a claim that private property rights should be violated, according to when you think they should be violated.
“Keshav’s right not to be beaten is not the same kind of right as you’re right not to have your garbage stolen.”
Suppose he beats me. I don’t have a right to beat him?
I’m not sure if this is a Poe or the symptom of something much worse.
What’s a Poe?
Samson:
It’s something else.
Not dare touch it, huh? I’m reminded of my great uncle’s chicken farm.
Ken B. says:
Poe’s law.
Merci.
No Poe. You are in The Rothbard Zone, a region not even Rod Serling dared imagine. Can parents starve their infants and sell the carcass for sex toys? The part debated here is the ownership of the carcass.
Looks like it’s time for the use of rights language to die from ethical discourse, then.
Regarding Rothbard’s punishment theory, this [1] article by Jim Davies is very relevant IMO.
[1] http://strike-the-root.com/punishment
“We may qualify this discussion in one important sense: police may use such coercive methods provided that the suspect turns out to be guilty, and provided that the police are treated as themselves criminal if the suspect is not proven guilty. For, in that case, the rule of no force against non-criminals would still apply. Suppose, for example, that police beat and torture a suspected murderer to find information (not to wring a confession, since obviously a coerced confession could never be considered valid). If the suspect turns out to be guilty, then the police should be exonerated, for then they have only ladled out to the murderer a parcel of what he deserves in return; “
Rothbard, M. N. 1998. The Ethics of Liberty, New York University Press, New York, N.Y. and London. p. 82.
Just watch as the Rothbardians on this blog scream that such torture is totally “moral”. At one point M_F was telling us that he totally supports “revenge torture” as a completely moral practice,
If taking wealth away from someone who stole wealth is justified, why isn’t torturing a torturer justified?
It isn’t justified. As with anyone accused of a crime, a formal trial with rule of law is the only thing justified, and if the person is found guilty, an appropriate sentence of imprisonment, WITHOUT torture.
“It isn’t justified.”
Not good enough. I asked:
If taking wealth away from someone who stole wealth is justified, why isn’t torturing a torturer justified?
“As with anyone accused of a crime, a formal trial with rule of law is the only thing justified, and if the person is found guilty, an appropriate sentence of imprisonment, WITHOUT torture.”
Why? Why is it OK to use force to take wealth from a person who stole wealth, but it’s not OK to use force to hurt someone the same way they hurt others?
Because not all rights are property rights. You would degrade some rights to the status of mere property rights, and then, as you argue here, feel free to deprive others of them in an auction for violence. His proprty right in his fingernails is no great than yours in your spat out orange pips.
Ken B:
“Because not all rights are property rights.”
If you grant that property rights are legitimate rights, then what rights that are not property rights can be added to property rights to give us a better collection of rights, without violating property rights?
“You would degrade some rights to the status of mere property rights”
Why are rights “degraded” when put to the status of property rights?
“and then, as you argue here, feel free to deprive others of them in an auction for violence.”
How does one “deprive” others of rights, in a context of property rights? And, how does one “rectify” the issue here, without violating property rights?
“His proprty right in his fingernails is no great than yours in your spat out orange pips.”
I don’t understand this comment.
Rights that are more important. So a starving family can pick weeds from your forest which you have never visited while you dine in splendour unaware of what they have done to your dandelions, wild radishes, and grubs.
Morality cannot be reduced to simple premises from which inviolable rules may be drawn. The premises are never known in full, they always have exemptions etc.
Ken B,
I know this is beside your point, but how do come to own a forest ? It seems to me that when you say forest, you are implying that the land hasn’t been homesteaded. For if it had, you might call it a park, or a hunting ground, or a private wildlife reserve.
Would it change your opinion of the situation if the “owner” had visited the forest? How would that change your view on rights in this situation? I’m just wondering why you added this adjective in there.
Ken B:
“Rights that are more important. So a starving family can pick weeds from your forest which you have never visited while you dine in splendour unaware of what they have done to your dandelions, wild radishes, and grubs.”
OK, so violating property rights is justified if the alternative is starvation.
What then if that same starving family, by violating the property rights of another family, causes the starvation of that other family? After all, by your ethic, stealing is OK if the alternative is starvation.
“Morality cannot be reduced to simple premises from which inviolable rules may be drawn.”
