The real problem here is government and not "private" (corporatist) prisons who would only exist as they are because gov't enabling.
Were we to abolish gov't and it's geographic monopolies on law and policing, then truly private prisons would both be way less common and nothing at all like what's talked about in the article.
Some of the statistics on crime are outdated but Benson's The Enterprise of Law is a great book to look at understanding the problem here.
Conditions were so terrible before the move for privatization in federal prisons (sometime in the 70's). With a move back toward that system (which would never happen because more politicians' and bureaucrats' pockets are being lined) you might not have quotas and the push for continued prohibition from this one little angle, but gov't is not a business[0], so the comparison to private hospitals or electric companies is faulty.
>Even Ayn Rand said that government should only be in the military and judicial business, how did we end up to the right of her?
You didn't overall. The idea of left and right politics is a false dichotomy and false mechanistic analogy, but I get what you are saying.
I take issue with even calling these prison co's "private". Corporatist is more accurate. To be truly private there would also not be monopolies on lawmaking... police and judges should all be privatized. Government should be abolished and politician should no longer be a job option.
Those companies who lobbied along with politicians for unjust laws, like punishment for putting any substance in my body so long as I harm none, all ought to be branded criminal and punished themselves. This is the position[0] of consistent, anarchist libertarianism, and those such as myself who hold these positions are not fans of Ayn Rand BTW[1].
If someone says "excuse me" in an angry voice, it's sarcastic. If someone says "excuse me" in a soft voice, it's genuine.
Or something like that, anyhow. It's certainly possible to make it ambiguous, in which case it will simply be interpreted according to the mood of whoever hears it.
>Are you seriously suggesting that we could duplicate or triplicate all the roads in the country to allow competition between private road companies?
If you want to seriously consider alternatives to the status quo or at least be able to capably debate those like myself who do propose total privatization of roads, I'd point you to Walter Block's The Privatization of Roads and Highways.
I don't think that it would make sense to just multiply the roads we already have. For privatization of roads to exist, the gov't would have to give up its monopoly on their provision first, but the problem is much deeper than just this one unlikelihood.
You mention that if TWC/Comcast/etc. are given state-granted monopolies, why not, of course, ought they not be regulated? If I have a broken knee, why not get a doctor to fix it?
If I have a broken knee and it became this way because of the widespread acceptance of a legal order where nobody is punished for brandishing tire irons and kneecapping, the problem, then, really lies with this legal order. As an anarchist libertarian, I hope that one day governments worldwide will be abolished and until such time will work toward solutions for the problems to come from the inevitable insurrection of the "great" Western democracies.
My position is so unpopular, and so many people now are unable to consider that maybe democracy isn't such a great thing or that gov't shouldn't have its paws on healthcare, education, etc. I certainly don't suggest a step backwards toward feudalism or some sort of dictatorship, but you ought to keep in mind that besides the US, democracy before WW1 was only in 2 European countries.
I really do share the sentiments of those indoctrinated by statism, to want to see peace and prosperity, children be educated, the elderly having healthcare and so on, I just disagree with the technical (legal and economic) approach.
If one can overcome the idea that government MUST do X/Y/Z in order for civil order to be maintained or a good/service to be provided (and these ideas are often easily disproven by historical examples), then it can at least be a fun thought experiment.
So, to answer your question on multiplying roads we'll imagine that somehow the US gov't has been abolished. All the roads now would have a legal status of being unowned. Private companies could branch off roads but not just swoop in and toss up roadblocks or tollbooths. The reason here, and similar logic applies to public parks and other municipal monopolies, is that citizens have been granted easement rights to travel the roads.
Assuming the citizen is not a criminal member of the political elite, there's no reason to be able to take away these easement rights to travel. Companies could begin a very slow process of homesteading or coming to own the previously public roads by making improvements, patrolling for drunk drivers, etc.
For a road company to succeed, given that they can't just extract tolls from easement rightsholders, they'd have to add some value like as mentioned with fixing potholes, you'd probably see some expansions like the original ideas for I-70 in Baltimore, then there would probably be some bundling in with auto insurers and DRO's ("dispute resolution organizations", which could be for- or non-profit police and judges basically).
