Free Market Anarchism: A Justification

[dan2100]

As a starting point in the minarchism/anarchism debate, the only fair comparison would be to compare one legitimate government with one legitimate competing agency, i.e., an agency that employs the same "objective" legal standards as your legitimate government.

This is not the starting point. Every government, legitimate or not, competes against other governments on the planet to be the defense agency of choice. The earth is a partial anarchy that has separate, exclusive, geographically defined jurisdictions for each agency, rather than the anarchy that has overlapping geographical jurisdictions and in which multiple agencies could legitimately operate in one location.

I am not arguing that there is any difference in the ability of any of these agencies to define and enforce a rational set of standards. My argument is that liberty requires that in any given region (=jurisdiction), only one constitution shall be enforced, and that no matter how many agencies or sub-jurisdictions there may be, ultimately there must be one body of oversight to certify compliance with that constitution.

That is what objectifies (enables to be a certainly known fact) the principles and standards that opt in that given region. It is what makes the laws and their enforcement known and therefore predictable to all subject to them. It does not guarantee that the laws will be rational, but only that they will be known. We are discussing the proper system to govern when the founders and sustainers of the government are rational. That those men can be irrational is not relevant.

Two quick comments:

1. Your view of what constitutes objective law would seem to lead to even a government never changing its laws. After all, once there's a change, this introduces uncertainty into law. So, unless you posit a government that never changes the laws it enforces, there will be an element of unpredictability. Surely, you're not arguing for immutable government laws?

2. There's no reason to believe competing legal authorities must have differing laws, standards, and procedures or that they would not want their laws, standards, and procedures to be known by all in a given area. On the latter, trying to use or enforce laws, rules, etc. that are not widely known from the start if not widely accepted will likely increase enforcement costs. (A government actually has to worry less about this because it faces no internal competitors -- merely the threat of external competitor or internal disobedience.)

It might help if you actually read or reread the works by George and Roderick Long I cited earlier. They cover objective law in more detail -- and how this would play out under anarchy.

[tjohnson]

1. Your view of what constitutes objective law would seem to lead to even a government never changing its laws. After all, once there's a change, this introduces uncertainty into law. So, unless you posit a government that never changes the laws it enforces, there will be an element of unpredictability. Surely, you're not arguing for immutable government laws?

This seems to be very similar to the issue with contextual knowledge.

[dan2100]

1. Your view of what constitutes objective law would seem to lead to even a government never changing its laws. After all, once there's a change, this introduces uncertainty into law. So, unless you posit a government that never changes the laws it enforces, there will be an element of unpredictability. Surely, you're not arguing for immutable government laws?

This seems to be very similar to the issue with contextual knowledge.

I haven't been following the discussion on contextual knowledge here closely, but I reckon there might be similarities.

By the way, here is Rand on objective law:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/law--objective_and_non-objective.html

The difference George, other anarchists, and I would have with Rand here is that objective law requires a monopolist. To use a typical analogy, just as there's no requirement to have objectivity in science that there be only one science authority -- the standards of objectivity in science are independent of any authority and are open to discovery by anyone -- so there is no need for the same in law -- the standards of objectivity in law are independent of any authority and are open to discovery by anyone. And, similarly, as in science, there doesn't need to be a monopoly enforcer of objectivity, the same is true for law.

[George H. Smith]

As a starting point in the minarchism/anarchism debate, the only fair comparison would be to compare one legitimate government with one legitimate competing agency, i.e., an agency that employs the same "objective" legal standards as your legitimate government.

This is not the starting point. Every government, legitimate or not, competes against other governments on the planet to be the defense agency of choice. The earth is a partial anarchy that has separate, exclusive, geographically defined jurisdictions for each agency, rather than the anarchy that has overlapping geographical jurisdictions and in which multiple agencies could legitimately operate in one location.

You declare that I am mistaken without considering any of my arguments, and then you go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with the point I was making, apparently hoping that its physical proximity will somehow make it relevant. This is typical of your modus operandi.

I am not arguing that there is any difference in the ability of any of these agencies to define and enforce a rational set of standards. My argument is that liberty requires that in any given region (=jurisdiction), only one constitution shall be enforced, and that no matter how many agencies or sub-jurisdictions there may be, ultimately there must be one body of oversight to certify compliance with that constitution.

