Lange post op mises forum over 'the law'

Maar enorm interessant!

Hier vind je hem. Enkele highlights.

Hoppe’s argument suggests that there are two conditions for the existence of interpersonal conflict: more than one person and scarcity. There seems to be many forms of conflict which do not originate from scarcity, such as debates over metaphysics or religion, which may even go to fists. However, law is concerned only with real (physical) conflicts. Until a verbal argument goes to fists, it is not a real conflict. Law, in a private law society, is not concerned with resolving moral or metaphysical disputes[5].

(...)

Property becomes owned through original appropriation. Original appropriation is the rule of first use: the first to use an otherwise unowned resource thereby becomes its rightful owner. If I am wandering through unowned wilderness (say, a thousand years ago when much of the Earth’s surface was unowned wilderness) and I pluck an apple from a wild apple tree, the apple becomes mine because I am using it and I am the first to put it to use. It is clear that use of unowned resources constitutes an improvement of social welfare since no one is hurt by my consuming the apple yet I am helped thereby. Since physical objects exist in a context of space and time adjacent to other physical objects, they are entangled, that is, how I use this physical object may affect some other physical object to which I do not have a property claim. Defining what constitutes valid or justifiable uses of physical resources is part of the problem that law solves.

(...)

But property or any other conflict-avoidance strategy is imperfect because it is impossible to foresee the future or divine all possible consequences of following a certain conflict-avoidance strategy. No rule can, in all cases, prevent conflicts from ever arising. Hence, conflicts are inevitable.

Property conflicts arise as a result of unilateral changes of property boundaries. The voluntary redrawing of boundary lines obviously results in an improvement of the human condition. But since I can always be materially better off by unilaterally redrawing the boundaries of property to give myself more at the expense of others, I am motivated to do so. Real conflict results when individuals act according to the incentive to unilaterally redraw property lines. The definition of real conflict is unilateral redrawing of property boundaries.

(...)

It is safe to assume that parties to a legal dispute are primarily motivated by adversarial self-interest. The US legal system makes this presumption very explicit. Given that the parties to the dispute are only in court to avoid physical conflict, in a private law society, this is not a very strong assumption. But this assumption leads to the breakdown of both the natural law (Rothbardian) and positive law (Friedmanian) approach to anarchic or private law. Friedman presents the case that anarchic law leads to the best or most efficient outcome for society. That is, Friedman is arguing from the point of view of social justice or social welfare. But this approach assumes that the individual cares about social welfare. That is, by presenting his arguments for anarchist law in the frame of how it improves social welfare, Friedman is assuming that the reader – and by implication anyone who is trying to ascertain what the law is and ought to be – cares about social justice or social welfare. This may accurately describe the typical, liberal academic but those most affected by the question of what the law is – real participants in real legal disputes – are not likely to share the same proclivity for social justice wherever it conflicts with their own interests. Since law, in a private law society, is the production of voluntary, non-violent resolutions to real disputes, only a definition of law which is acceptable to adversarial, self-interested individuals will suffice.

Rothbard argues from the point of view of natural law, starting first from the physical fact of an inalienable will in the living body and reasoning in the Lockean fashion from this fact to property rights in the body and thence to the preconditions for the body’s continued existence: standing room, air to breath and liberty to appropriate unowned natural resources or to utilize the body to produce and exchange for vital necessities. Leaving aside the potential technical problems within the natural rights arguments, there is a greater deficiency vis-à-vis applying natural rights to law. In a legal dispute involving a clear aggressor and a clear victim, the aggressor has already exhibited a disregard for morality and human rights. The purse thief is hardly concerned with the fact that his actions are immoral or violate the rights of his victim. Hence, it is of no use to expound upon his violations of natural rights. As with Friedman’s approach, Rothbard’s approach fails because it is not applicable to real disputes. That is, Rothbard’s definition of law is not useful to real individuals involved in real conflicts.

(Kleine opmerking; 'k vind zijn punt hierboven over Rothbard niet sterk. Ik snap wat hij wilt zeggen - 'mensen zijn niet gemotiveerd door Rothbardiaanse of Friedmaniaanse overwegingen' - maar dat betekent dat het Friedmaniaanse of Rothbardiaanse argument niet correct (kunnen) zijn.)

So what is the law? Law is the alternative to violent conflict when conflict-avoidance strategies (such as property lines) have failed to avoid conflict. In terms of rights in property, law is the production of new, stipulated property-lines which resolve real conflicts without further violence.

This definition immediately raises the question of how disputes can be resolved between asymmetrically powerful parties. In modern law systems, the aggressor (accused) has an incentive to resolve the conflict with his victim by means of law because the state will immediately retaliate against the accused for failure to comply with a court trial. In other words, the state offers the options of non-violent dispute resolution or immediate, overwhelming retaliatory violence (appear in court or be arrested or possibly even killed for failure to comply). In a stateless society, it appears that an aggressor would have no incentive to seek non-violent resolution of a dispute with his victim. After all, an aggressor usually will not attack unless he reasonably believes he can get away with the attack in the first place. That is, he has already calculated that he can win a martial contest with the victim.

