From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Mar 26 2003 - 07:46:10 MST
On Tue, 2003-03-25 at 21:42, Hal Finney wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 12:25:41PM -0500, matus wrote:
> > The Private Production of Defense
> > by Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe
> > http://www.libertarianstudies.org/journals/jls/pdfs/14_1/12hoppe.pdf
>
> I don't see that this really addresses the "free rider" problem at all.
> If my neighborhood is safe against an attack, then essentially I am
> safe too. Therefore I would prefer to be a free rider and not pay.
> Let my neighbors pay for the defense of the neighborhood. The result
> is that too little is expended for defense and we all suffer.
>
### You are right, Hoppe didn't address the free-rider problem at all.
The solution I thought about and speculated on previously on this
thread, is essentially formation of a cartel of security providers who
require war defense clauses as part of any private security agreement.
The cartel would not prevent competition by a threat of military action,
and thus would differ from a state.
The question is, what are the conditions for the stability of such a
cartel?
I think that it would require a substantial uniformity among the
customers, far from 100% (where the free rider problem would not exist
at all) but probably much more than the 51% needed theoretically in a
majoritarian democracy for a motion to succeed, or the 10 - 15 %
sufficient in some despotisms.
It is possible to achieve such levels of voluntary uniformity if the
goals of a political system are modest (e.g. only strictly defined
defense), and the majority is willing to sanction non-cooperators. The
College of Hortators comes to mind, where a sufficiently large group of
property owners decides to abide voluntarily by some rules, and sanction
non-cooperators by excluding them from commercial interactions.
This system would work in the transparent society, if the cartel's
supporters gained sufficient credibility by sticking to the embargoes
they enact on non-cooperators. In a secrecy-driven society there would
be too much defection from the Hortators.
So, again, if the above is true, then (voluntary) transparency is *the*
answer to the problems of radical libertarianism, in keeping with the
results from game theory, where cooperative games are aided by
increasing the verifiability of promises.
Rafal
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