[A.J.Armitage]

At long last, my column returns.

[A.J.Armitage]

.

[nickcarraway]

Besides Locke, anarcho-capitalism certainly isn't consistent with Adam Smith. (To the contrary to some Marxists)

[headsonpikes]

In my experience, reductionist analyses obscure more than they reveal.

There is a HISTORY to the relation between person and state; and history is not reducible to a simple cause/effect schema based on materialist models of the behavior of 'stuff'.

Nor is history reducible to a complex, 'plumbing of human-motivation' ideology based on some OTHER Frenchman's wacko scheme.

IMNSHO. ;^)

I could have said 'German'; I just like to tweak les Frogs. ;^)

[curmudgeonII]

A little surprizing reading about the need for governmment from you. Be that as it may, it's nice to read another of your thought-provoking articles again.

[Architect]

The only kinds of crimes that could be punished in a pure anarcho-capitalist scheme are ones directly harming paying customers of a defense agency.

Nope.

The market protects people in unexpected ways. For example, people in the Eastern Bloc drove these cruddy little cars like Trabants and Ladas because they depended (forcibly) on the government to protect them from carmakers. In the West, we drive far better quality products, precisely because we have a market. I don't know whether Ford or Firestone was at fault for the Explorer problem but you can be damn well sure that they fixed it. The market doesn't tolerate screwups. I don't have to know anything about tires to benefit from the marketplace.

WRT babies and other defenseless people, my first point would be: are they protected now? Surely the position of the Libertarian Party - return the issue to the states - is superior to that of the supposedly anti-abortion Republican Party - which is to betray their supporters. Returning the issue to the states is the first step towards establishing a free market in abortion policy.

More importantly, the market protects the defenceless too. Rothbard and Hoppe are wrong to continually talk about defence companies. They are obviously an integral part of the Natural Order but the first line of defence to wrongdoing is not hired hands. Rather it is ostracism.

If I renege on a debt to my credit card company, the company won’t normally sue me in court. Instead they will put a black mark against my name and I will find that honest merchants will cease to give me credit or to deal with me in any way with other than cash. Eventually, I will give in, right the wrong I caused, and I will be re-instated in polite society.

No government. No punishment (why do you insist on that anyway?). Just quiet resolution of the wrong inflicted and restitution thereof.

In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard disgustingly refers to a foetus as an intruder in its mother's body and claims that she has the right to expel the intruder. Well, in some absolute sense, he is right. It is her body and she reigns supreme over it. OTOH, killing someone else because he inconveniences you is evil. Rothbard forgot the second half of the equation. The answer is not to jail her (and historically women were never jailed for murder – do you really want them to be?) but to denounce her actions as evil and humiliate her in polite company.

It would also be a good idea to denounce Rothbard for his repulsive lack of concern for the unborn.

One last point. Do you really want to trust government to protect your rights? Didn't work well for the Trabant drivers. Nor, for that matter, for the children stolen by the CPS.

[SuperLuminal]

Interesting.....nice post.

[VRWC_minion]

In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would try to track down the guilty party, and, when they catch him, bring him to trial, probably before a judge agreed to by both your agency and his.

If i am robbed, how the heck do I pay the agency ? What if the crook already hired them to not track them down ? These anarchists must have IQ level just above room temperature in an Igloo.

[BluesDuke]

Interesting material. From Libertarians for Life. (Yes - there are more pro-life libertarians than people might other wise believe. And I am such a libertarian myself; though I take my own stance for spiritual as well as rational reasons, I believe it ought to be none other than the individual states which should be restricting or outlawing abortion, and that the federal government had no proper business in the issue in the first place.) At least one rock and roll star whose brains haven't gone, if you'll pardon the expression, entirely to bed...

