A thought experiment for Libertarians

[Tommy Jeppesen]

The sanctity of contracts is central to Libertarian thought. Can 9-year olds enter into contracts? How about adults with severe mental deficiencies? I can steer my senile relative to a store whose contracts are adjudicated by Earp & Brothers if that's the service I prefer, but what if she goes alone into a store whose contracts are adjudicated by Nasty, Grimy & Snide, Esquires? Merchants might take advantage of the mentally weak; to hear some Libertarians, that is a feature not a bug of their model.

In rational Western society contract law evolves under the direction of legislators and judges. If the people don't like it, they elect new legislators and judges. In the Libertarian model, if we don't like Nasty, Grimy & Snide, Esquires we go back to Earp & Brothers.

Libertarians seem to believe that democratically elected governments evolve to be evil or lazy, while private greed-motivated actors will evolve to be benevolent. This seems confused, even ignoring that short-term mischief often overrides long-term reputation in the real world.

I'm a Johnny-come-lately to the thread and my objections may have been addressed. If anyone wants to point me to appropriate answers please do so. But no 90-minute YouTubes from the Alabama School(*) of economics, please.

(Am I right that the intelligent Austrian economists would roll over in their graves at the tripe from Alabama's mises.org ?)

Hi

I will try to answer you, but in doing so I will also answer the other posters I owe an answer.
L(l)ibertarian (and anarcho-capitalism) thought can be understood in the context of epistemology, but you have to include skepticism versus foundationalism to get an idea of what is going on.
In short libertarian thought relies on the idea of a set of functionally foundational beliefs from which you can deduce (build) a society.

So now I will perform a reductio ad absurdum and an appeal to emotion rolled into one: On my property is a baby without legal next of kin, without a contract for law/court service and without any property except its own body. It is a baby boy and he is sweet, cute and all that. I take my gun, aim, shoot and kill him.

Now what?
That is it and it goes back the law (Jyske Law of 1241, ) and the extended family tradition in Somalia versus singular individual, who must care for themselves or they have no legal standing.
Can I please get an answer from a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist as to whether your set is coherent and if so, how do you explain that or if there is something missing in only an individual itself or next of kin has legal standing?

In short - a human is only a person under the law if it can provide for its own legal standing. Now I accept that you/someone can believe so. I also accept, if someone doesn't accept that I believe otherwise. I even accept that to them limited taxation with representation is stealing/slavery, but it doesn't stop me from holding another belief.
BTW that is how reality works

 

[psionl0]

The sanctity of contracts is central to Libertarian thought. Can 9-year olds enter into contracts? How about adults with severe mental deficiencies? ..............

I don't know if that is a response to my post or not but I'm sure that you are aware that "Libertopia" is a purely imaginary concept. We don't know how such a society would work in practice.

I imagine that any "Libertopian" contract would include clauses for a mutually agreed arbiter to resolve any disputes that might arise under the contract. Many people (eg drug dealers) operate outside of the law with apparent success. If success was not possible without courts etc then there would be no drug trade.

As for people who can't care for themselves and have nobody watching their back, they would not fare well in a Libertopian society but governments don't necessarily make a difference here. In third world countries they just starve and even in wealthy countries like the US they still have to dumpster dive for a living.

 

[Swammerdami]

I'm sure that you are aware that "Libertopia" is a purely imaginary concept. We don't know how such a society would work in practice.

I'm late to the thread, and don't know who I'm arguing with but your quote here summarizes the key problem with Libertopia. It's pure fantasy.

Hyperlibertarians take it as a given that all governments, however democratic, are incompetent and corrupt. Yet the private quasi-governments that emerge freely will magically be good-spirited. Pure gibberish.

Yet that's not even the main reason I find Hyperlibertarian thought to be so detestable. While prattling about "Liberty" they hope the listener loses track that Libertarianism is all about Property Rights, Property Rights, Property Rights, with "human rights" useless except to the extent that Libertarians define human rights as property rights.

One wonders how these property rights emerge in Libertopia. The recent link says, in effect that whoever gets to the deserted island first gets it all. But our world isn't a deserted island.

This was a practical problem recently at the fall of the Soviet Union, where vast property suddenly had no owner. Directed by Western Libertarian thought, the property was basically given to people who were most corrupt or had most guns. Bravo?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Many people (eg drug dealers) operate outside of the law with apparent success. If success was not possible without courts etc then there would be no drug trade.

It says a lot about a philosophy that it cites the narcotics industry and (earlier) Somalia as favorable examples of how it could work in practice.

One wonders how these property rights emerge in Libertopia. The recent link says, in effect that whoever gets to the deserted island first gets it all. But our world isn't a deserted island.