The US government is abolished, but the legal system is preserved? Not how it works. There would be a vacuum and a brutal rush to reappropriate resources according to rules other than property rights, which ceased to exist along with the government.
Government evolved from much worse scenarios. What's to stop me from building a militia and taking over a town? Taking your house and wife? I've got overwhelming force and I say they're mine.
>The US government is abolished, but the legal system is preserved? Not how it works.
I said this was a thought experiment to sort of isolate this one issue. It's how we (praxeologists of law) might give suggestions to the polycentric legal system rising from a previously state-ruled region.
You might not have this misunderstanding but many do. Anarchy simply means a lack of rulers. It doesn't necessarily entail chaos and it certainly doesn't mean a lack of law.
Anarchist libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism is distinguished from early leftist-"anarchism" by two main characteristics.
The former is radically and uncompromisingly for free markets and anti-state, with a focus on sound legal theory (a combination of a set of static legal grundnorms, viz. the praxeological aspect or a set of laws reasonably suited to all humans, with room for free variation among groups/cultures understanding that personal ideology will shape jurisprudence).
The latter—leftist-"anarchists" as you'll probably see protesting the next Gx Summit or depicted on the TV—make varieties of socialist or communistic ideological proposals which results in a total lack of consistent legal theory. As an ideology, "an-cap" is relatively new and our body of attendant legal writings already dwarves theirs. Where leftist-"anarchism" has been tried, it's failed to maintain civil order and the "leaders" have been nigh-indistinguishable from other despots.
>There would be a vacuum and a brutal rush to reappropriate resources according to rules other than property rights, which ceased to exist along with the government.
You'll probably get that anyhow if you are so unlucky to live in a country that implodes and it is more likely that most people will just go on following the status quo than you and others being so swayed by my words and we see an orderly unwinding of your gov't.
Throughout civilized history, from tribalism to today, we've seen paradigm changes. What's next when democracy fails? Ideology and law can both be seen broadly as "technologies". A few of us are working on a backup plan. Most people who are even interested involve themselves in electoral politics and/or try to use the web for "smart gov't".
>What's to stop me from building a militia and taking over a town? Taking your house and wife? I've got overwhelming force and I say they're mine.
The simple answer is that feuding is expensive, even more so of a drain without a mass of people to extract wealth from to fund wars.
Really though, if you were concerned with these objections you'd realize you already live in such conditions and become a libertarian anarchist! You live in a state (geographic monopoly on law, arbitration and the use of violence).
Democracy is an insidious advancement in ideological technology because it gave the populace the idea that "anyone can be king". The US was a noble experiment but I consider it a failure. You have a massive drain on standards of living from bureaucracy and regulations, meanwhile the political elite is not much different than in previous paradigms.
Why take houses by brute force when you have everyone in them convinced that X/Y/Z must be provided by gov't, and that gov't needs it's "revenues"?
Polycentric legal orders similar to what we propose have maintained civil order longer than the US has existed so far[0]. It was just after WW2 that the dollar upended the pound sterling as the world's reserve currency and there was a sudden huge rise in prices and chaos in Britain.
It will be an interesting chapter in history for how long the US maintains its global hegemony. Why not, with half of world military spending or whatever doesn't the US just start picking off little countries here and there like you say? Well they sort of actually do by proxy wars and "economic warfare".
At a basic level, governments are in a state of anarchy amongst themselves though. Why might it not work at other levels? I'm convinced that we can have what's promised by states but under-delivered by abolishing them. A lot of those suffering the sort of Stockholm syndrome concomitant with statism see what I am saying as crazy but I'm unconcerned.
This is one tactic on bringing about libertarian anarchy and many who in debate will say they oppose it actually are helping bring it about[1]. If you want a more in depth answer to your actual questions see here perhaps[2]. A DRO is a startup too ambitiously frightening for today's YC, but it actually funds many who feed into said tactic. Legal praxeology is just a hobby for myself and I doubt I'll live to see my dream of a free society, so I am working on a large global health problem which again is part of the tactic.
While states dominate history, private law has proven successful. You could see the Law Merchant throughout Europe as one example or medieval Iceland, where civil order was maintained for longer than the US has existed so far, as another.