Suppose several different agencies in the same territory agree to abide by the same constitution, and they further agree to submit any and all disputes that cannot be resolved among themselves to impartial and binding arbitration. This would fulfill your criteria, so what possible objection could you have? And this, btw, is essentially what Murray Rothbard proposes in For A New Liberty -- a book you apparently haven't read, given your persistent misrepresentations of market anarchism.

Ghs

[syrakusos]

I will point also to the HUNDRED YEARS of General Motors and Ford Motor Company having private security in close promixity, with not a shot fired between them.

This is not theory. This is practice.

My website, Washtenaw Justice

http://www.washtenawjustice.com/

Stuart Hayashi has an excellent essay on metaphysical impossibilities. It is relevant here because the arguments in this topic are all about "What if" scearios that lack reality. I cite real world examples and no one seems interested.

"In responding to and resolving the criminal behavior of employees, organizations routinely choose options other than criminal prosecution, for example, suspension without pay, transfer, job reassignment, job redesign (eliminating some job duties), civil restitution, and dismissal...

While on the surface, it appears that organizations opt for less severe sanctions than would be imposed by the criminal justice system, in reality, the organizational sanctions may have greater impact... In addition, the private systems of criminal justice are not always subject to principles of exclusionary evidence, fairness, and defendant rights which characterize the public criminal justice systems. The level of position, the amount of power, and socio-economic standing of the employee in the company may greatly influence the formality and type of company sanctions. In general, private justice systems are characterized by informal negotiations and outcomes, and nonuniform standards and procedures among organizations and crime types."

(THE HALLCREST REPORTS. 1. Private Security and Police in America, William C. Cunningham and Todd Taylor, Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1985. 2. Private Security Trends 1970 to 2000, William C. Cunningham and John J. Strauchs and Clifford W. Van Meter, Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1990.) ("This publication reports a 30-month descriptive research project performed by Hallcrest Systems, Inc., MacLean, Virginia, under a grant from the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.")

[syrakusos]

You can have Roman Catholics and Anglicans being physical neighbors, yet adhering to different laws that supersede geography. When multinational corporations sign contracts, they decide in advance which laws they will adhere to -- that is part of the negotiation. And they need not adhere to the laws of any state, really. In the USA we have a "Uniform Commercial Code" an abstract kind of thing developed to get around the problem of 50 states with different laws. (Wikipedia article about it here.) Private International Law is also known as "The Conflict of Laws" as when different people in different states have a common personal problem, like an inheritance. The modern form is the Hague Convention of 1893 but it goes back to the Code of Justinian, really. The American Arbitration Association has a long history of international business services. There is the International Criminal Court in the Hague, also, where jurists from many lands are working out new laws with which to hold culpable the state actors who violate human rights.

We live with and within multiple jurisdictions as elements and aspects of many institutions. The idea that there is a "geographic monopoly on law" is just not true.

Oxford’s independence came from its isolated locale. Teachers and their students clustered there to be apart from the wider world. Although the bishop at Ely appointed the chancellor in 1214, by the end of the century the masters elected their board. In Cambridge, the university – also rooted in loosely connected lecturers and their students – applied for a royal charter, and continued to petition for renewal with each change of monarch. Cambridge also received papal recognition in 1233. In the 14th and 15th centuries, German universities were often founded by a local prince or baron and less often a bishop, but nonetheless continued in the tradition of a corporation, independent of the noble house. Universitas referred not to the school per se but to the law of incorporation which recognized a collective entity. Thus, universities always had the right and obligation of independent governance. ... The American Physical Society could do little to Jan Hendrik Schön (even if he had been a member), but the University of Konstanz stripped him of his doctorate even though they found no fault with his thesis. If universities created rigorous curricula in ethics, that would close the information loop, completing the feedback cycle, controlling the proportional, integrated or differential variances by scientists from the norms of moral and ethical practice.

• Duryea, Edwin D., The Academic Corporation: A History of College and University Governing Boards, Falmer Press (Taylor & Francis Group), New York and London, 2000.
  
• Leedham-Green, Elisabeth, A Concise History of The University of Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  
• Paulsen, Friedrich, The German University and University Study, Charles Scribner, 1906.
  
• Hart, James Morgan. German Universities: A Narrative of Personal Experience, G. P. Putnam, 1874.
  

From PROCEDURAL MISCONDUCT BY SCIENTISTS: PREVENTION AND REMEDIES by Michael E. Marotta, a paper written in partial completion of "PHYS 406: Ethical Issues in Physics" for Dr. Patrick L. Koehn, Eastern Michigan University, Winter 2010.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Michael E. Marotta

[dan2100]

I will point also to the HUNDRED YEARS of General Motors and Ford Motor Company having private security in close promixity, with not a shot fired between them.

