Re: Nozick's Minimalism

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Tue, 15 Dec 1998 13:32:31 -0500

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Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu> Wrote:

>But isn't a *PPF* an organization?

I don't know, is civilization an organization?

>Draw a circle around my PPA and your PPA and the arbitration agency that
>they chose. That's the PPF.

It's only part of it, it's more than just you and me, don't forget the PPA of Mr. C and that arbiter, and Mr. D, and ...
I don't see why we need to invent a new term like PPF, we already have a word the covers that ground, "society".

>What if someone wants laws that the PPF doesn't want?

If you want laws radically different than anybody else does then you're just not going to have enough money to get everything you want.

>At that point, they have only two choices: join the PPF (through arbitration)
>or fight the PPF.

Yes, if you want laws that everybody else hates with a deep passion and you refuse to compromise one inch then you'll have to fight. However it would be foolish of you to fight unless your one man PPA was more powerful than all the others put together, and that could never happen, not even if you were 10 times richer than Bill Gates.

>In short, it seems like the PPF is a government with a unique mechanism of
>legislature. Minmalist, in fact, as Nozick advocates. And, most
>importantly, not anarcho-capitalist any more.

Your view of an anarcho-capitalist society where everybody is always free to do exactly what they want is a straw man, we're not that stupid, we know that's impossible. I rather dislike funny hats but if everybody except me thinks it's vitally important to put on a funny hat on Tuesday and is willing to pay big bucks to enforce their wish then I'm just going to have to put on a funny hat on Tuesday. Everybody can't have total control over what laws they want to live by but we can have a lot more control than we have now.

Samael <Samael@dial.pipex.com> Wrote:

>So all criminals would join PPA's that were anti capital punishment?

Yes they probably would but my PPA is in favor of capital punishment and my PPA is almost certainly stronger than the criminal PPA, such people usually don't have a lot of money. In a dispute the arbiter will be closer to my liking than to the criminals.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net

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