> You could see the Law Merchant throughout Europe as one example
That is not an example of justice in the absence of the state. All the principal trading cities were governed, whether as city states (Venice), as quasi-independent city states within a federated league (Lubeck, Hamburg, and the other Hanseatic States) or as cities within national kingdoms (London, Ipswich and other cities under the English crown). It is an example of states agreeing to standardized laws to attract traders and provide a solid basis for ongoing trade.
From the Merchant of Venice:
The duke cannot deny the course of law.
For the commodity that strangers have
With us in Venice, if it be denied,
Will much impeach the justice of his state.
Since that the trade and profit of the city
Consisteth of all nations.
The presence of common merchant law does not mean the absense of a state.
I said private law, not purely anarchic examples. I could give more anarchic ones if you liked but it's revisionist history so you'd have to do a good bit of reading to really discuss it.
Iceland is an example of polycentric law fairly close to what anarcho-capitalists advocate. You didn't really address that or the other points.
The first big difference between the Lex Mercatoria and present-day law is the source being jurisprudence and not bureaucratic legislation. The second would be cases being torts with an identifiable victim versus today's with victimless "crimes against society".
For why legislation is awful and for a hint at solutions under an eminently human system of law in a free society see these:
I get the funniest looks when someone says that they are a Libertarian. My response is oh your an anarchist, but at what level? EDIT: The libertarian looks at me funny.
Seriously, libertarians have no idea of the history of the political movement they are involved in.
Why are libertarians the only group held to a pure ideological standard? No one blinks when they meet a conservative or liberal with a few positions that go the other way.
For example, I frequently hear liberals say that if libertarianism were pushed to its logical extreme, you'd end up with Somalia. For some reason, liberals are insulated from the question on what happens when leftist ideology it pushed to its extreme.
Because libertarians define themselves in terms of pure ideology?
US modern liberalism, on the other hand, has basically no pure ideological component other than beliefs in humanistic morals, pragmatism and empiricism. (And, of course, pandering from politicians). Most of us really distrust overly strong ideologies, so that's what we poke fun at. Liberalism isn't the opposite of libertarianism in terms of ideology, we're not in favor of nationalizing industries, it's the opposite where we don't think there's a one-size fits-all narrative to define everything.
> For example, I frequently hear liberals say that if libertarianism were pushed to its logical extreme, you'd end up with Somalia.
I only ever see that in discussions where libertarian participants attack every criticism drawn from real-world experience with "but, that's only because of government, but in a real libertarian system, that wouldn't happen".
> For some reason, liberals are insulated from the question on what happens when leftist ideology it pushed to its extreme.
Except in the real world, where conservative arguments often start with some caricature of what leftist ideology pushed to an extreme would be presented as exactly what everyone even mildly to the left of them actually wants, at a minimum, and immediately. (And, yes, the reverse happens from liberals to conservatives frequently, too.)
I try to split beliefs between small-l libertarianism for what I believe (which is not ideologically pure), and capital-L Libertarianism for the party platform. It's the only way to reconcile liberals and conservatives with their presumptive parties, though Libertarians, not having won anything, aren't as compromising.
"Why are libertarians the only group held to a pure ideological standard?"
Because they keep espousing positions that have proven to be terrible ideas. They forget about history, and why things like government regulations came about.
I'm not sure libertarians are not opposed to regulation, they just require regulations to have a rational basis, and be restricted in scope. For example, not allowing murder is certainly a regulation, and I'm pretty sure libertarians generally are ok with that regulation.
Not all but some libertarians are arguably more familiar with history, because they understand the degree to which regulation historically has been twisted (generally: to screw over the poor), wheras their detractors have been sold the line that exists to defend the status quo on any given regulation.
You get or give funny looks when some one says they are a libertarian?
Your post doesn't make sense to me at all. What is this about levels of being an anarchist? I'm an anarcho-capitalist, basically, which is quite different than the typical leftist "anarchists".
>Seriously libertarians have no idea of the history of the political movement they are involved in.
Kind of a pointless remark don't you think? I'm pretty well-versed in the history of libertarian anarchism and lest-"anarchism".