But you just did that. You just reduced morality and ethics to “You can do anything you want provided you are going to starve if you don’t.”
“The premises are never known in full, they always have exemptions etc.”
So then your ethic you just described as just, must have an exemptions as well, thus making your example moot, correct?
Ken B:
“Morality cannot be reduced to simple premises from which inviolable rules may be drawn. The premises are never known in full, they always have exemptions etc.”
This is just Orwellian codespeak for “I want ME to be the final judge and jury for when an individual can decide for himself who to allow access to his property.”
To claim that there are (unstated) exemptions, (unstated) complexities, and so on, what you are really doing is saying you don’t want the individual to have final say over the disposition of his own property, because you can think of possible actions that have results you do not personally endorse.
For me on the other hand, I do not imply myself as final property owner over all property. Even if individual property rights results in outcomes I might find offputting, such as an individual choosing to to give away $0.50 to a starving African child to save their life, and would rather spend that money on another minute of internet connection (looking at you Ken B), I would not consider violating their property rights to save the starving African child.
In other words, what should be clear to you, is that you are not actually concerned with starving families at all. You are not using your own money to save the lives of those who are starving to death because you chose to improve your own life instead. No, what you REALLY want is the POWER to control all property, and you are just using the example of the starving family to justify that desire. You want to guilt trip me into thinking that your desire to have final control is something other than that, as if it were good intentioned.
I’m not fooled by your deceit, Ken B.
Typo:
Meant to say:
“Even if individual property rights results in outcomes I might find offputting, such as an individual choosing not to to give away $0.50 to a starving African child to save their life, and would rather spend that money on another minute of internet connection (looking at you Ken B), I would not consider violating their property rights to save the starving African child.”
I think it’s clear by the context, but just wanted to be sure.
Shucks. Fooling you was the last step in my plan for world domination.
Not world domination Ken B.
Just your intellectual fancy of having control over others against their will. That is what you desire. You want to be given intellectual sanction for your thirst for power over others.
Hence the poor person being justified in stealing to save their life, while you refuse to give money to save that person’s life.
It’s almost as if you want a coercive person to force you to do something you would not otherwise willingly do. I wonder if that has anything to do with what you were taught growing up?
Lady, if ya has to ask you’ll never understand.
Not good enough.
You’re caught on the horns here. If you want to restrict torture to perpetrators of crimes against the person and not crimes against possessions, then you are establishing a hierarchy of rights. That is exactly what I am asserting needs to be done. You are asserting all rights are fungible. If that is not what you are doing the word property in your talk about property rights is nugatory. The rest of us assert that certain kinds of rates are above what are conventionally called property rights. When you say all rights of property rights you are denying that. If not then property is just a superfluous word that you have tossed in that has no force. We could as well use the word flugel. All rights are flugels rights, there are possession flugel rights, body flugel rights, etc.
“You’re caught on the horns here.”
Oh do tell…
“If you want to restrict torture to perpetrators of crimes against the person and not crimes against possessions, then you are establishing a hierarchy of rights.”
I never said I want to restrict force to crimes against person or crimes against property. I think it is justified to use force to protect the individual directly (their person) and indirectly (their property).
I am asking why YOU want to restrict force to person, but not property. That is what you want if you want force to be used against the thief, but not the torturer.
“That is exactly what I am asserting needs to be done. You are asserting all rights are fungible.”
Not at all. I do not need to assert that rights are fungible, if I am going to say that one should be able to protect his person and his property from initiations of violence. They are each on their own justified uses of force.
“If that is not what you are doing the word property in your talk about property rights is nugatory.”
Why?
“The rest of us assert that certain kinds of rates are above what are conventionally called property rights.”
That just means you want to violate people’s property rights, to harm them indirectly through degrading their means of life and happiness.
“When you say all rights of property rights you are denying that.”
When you say that there are other rights more important than property rights, you are simply denying property rights.
“If not then property is just a superfluous word that you have tossed in that has no force.”
How?
“We could as well use the word flugel. All rights are flugels rights, there are possession flugel rights, body flugel rights, etc.”
If I say all rights are fugal rights, but you say there are rights more important than fugal rights, then you are simply denying fugal rights, because in order to place other rights as more important than fugal rights, you must be willing to violate people’s fugal rights.
Not necessarily imprisonment. Think outside the box. (pun intended)
So some bodily harm is justified (physically forcing a murderer into jail), but other bodily harm is not justified (physically forcing a person who planted a bomb into confessing).