(...)

Since the court, in a private law society, is only selling its services as a mutually agreed-upon decision-maker, the rules which emerge governing what is justifiable violence will be those decisions which have in the past succeeded in settling disputes. That is, case law emerges out of the chaos of innumerable disputes and attempted resolutions of those disputes. Both the natural law and positive law approaches agree that a body of precedents will emerge from non-violent resolution of real conflicts in a private law society and that it is this body of decentralized dispute-resolution which becomes law per se. Rights and general laws emerge from the pattern of successful resolution of past real conflicts by non-violent means, just as common law developed in England and the US prior to the creation of legislatures.

Buchanan over een legale structuur

In zijn 'The Limits of Liberty' beargumenteert Buchanan tegen anarchie en voor een constitutionele overheid. Ik was zonet op het internet wat aan't grasduinen doorheen het boek, vooral doorheen het hoofdstuk 'Law as Public Capital'. Ik kan natuurlijk niet zijn volledige boek beoordelen, maar wat hij in het geciteerde stukje hieronder zegt, lijkt mij niet het gehele verhaal te zijn.

To the extent that law embodies the contractual origins discussed above, or that law may be conceptually explained on the “as if” presumption of such origins, law-abiding exerts a pure external economy. This feature distinguishes law from the more orthodox public-goods interactions among persons. For comparison here, we may look at one of the classic examples, the provision of lighthouse services for a community of fishermen. In the absence of collective action, a single person may provide at least some of these services; if he does so, he exerts significant external economies on others in the group. But in the process he will also be securing some share of the total benefits. The external economy is not pure; others than the acting person receive less than the totality of benefits that the action produces. In this lighthouse-type case, the presence of significant external benefits allows us to predict that independent, individualistic behavior will result in suboptimal levels of service; too few resources will be invested in the activity under normal conditions. We cannot, however, predict that there will be no services made available in the absence of collective contract. Individuals may well invest some resources under certain cost configurations and certain community sizes.

With “law,” however, no such results emerge, regardless of group size. Precisely because law-abiding is a pure external economy, and as such involves behavior from which the actor secures no private, personal reward, an economic model would predict an absence of all such behavior in the strictly individualistic setting. (...) In somewhat more technical language, “law” of the sort analyzed here qualifies as a pure collective-consumption or public good, and one for which independent adjustment yields corner solutions for each person. No person will provide, by his own restricted behavior, the benefits of law-abiding to others. I define “law-abiding” here to mean a generalized respect to the defined rights of all others in the community, as opposed to a particularized or directed result. Probabilistically, if a single person, A, chooses to respect the rights of all others in the group of size n, each person in the n - 1 set becomes more secure in the possession of his rights.

Buchanan beschouwt wet als een goed met een pure externaliteiten effect, i.e. waar je als privaat individu geen voordeel uit kan halen. In tegenstelling tot een vuurtoren, waar het voor enkele individuen effectief kan lonen om een vuurtoren te bouwen ook al zijn er anderen die daarvan profiteren (positieve externaliteiten), is dit niet het geval met een legale structuur.

Zijn argument is dat 'gehoorzaamheid aan de wet' voor elk individu slecht is (hij negeert (terecht* in dit argument) morele beperkingen), maar dat iedereen er als collectief wel bij vaart om te gehoorzamen aan de wet. Daarom is 'law' een goed met een pure externaliteit; want niemand haalt er persoonlijk voordeel bij, maar iedereen profiteert wel van de handelingen van al de rest.

Dit argument lijkt mij wel correct te zijn, maar het negeert iets redelijk belangrijk. (Het is dus niet zozeer dat hij abstractie maakt van bepaalde zaken waarvan ik denk dat je abstractie mag maken, zoals ik in de voetnoot uitleg; het is wel degelijk dat hij de essentie van de zaak verkeerd voorstelt.) Het gaat immers niet om mensen die zouden moeten gehoorzamen, sine qua non maar de structuur van hoe je dit kan bereiken. 'Gehoorzamen' is wel degelijk een individueel goed, als mensen zich wapenen en mensen straffen die niet gehoorzamen; op die moment wordt 'gehoorzamen aan de wet' wel degelijk een privaat goed.

De voorstelling die Buchanan doet is dat het echt een 'puur' publiek goed is, dat niet opgelost zou kunnen worden door individuele actie, maar elk individu kan voor zichzelf wel degelijk middelen oprichten dat anderen een incentive hebben om het 'pure publieke goed' toch gelijk te laten lopen met hun eigen privaat belang.