The first person to use libertarianism as a term was an an anarchist: The French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque.
Libertarianism was strongly rooted on the far left for a long time - Lenins "Left Communism - An infantile Disorder" was aimed at libertarian Marxists, for example.
The "modern" right wing libertarianism is the new kid on the block.
Now if only my In-Laws that just spout out whatever Glen Beck says with mixed in "small governemnt" people say gets them to believe liberty is best experienced in Anarchy :)
"an open, transparent, and efficient government" is a blind alley. While the tasks you will be doing are not criminal, you are working for criminals. You might reject my radical statements out of hand but if you are open to why I say this and want to know more please let me know.
Only _some_ aspects and activities of government are criminal.
We still need someone to build roads and make sure the water stays clean. Arguably, we also need an education system, an oversight of healthcare, a social safety net system and many other things. Working in these capacities helps society in general, and everyday citizens to have better lives.
There are way too many ineffective people in bloated bureaucratic stasis managing these things at the moment, and very much poor and overpriced execution which costs all of us in terms of services received and increased tax burden.
Helping to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these socially important tasks is a very worthwhile use of work time and is not "working for criminals", as the recipients of this work are the citizens of the country.
>Only _some_ aspects and activities of government are criminal.
States do some "good" things like feeding hungry schoolchildren, but never without first committing some "bad". Typically this is extortion (taxation/"revenue"),but originally states are founded on other forms of aggression like military conquest.
Those who perform "good" tasks like being a teacher or web developer can be forgiven totally.
>We still need someone to build roads
This is the #1 laugher for us anarchist libertarians. Here's a lengthy book if you would like to see the case against road socialism.
Poke around that site and I'm sure you can find many more arguments for each of the things you mistakenly think a free society can't provide.
Please realize that the blind alley is in part thinking that government is a business. It isn't and will never be. It's similar to your local mafioso, just a widely accepted one.
Even though some of the people operating the government are criminals, the function of government is necessary (as it is for all large human organizations).
"Open, transparent, and efficient" may be a lofty goal, but it's still important for civilians to get involved in moving the government toward that goal.
Nothing is black and white. You seem to be unwilling or unable to see the gray in your chosen area of extremism.
So you don't actually have the conviction to refuse to pay the criminals?
If you really believed what you are saying you would move to another country and give up your US citizenship. Until you take that kind of stand you are just a blowhard.
>Even though some of the people operating the government are criminals, the function of government is necessary
History disproves that a government (geographic monopoly on arbitration and security) is necessary for maintaining civil order. Of course, you aren't taught this history in state education.
I'm most familiar with the polycentric legal order of medieval Iceland, which lasted longer than the US has so far, so I will point there first.
I think it's important that more people start to recognize government for the evil that it is and build businesses that help keep money out of gov't coffers rather than keep heading down the blind alley you suggest.
If you are an honest person, you'd now would admit you are wrong that gov't is necessary. You just don't know the history yet. Who's really the black and white extremist here? It's okay, I'm familiar that the majority of statists like yourself are oblivious to their Stockholm syndrome and hardened indoctrination. (The rest may be able to see gov't for what it is but lack the creativity to start to work toward alternate solutions.)
You seem pretty set that this gov't thing is necessary. There's at least a few thousand abolitionists like myself ready to pioneer the land a state is willing to cede. Let's go grey baby. Are you even open to the idea you could be wrong?
Besides the fact that this also was quite a bloody period of Icelandic history, the population also most probably was below 50000, which is the census result of 1703.
If you have no population to speak of, and practically everyone is a subsistence farmer/fisherman, and you have a population density of about one person per square mile, then yes, you don't much coordination/government.
Qualify "bloody". You can say it all you want, but once the polycentric system fell to the cultural perks and a new monopoly given to the church and chaos ensued, the people begged the king of Denmark for a relative stability.
We're talking about many centuries before your irrelevant census point. A 2 or 20 person society is relevant on a theoretical level.
Go look on wikipedia for the earliest abolition of slavery:
After the early rush of settlers, the need for external slaves became unnecessary because the population eclipsed exploitable resources.