This is not theory. This is practice.

My website, Washtenaw Justice

http://www.washtenawjustice.com/

Stuart Hayashi has an excellent essay on metaphysical impossibilities. It is relevant here because the arguments in this topic are all about "What if" scearios that lack reality.

Is this essay available online? If so, would you post the link?

I cite real world examples and no one seems interested.

I'm interested. One problem with some examples, though, is that one must tease out the anarchist implications. For example, with regard to GM and Ford not shooting it out, both companies do exist in the matrix of nation states. The skeptic or critic of anarchism could argue that that's the reason there's "not a shot fired between them."

"In responding to and resolving the criminal behavior of employees, organizations routinely choose options other than criminal prosecution, for example, suspension without pay, transfer, job reassignment, job redesign (eliminating some job duties), civil restitution, and dismissal...

While on the surface, it appears that organizations opt for less severe sanctions than would be imposed by the criminal justice system, in reality, the organizational sanctions may have greater impact... In addition, the private systems of criminal justice are not always subject to principles of exclusionary evidence, fairness, and defendant rights which characterize the public criminal justice systems. The level of position, the amount of power, and socio-economic standing of the employee in the company may greatly influence the formality and type of company sanctions. In general, private justice systems are characterized by informal negotiations and outcomes, and nonuniform standards and procedures among organizations and crime types."

(THE HALLCREST REPORTS. 1. Private Security and Police in America, William C. Cunningham and Todd Taylor, Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1985. 2. Private Security Trends 1970 to 2000, William C. Cunningham and John J. Strauchs and Clifford W. Van Meter, Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1990.) ("This publication reports a 30-month descriptive research project performed by Hallcrest Systems, Inc., MacLean, Virginia, under a grant from the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.")

I agree with this. Critics of anarchism often forget that reputations and the like for most people do matter and greatly influence behavior. If my memory's correct, too, there's been some work showing that the longer a relationship exists between two or more people, the more likely their behavior is to be governed by such considerations and private sanctions are going to matter more than even formal rules.

I wonder how this relates to Michael Mousseau's ideas on contract-intensive vs. client-intensive societies. Have you heard of his work? If not, his site is:

http://home.ku.edu.tr/~mmousseau/

[syrakusos]

Stuart Hayashi has an excellent essay on metaphysical impossibilities. It is relevant here because the arguments in this topic are all about "What if" scearios that lack reality.

Is this essay available online? If so, would you post the link?

The essay is available here on Objectivist Living, under "Chewing on Ideas."

Click here.

As for Ford and GM not going to war because they belong to the same nation, how then, did the Five Families ("New York Mafia") ever go to war... or stop... ? It might be said that the Mafia Family Wars were caused by their lack of loyalty to the US government to whom they should have turned for anti-trust enforcement. But I think that misses the point. Multinational corporations do not go to war over markets, even though they "belong" to different nations. This, too, is another example from the real world that philosophers prefer to ignore when they argue how many protection agencies can dance on a map.

[tjohnson]

Multinational corporations do not go to war over markets....

But if these companies had their own private military what would stop them from doing just that?

[dan2100]

Stuart Hayashi has an excellent essay on metaphysical impossibilities. It is relevant here because the arguments in this topic are all about "What if" scearios that lack reality.

Is this essay available online? If so, would you post the link?

The essay is available here on Objectivist Living, under "Chewing on Ideas."

Click here.

Thanks. I hope to respond on that later today.

As for Ford and GM not going to war because they belong to the same nation, how then, did the Five Families ("New York Mafia") ever go to war... or stop... ? It might be said that the Mafia Family Wars were caused by their lack of loyalty to the US government to whom they should have turned for anti-trust enforcement. But I think that misses the point. Multinational corporations do not go to war over markets, even though they "belong" to different nations. This, too, is another example from the real world that philosophers prefer to ignore when they argue how many protection agencies can dance on a map.

I don't completely disagree. I often use the example of organized crime in reaction to critics of anarchism. The view they often take is that market anarchism would end up being much like mob wars and the like. But such wars happen under statism!

[BaalChatzaf]

Multinational corporations do not go to war over markets....

But if these companies had their own private military what would stop them from doing just that?