All the world is a deserted island for someone willing to desert it themselves.

 

[psionl0]

Hyperlibertarians take it as a given that all governments, however democratic, are incompetent and corrupt.

you don't need to be a "hyperlibertarian" to hold that view. It's the truth.

Yet the private quasi-governments that emerge freely will magically be good-spirited.

Just because an extreme viewpoint is wrong doesn't mean that the exact opposite viewpoint is right.

The simple fact is that we have far too much government and it is harmful. It is also a fact that everybody is not going to kill each other just because nobody is around to enforce anti-murder laws.

 

[psionl0]

It says a lot about a philosophy that it cites the narcotics industry and (earlier) Somalia as favorable examples of how it could work in practice.

You missed the point. If bad people can still do business without an enforcer looking over their shoulders then imagine what good people can do.

 

[ehcks]

You missed the point. If bad people can still do business without an enforcer looking over their shoulders then imagine what good people can do.

Other than get screwed over by the bad people who now can not be stopped?

 

[psionl0]

You have a lousy imagination.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You missed the point. If bad people can still do business without an enforcer looking over their shoulders then imagine what good people can do.

1) Drug dealers have enforcers. They're even called that. Can you guess what they enforce? Hint: it's not a system of equitable agreements made and carried out with the full informed consent of all parties involved.

2) The people involved with the drug industry aren't as a whole bad people, or good people. They're just people. Their style of "business" is what you can expect when people, any people, are put in their situation: those with the will and capacity to use force will use it to take and hold power over the rest. How exactly would you hope to avoid that local minimum? Everyone pinkie swears to be on their best behavior?

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
The simple fact is that we have far too much government and it is harmful. It is also a fact that everybody is not going to kill each other just because nobody is around to enforce anti-murder laws.

No, but from that state of affairs doesn't follow that it will remain so. Most societies seems to have evolved anti-murder laws, even in Somalia.

As too much government you will have to explain, how you propose we solve it.

 

[psionl0]

Drug dealers have enforcers. They're even called that. Can you guess what they enforce?

er They kill all the drug buyers and steal their money?

You are not going to trick me into maintaining an extremist position. Business deals can work without government intervention and often do. It doesn't always work out well and government intervention doesn't always fix the problem.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...
You are not going to trick me into maintaining an extremist position. Business deals can work without government intervention and often do. It doesn't always work out well and government intervention doesn't always fix the problem.

So what do you propose to fix it?

 

[psionl0]

So what do you propose to fix it?

That's a toughie. I don't think you can stop people believing that somebody else (especially government) has a magical solution for them.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

That's a toughie. I don't think you can stop people believing that somebody else (especially government) has a magical solution for them.

That is a good answer and you identified part of the problem.
Now another question - can you think of any occurrence where you can't make on your own and you require the help of somebody, where the occurrence falls outside the normal anarcho-capitalistic contract system?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You are not going to trick me into maintaining an extremist position. Business deals can work without government intervention and often do. It doesn't always work out well and government intervention doesn't always fix the problem.

How am I tricking you? You brought it up. If you don't want drug dealing to be used as an example of libertarianism in action, don't describe it as an example of libertarianism in action.

And yes, business deals can work without government intervention. I'd go so far as to agree that they work best without government intervention, as opposed to the /lawsuit/countersuit/media bluster/okay, let's deal/ cycle that business deals progress through today. However, the government intervention needs to be an option for that to happen equitably. If individuals and smaller companies want to avoid getting shafted, legal recourse needs to be available from the start.

One of the worst changes occuring in the course of business law atm are the "lawsuit waiver and binding arbitration" clauses creeping into every contract, where the little dog loses the option for government intervention in exchange for "neutral" arbiters, chosen by the big dog, that for some reason just so happen to always, always decide in their favor. Yet that sort of thing is somehow supposed to never happen in Libertopia.

The conceit of libertarian thought is of a magical society where every contract is perfectly voluntary, in that either party can walk away from it without much hardship involved. That there are never monopolies, or non-negotiable terms, or economic strongarming. Where the money trees grow and there ain't no snow, interest rate's high and you never sell low, in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

 

[Ladewig]

I think the reason one cannot kill the baby is in this section of Hoppe's 2011 speech

Instead, every insurer must restrict the actions of his clients so as to exclude all aggression and provocation on their part. That is, any insurance against social disasters such as crime must be contingent on the insured submitting themselves to specified norms of civilized, nonaggressive conduct.