Whatever bullshit objection like small population or they are "backwards" subsistence farmers is irrelevant to the fact that civil order was maintained by polycentric law for 3 centuries. Could it work today? Your type won't even allow the experiment so people are forced into schemes like seasteading or "free cities" in Central America.
No need for ad hominems, let your arguments speak.
> like small population or they are "backwards" subsistence farmers is irrelevant to the fact that civil order was maintained by polycentric law for 3 centuries.
Both subsistence farming (e.g. means of production that are by definition not exhibiting division of labor) and an extremly low population density mean that both communication and coordination between people are orders of magnitude smaller than in complex and dense societies. That's pretty much consensus both in macro economics and in sociology.
> Could it work today? Your type won't even allow the experiment
I'm an empirical scientist, so not exactly opposed to experimentation. Has it occured to you that "my type" simply isn't persuaded by your argument?
Haha. The Age of the Sturlungs, the "bloody" era is after the early Commonwealth I am talking about. Way to not even read my links or have a remote clue about the topic. Look 2 up on the right list on your link for what I am talking about.
You're complaining about what happened after people switched over to the statist mindset you simultaneously are trapped in.
>Both subsistence farming (e.g. means of production that are by definition not exhibiting division of labor) and an extremly low population density mean that both communication and coordination between people are orders of magnitude smaller than in complex and dense societies. That's pretty much consensus both in macro economics and in sociology.
Seems like just another bullshit excuse for an increase in bureaucracy like OP is joining into.
>Has it occured to you that "my type" simply isn't persuaded by your argument?
I don't care. The fact remains that we are not allowed any land to experiment with. Say you aren't opposed to experimentation all you want but let me know when we can experiment and I will care. Your democracy experiment will crumble before this ever happens anyhow so whatever. Democracy was not common outside the US pre-WW1.
> Haha. The Age of the Sturlungs, the "bloody" era is after the early Commonwealth I am talking about.
The Age of the Sturlungs is what Commonwealth devolved into in a relatively short period. Are you suggesting the Age of the Sturlungs just appeared out of nowhere?
> Seems like just another bullshit excuse for an increase in bureaucracy like OP is joining into.
Ok, apparently you haven't yet read much about economics. Division of labor is a precondition for both wage labor and capital accumulation. If you have neither wage labor nor capital accumulation, you can't have capitalism. It's that simple. You have markets, yes, but everbody had markets for thousands of years. Markets =/= capitalism. Your argument boils down to using a society that is neither culturally nor demographically nor economically similar to present day societies as a role model for present day society. Can you now see why I'm not persuaded?
And again: Ad hominems don't help. You want to persuade the majority to try out a grand libertarian experiment, but you get all worked up because a single person questions your reasoning. It won't work that way.
I appreciated your comments and learned some interesting things from them. I also admire your ability to have an argument without letting it drift toward becoming personal. I wish there were more people online who could do that.
Unfortunately, I think you're feeding a troll at this point. No amount of logic or reason can undo countless hours stewing in his/her own confirmation bias.
> I appreciated your comments and learned some interesting things from them. I also admire your ability to have an argument without letting it drift toward becoming personal. I wish there were more people online who could do that.
Thank you :)
> Unfortunately, I think you're feeding a troll at this point. No amount of logic or reason can undo countless hours stewing in his/her own confirmation bias.
I suppose you are right. But text-only casual communication gets misinterpreted so easily (e.g. I have the tendency to read agressiveness into texts that are just dense factual answers) that I try to stay calm one answer longer than I'd emotionally do. Works for me :)
>The Age of the Sturlungs is what Commonwealth devolved into in a relatively short period.
The Commonwealth lasted ~290 years. That's all that's relevant is that a polycentric legal order, one paradigmatically different than the statist one that dominates history has worked and could work again.
Your bloody Sturlunga is evidence of the aggressive nature of the statism you propose as "necessary".
>Ok, apparently you haven't yet read much about economics
Sure homie. Update me when you have read Human Action. To me markets are capitalism, but people equivocate on "capitalism" as also the current statist crony corporatism. Wittgenstein teaches us to be clear about what we mean. If you're not familiar with him it's a simple and important lesson.
