| Mr Khan said: I would disagree with the latter point. There is no hypothetical scenario where individual rights are defensible without (the bad kind of) anarchy ensuing without a state entity to enforce the most basic laws. A million individual biases play out in a million interpretations of reality, and the myriad lawsuits in the courts today demonstrate how easy even a simple contract can be deemed in "breach." What if you got a scrawnier hen than you expected, and decided ex post facto that it wasn't worth the dog you gave? You assumed a certain degree of utility when getting the chicken. Now what if you can credibly claim the seller was deceiving you on that point? Or at least try to do so? The courts and the individuals who enforce the will of the courts need to be a larger entity in order for the system to function with any consistency. |
I have to disagree. The existence of common law refutes this. It is an example of spontaneous order without the legislative processes of a state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals, as opposed to statutes adopted through the legislative process or regulations issued by the executive branch.
In an anarchic society you'd have multiple competing courts forming decisions chosen based on their ability to obtain the justice one seeks. The court would likely appeal to aspects of natural law to form its decisions, but it is not precluded to that (you can have socialist courts that don't believe in property rights, but nobody would deal with them if socialism is unpopular.) As for your scenario where you get the scrawnier hen, the burden was on you to find the information you needed to obtian what you wanted. Now if the other party promised a hen that wasn't scrawny, and doesn't deliver it, it is the same as him/her not paying you the agreed upon price of a product, and is consequently theft. You can then take him/her to criminal court for stealing your dog.
Another example of anarchic law is that found in medeval Iceland.
Instead of a judicial branch of government there were private courts that were the responsibility of the godar. To solve disputes, members of this court system were chosen after the crime happened. The defendant and plaintiff each had the right to pick half the arbitrators. There was another level of courts called the Varthing. This was a Thing court in which the judges were chosen by the godar of the Thing. Then there was the National Assembly or the Althing. Each quarter was represented by their own Althing. If a dispute was not settled by the private courts, the dispute would go up the ladder to the next highest court until the dispute was resolved.
There was no public property during the era of the Vikings in Iceland, all property was privately owned.
The settlers of Iceland divided the country into 4 regions. Each region had 9 godord and the godord were divided into three things. The godord were divided into groups of three and each thing had three godord.
The word 'godord' has two definitions. Godord represented a group of men. These men gave allegiance or alliance to a specific godi. A godi is the leader or chief who constructed a place of worship for his pagan followers. The godord was also a collection of rights, the right to represent the law making body of Iceland.
David Friedman states, "…seats in the law-making body were quite literally for sale." These men who were law-makers did not have power just because they held the title godord. They were powerless "unless he could convince some free-farmers to follow him." This kept tyranny and injustice in check.
David Friedman, a consequentualist Anarcho-Capitalist and economist, has written many books on how Anarchic law could for through spontaneous order.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWFWIM8OCI