Yes.
Now explain why beating an innocent men to a pulp is tHe same as locking Ted Bundy up.
Explain how beating up and locking up an innocent person who was thought to be guilty of theft, is better than beating up an innocent person who was thought to be guilty of planting a bomb.
The Old Testament vs the New Testament.
Wait for Sunday.
Tell the NT fulfills the OT rather than versus.
Either way, does it countenance physical torture?
Making the police strongly interested in the outcome of the trial… the same police who would be called on to give evidence at that trial. Some of Rothbard’s ideas did have their obvious loopholes but let’s not dwell on fine details. Presume a suitable trial arrangement could be found by a competitive market process.
Tel,
Aren’t you conflating ethics with morals?
Rothbard is just saying that according to ethics, the police would be justified in their violence against an aggressor. He is not necessarily saying that the police should act this way.
If police brutality, whether justified or not, isn’t a moral value held by those serviced by a particular private defense agency, then this agency would be incentivized to refrain from impromptu justice. And even if there are no moral disincentives, there are other disincentives for police impromptu justice, such as the risks that either the alleged aggressor might be innocent or they might not be able to prove that he is guilty. Now, you bring up the point that the police could plant false evidence. But what happens when the police begin to consistently get accusations that they are planting false evidence? I would imagine that this might effect their demand curve in a negative way.
It’s hard for me to imagine that in an anarcho-capitalist society that police would have a tendency to carry out impromptu justice, especially if we assume that AnCap societies will be marked by low time preferences, which implies foresight and rational analysis of all possible outomes and effects of particular actions from many different perspectives.
I consider myself to be what many would call a “Rothbardian”, but I don’t necessarily agree with everything that he has written. Two examples that come to mind are the case that you present here, and insofar as the legal implications, also in the case of the parents’ obligations in caring for their child. Okay, so Rothbard was inconsistent (IMO) here. So what? What have you proved?
He was not inconsistent: these ideas follow directly from his natural rights ethics.
If you reject them BUT support his ethics the burden is on you to explain why you are inconsistent and wanting to pick and choose arbitrarily from his ethical ideas.
If Rothbard’s arguments are flawed in these cases, why should anyone accept his arguments about extreme property rights when they might well be equally flawed? (which they are).
It’s always amusing to see Statists clamor on about alleged theoretical inconsistencies, and then they say, “see, you must reject this theory because of these inconsistencies”. One would think that based on this reasoning that they would immediately reject statism as well.
“He was not inconsistent: these ideas follow directly from his natural rights ethics.”
You do realize that others have improved upon libertarian ethics, right? That not all libertarians subscribe to the theory of natural rights (NRT)–whether based upon ‘reason’ or based upon ‘God’–but those libertarians still find some merit in the specific arguments?
“If you reject them BUT support his ethics the burden is on you to explain why you are inconsistent and wanting to pick and choose arbitrarily from his ethical ideas.”
Okay, now you’re begging the question. However, I may or may not take you up on that offer to “explain”, but it would probably be best-served as a comprehensive blog post rather than a vitriolic back and forth between you and I (mostly you). I’ll tell you what, I’ll give it some thought. But I’m not going to waste my time here in the comments over a point that has little to do with the content of the original posting, one that will certainly shift even further (because I know your shifty tactics).
The theory of natural rights had some problems in terms of its logical cohesiveness and structural consistency, largely due to the is/ought dilemma and particular definitions. This is a well-known fact, it’s no secret.
“If Rothbard’s arguments are flawed in these cases, why should anyone accept his arguments about extreme property rights when they might well be equally flawed?”
However, that doesn’t mean that it (NRT) did not have good arguments to provide; to say otherwise would be to engage in the genetic fallacy. One must judge an argument based upon its own merits!
***********
Please excuse me if I’m not as ideologically charged as you are and I am able to criticize those of whom I’ve learned a great deal from when I think that they’re wrong, or otherwise compartmentalize the topic being discussed.
If you cannot conceive of such things, then what is the point of me responding to you further?
“If Rothbard’s arguments are flawed in these cases, why should anyone accept his arguments about extreme property rights when they might well be equally flawed?”
Are you saying monopolistic protection and security grounded on coercion against innocent people, is not flawed in any way whatsoever? That it is perfect? We can never do anything any better at all?