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Life, Rights, and Rock 'n' Roll Gary Cherone Asks Eddie Vedder Some Questions

"My hope is to introduce as many who will listen, regardless of where they stand, to Libertarians for Life. For their arguments are persuasive, reasoning from science and philosophy. Anyone with an objective mind will find them hard to ignore."      -Gary Cherone    For some time now, Eddie Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam has spoken out in favor of abortion choice. In June of 1999, the rock world heard a different take on the issue when Gary Cherone (at the time, lead singer of the band Van Halen, formerly of Extreme) penned an Open Letter to Vedder. That pro-life letter caused a stir, and in November of 1999, Cherone discussed the matter on Fox TV's "O'Reilly Factor." Vedder has yet to respond, but the issue remains.  Here's a second Open Letter. "I feel like I know every angle of this issue," said Eddie Vedder. "I know the adoption angle; I know what it's like to be fifteen and be in a situation and have to make a decision. Terminating pregnancy is not an easy thing." —Eddie Vedder, Rolling Stone 11/12/98 #799 What About the 98.6 Degree Angle? Another Letter to Eddie Vedder by Gary Cherone The vast majority of people who support abortion take that position with the firm conviction that life does not begin at conception That being said... If one personally felt "terminating pregnancy is not an easy thing" but was the right of the individual to make that "decision" Is the life within the mother's womb a human person? If the answer is no, it is not a human person Why would one feel it "is not an easy thing" to do? If the answer is yes, it is a human person Why would one advocate "terminating" it? If the answer is I don't know, if it is, or isn't a human person How many more "decision(s)" would one make in an uncertain "situation"? If the unborn is not a human person No justification for abortion is necessary However... If the unborn is a human person No justification for abortion is adequate. Nearly all arguments for abortion are based on the faulty premise that the unborn are not fully human. Respectfully, Gary Cherone (1/22/2001) Copyright ©2001, Gary Cherone Credit for source must be given to Libertarians for Life. one of life's many choices Rose Vista a home for pregnant women P.O. Box 66879 Mar Vista, CA 90066 donations appreciated An Open Letter to Eddie Vedder When is a woman not a woman? Therein lies the only clear refutation of a woman’s rights. A woman’s rights — seems a mere tautology, a redundant catch phrase. Are not rights self evident? Intrinsic assumptions of the inalienable? So, when is a woman not a woman, a right not a right? When she doesn’t exist. When does a woman become a woman? Is it when her first ballot has been cast? Or when she graduates from her class? Is it when she makes a wish on her sweet sixteenth? Would I be amiss if it were her first kiss? Is it when she’s diagnosed by the boy next door? Or as ambiguous as the cutting of the cord? Is it the time it takes to travel the distance through the canal? Or when she’s kicking and becomes viable? Is it when her sex is discovered by a sonogram? Or after eight weeks when the changes in her body will be mainly in dimension? Is it when her brain waves are detected after 40 days? Or is it around three weeks when her primitive heart beats? Can there be only one true line of demarcation? One finite measurable point in time that differentiates life from non-life? Womanhood from non-womanhood? Rights from no right? Is it the moment of conception — that point when all of the above is set in motion? That precise moment when "a separate human individual, with her own genetic code, needing only food, water, and oxygen, comes into existence"? Indeed, It is at that point, "like the infant, the child, the adolescent, that the conceptus is a being who is becoming, not a becoming striving toward being. She is not a potential life, she is a life with great potential". She is not the mother, she is an other — a somebody other than the mother. A woman, however beautiful, however complex when fully grown, begins life as a single cell, a zygote — that stage in human development through which we all pass. She fulfills "the four criteria necessary to all life — metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. Her genetic makeup is established at conception, determining to a great extent her own individual, physical characteristics": her eyes, her hair, her skin color, bone structure, her gender. So let us not be confused, "she did not come from a zygote — she once was a zygote. She did not come from an embryo, she once was an embryo. She did not come from a fetus, she once was a fetus". She did not come from a little girl — she once was a little girl. When is a woman not a woman? The answer is absolute, non-negotiable. To argue against would be to ignore the innate, the fact of the matter. The answer can never be a matter of opinion or choice. This is not a metaphysical contention. This is biology 101. The answer is scientifically self-evident — as inherent as the inalienable. Therefore, the ability to pursue happiness is contingent upon liberty — her liberty, and her freedom is solely dependent upon the mother of all human rights... the right of life. Respectfully, Gary Cherone (June 1999) [Quotations by Francis J. Beckwith] Copyright ©1999, Gary Cherone Credit for source must be given to Rock for Life.

