X-Message-Number: 28212
From: "egg plant" <>
Subject: RE: CryoNet #28197 - #28206
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:26:18 +0000

"Anthony ." <>

>Perhaps it'd be easier to say what there should be laws on rather than 
>shouldn't be, but that is still probably a long list of laws

Good laws are no different than anything else, if you want to maximize 
something then make it a commodity and sell it on the free market. Nobody 
does that for law very much, that's why there are far more good cars than 
good laws.  In a world with minimal government Privately Produced Law (PPL) 
would have Private Protection Agencies (PPA's) to back them up. Disputes 
among PPA's would be settled by an independent arbitrator agreed to by both 
parties BEFORE the disagreement happened. Something like that can exist 
today. When companies sign complicated contracts they sometimes also agree 
on who will arbitrate it if differences in interpretation happen. Nobody 
wants to get caught up in the slow, expensive court system run by 
governments.

The arbitrator is paid by the case, and because he is picked by both sides, 
it's in his interest to be as just as possible. If he favored one side over 
another or made brutal or stupid decisions he would not be picked again and 
would need to look for a new line of work. Unlike present day judges and 
juries, justice would have a positive survival value for the arbitrator.

All parties would have a reason to avoid violence if possible. The disputing 
parties would not want to turn their front yard into a war zone, and 
violence is expensive. The successful protection agencies would be more 
interested in making money than saving face. Most of the time this would 
work so I expect the total level of violence to be less than in the nation 
state system we have now, but I'm not such a utopian as to suggest it will 
drop to zero. Even when force is not used the implicit threat is always 
there, another good
reason to be civilized.

Please note that I'm not talking about justice only for the rich. If a rich 
man's PPA makes unreasonable demands (beatings, sidewalk justice, I insist 
on my mother being the judge if I get into trouble) it's going to need one 
hell of a lot of firepower to back it up. That kind of an army is expensive 
because of the hardware needed and because of the very high wages it will 
need to pay its employees for an extremely dangerous job. To pay for all 
this they will need to charge their clients enormous fees severely limiting 
their customer base and that means even higher charges. They could never get 
the upper hand, because the common man's PPA would be able to outspend a PPA 
that had outrageous demands and was just for the super rich. A yacht cost a 
lot more than a car, yet the Ford motor Company is far richer than all the 
yacht builders on the planet combined.

No system can guarantee justice to everybody all the time but you'd have the 
greatest chance of finding it in Anarcho-capitalism. In a dictatorship one 
man's whim can lead to hell on earth, I don't see how 40 million Germans 
could have murdered 6 million Jews in a Anarcho-capitalistic world. Things 
aren't much better in a Democracy, 51% can decide to kill the other 49% 
,nothing even close to that is possible in Anarchy, even theoretically.

In general, the desire not to be killed is much stronger than the desire to 
kill a stranger, even a Jewish  stranger. Jews would be willing to pay as 
much as necessary, up to and including their entire net worth not to be 
killed. I doubt if even the most rabid anti Semite would go much beyond 2%. 
As a result the PPA protecting Jews would be much stronger than the one that 
wants to kill them. In Anarchy, for things that are REALLY important to you 
(like not getting killed) you have much more influence than just one man one 
vote.

>Do you think if there was virtually no
>government, that no other strong,
>resourceful political faction would try to take it over and become a "big" 
>government again?

How can I guarantee that some Private Protection Agency won't switch from 
being a protector to being an oppressor? I can't. I can't give you an iron 
clad guarantee that the US Army wont overthrow the government and set up a 
military dictatorship either. They certainly have the means to do so if they 
wished to. I don't think that's very likely to happen, but it's far more 
likely than the sort of organization I'm talking about doing it. The instant 
it starts acting in a totalitarian way, shut off its money supply and stop 
its cancerous growth in the bud. That is a powerful tool that we don't have 
today, with the US. Army you are forced to keep sending it money even if you 
hate what it's doing.

>you need a fairer share of wealth, health,
>and security and less stealing and domination through warfare and 
>aggressive business (often the same thing).

Translation: A Libertarian society is inferior to one where people simply do 
what I tell them to do. Well I confess on occasion I have had somewhat 
similar thoughts myself but for some reason I have had limited success 
convincing others as to the virtue of this view so I've decided to settle 
for second best.

John K Clark

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