If you grant that states are not without flaws, then by your logic, I and other libertarians should ask, and be skeptical of, whether the whole ethic you propose is flawed, and have a default position of not accepting it until you convince us otherwise.
Also, where are Rothbard’s ethics flawed? You have not shown how it is flawed, you have only voiced your displeasure in it.
Yeah, those are two areas that I disagree with him on, as well. It’s weird, though, how concerned he is about a system that would allow torture, considering the justice system we currently have. There are designated sites where the US government sends people and tortures them for years. There are millions of things actually happening in our current system that are much worse than that passage from Rothbard. You have cops charging an unarmed man for being responsible for the innocent bystanders they shot while firing into a crowd, and LK’s worried things might get crazy if we lived in Rothbard’s world?
Yeah. Uganda sucked and yet some worried about Idi Amin. Takes all kinds doesn’t it?
At least you’re very predictable.
There are many more ways to be wrong than right.
Ken B:
“There are many more ways to be wrong than right.”
No wonder you want a monopoly of protection.
This is because if the humans in control of the monopoly enact more mistaken laws than correct laws, then more people will suffer as compared to if an individual, local protector made a mistake.
Now it makes sense. You want the costs of mistakes people make to be incurred by everyone, instead of just those who are within the practical purview of those who made the mistakes.
Rothbard’s system isn’t simply inconsistent in this one place. He completely lacked an appreciation for the intricacies of law, jurisprudence, and political philosophy. Even worse is that this problem of his has spread like wildfire in the libertarian movement. I just saw an article in the Journal of Libertarian Studies interpreting bankruptcy law as a form of “economic intervention”. At that rate, we should be calling private property rights a form of economic intervention, too.
“Rothbard’s system isn’t simply inconsistent in this one place.”
How is it inconsistent?
“He completely lacked an appreciation for the intricacies of law, jurisprudence, and political philosophy.”
What did he say that shows he lacks an appreciation for law, jurisprudence, and political philosophy?
“Even worse is that this problem of his has spread like wildfire in the libertarian movement.”
How is that worse?
“I just saw an article in the Journal of Libertarian Studies interpreting bankruptcy law as a form of “economic intervention”.”
How is the government’s enforcement of this law, not constitute government intervention?
“At that rate, we should be calling private property rights a form of economic intervention, too.”
Why?
Yes. It is usual here to call me a “statist” because I reject Rothbardism forcefully (and effectively to judge by the howls) . But I am by any reasonable standard a small L libertarian. I am so extremely libertarian I even agree with most of what’s in David R. Henderson’s book. (I disagree with him very sharply on defence and foreign-policy.) but Rothbardism discredits libertarianism and market advocacy. Market advocacy does not require strange and mystical motions like homesteading or mindless insistence everything is a property right. It’s easier without that kind of nonsense upon stilts.
One reason it has spread is that many libertarians actually don’t care about changing policy or making a difference. They only care about amour propre, and would prefer to be an ignored voice in the wilderness than to be effective.
“It is usual here to call me a “statist” because I reject Rothbardism forcefully ”
No, it’s because you want to violate other people’s property rights USING a state.
You are just like LK in this respect: You want to practise private property rights yourself, but you vocalize your desire to have others (the state only!) violate property rights in order to give yourselves pleasure in whatever form, be it free goodies for yourselves, or free goodies for those you yourselves refuse to help with your own money and resources.
“But I am by any reasonable standard a small L libertarian. I am so extremely libertarian I even agree with most of what’s in David R. Henderson’s book. (I disagree with him very sharply on defence and foreign-policy.) but Rothbardism discredits libertarianism and market advocacy.”
How? Don’t you mean it only advocates for libertarianism in not only non-protection related services goods, but protection as well, which is unpalatable to most people, and thus you too? Who cares if the majority “discredit” it? 500 years ago you would have been discredited as an anti-religion pro-science advocate.
“Market advocacy does not require strange and mystical motions like homesteading or mindless insistence everything is a property right.”
How is the homesteading principle strange and/or mystical?
How is the idea that every right is a property right “mindless”?
“It’s easier without that kind of nonsense upon stilts.”
How is it “nonsense on stilts”?
“One reason it has spread is that many libertarians actually don’t care about changing policy or making a difference.”
