Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> "Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
> >
> > Samantha Atkins wrote:
> > >
> > > I disagree. Please show your argument that libertarianism, strong human
> > > rights, leads to anarchy or anarcho-capitalism.
> >
> > It follows from the more individualist end of the libertarian philosophy, that
> > the state's monopoly on force should end. When it ends, what replaces it? Most
> > people think chaos and barbarism when they think of the word anarchy, but that
> > is just a deep meme they've been infected with continuously since childhood by
> > the entire power structure around them. It could not be further from the truth.
> > Anarchy is not about chaos or lawlessness, it is about privatizing law and
> > making its providers competitors in the market to provide the best justice
> > possible.
>
> Actually, your first sentence does not follow unless (at least) there
> are no critical functions done by a state that cannot be done as well or
> better by private parties. But this is the core of the dispute. I
> think that to successfully argue libertarianism leads to anarchy one
> would have to delineate all state functions and show for each that it
> could be performed quite adequately and without producing as bad or
> worse problems privately. As bad or worse hinges around as bad or worse
> for individuals and individual rights being upheld. Of course to do
> this comparison there also needs to be agreement on what individual
> rights are and are not and even some meta-agreement on the core that
> such rights grow out of.
No, it doesn't. You and I don't have the same auto insurance or health care
policies, do we? Yet we still get along fine, and nobody is sending other
people's kids to their deaths over car insurance, are they? The only common
agreement by individuals in society is for each individual to respect and honor
the contracts they agree to with other individuals, and to not initiate force
against others. You and I don't have to want to exercise the same rights, so
long as those rights either don't conflict, or don't conflict without just
compensation. If I carry a firearm, and you don't, you are externalizing your
security risk onto me to include you in the security umbrella that the implied
threat my being armed provides (and the presence of a weapon does not constitute
use of force, BTW). Such a scenario can be easily mitigated by a system of
bounties or rewards in those instances when I do in fact take concrete actions
to provide you with protection.
>
> I do not see how multiplying the number of private law providers and
> enforcers actually makes life and cooperative, predicatable activity
> more likely. On the surface it seems to add extra levels of
> complication. Problems that did have on central body of law and
> arbitrators now have N such bodies. These bodies act similarly to small
> States in this respect. So domestic conflicts are escalated into
> international (er, inter-syndicate?) ones.
Socialists do not see how multiplying the number of private product
manufacturers and distributors actually makes life better, more cooperative and
more efficient for all, which is why they simply DO NOT GET capitalism.
Predictability is irrelevant, unless you are a fascist control freak. Adding
complexity to systems (like markets) makes them more robust. Having n bodies of
law ensures that if any one fails to serve adequately, the market for private
law will resolve the issue bloodlessly, allowing consumers to obtain their law
from bodies of law which do provide adequate levels of justice.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:39:19 MDT