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Firstly, minarchist-Libertarianism doesn't preclude legislation. We only support legislation that is rights-respecting (e.g. no forcing people to do business w

Firstly, minarchist-Libertarianism doesn't preclude legislation. We only support legislation that is rights-respecting (e.g. no forcing people to do business with customers they don't want), reality-based (e.g. no environmental legislation without provable harm), and consistently administered (e.g. no free passes for particularly rich criminals). Secondly, even in an hypothetical absence of regulation, mediation would be preferable to court action in a lot of cases. That's true even now; private mediation is frequently used to resolve disputes before they ever see a courtroom. Edited to add: Also, in a rights-respecting State, the list of criminal acts would be a lot, lot smaller than it is now. No censorship (obscenity, blasphemy, etc.), no war on drugs, etc. etc. It's likely that justice system workloads would drop significantly.

maxxxxx 11y ago
I really would like to see a set of laws and government regulations that libertarians would support. Has anybody ever created such a thing? Would there be regulations on cigarettes, selling alcohol to 10 year olds or lead paint? Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? Who has the money to go against big corporations and their paid experts? It took forever to get a shared understanding that smoking is really harmful. I don't want to be dismissive but most libertarians I talk to seem to live in a dream world and avoid real-world scenarios.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  I really would like to see a set of laws and government regulations that libertarians would support. Has anybody ever created such a thing? Not to my knowledge :) But that has more to do with a combination of factionalism, incorrect philosophy (e.g. religious 'Libertarians' who'd like to ban gay marriage), and utopianism. Would there be regulations on cigarettes Other than prohibitions on fraud ("cigarettes are healthy!") or selling to minors, no. selling alcohol to 10 year olds Yes. lead paint Depends. Perhaps there would be cases where lead paint would be okay; I don't know that much about it. Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? Who has the money to go against big corporations and their paid experts? Lawyers working on behalf of those bringing class-action suits against the manufacturers. And why do you presume there would be no EPA (or an equivalent)? (Some) environmental laws are valid. I'm not American, but I'm pretty sure the Constitution doesn't grant the Federal Government the power to create something like the EPA. But the States surely do have that power. It took forever to get a shared understanding that smoking is really harmful. Not at all. It took forever for the justice system to overcome the massive lobbying and corruption that was protecting the tobacco industry from lawsuits over their fraudulent advertising.
  - jakeogh 11y ago
    "prohibitions on fraud"? You mean have a group of people who decide what is true? Isn't that better known as Not-Libertarianism?
    - maxxxxx 11y ago
      That's the question I always ask and never get an answer.
      - duncan_bayne 11y ago
        Maybe you're asking anarchists ;)
        jakeogh 11y ago
        (much) stronger reverence for the 1st Amendment != Anarchy.
        duncan_bayne 11y ago
        Could you please elaborate on that? I think you may be conflating prohibitions on speech based on their perceived truthfulness, vs. the need to decide on objective truth in a courtroom. E.g. I should be perfectly free to say "the world is flat" or "my religion is the only truth". But if I'm ever in court on a related matter, I'd better be able to prove it.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      You mean have a group of people who decide what is true? Yes. That's the way society works; in a civilised country, that decision is made through the courts, based on laws created by a democratic Government[1]. Isn't that better known as Not-Libertarianism? No, it's better known as Not-Anarchism. Please stop conflating anarchism with Libertarianism. [1] Not necessarily an elected one. There's more than one way to achieve democracy; selecting the Government by random ballot from the citizenry, a.k.a. sortition, is one alternative to voting. It also happens to be my preferred one.
- dlss 11y ago
  > Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? Who has the money to go against big corporations and their paid experts? It took forever to get a shared understanding that smoking is really harmful. The EPA is a horrible example to use against libertarianism. As you note it took much longer for the EPA to figure this out that virtually any other expert in the area. This is because governmental organizations have poorly aligned incentives which almost necessarily result in regulatory capture. To answer your questions: Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? The same experts who the EPA uses, or hopefully better ones. I would happily subscribe to a consumer reports for heath information, for example. This would create a market where accurate and timely information was actually incentivized. Would there be regulations on cigarettes, selling alcohol to 10 year olds or lead paint? Sure. These regulations would happen on a city-by-city basis or better yet on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. As for references, check out the work of Rothbard (a full anarcho-capitalist), and/or Hayek (a minarchist). Economics in One Lesson is also a great introductory book to get your footing thinking through these things.
  - maxxxxx 11y ago
    "Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? The same experts who the EPA uses, or hopefully better ones. I would happily subscribe to a consumer reports for heath information, for example. This would create a market where accurate and timely information was actually incentivized." How do you make sure that your consumer reports aren't corrupt? And how do they get financed? Research into things that cause long-term effects (like lead or mercury or tobacco) is very expensive and not really viable for a company that needs to produce a profit short-term. In my mind, if you want a functioning libertarian state you need to strengthen public research and make sure it's not corrupted. So strengthen the EPA instead of abolishing it. That way courts and citizens have accurate information to determine if harm has been done or not.
    - dlss 11y ago
      > How do you make sure that your consumer reports aren't corrupt? And how do they get financed? Research into things that cause long-term effects (like lead or mercury or tobacco) is very expensive and not really viable for a company that needs to produce a profit short-term. 1. The methods used to figure out that mercury/cigarettes are harmful is some combination of animal testing and running reports over medical records. These are expensive largely because of regulation. 2. Short term profit goals don't actually destroy the incentive to do research, even expensive research. Consumer reports does tests on cars, requiring facilities and specialists. The major banks spend insane amounts of money doing analysis of companies. Intel, google, etc all invest heavily in R&D. 3. Re: corruption, there's a very strong financial incentive for corporations to not be corrupt. Most of them offer satisfaction guarantees for example, and corporate scandals result in resignation and share price depression. Most of the examples of corruption I'm aware of involve politicians and government agencies. If the EPA were private, it would probably have gone bankrupt / been overtaken by competitors due to its cigarette ineptitude and other failings. > In my mind, if you want a functioning libertarian state you need to strengthen public research and make sure it's not corrupted. So strengthen the EPA instead of abolishing it. I think the libertarians completely agree with the strengthening sentiment of your comment. Where we differ with you is that we think the most powerful thing you can do to strengthen public research is to privatize it. To expand on that: as I said above, I believe the EPA by design ends up in a state of regulatory capture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture), a problem for which I'm aware of no workable solutions for. You yourself probably don't trust the EPA's health advice nearly as much as a smart friend or two of yours who is actually looking at the literature on a given topic. Contrast this with consumer reports, who (personally) I trust at the same level. I think this problem is structural / inherent to public research originations... and needs to be directly fixed by aligning the interest of the researcher with the consumers of their research. To put that another way: the best researchers I know aren't working for public research institutions. The best ML researchers I'm aware of have actually quit tenured professorships to join Google, Facebook, and Baidu. The best finance/economics researchers I'm aware of work at hedge funds. The best agricultural researchers I'm aware of work at food conglomerates. The best biologists I'm aware of work at drug companies... The majority of the public researchers I'm familiar with (growing up as the son of a math professor) are basically curiosity junkies. This is sort of good, and I'm happy that they're happy, but I think isn't really the foundation that life-changing research comes from -- you want the researcher to be personally invested in a workable solution, not academically curious about something in the area. To put that a third way: your comment is an example of the nirvana fallacy. What method can we use to "strengthen public research" that won't result in the same misaligned incentives we're currently seeing? What method of preventing corruption are you suggesting beyond those which are already known to not work?