*Het lijkt mij terecht hier abstractie te maken van morele constraints, omdat hij een 'puur' economisch argument wenst te maken. Het is zoiets van 'ja, morele constraints zullen inderdaad mijn argument verzwakken, maar het is op zich wel puur'. Ik aanvaard deze opmerking, omdat ik denk dat zelfs indien we de morele constraints negeren, zijn argument nog steeds verkeerd is. (Dat is overigens wat weggelaten is in de (...).)

Literatuur van 'Polycentric Law'

Een bespreking van 'polycentric law'. Het is een inleiding in het polycentrische denken en een (korte/oppervlakkige bespreking) van de literatuur; vooral om mensen geïnteresseerd te krijgen en ze al wat referenties te geven om zelf op weg te kunnen.

De verschillende delen van de tekst:

1. Law prior to the state
2. Anglo-Saxon Customary Law
3. The Rise of the Royal Law
4. From Polycentric law to state law
5. The Persistence of Polycentric Law
6. Theories of Polycentric Law
7. Future Growth in the Study of Polycentric Law

De goede Bensen komt nog eens langs:

After a wide review of the field, Benson concludes that each customary legal system has six basic features:

1) a predominant concern for individual rights and private property;
2) laws enforced by victims backed by reciprocal agreements;
3) standard adjudicative procedures established to avoid violence;
4) offenses treated as torts punishable by economic restitution;
5) strong incentives for the guilty to yield to prescribed punishment due to the threat of social ostracism; and
6) legal change via an evolutionary process of developing customs and norms. (Benson, 1990, p. 21)

Leuk detail uit de customary law van de Anglo-Saksische wereld:

A system of surety, known as borh, provided the foundation of Anglo-Saxon law. Under the borh system a set of ten to twelve individuals, defined at first by kinship but later by contractual agreement, would form a group to pledge surety for the good behavior of its members. The group would back up this pledge by paying the fines of its members if they were found guilty of violating customary law. A surety group thus had strong financial incentives to police its members and exclude those who persistently engaged in criminal behavior. Exclusion served as a powerful sanction: " Every person either had sureties and pledge associates or one would not be able to function beyond one's own land, as no one would deal with one who had no bond or who could not get anyone to pledge their surety to them.

Daarna volgt een historisch verhaal (stukjes 2-6) over de legale evolutie in die streken. Leuk is dat er nog een quote state van Berman zijn 'Law and Revolution': een boek dat ik zelf tracht te lezen (maar het is een redelijk uitgebreid boek, met veel niet al te interessante delen in (voor het essentieële punt) waardoor het wat moeilijk lezen is. De quote zelf had ik zelf ook al 'ontdekt' in het boek, i.e. toen ik het tegenkwam had ik iets van: 'leuke quote! Zeker onthouden!'

Berman provides the single best source for sorting out this legal tangle in his magisterial Law and Revolution. He there explains how competition between jurisdictions helped to protect individual liberty: " A serf might run to the town court for protection against his master. A vassal might run to the king's court for protection against his lord. A cleric might run to the ecclesiastical court for protection against the king." (Berman, 1983, p.10) The same person, in different capacities (merchant, cleric, vassal, townsman, etc.), enjoyed a significant degree of choice among legal systems, forcing them to compete. This competition for " customers" and the interaction among rivalrous legal systems resulted in many of the legal innovations that we take for granted today.

Spijtig dat er bij de volgende quote gaan datum staat:

For the most part, royal law won this competition among jurisdictions. It had two important advantages over its rivals. The power to tax allowed it to subsidize its legal services. Royal courts absorbed the local functions of the law merchant, for instance, by adopting its precedents and offering to enforce them at bargain rates.

Dit kan immers (of 'moet' bijna) begrepen worden als een subsidiering van the merchant way of life. Immers: als het goedkoper wordt om, als 'merchant', rechtszaken op te lossen, is het nogal wiedes dat er meer mensen zich in deze onderneming zullen storten - niet?

Noot aan mezelf:

Randy E. Barnett, " Pursuing Justice in a Free Society, Part One: Power versus Liberty," in Criminal Justice Ethics, Summer/Fall 1985, pp. 50-72; " Pursuing Justice in a Free Society, Part Two: Crime Prevention and the Legal Order," in Criminal Justice Ethics, Winter/Spring 1986, pp. 30-53)

Deze referenties nog eens opzoeken. 'k weet dat minstens een deel daarvan in 'Anarchy and the Law' zit, maar 'k ben alweer een deel vergeten.

En dit ook onthouden:

Fuller's Morality and the Law introduced polycentric law to mainstream legal philosophy. Fuller defines " law" in terms broad enough to encompass privately produced law (as we saw in the quote above), and criticizes legal positivism's authoritarian tendencies.

Discussie op Mises.org

'k post deze 2 posts van het Mises forum omdat er enkele discussiepunten in aangehaald worden, die relevant zijn om met anderen te delen - denk ik. De eerste is een topicstarter die vroeger een anarcho-kapitalist was, maar dit nu aanvalt. De tweede is mijn reactie daarop. (Let, alweer, niet op de spelfouten.)

