5 ms·
> You do realize that this means only the rich and powerful can defend their property, right? Nope, I don't realize that at all. It's a common objection made b
by glenra 13y ago
> You do realize that this means only the rich and powerful can defend their property, right?
Nope, I don't realize that at all. It's a common objection made by people who don't understand how private legal systems work and have never looked into it. You'd know better if you had read the books I recommended above.
There is no way to perfectly defend property - "utopia is not an option" - but you can raise the cost to the criminal in various ways. The cheapest is by buying a lock. Even very poor people can and do have locks on their doors or bars on their windows. Another cheap option is to organize a volunteer community watch program. A little more expensive but still quite doable is for any GROUP of people to form a neighborhood association which hires a guard for the neighborhood - this has often been done by a local merchant's association. The poor currently pay a rather large amount of money for "protection" in the form of police salaries paid via sales tax and property tax - but they don't GET protection for their money! The government-run police primarily serve the interests of the rich and powerful and their own interests - they don't do much to protect the poor. In a private system you get what you pay for and pay for what you get - people who hired police protection would actually GET police protection.
> You create a system of might makes right
Nope. In fact, putting government in charge is a system of might makes right, one prone to terrible abuses. Decentralizing power makes it less prone to abuse. I'm talking about actual rule of law, which does protect the rich and poor alike.
> And if you lack the power to defend your property from those more powerful than you, you need the protection form someone who does, which leads to feudalism
Here's another option: Consider that by social convention when you aggress against me I have a claim against you for damages. Suppose I can sell that claim. If I can afford to prosecute you directly I do so; if not, I sell my claim against you to someone who is more powerful. But selling a claim is an ordinary business transaction - it doesn't give the buyer any special power over the seller.
(BTW, wikipedia says "There is no broadly accepted modern definition of feudalism". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#Definition )
Tell you what. If you just want to read a SINGLE CHAPTER of MoF that most clearly addresses your concerns, it is quite short, it is titled "POLICE, COURTS, AND LAWS---ON THE MARKET", and it can be read online here:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Chapter_29.html http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freed...
- mcv 13y agoHey, I'm all for street-level government, but that's still a government. And one that is not powerful enough to stand up to the more powerful gangs or corporations. You will still need a larger structure of organization to defend against the larger threats. > The government-run police primarily serve the interests of the rich and powerful and their own interests - they don't do much to protect the poor. That's certainly the case in corrupt countries, but much less so in the less corrupt ones. > I'm talking about actual rule of law, which does protect the rich and poor alike. What law? Whose law? Who enforces that law if you don't have a government? Without enforcement, the law is meaningless. With enforcement, you've got a government. There's really nothing in between there. What you're talking about are different forms of government. Better ones, perhaps. There are definitely a lot of improvements possible (and needed) in our current forms of government, and especially so in the US. But one way or the other, you'll still end up with some form of government. > Consider that by social convention when you aggress against me I have a claim against you for damages. Suppose I can sell that claim. If I can afford to prosecute you directly I do so; if not, I sell my claim against you to someone who is more powerful. But selling a claim is an ordinary business transaction - it doesn't give the buyer any special power over the seller. Sounds interesting, but to prosecute, you still need courts, you still need enforcement, and that means you still need government. (By the way, this already exists. Some legal claims have gone to the stock market even.)
- mcv 13y ago> If you just want to read a SINGLE CHAPTER of MoF that most clearly addresses your concerns, it is quite short, it is titled "POLICE, COURTS, AND LAWS---ON THE MARKET", I read it, and I admit, in my teens, I had a similar sort of wishful thinking about ideal societies, but it's ignoring a couple of issues. Firstly, it's basically a kind of for-profit government. Will that ultimately be better? Look at how many companies screw their customers now, often without their customers noticing. Of course once customers notice, they can switch, _if_ there is sufficient competition. But companies love merging, and at some point, a powerful protection agency can dictate terms to smaller agencies. The largest agencies can form a cartel to concentrate and divide even more power. And sure, you can switch to a small, independent agency, but will they be able to protect you against the big guys? Maybe if enough people switch, but that takes time. In the end, you're trying to play one protection racket against another protection racket, but in the end, you're still stuck with a protection racket. Let's first try to get honest competition working in something fairly innocuous like telecommunication, before we start giving those companies real power, okay?