Mr Khan said:
sc94597 said:
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.
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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.
http://mises.org/daily/1121
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
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You keep beating around the bush that is enforcement. The godordi here gained power to enforce through consent of the governed, because they had followers who could then enact the court's will, ensuring that laws had meaning and therefore that the society could function and these property rights could be respected. This is a state setup, what you're describing. Something resembling a direct democracy, but a state setup.
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There was a government (not a state), but it wasn't responsible for the enforcement of laws, that was entirely the choice of the individual who recieved damage. They could seek reparations personally, or they could have the godord or some other representative buy that right. That is by definition not a state, because the use of force is not monopolized and contained in a geographical region. The judicial system was entirely privatized. You chose which legal system you wished to abide by, the other party chose his. The godor resolved the issue. A state would not allow you to buy a legal system, there is only one system depending on where you live and it is the state's sytem (contained within a geographical region <=> state.)
Iceland did not have an executive branch of government. Instead of a king they had local chieftains. One permanent official in their system was the "logsogumadr" or law-speaker. His duties included the memorization of laws, the provision of advice on legislative issues, and the recitation of all legislative acts one time while in office.
Jesse Byock states in his book that, "leadership evolved in such a way that a chieftain's power and the resources available to him were not derived from an exploitable realm." This was because free farmers could change allegiance between godi without moving to a new geographical location. "The legal godi-thingman bond was created by a voluntary public contract." The ability to switch legal systems with out moving, is key to a decentralized system. It creates secession down the level of the individual, making all governance structures formed truly voluntary.
How were people held accountable if they did commit a crime? In much the same way as the current United States civil court system works today. Criminals were forced to pay fines. These fines did not go to the state, but were restitution. If the criminal could not pay the fine imposed on him, then he could go to his godord or a group of family and friends, or some other alliance, and have them pay the fine for him, or if no one would represent him, he could work the fine off via slavery. The poor were at no disadvantage. The poor could sell their right to justice to someone, such as a chieftain or another respected peer, who could collect or make right upon the victim. In this respect, the right to transfer restitution acted as an equalizer for the poor. In cases where the victim did not want restitution, the guilty parties had no obligations imposed on them.
If a criminal would not pay his fine or submit to slavery, he was either outlawed or would possibly lose the support of his peers, depending on the severity of the crime, eventually discrediting himself.