De topic kan je hier vinden.

Kerel begint:

Why I'm not a 'Anarcho-capitalist'

...although I used to use that to describe myself.

The reason I am growing weary of anarcho-capitalist theory is because it seems to involve reinventing the wheel. Anarcho-capitalist theory seems to involve tearing down government bureaucracies, and then replacing them with private-sector bureaucracies that are modeled after the State bureaucracies.

An example of this is the anarcho-capitalistic "PDA" I keep reading about in these forums. If I see one more discussion on PDAs, my head is going to explode.

PDA stands for "personal digital assistant"; it does not stand for "private defense agency". Whenever I see the letters PDA, I think, "Are they talking about a Palm Pilot? No, wait, they are talking about some hypothetical anarchy police force."

Not only is the acronym ridiculous, but the concept itself is unsavory. I don't want armed, uniformed, trained cops patrolling the streets, tax-paid or otherwise. As much as I dislike the State, I think "anarchocapitalism" could be worse! The uncertain environment of the marketplace would make everybody want to have to best-armed, most powerful private army. Each "PDA" would try to be better armed than the other guy, and eventually the subscribers would have to pay for the inevitable arms-races.

In anarcho-capitalist theory, private property reigns supreme, with private mercenaries enforcing property. I think that is quite unethical; I think that property rights should be protected with the minimum amount of force possible. Don't chase away a thief or trespasser with a gun, if you could use a pepperspray or an angry rottweiller.

The second example of private bureaucracy is the idea of "private legislatures" and "insurance companies" and "private courts" and whatever else. People would have to choose which private law-giver suits them best. These private law-givers would have to compete for customers, and customers would try to influence each other to accept their private lawgivers.

At least under the current regime, the leaders can hold power for several years at a time; whereas under this so-called "anarchy", it would always be an election year.

"Private law-givers" are totally unnecessary. People do not need to be "given" law; they ought to use their own social tact, civility, and common sense, with the occasional dispute being resolved by a competent jury.

These "insurance companies" would regulate laws and resolve disputes through arbitration. In the book "Chaos Theory", the author says, if I recall,

"In our model society, everybody would buy civil insurance, which would be similar to automotive liability insurance...."

I was stupified! The author simply assumed that every single person would be willing and able to purchase "insurance". This "insurance" sounds almost like a tax. Anybody without this "insurance" would not be able to purchase anything or even walk down the street. He would be almost like an illegal alien, with no legal "citizenship".

Under anarcho-capitalism, such "citizenship" would be necessary because all law would be based on contract. Somebody who had not specifically agreed in a contract not to rape or kill anybody would a lawless person, to be avoided at all costs.

Such a concept is ridiculous in my opinion. If somebody commits a crime, they should be arrested, tried, and punished regardless of what "PDA" they have or what contracts they have or have not signed. I think it is the responsibility of the community to determine the innocence or guilt or the suspect in a fair and just manner. And if that makes me a communist or statist, so be it.

Mijn reactie:

You are falling in to the trap of thinking about a state of anarchy as a sort of static equilibrium society, instead of a dynamic whole in which people interact based on (mainly) customary, contract- and tort law. (And very likely something like a decentralized common law system; a Western version of the Xeer in Somalia.)

The question why some people call themself anarchists is not that force is unjustified, but that force can only be used for legitimate purposes. Since 'the state' uses agressive coercin per se, the state should be done with. That doesn't mean that there could be no problems of 'disequilibrium' in anarchy; just that cannot justify a state.

"If somebody commits a crime, they should be arrested, tried, and punished regardless of what "PDA" they have or what contracts they have or have not signed."

<= And no anarchist will disagree with you. The question is: what is the more realistic vision in which this will happen? A decentralized system, based on customary-, common-, tort- and contract law or a centralized state with the relevant knowledge problem and illegitimate use of force that goes with it?

'PDA's (which I tend to dislike as a word as well; because imo it doesn't grasp the diversity and creativity of judicial systems that I can imagine to arise) are just a heuristic device to explain things. No one here is actually advocating that 'everyone must join a for profit insurance company that deals with everything that the state now does concerning justice and safety'. That is a misconception of the anarchist position - but I can imagine confusion arising if you spend to much time on this forum. Can I imagine 'PDA's evolve? Sure. Will these companies be the only one pursuing justice and safety? Hardly.

Anarchy is not just 'private bureaucracies'; it is decentralized decisionmaking and 'organisations' that 'govern' society are voluntary associations. Governance doesn't entail government.

"I think it is the responsibility of the community to determine the innocence or guilt or the suspect in a fair and just manner."

<= But the 'community' is a holistic hole. You are not giving us the mechanisms you want that should deal with injustice. Either you want a monopolistic organization that uses coercion to get the means to fulfill her tasks - and no 'a coercion of all against all' isn't justified - or you want decentralized organizations that deal with it; based on the mores and customary law that is in society.