 

LFL's literature and speakers are available to explain and defend why we oppose abortion. Our reasoning is expressly philosophical and scientific — rather than either religious or pragmatic. A form for ordering hard copies of our literature is available on the Web, or send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

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[annalex]

The only kinds of crimes that could be punished in a pure anarcho-capitalist scheme are ones directly harming paying customers of a defense agency. This certainly has the advantage of doing away with non-crimes like drug possession and prostitution, but, by the nature of how the system operates, it must also leave unpunished real crimes against those other than paying customers. Children, especially unborn ones, are out of luck, and they aren't the only ones. Protection of those outside the charmed circle of paying customers would be based only on charity, and it's easy to imagine pro-life agencies emerging to punish abortionists, but there would just as certainly be pro-choice agencies, and the two kinds of agencies would necessarily exist in a permanent state of war.

It doesn't follow. An elementary rights analysis would show that it is rightful to come to defense of the rights of others; but it is not rightful to commit aggression on behalf of others. Thus a charity hiring a protection agent to punish abortionists would do so by rights of protecting the unborn, while NARAL hiring another agent to protect the mother's whims would be out of bounds. Your agrument would work in an environment without laws, but it doesn't work in the environment you present according to Hoppe, where the use of force is moderated by judges.

It's nice to have your column back.

[Semi Civil Servant]

"In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would try to track down the guilty party, and, when they catch him, bring him to trial, probably before a judge agreed to by both your agency and his."

How long would it take before this system degenerated into a series of gangs and turf wars on a gigantic scale? How long would it take before you were paying "protection money" to every thug in your neighborhood? You have to assume a basic universal decency among all humans for a system like this to work. I don't buy into that at all.

You also have to assume that the "judges" in this system could not be intimidated or killed out right by one side or another. That isn't realistic, either.

Granted, the most dangerous (non-spiritual) thing you will ever encounter on earth is likely to be your government. Granted, most governments in history have ended up killing a fair number of the governed. But I'd rather be under the rule of our government (or any in Europe) than at the mercy of all the wacked-out, mean, evil, heartless, cruel brutes that live in my town (or yours). Protection rackets are pretty nasty enterprises. Even when it's called "insurance".

[MHGinTN]

A.J., I deeply admire your patience to read this crap and make such cogent remarks on it! Your assessment deserves more accolade than the bilge about which you've written. But one would expect such from a thinking mind such as yours, as opposed to the deranged ravings of malcontents.

[RLK]

This article loses me. It sound like someone is so dedicated to a single facet of ideology that they contort everything around them in sacrifice to it.

[xm177e2]

In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would try to track down the guilty party, and, when they catch him, bring him to trial, probably before a judge agreed to by both your agency and his.

Machine-gun libertopian anarcho-narco-capitalism... A very scary prospect indeed. If someone wrongs you, just hire a bunch of JBTs to arrest them, and if they refuse to be taken in, Waco them. Not a society I'd want to live in!

[Demidog]

The unborn, and for that matter born children, will be unable to hire an agency to protect them from their own parents or, in the case of some already born children, step-parents.

Ok. Well-stated. Now. Tell us how you intend to catch women who commit abortions. In your perfect state, let's assume that the state has the duty to protect the rights of the unborn (I'm not so sure this is true but for arguments sake lets say it is.)

What is your plan for catching and trying these criminals? What's the punishment? In the case of a miscarriage, does the state have the right to invade the woman's medical records or subpeona her doctor to "prove" the unprovable?

I await your plan with eagerness.

[Teacher317]

Anarchy vs. the Right to Life

Sounds like a typical polling question from the Left! =^)

Kicking puppies vs. hugs from Mom... you choose!