Other armed groups. The threat or use of arms is countered with the threat or use of other arms. Writing noble words and constitutions are insufficient to stop war. Ultimately it is the threat (or actuality) of force and the appeal to rational self interest that puts an end to the use of arms.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

Multinational corporations do not go to war over markets....

But if these companies had their own private military what would stop them from doing just that?

Obviously, you have not been paying attention.

The world does have million man armies, but most of the nations of the world have armies smaller than the largest private guard forces, which tally in the hundreds of thousands and less. Moreover, every private firm has some security, occasionally in-house in small numbers but most often contracts, especially when needed in larger numbers.

Cameras are guards. But cameras don't shoot people -- and that's the point. The unreal anti-metaphysical imaginary nightmare scenario about guard companies facing off for armed conflict would have to be about gates, locks, and cameras attacking each other... sort of cartoonish, isn't it?...

As for human agents, there, too reality in the world is not the same as the products of the chemical waves within the brains of mini-archists.

Corporations do have armies. Here and now. For real. And they don't go to war with each other.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Michael E. Marotta

[syrakusos]

I often use the example of organized crime in reaction to critics of anarchism. The view they often take is that market anarchism would end up being much like mob wars and the like. But such wars happen under statism!

[Dan, I agree with the more subtle points you make: To say that in a society without government, there would be mob wars ignores the fact that under government we have mob wars. That said...)

Here I have to disagree. To be completely honest mafia-style mob wars are real and will remain so for centuries to come, though hopefully, they will be increasingly limited.

I highly recommend Vengeance is Mine: Justice Albanian Style by Fatos Tarifa (Globic Press, Chapel Hill, 2008). Violence is ritualized to be controlled and the Albanian way (still today) seems echoic of Corsican and other modes which also remind us of earlier times in our own cultures. In Albania, you kill someone by meeting him, shooting him, laying him out with his gun, and then going to his family to tell them where to find the body. They then have some time to come to you and kill you if they can. In the mean time, you are free to put your affairs in order while you wait. These feuds have old, deep roots, tit for tat for centuries. Also, they can be adjudicated. (Like when the Five Families got together to discuss "our thing" i.e., "la cosa nostra.") Also, the constant drain on men -- men feud, not women -- has created "social men" out of women. Not lesbians or transvestites, but women who assume the duties of men to run households with all that entails socially, though being women, they are not subject to the feud. You can find these folkways and customs all around the world, including Compton Los Angeles. Government makes it worse with blackmarkets and RICO and all that, but government (like church or school or dance) is irrelevant to what they do.

Edited May 4, 2010 by Michael E. Marotta

[dan2100]

I often use the example of organized crime in reaction to critics of anarchism. The view they often take is that market anarchism would end up being much like mob wars and the like. But such wars happen under statism!

[Dan, I agree with the more subtle points you make: To say that in a society without government, there would be mob wars ignores the fact that under government we have mob wars. That said...)

Here I have to disagree. To be completely honest mafia-style mob wars are real and will remain so for centuries to come, though hopefully, they will be increasingly limited.

I highly recommend Vengeance is Mine: Justice Albanian Style by Fatos Tarifa (Globic Press, Chapel Hill, 2008). Violence is ritualized to be controlled and the Albanian way (still today) seems echoic of Corsican and other modes which also remind us of earlier times in our own cultures. In Albania, you kill someone by meeting him, shooting him, laying him out with his gun, and then going to his family to tell them where to find the body. They then have some time to come to you and kill you if they can. In the mean time, you are free to put your affairs in order while you wait. These feuds have old, deep roots, tit for tat for centuries. Also, they can be adjudicated. (Like when the Five Families got together to discuss "our thing" i.e., "la cosa nostra.") Also, the constant drain on men -- men feud, not women -- has created "social men" out of women. Not lesbians or transvestites, but women who assume the duties of men to run households with all that entails socially, though being women, they are not subject to the feud. You can find these folkways and customs all around the world, including Compton Los Angeles. Government makes it worse with blackmarkets and RICO and all that, but government (like church or school or dance) is irrelevant to what they do.

Yes, I gather you're right about this. It seems here there's more of an overlap. The sort of mafia style wars and groups can exist and flourish in either context (under states or anarchy) -- and so are not decisive between deciding between either. (Well, unless one can prove one context makes them worse in some way. I think empirically, statism probably does make them worse because, as you point out, it creates black markets and does other things to redistribute the costs of such violence.)