I would advice the text 'Law as a Discovery Procedure' (just google it) which appeared in a Cato journal. It clarify's the issue in a way that isn't as 'rational constructivistic' as Rothbard. Especially this relevant quote, with which I agree:

(Begin quote from text 'Law as a Discovery Procedure') As previously discussed, the legal rights to property and contract would probably not be absolute in a private legal system. To some extent, then, the system might not be purely libertarian. Nor would a private legal system necessarily consider a person’s legal rights to be infringed only if he (or his tangible property) had been physically invaded or defrauded. (...)
People can, of course, try to persuade others, including the judges in a future private legal system, to adopt a philosophy ofstrict, or even ultrastrict, “anarcho-libertarianism,” just as they can try to persuade today’s legislators to enact a particular combination ofpolicies or, for that matter, persuade private enterprises to sell partictilar products at particular prices. The problem is that people in whatever politicoeconomic system is under discussion are faced with incentives that are not systematically consistent with the particular actions being asked ofthem. Thus, if an ideological movement succeeded in bringing about a pure state ofanarcho-libertarianism (as improbable as that seems), this result would probably not constitute a stable politicoeconomic equilibrium. (End quote from 'Law as a discovery Procedure')

"The uncertain environment of the marketplace would make everybody want to have to best-armed, most powerful private army. Each "PDA" would try to be better armed than the other guy, and eventually the subscribers would have to pay for the inevitable arms-races."

<= How do you 'know' this? I think there are good reasons to suspect that this is not the most obvious corse of action. First of all: people in general don't feel the need to attack one another. (The role of mores in a society are relevant; and most people don't really need the threat of agression in order that they won't attack each other.) If this weren't the case, the state would be powerless as well. (Because they couldn't have the means to threat everyone all the time; and do we really want a state then, because will the policemen of the state be so gentle?) Second of all: it's not really about 'bigger gun'. You need 'enough to make sure you can damage the other guy'. This doesn't entail more and bigger guns per se. Tanks cost a lot of money; the average criminal is better of working then to try and buy a tank. If you sincerely believe this, I'm not sure that I can convince you otherwise. But try to examine for yourself the things you need to presuppose for this scenario to become reality. I think they are highly unlikely - and if they were true; I don't know if I would want a state in that case. Because you need to be intellectual honest (I'm not saying you are not); the same presuppostions on human behavior should be used to judge anarchy in a comperative analysis with the state.

"In anarcho-capitalist theory, private property reigns supreme, with private mercenaries enforcing property. I think that is quite unethical; I think that property rights should be protected with the minimum amount of force possible. Don't chase away a thief or trespasser with a gun, if you could use a pepperspray or an angry rottweiller."

<= I don't want private mercenaries either. I do believe that killing someone who walks on your lawn is a breach of that persons rights. I think most people think like that. Why do you suppose that in anarchy; this would change? Anarchy, like the state, will translate the preferences of people into 'governance'. If people in general want to kill everyone who walks on their lawn, then this will be government policy as well. But people don't want that and people think that's unethical. I see no real reason that this would happen to change, just because the way people 'govern' society is decentralized and (more) voluntary. The concept of 'proportionality' has been around for centuries in every law system - either state or more decentralized. I see no real reason that this will just 'change', just because we have no state.

"The second example of private bureaucracy is the idea of "private legislatures" and "insurance companies" and "private courts" and whatever else."

<= I think - to be honest - you are lumping together a straw man with real arguments. But I'm not sure. In any way: nobody is in favour of 'private legislature' as it is understood now as the parliament. But 'private legilature' is everywhere. When you are in a hotel: there are rules. When you are in a store: there are rules. When you work for a company: there are rules. There is no problem with rules within a organisation. What anarchists say, is that this is no reason to enact rules that should count for an entire area, based solely on the use of force, without the consent of the people. I also see no problem with 'insurance companies'. I would like to be insured against some things; being attacked by someone would probably be one of those things. And 'private courts' is something you favour too: "they ought to use their own social tact, civility, and common sense, with the occasional dispute being resolved by a competent jury."

"Private law-givers" are totally unnecessary. People do not need to be "given" law; they ought to use their own social tact, civility, and common sense, with the occasional dispute being resolved by a competent jury."

<= And nobody is advocating 'giving law' like it is understood now. Au contraire. As you yourself (if I interpret you right) admit; there is a need for rules to govern interaction. These laws will evolve over time, influenced by the way people think on what is justified and what is not. I can imagine in anarchy there evolving rules that are non-libertarian (as it has happen in the past), but in general: anarchy tends to more property oriented and more respectfull for human liberty then always the relevant alternative of government. (Even in contemporary Somalia: the anarchy there is favours human libery more then the previous system of government. This is not the say that, from a libertarian perspective, there are grave problems in Somalia.)

"Anybody without this "insurance" would not be able to purchase anything or even walk down the street. He would be almost like an illegal alien, with no legal "citizenship"."