[x]

Good column. No system of political ideas can be perfect and there's no shame in adjusting theory to reality. A system that presumes the existence of rational, independent, individuals who seek there own benefit, will have to consider the claims of those who cannot speak for themselves. Otherwise it will commit grave injustices. Allowing some to speak on behalf of those without voices may open the way to wider state powers, but nothing in this world is pure and perfect and choices have to be made between alternatives neither of which is purely good or bad.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

Is Sobran advocating a return to feudalism?

The problem with hiring a "defensive agency" (also sometimes called mercenaries) is that the people with the weapons tend to write the rules, if not immediately, then eventually. And the fees that are at first offered as wages will soon come to be extracted at sword-point as tribute. History, especially ancient history, shows many examples of this.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

If there is more than one government or "gang" telling us what to do, then this brings uncertainty to our lives and the market in general. This is bad. However, if there is only one government or "gang" telling us what to do, then there is greater certainty but only that things will get worse over time.

A bunch of renegade defense agencies maximizes uncertainty. A single tyrannical government maximizes injustice. Taking a chapter from game theory, it may be that we have the mixed form of government we do because it is a practical compromise between the two extremes: a mix of local, state, national, and global governments that generate an annoying but tolerable level of chaos is exchange for a tolerable level of justice.

In this way, every time we give more power to a central government we minimize current chaos in exchange for future injustice, e.g. we give the government more powers now to fight the uncertainty of terrorism in exchange for a future chance that these powers will be used against innocent citizens.

Mass murders by highly-centralized governments are the flip side of roving mobs of starving citizens trying to get their next meal.

The long term answer to this governmental question then is not to look for a pure solution at either end of the spectrum, but to closely examine the current situation, and on a case-by-case basis work to move the balance of control toward or away from local governments depending on whether we are more likely to suffer from uncertainty or injustice.

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

You are, of course, correct A.J. But I would ask you to go easy on Mr. Sobran in these turbulent days. A lot of flotsam and jetsom posing as "polemics" will be flying through the air during these strange days.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
----
....William Butler Yeats

A lot of people are momentarily--or perhaps permanently--caught up in the intellectual anarchism that accompanies the realization that we are losing---everything. The re-arrangement of thinking about the universe is always a messy, often irrational, sometimes even intelligible thing. Sort of like the creation of the universe.

Some of us will elect the ausonian solution and try to live quietly and well in our little corner of the world. Some will go out in a blaze of--well--if not exactly "glory", at least in a puff of smoke or something.

Others will re-allign their affections so as to pretend to themselves that they are still having an effect upon the Great Game. Observe the contortions of the various Libertarian Think Tanks as they discover previously unknown penubra in what passes for libertarian thought supporting the State of Permanent War. After all, bazaars are opening up all over Afghanistan now, selling a variety of toys not available under the grim gaze of the Taliban.

For others we probably shouldn't speculate upon their final intellectual and spiritual landing place, because, as we are all overjoyed to know, Homeland Security is omnipresent (if not yet omniscient--but give it time!)

So be kind to Mr Sobran and his ilk. History hasn't been. It's the least you could do....

[r9etb]

In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would try to track down the guilty party, and, when they catch him, bring him to trial, probably before a judge agreed to by both your agency and his.

LOL! One time when I was in high school, one of my friends told another guy (a boxer), "I'll pay you a nickel to him him." The guy slugged me on the shoulder. (It hurt.)

I told him, "I'll pay you a dime to hit him back." He did.

My friend complained: "You hit me harder than you hit him!"

"Well, yeah. He paid me more."

Which is a real-world example of your observation: The only kinds of crimes that could be punished in a pure anarcho-capitalist scheme are ones directly harming paying customers of a defense agency.

I guess the real point here is that one will not be able to guarantee moral behavior -- in the sense of people behaving according to an agreed-upon set of standards -- will not be gained simply by exchange of money.

And, as you point out, other than "who can pay the most for the best goons," it does not provide any mechanism for dealing with cases where contending sides do not share a common set of standards (e.g., pro-life vs. pro-abortion).