maxxxxx 11y ago

I really would like to see a set of laws and government regulations that libertarians would support. Has anybody ever created such a thing? Would there be regulations on cigarettes, selling alcohol to 10 year olds or lead paint? Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? Who has the money to go against big corporations and their paid experts? It took forever to get a shared understanding that smoking is really harmful. I don't want to be dismissive but most libertarians I talk to seem to live in a dream world and avoid real-world scenarios.

duncan_bayne 11y ago
I really would like to see a set of laws and government regulations that libertarians would support. Has anybody ever created such a thing? Not to my knowledge :) But that has more to do with a combination of factionalism, incorrect philosophy (e.g. religious 'Libertarians' who'd like to ban gay marriage), and utopianism. Would there be regulations on cigarettes Other than prohibitions on fraud ("cigarettes are healthy!") or selling to minors, no. selling alcohol to 10 year olds Yes. lead paint Depends. Perhaps there would be cases where lead paint would be okay; I don't know that much about it. Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? Who has the money to go against big corporations and their paid experts? Lawyers working on behalf of those bringing class-action suits against the manufacturers. And why do you presume there would be no EPA (or an equivalent)? (Some) environmental laws are valid. I'm not American, but I'm pretty sure the Constitution doesn't grant the Federal Government the power to create something like the EPA. But the States surely do have that power. It took forever to get a shared understanding that smoking is really harmful. Not at all. It took forever for the justice system to overcome the massive lobbying and corruption that was protecting the tobacco industry from lawsuits over their fraudulent advertising.
- jakeogh 11y ago
  "prohibitions on fraud"? You mean have a group of people who decide what is true? Isn't that better known as Not-Libertarianism?
  - maxxxxx 11y ago
    That's the question I always ask and never get an answer.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      Maybe you're asking anarchists ;)
      - jakeogh 11y ago
        (much) stronger reverence for the 1st Amendment != Anarchy.
        duncan_bayne 11y ago
        Could you please elaborate on that? I think you may be conflating prohibitions on speech based on their perceived truthfulness, vs. the need to decide on objective truth in a courtroom. E.g. I should be perfectly free to say "the world is flat" or "my religion is the only truth". But if I'm ever in court on a related matter, I'd better be able to prove it.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    You mean have a group of people who decide what is true? Yes. That's the way society works; in a civilised country, that decision is made through the courts, based on laws created by a democratic Government[1]. Isn't that better known as Not-Libertarianism? No, it's better known as Not-Anarchism. Please stop conflating anarchism with Libertarianism. [1] Not necessarily an elected one. There's more than one way to achieve democracy; selecting the Government by random ballot from the citizenry, a.k.a. sortition, is one alternative to voting. It also happens to be my preferred one.
dlss 11y ago
> Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? Who has the money to go against big corporations and their paid experts? It took forever to get a shared understanding that smoking is really harmful. The EPA is a horrible example to use against libertarianism. As you note it took much longer for the EPA to figure this out that virtually any other expert in the area. This is because governmental organizations have poorly aligned incentives which almost necessarily result in regulatory capture. To answer your questions: Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? The same experts who the EPA uses, or hopefully better ones. I would happily subscribe to a consumer reports for heath information, for example. This would create a market where accurate and timely information was actually incentivized. Would there be regulations on cigarettes, selling alcohol to 10 year olds or lead paint? Sure. These regulations would happen on a city-by-city basis or better yet on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. As for references, check out the work of Rothbard (a full anarcho-capitalist), and/or Hayek (a minarchist). Economics in One Lesson is also a great introductory book to get your footing thinking through these things.
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  "Who would prove the harm if there is no EPA? The same experts who the EPA uses, or hopefully better ones. I would happily subscribe to a consumer reports for heath information, for example. This would create a market where accurate and timely information was actually incentivized." How do you make sure that your consumer reports aren't corrupt? And how do they get financed? Research into things that cause long-term effects (like lead or mercury or tobacco) is very expensive and not really viable for a company that needs to produce a profit short-term. In my mind, if you want a functioning libertarian state you need to strengthen public research and make sure it's not corrupted. So strengthen the EPA instead of abolishing it. That way courts and citizens have accurate information to determine if harm has been done or not.
  - dlss 11y ago
    > How do you make sure that your consumer reports aren't corrupt? And how do they get financed? Research into things that cause long-term effects (like lead or mercury or tobacco) is very expensive and not really viable for a company that needs to produce a profit short-term. 1. The methods used to figure out that mercury/cigarettes are harmful is some combination of animal testing and running reports over medical records. These are expensive largely because of regulation. 2. Short term profit goals don't actually destroy the incentive to do research, even expensive research. Consumer reports does tests on cars, requiring facilities and specialists. The major banks spend insane amounts of money doing analysis of companies. Intel, google, etc all invest heavily in R&D. 3. Re: corruption, there's a very strong financial incentive for corporations to not be corrupt. Most of them offer satisfaction guarantees for example, and corporate scandals result in resignation and share price depression. Most of the examples of corruption I'm aware of involve politicians and government agencies. If the EPA were private, it would probably have gone bankrupt / been overtaken by competitors due to its cigarette ineptitude and other failings. > In my mind, if you want a functioning libertarian state you need to strengthen public research and make sure it's not corrupted. So strengthen the EPA instead of abolishing it. I think the libertarians completely agree with the strengthening sentiment of your comment. Where we differ with you is that we think the most powerful thing you can do to strengthen public research is to privatize it. To expand on that: as I said above, I believe the EPA by design ends up in a state of regulatory capture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture), a problem for which I'm aware of no workable solutions for. You yourself probably don't trust the EPA's health advice nearly as much as a smart friend or two of yours who is actually looking at the literature on a given topic. Contrast this with consumer reports, who (personally) I trust at the same level. I think this problem is structural / inherent to public research originations... and needs to be directly fixed by aligning the interest of the researcher with the consumers of their research. To put that another way: the best researchers I know aren't working for public research institutions. The best ML researchers I'm aware of have actually quit tenured professorships to join Google, Facebook, and Baidu. The best finance/economics researchers I'm aware of work at hedge funds. The best agricultural researchers I'm aware of work at food conglomerates. The best biologists I'm aware of work at drug companies... The majority of the public researchers I'm familiar with (growing up as the son of a math professor) are basically curiosity junkies. This is sort of good, and I'm happy that they're happy, but I think isn't really the foundation that life-changing research comes from -- you want the researcher to be personally invested in a workable solution, not academically curious about something in the area. To put that a third way: your comment is an example of the nirvana fallacy. What method can we use to "strengthen public research" that won't result in the same misaligned incentives we're currently seeing? What method of preventing corruption are you suggesting beyond those which are already known to not work?