Sort of like you not caring about helping starving families in Africa, even though that is the very reason you claim to be against private property rights as an absolute?
“They only care about amour propre, and would prefer to be an ignored voice in the wilderness than to be effective.”
So you believe that your arguments can be shown as a refutation of their arguments, by you pointing towards their psychological motivations for saying what they are saying?
Paging Oppenheimer! Apparently rocket science is bogus if the motivation is killing people!
Major_Freedom, do you have any arguments for why homesteading is morally justified, or do you just take it as an axiom?
Keshav, first appropriation would would generally be the answer to this question. If one can provide a later claim to a scarce good, then so be it. But absent that, then it is up to you to provide an alternate claim otherwise.
Joseph, what is your argument for why first appropriation is morally justifiable?
Well, the first justification would be conflict. The second would be the avoidance of conflict. This is all in terms of scarce and rivalrous resources, all of which must necessarily involve conflict over them without some justification upon who has the better claim.
Joseph, what makes you think that the doctrine of first appropriation is the only method that allocates scarce resources in a way that avoids conflict?
After all, you could claim to have a better right to my left hand than I, but certainly you could not prove such a thing in any logical manner. Just the same, if I acquire an unowned good from nature, I surely have a prior claim to that good, can you prove otherwise?
“Major_Freedom, do you have any arguments for why homesteading is morally justified, or do you just take it as an axiom?”
I conclude this based on reasoning as follows: If we assume that the homesteader is not the exclusive owner, then who should be the exclusive owner? The person who happens to arrive second? Third? Why second and not third? Why third and not fourth? Someone has got to have exclusive authority, because it is impossible for the entire world’s population to have exclusive ownership over a single homesteaded farm. Not only logistically, not only practically, but praxeologically it would be impossible.
Since I find it arbitrary to choose any one of the subsequent visitors as exclusive owner, I use process of elimination and conclude that the original homesteader should have exclusive authority.
If you tried to select an alleged non-arbitrary subsequent visitor, such as the hungriest, then that would have the logical outcome of granting exclusive ownership of the entire planet, indeed the entire universe, to the world’s hungriest person.
Keshav:
How would non-original appropriation based methods of ownership allocation not result in conflict over the use of it?
Major_Freedom, here is a possible alternative: whoever is currently actively using a resource can continue to do so. But if no one is currently actively using a resource, then anyone can come and start using it.
“How would non-original appropriation based methods of ownership allocation not result in conflict over the use of it?” Wouldn’t even the original appropriation-based method result in conflict? What distinguishes this method from all other possible methods?
Keshav:
“Major_Freedom, here is a possible alternative: whoever is currently actively using a resource can continue to do so.”
So if someone succeeds in robbing another, to start “using” that resource, then by virtue of that robber now “using” that resource at this moment in time, means that the robber is the legitimate owner?
“But if no one is currently actively using a resource, then anyone can come and start using it.”
So if I go to the store to pick up groceries, it means anyone can come into my house, and do whatever they want to it while I’m gone?
Keshav:
“Wouldn’t even the original appropriation-based method result in conflict?”
How is someone originally appropriating something that nobody else has appropriated first, itself be an act of conflict?
“What distinguishes this method from all other possible methods?”
Lack of conflict.
All considerations of philosophy aside, you’re full of shit here, Ken B.
Joe, c’mon man.
Sorry Bob, but you know that he is (not a libertarian). You’re only getting down on me because I used profanity. Admit it!
Isn’t that enough to come down on you though?
It is his blog, so he can certainly edit my remarks, and I won’t complain. But I’m sure that he knows me well enough by now that he almost expects it.
😉
No Joseph not quite full, I can probably ingest a few more of Bala’s remarks before popping any seams.
Well, I wouldn’t wish that upon anybody.
This will be our last exchange. Take care.
Well I’m not upset if that’s what worries you.
Pretty sure that isn’t what is worrying him.
Nothing worries me, I’m just done with the internet commenting thing, is all.
Enjoy your lives, I mean that sincerely.
Joseph, you mean you’re done commenting on the internet, like, for the rest of your life?
You are entirely correct about homesteading. It destroys legitimate property claims and establishes nonsensical ones. To wit, Murray Rothbard demonstrates it perfectly:
Any normal person on the street would see such an allocation as a corrupt grant of privilege.
“t destroys legitimate property claims and establishes nonsensical ones.”