<= I would say that this is definitely a straw man. Why won't he be able to 'purchase' anything or 'walk down the street'? What is true is, that if he has a problem (he was robbed or something), than he won't have a company to go to direcly, but has to find another means to solve this problem. He can just buy ad hoc, he can go to a charity organisation, ask his boss/friends/family/whatever for help, etc.He just won't have the 'insurance' that he can go to 'his' company when he's attacked to catch the robber. The point is not: 'how can we imagine this guy to be helped?' but: are there reasons to conceptualize that in anarchy, these kind of problems can be solved by voluntary interaction? I see clearly reasons to assume this, given the entrepreunerial capacities of people, given that people care about each other, given that anarchy allows trial and error, etc.

"Under anarcho-capitalism, such "citizenship" would be necessary because all law would be based on contract. Somebody who had not specifically agreed in a contract not to rape or kill anybody would a lawless person, to be avoided at all costs."

<= I see no reason to assume that all governance of activities will be based on contract law. Just because you and I don't have a contract, doesn't mean that you can attack me. Historicly: there never was a system that worked like that ('hey, we don't have a contract, so I can kill you!') and with good reason. The system of law exist exactly because of this: because people can't contract everything, we need a system of law that governs our activities with other people. The ultimate point of anarchy is that a system of law (customary-, custom- and tort) doesn't mean that we need a government/state/legislature.

I hope this helps.

Daarna namen de 'gewone' Misesforumgangers - waar ik over het algemeen niet te veel mooie woorden voor over heb, gezien de gehanteerde stijl die ze hebben - het over en verzande de discussie in 'wij zijn beter dan jij'.

Horwitz over Rothbardian & Hayekian Anarchists

Op zijn blog (hier) vind je een uitstekende blogpost over de 'strijd' tussen Rothbardian anarchisten en Hayekiaanse 'klassiek liberalen'.

De essentie van zijn punt is dit:

I think this is a false dichotomy that needlessly exacerbates the existing differences. If we are seriously to pursue the "Rizzonian Peace," participants and observers are going to have to, as our friends on the left would say, deconstruct this binary. The fact is that what we really have is a 2x2 matrix (at least!), in which there are Rothbardian minarchists (e.g., Ron Paul and other natural rights defenders of constitutionalism) and Hayekian anarchists

Over 'Hayekiaanse anarchie':

The argument is that the force of Hayek's own analyses point in the direction of a stateless society even if he, himself, didn't take them all the way there. I think this argument is especially relevant when we take into account the ways in which public choice economics has developed in the last few decades and then take seriously the tremendous growth of scholarship on the evolution of rules, norms, and institutions over that same time. Toss in the work of the Ostroms and others on the important role for civil society, which expands the analysis beyond just the state and the market, and you have the ingredients for "Hayekian anarchism," for lack of a better name. (Perhaps "consequentialist anarchism" works better?)

Lees zeke de hele post hier.

Mijn punt hierop zou zijn dat ik inderdaad ook een mengeling geef van (Neo-*)Hayekiaanse en Rothbardiaanse argumenten. Ik benadruk (tegenwoordig) vooral de ondernemende, gedecentraliseerde rol van handelingen, ideëen, organisaties, etc. (En de link tussen al die zaken.) Dat zou mij dus in het 'Hayekiaans' paradigma zetten; terwijl ik anarchist ben geworden vanuit Rothbardiaanse hoek. Het is geen geheim dat ik enkele nuances heb bij het Rothbardiaanse kader - en vooral de link tussen het 'libertarisch wetboek' enerzijds en 'gedecentraliseerde, polycentische juridische structuren' anderzijds. Er is immers geen reden om aan te nemen dat dit noodzakelijkerwijze compleet 'The Ethics of Liberty' zal volgen. Zoals ik onlans poste op het Mises forum: (let niet op de spelfouten)

(...) there is a need for rules to govern interaction. These laws will evolve over time, influenced by the way people think on what is justified and what is not. I can imagine in anarchy there evolving rules that are non-libertarian (as it has happen in the past), but in general: anarchy tends to more property oriented and more respectfull for human liberty then always the relevant alternative of government. (Even in contemporary Somalia: the anarchy there is favours human libery more then the previous system of government. This is not the say that, from a libertarian perspective, there are grave problems in Somalia.)