Further, due to the same reasons and financial concerns, insurers will tend to require that their clients abstain from all forms of vigilante justice (except perhaps under quite extraordinary circumstances), for vigilante justice, even if justified, invariably causes uncertainty and provokes possible third-party intervention. By obliging their clients instead to submit to regular publicized procedures whenever they think they have been victimized, these disturbances and associated costs can be largely avoided.​

The question about what happens when competing insurance/security companies disagree over penalties or other points of law

In this case, "domestic" (intragroup) law would be useless, but naturally every insured person would want protection against the contingency of intergroup conflicts as well. In this situation, it cannot be expected that one insurer and the subscribers of its law code simply subordinate their judgment to that of another insurer and its law. Rather, as I have already explained, in this situation there exists only one credible and acceptable way out of this predicament: from the outset, every insurer would have to be contractually obliged to submit itself and its clients to arbitration by an independent third party. This party would not only be independent but at the same time the unanimous choice of both parties.​

No mention is made of what happens when the two parties cannot agree on a choice.

As for the issue of what to do with the meta-insurance/arbitration company that is too biased. Well, I doubt you'll be surprised by the official answer: those companies will go out of business

Specifically, in order to appear acceptable to security buyers, these contracts must contain provisions about what will be done in the case of a conflict or dispute between the protector or insurer and his own protected or insured clients as well as in the case of a conflict between different protectors or insurers and their respective clients. And in this regard only one mutually agreeable solution exists: in these cases the conflicting parties contractually agree to arbitration by a mutually trusted but independent third party.

And as for this third party, it too is freely financed and stands in competition with other arbitrators or arbitration agencies. Its clients, i.e., the insurers and the insured, expect of it that it come up with a verdict that is recognized as fair and just by all sides. Only arbitrators capable of forming such judgments will succeed in the arbitration market. Arbitrators incapable of this and viewed as biased or partial will disappear from the market.​

http://mises.org/daily/5270/State-or-PrivateLaw-Society

".............

The lecture briefly touches on the subject, but I am fascinated by the idea that I could choose an insurance & security company that follows Sharia law. People who steal my property get a hand cut off.

I am also intrigued by private companies investigating crime in a world free from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. If I may quote Alex Trebeck, "players, that sound means it is time for double Jeopardy - we'll be right back after these messages."

 

[dudalb]

Pure Libertarianism will not work for the same reason that Pure Socialism will not work:

Human Nature.
The idea that people can get along without a police force and laws is so incredibly stupid that, frankly, it is not even worth discussing.

 

[psionl0]

How am I tricking you? You brought it up. If you don't want drug dealing to be used as an example of libertarianism in action, don't describe it as an example of libertarianism in action.

The only reason for bringing it up is to demonstrate that even bad people have to follow some sort of code in their business. If they rip off all of their customers then the won't be in business for long (and you can't make money from a business if you don't have a business). This doesn't mean that they won't shaft individuals from time to time and there is no shortage of penny-ante fly-by-nighters who are content to run a quick scam instead of a business. Governments can't eliminate this entirely so the old caveat emptor principle still applies.

One of the worst changes occuring in the course of business law atm are the "lawsuit waiver and binding arbitration" clauses creeping into every contract, where the little dog loses the option for government intervention in exchange for "neutral" arbiters, chosen by the big dog, that for some reason just so happen to always, always decide in their favor.

That governments would allow this to happen is rather telling about where their loyalties lie.

The conceit of libertarian thought is of a magical society where every contract is perfectly voluntary, in that either party can walk away from it without much hardship involved. That there are never monopolies, or non-negotiable terms, or economic strongarming. Where the money trees grow and there ain't no snow, interest rate's high and you never sell low, in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

Of course, this is not my view.

 

[psionl0]

Now another question - can you think of any occurrence where you can't make on your own and you require the help of somebody, where the occurrence falls outside the normal anarcho-capitalistic contract system?

I'm not sure that I understand the question. Since there is no "normal anarcho-capitalistic contract system", I guess everything falls outside of it.

 

[Swammerdami]

As for the issue of what to do with the meta-insurance/arbitration company that is too biased. Well, I doubt you'll be surprised by the official answer: those companies will go out of business

The idea that competition precludes the rise of bad actors is one of the silliest precepts of the Hyperlibertarians. One can write long essays on access to information, spending reputation, etc. but a famous quote by Keynes sums up much:

"In the long run you're dead."​

Libertarians base their case on human greed (cf. Bernie Madoff), yet also delight in the gullibility of Madoff's clients (that the weak lose is the other side of the coin to the prospering of the strong which is "Liberty"'s goal.)

And while delighting in Madoff's greed and his customer's gullibility, Hyperlibertarians permit no debate on their axiom that government is always corrupt. Even government sustained by democratic elections, or a monarchy with centuries-old reputation.

It all seems so laughable to me.