How so? How are non-homesteaded property rights claims “legitimate” whereas homesteaded property rights claims are “illegitimate”?
“Any normal person on the street would see such an allocation as a corrupt grant of privilege”
So what a random person on the street believes, is the foundation of truth?
Best joke of the day: Ken calling himself a libertarian. Good one, Ken.
And can you point me to where you’ve effectively challenged Rothbard’s ideas? I haven’t seen anywhere that suggests you even comprehend the ideas you so forcefully reject.
He was careful to say “with a small l “.
That of course means he wants to be able to violate libertarian principles when he wants, but still say to you that he considers himself libertarian, in order to convince you that he wouldn’t slit your mother’s throat in order to save himself from starvation.
I think small l just means you don’t necessarily support the Libertarian Party.
Callahan’s post can be easily dismissed by using his same logic to rhetorically ask why there aren’t any private judges who have final authority in PRISONS. After all, there are many activities that the prisoners keep secret from the guards, and won’t ask the guards to adjudicate, and yet there continues to be violence between the inmates!
This is obviously proof that anarcho-capitalism can’t work. I mean here we have a perfectly legitimate dataset of an opportunity for private protection to flourish.
You know, in a prison. Controlled by government.
Perfect.
Dataset.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_in_law
Private protection (of a sort) did flourish in prisons.
We are doomed unless more people learn to self govern. If people self governed, then the need for protection would diminish. All the protection in the world, whether it be government or private provided will not save us from a society who breeds and develops more aggressors.
The world needs more God fearing, God loving Christians and more other non violent self-governed individuals. I know you will tell me how ruthless the middle ages were, Spanish inquisition and sight other examples of self proclaimed “Christians” behaving badly but Jesus never ever harmed 1 single soul. I know for a fact the murdering, thieving, violent so called “Christians” did not find their example in the New Testament.
The world need less aggressors and less people who refuse to keep their hands to themselves, not more. Our society should immediately stop rewarding and perpetuating all forms of aggression.
“We are doomed unless more people learn to self govern.”
Not actually necessary. All that is necessary is for people to learn to allow others to self-govern.
I’ll take Rothbard’s dogma to its final conclusion: property rights are a form of economic intervention.
Why is Rothbard’s political philosophy a dogma, but your political philosophy is not a dogma?
“property rights are a form of economic intervention.”
Who is “intervening” between you and I when I protect my property from your theft?
Whooooosh.
Why is Rothbard’s political philosophy a dogma, but your political philosophy is not a dogma?
Who is “intervening” between you and I when I protect my property from your theft?
Whoooosh. Don’t you follow?
Why is Rothbard’s political philosophy a dogma, but your political philosophy is not a dogma?
Who is “intervening” between you and I when I protect my property from your theft?
Don’t you have any answers?
Don’t you just love it when the socratic method completely disintegrates the opponents position in seconds?
We already have a regime of private property and laws against assault to others’ bodies and theft or injury to their property. Most people already understand this and operate just fine in their personal lives. We’re not recreating the wheel here.
However, people have been misled in government schools that there are alleged failures in this system which allegedly require the violation of such rights. However, these alleged failures do not, in fact, exist. The interventionists have the burden of proof to demonstrate a market failure. They cannot do this and therefore resort to name-calling, distortion and obfuscation.
Yes, this is true, but you’re missing the point. There is more to law than anarcho-capitalists think.
Oh, yeah. You certainly are.
Fallacy #1: Speaking like people have been bamboozled in the greatest heist of the century.
Fallacy #2: Thinking that their rights have actually been violated.
And you say other people are misled.
They aren’t “interventionists”.
History says otherwise.
“Yes, this is true, but you’re missing the point. There is more to law than anarcho-capitalists think.”
You haven’t shown how there is more to law than protecting property rights.
“Oh, yeah. You certainly are”
How is protecting person and property a recreation of the wheel?
“Fallacy #1: Speaking like people have been bamboozled in the greatest heist of the century.
Fallacy #2: Thinking that their rights have actually been violated.”
Fallacy #1: Speaking like people have not been bamboozled in the greatest heist in history.
Fallacy #2: Thinking that their rights are not actually being violated.
“And you say other people are misled.”
Which doesn’t conflict with the notion that there are no such thing as market failures.
“They aren’t “interventionists”.”