en

Again: to be an anarchist is to say that we don't believe in aggressive violence against innocent people - I think you and 'the anarchists' share thát concern. What you are saying is: I'm afraid anarchy will lead to a lot of violence. And this may or may not happen: that is true. But you have to ask yourself 2 questions. Questions I can't answer for you. First of all: does a state of anarchy - like the average anarchist sees it - tend to reduce violence or enlarge it, _given_ the way people think in what quantity and for what purpose violence is justified? My answer is: yes, it does. Given how people think about violence and when it should and should not be used: I think an anarchist system will produce less of it than a statist system. Second question: obviously the assumption 'a given state of views concerning violence' is an assumption witch, in the long run, is untenable: views change. But what kind of system will tend to have a more positive effect on what constitutes justified violence: anarchy or a state? Again: my answer is that in anarchy, the changes are higher that this view will be more peaceful than in a state. If all else fails - custom, mores, etc. - just for the simple fact that violence costs money and if you have to pay for it, you'll tend to use less of it. (I'm not saying that the homo oeconomicus assumption is the best one. I would prefer the case being made on empathy, sympathy, custom, etc. but after all of this, the simple fact that it is often very costly to use violence, will tend to reduce it as well. That is one of the reasons I'm an anarchist. People don't need centralized institutions to govern their affairs. Absence of coercive, centralized institutions doesn't mean a violent war of all against all - history proves this over and over again. (Not that 'anarchy = peaceful', but anarchist societies tend to be more peaceful then their statist counterparts - given relative the same background.)

Zoals ik op andere momenten al heb beargumenteerd (zoals in een presentatie voor enkele anarchistische peers), is het punt dat er een verschil is tussen 'anarchie' enerzijds en 'anarcho-kapitalistische anarchie' anderzijds. (Zoals ik hier beargumenteer - albij oppervlakkig op het einde - is het voor mij duidelijk dat alleen in een situatie van anarchie het liberalisme een oprechte ideologie kan zijn. Ik begin meer en meer het concept 'overheid' en 'staat' als een historisch accident de parcours te zien; maar daarover moet ik toch meer geschiedenis kennen om (1) te weten of dit wel waar is en (2) indien het waar is: het argument hard te maken.)

Anarchie is een situatie waarbij de hoofdzakelijke structuren van governance (breed genomen) niet steunen op de iniatie van geweld voor hun middelen om deze governance uit te voeren, i.e. ze geraken vrijwillig aan hun middelen, er zijn exit-opties, etc. Dat betekent niet dat er, bijvoorbeeld, rechtsregels kunnen zijn die positieve rechten toebedelen aan individuen, die ze kunnen afdwingen (met de dreiging van ex post juridische dreiging indien men niet gehoorzaamd.) 'k denk maar aan het verhaal van het verdrinkend individu en het weigeren hulp te geven aan dat individu. (Als ik me niet vergis is in de hedendaagse juridische wereld het weigeren van hulp in zo'n geval niet strafbaar.) Het is niet zo moeilijk om andere rechtsregels te verzinnen die een onderdeel zouden zijn van 'positieve rechten' - en dus quod non zijn in de strikt anarcho-kapitalistische literatuur - maar die wel zouden kunnen optreden in een staat van anarchie, simpelweg omdat de meeste mensen dit rechtvaardig vinden.

Hier ga ik het bij laten.

Update: waarom staat er een * bij 'neo-hayekiaan'? Wel; het is in de mode om 'neo' bij alles te voeren dat op een relevante wijze veranderd is. Niet dat ik die mode wil aanmoedigen, maar het is wel om aan te duiden dat er (mijn inziens) wel wat relevante verschillen zijn tussen het Hayekiaans paradigma qua Hayek en zijn bijeen geschreven literatuur enerzijds en de 'moderne' Hayekiaanse denkers. Mede door het feit dat de meeste die zich vandaag de dag Hayekiaan noemen - enfin; van de auteurs die ik regelmatig lees toch - meer aan de anarchistische kant zitten van het politiek-ideologische spectrum. Maar ik heb er geen enkel probleem mee om ze simpelweg 'Hayekiaan' te noemen - het prefix 'neo' doet meer kwaad dan goed - omdat ze in die traditie zitten en simpelweg het Hayekiaans paradigma hebben verfijnd. (Iemand zoals Sandefur (Check mijn blogposts hier, hier en hier voor de discussie van Sandefur en anderen over het Hayekiaans concept van spontane orde. Maar ook Hasnas (hier) over Law, Legislation & Liberty.)

En nu laat ik het hier echt bij.

Law a a discovery procedure

De tekst 'Law as a Discovery Procedure' lijkt mij een uiterest interessante tekst.

[Na het lezen: deze tekst is een absolute aanrader aan iedereen die in de liberale, maar ook in de niet liberale, beweging zit. Zéker lezen. Hij gaat je veel bijleren, sowieso.]

Van de inleiding:

This paper will attempt to unify the respective notions of a discovery procedure that are present in the study of law and economics. The second section of this paper will briefly review the relevant parts of Hayek’s argument and clarify what is meant by an “effective” discovery procedure. The third section will explain why the common law process is not, in fact, a procedure that is systematically effective in discovering legal rules. Government legislative processes are seen to be ineffective for the same reason. The third section will then outline a private legal process that, arguably, offers more promise.
The fourth and fifth sections will discuss some criticisms of a private legal process, emphasizing those made by William Landes and Richard Posner. The sixth section will argue that, even if it were ultimately found to be defective, the mere outlining ofsuch a process yields “some interesting consequences that are not so obvious” for traditional issues in legal philosophy. The issues will include questions in tort and contract law, the proper relationship between law and morality, and whether law and morality are properly seen as essentially utilitarian devices or as manifestations of rights to be honored independent of utilitarian considerations.