Your summary of medieval Iceland displays your ignorance. Go read the article I linked and see Byock from UCLA if you will only crack open mainstream history. Byock supports the history just fails to recognize the polycentric and anarchist interpretation.
The point is that society functioned well and civil order, viz. not the chaos that "anarchy" is assumed, was maintained for longer than the US has existed. In the grand scale of history medieval Iceland succeeded almost 3x as long as the democracy you surely worship has been unquestioned as superior (just ~100 years now).
>Can you actually make a real case in teh real world that "government" in some for is not nesercery?
Let's gloss over that Lex Mercatoria why don't we. Yeah, I missed mentioning my #2 area of knowledge, Xeer customary law in Somalia. The quality of life there has improved vastly despite the UN insurgency (see proof in my past comments from CIA/World Bank stats).
Wait, I can just hear it now, "warlords". I'll spare myself the time responding to ignorant people like you and just drop one more link. Maybe one day I will be bestowed the honor to silence those who disagree and remain happy in my ignorance without reading.
I did read most of the Major Icelandic saga's at school the primary sources and not wikipedia.
and your seriously sugesting that a failed state like Somalia is a good model for civil society.
I used to work for the Uk office of a major Lebanese company and lets say I did not ask to many Q about how we got a kidnapped guy back from beruit - probably some one said well give him back or we have or mates in the phalange make your locality be the next shatilla massacre
Failed state? More like failed UN insurgency and failed propping up government the people don't want going on 20+ years. Anarchy reigns outside of the warzone. Past Galkayo there is quite a lot of peace relative to Mogadishu. Even before Barre's regime failed it is estimated that 80-90% of any state court orders were ignored in preference of Xeer customary law. You don't know the situation here if you can distill it to "failed state" and "warlords".
Who cares you read sagas or whatever about a Lebanese kidnapping?
>This is exactly what the patent system was made for; so the little guy could have an incentive to invent
I think this is completely false despite it being "common wisdom". I've challenged people who say this to provide some sort of evidence that patent systems aid innovation and seen none that was anywhere near convincing so far.
Nobody so far has so much as ventured an answer except one person who pointed to a study that measured innovation solely by the increased use of patent systems in countries where the regime of legal monopolies strengthened over time. I see that as evidence of the insidious nature of patent systems if anything, but to each his own I guess. Got anything?
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is no legal construct that cannot be employed to the advantage of the party that can hire better lawyers. In the battle of ironclad patent versus fully funded legal war chest, the latter wins.
The implication of my post, in context, was that the patent system does not accomplish that idealistic purpose. And indeed, the article itself says that most actual innovation avoids patents. I interpret this as the network of innovators recognizing the flaws in the system and routing around them.
> I've challenged people who say this to provide some sort of evidence that patent systems aid innovation and seen none that was anywhere near convincing so far.
You've been challenging people who haven't looked enough :-) For one, Kenneth Sokoloff (mentioned in TFA) authored some of the highest cited studies that show the benefits of patent systems.
You are right that measuring the effect of patents on innovation in terms of patents is somewhat circular, but economists have long realized this. There are now tons of historical and empirical studies showing increased patenting being correlated with improved metrics of innovation as measured by various proxies such as R&D expenditure, diversity of industries doing research, VC financing for startups, employee growth, and even economic well-being. Of course, there are costs of the patent system as well, and various studies that attempt to quantify those.
Instead of pointing to dozens of individual studies, it'd be easier to point you to this meta-study that references a number of those other articles:
"RECENT RESEARCH ON THE ECONOMICS OF PATENTS", Bronwyn H. Hall and Dietmar Harhoff (Google for PDF)
Were we to abolish gov't and it's geographic monopolies on law and policing, then truly private prisons would both be way less common and nothing at all like what's talked about in the article.
Some of the statistics on crime are outdated but Benson's The Enterprise of Law is a great book to look at understanding the problem here.
Conditions were so terrible before the move for privatization in federal prisons (sometime in the 70's). With a move back toward that system (which would never happen because more politicians' and bureaucrats' pockets are being lined) you might not have quotas and the push for continued prohibition from this one little angle, but gov't is not a business[0], so the comparison to private hospitals or electric companies is faulty.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqoBZLSm1WA