Yes they are, for they are intervening in the affairs of others against one or more of the party’s wills.
“History says otherwise.”
No, it doesn’t.
As I have pointed out before Bob, you mean common law and statute law. They disappear in Rothbardtopia. We have the word proprty, you don’t need to reinvent that. But you are abandoning its meaning and all the laws behind it. Reinventing the wheel, but square this time for neatness.
“common law and statute law. They disappear in Rothbardtopia. ”
That is not necessarily true.
There is nothing stopping individual property owners from agreeing to common law statutes, the same way governments of separate territories agree, albeit without aggressing against others in the name of protecting them.
Whoosh, again. Common law isn’t something you “agree” to.
You haven’t shown a first woosh, so your statement “again” makes no sense.
Common law indeed is based on agreement. The agreements in this case just happen to be based on prior court decisions.
Court decisions in one jurisdiction can be made into common law in other jurisdictions by agreement.
You don’t believe that judges are omnipotent beings, do you?
Heh. I had thought about making a crack about square wheels. You read my mind, you did.
Hey Samson. You got chastised for calling MF’s argument “juvenile tripe”. What are the odds MF will be chastised for repeatedly calling me a liar?
TIL once means repeatedly.
But I already apologized.
And it was Philippe who said I elicited juvenile tripe. If he apologizes, then it’s water under the bridge for me.
Apology acceptd.
Darn electronics manufacturers competing for customers. Selling goods “to the highest bidder”, leaving the poor without means of communication.
We should advocate for a monopoly in electronics manufacturing.
Exactly. They are selling goods –goods they make. They aren’t offering to take mine and give them to you. A market in ipods is a good thing, a market in extortion, not so obviously a good thing.
It is a monopoly in protection that leads to a monopoly in extortion.
But even so, I’d still rather have a market in extortion then a monopoly in one.
Not sure who out here is proposing a market in extortion.
That Ayn Randian logical fallacy has got to go already.
Such an argument assumes, incorrectly, that protection and security services are inherently aggressive forms of violence.
When I hire a personal bodyguard, to protect me, I am not hiring a thug to go steal from your house, nor am I hiring him to go rape or murder my neighor. I hired his PROTECTION services.
Do you seriously not know the difference between selling protection and selling aggression?
A private property society necessarily implies a BAN on “selling aggressive violence” to the “highest bidder.” You can’t violate individual property rights in a private law society based on the philosophy of non-aggression!
You know what I think? I think you’re just so used to the seemingly indiscriminate violence coming from the state police and army, that you have come to the conclusion that the alleged “security and protection” from the state is really just a cover for some individuals actually selling aggressive violence to the highest bidder. Be the bidders “the majority”, or “big business” or “big unions”, take your pick.
I will of course not deny that there exists individuals who are willing to sell aggressive violence to the highest bidder. But this is the case regardless of what political form society happens to take. In a monopoly society like ours, not only is the inherent nature of the state composed of selling aggressive violence to the highest bidder, but there is little we can do to stop cases of BUYERS seeking to pay the state to initiate violence against others. Unions do this, and we’re supposed to say “Good on the capitalists!”. Big business does this, and we’re supposed to say “Good on controlling state power instead of being controlled by state power!” The majority does this, and we’re supposed to say “Good on the greatest good getting the greatest benefit!”
Ken B, can’t you see how your conception of private law is incredibly superficial, bordering on ignorance?
The biggest difference barring the drug trade as an example of private law emerging in a free market is the fact that the state actually kidnaps anyone it can get that is involved. Thus, any system would be incentivized to cheat because you can just hand over your opponent to the cops. This prevents good faith negotiations and trade, except in relative anonymity such as via the Silk Road.
The lack of being able to turn to the state is not the problem. The ability to actually turn to the state and “give up” your competition is!
I thought your argument in “Lessons for the Young Economist” was that drug prohibition discourages people from entering and leads to the formation of cartels. The benefits of murdering other dealers increases because the customer base of other dealers will be more likely to move to the cartel that engages in violence, where as pizza places, laundromats, and movie theaters don’t bomb each other because the customer base of those that violence was used against will not be likely to move to the business that used violence, as their are so many theaters and laundromats because it is legal to enter those professions.
[…] realized from the reaction of some people here that I did not assure readers I had fully understood Gene Callahan’s point, when he claimed […]