We beginnen te lezen.

We lezen eerst een recapitulatie van het Hayekiaans inzicht over de verspreiding van kennis en de waarde van markten vis a vis de overheid. We ontdekken ook het waarom van deze tekst:

As Hayek commented at the end of his 1968 lecture, however, an effective competitive process requires a complementary legal environment that defines and enforces rights concerning propertyand contracts. But Hayek’s 1968 lecture did not go far in outlining the features ofsuch a legal environment except to say that appropriate “protection for private initiatives and enterprise can only ever be achieved through the institution of private property and the whole aggregate of libertarian institutions of law” (Hayek 1978, p. 190).

Hij vervolgt dan met wat de essentie zal zijn van zijn kritiek op de Common Law visie van Hayek:

But neither Hayek’s praise nor his limited criticism of the common law process takes full account of the modern literature on the economics of property rights and other research in law and economics. As we shall see, this work makes clear why the common law process sometimes goes awry; it has started to articulate the precise conditions under which the process will, or will not, be effective. It also suggests why government legislative bodies cannot be counted on as a corrective device and points to radically different legal institutions as a possible means of at least shedding light on the principles on which many legal issues might be resolved.

Hij gaat dan over op het bespreken van wat nu concreet de issue is. 'k denk dat de meest relevante zin dit is:

The notion of an effective discovery procedure, on the other hand, refers to an ongoing process whereby information about not-yet-exhausted gains from trade is continually and economically uncovered and disseminated to individuals.

en

To summarize, if we say that one social process constitutes a more effective discovery procedure than another, we mean that it constitutes a systematically more economical way of generating and transmitting information about not-yet-exhausted gains from trade (as these are subjectively valued by individuals), including information about those gains that are or are not attainable after considering transactions costs.

Hij heeft ook een interessante (zij-)kritiek op de standaard Law & Economics literatuur.

That must be more plainly said is that government institutions, by definition, involve property rights that are not freely transferable. (...) That is, institutional failure is seen as avoidable—if appropriate property rights structures can be established. The establishment of appropriate property rights structures is, in turn, seen as a basic function of government. But government itself is governed by a property rights structure that the literature would deem inappropriate, so how can it be expected to carry out its tasks successfully?

Heerlijke opmerking. Hij bespreekt zijn kritiek op gelijkaardige wijze op de common law, i.e. dat er een verkeerde eigendomsstructuur is.

Hayek provides some other possible explanations for the common law process being defective, but none of them gets to the fundamental issue: the property rights structure governing the process. It is not necessarily undesirable if upper-class individuals provide

De eigendomsstructuur is immers zo:

The property rights structure is. Insofar as common law judges are decisionmakers of enterprises—government courts—for which rights are not transferable, and sometimes not even defined, they are in the position of central economic planners.” They cannot know all the circumstances oftime and place that would be relevant to efficient decisions, and there is no discovery procedure to duplicate that which prevails in free markets.’

Het laat niet te veel aan de verbeelding is wat de uiteindelijke conclusie zal zijn, maar de argumentatie is zowel origineel ('k kan me niet herinneren die al tegengekomen te zijn) als dat hij redelijk terecht is, zover ik kan zien. Hij bespreekt dan ook een privaat justitiesysteem - zonder al te postief te zijn over de mogelijkheden. Het is duidelijk dat hij het niet als een utopie beschouwt - en terecht dat hij het niet zo beziet.

Six major points of controversy will now be discussed with respect to a private legal system:

1. (1) the incentives for private courts to provide impartial justice,
2. (2) the incentives to articulate legal precedents,
   
3. (3) the incentives for standardizing legal rules across jurisdictions,
   
4. (4) the problems posed by instances of large numbers of small claims,
   
5. (5) the private protection for legal rights that would emerge, and
   
6. (6) the desirability ofthe social conventions that would underlie a private system of law.

All of these points of controversy cast doubton whether a private legal system would be governed by an effective legal discovery procedure.

'k laat het aan de lezer over om zelf de auteur zijn bespreking van deze kritische punten te lezen. 'k zal trachten de essentie van elk tegenargument te citeren.

1. the most striking outcome of such confrontations [tussen competetieve jurisdicties] was the emergence (discovery) of relatively uniform rules of law to resolve differences among competing court systems. These rules were independent of the will of any single (monopoly) authority. The issues governed by them included not only a variety of substantive disputes among individuals, but procedural disputes between church and king concerning court jurisdictions and recalcitrant parties.
   
   
2. In a private legal system, the articulation of clear and unbiased precedents would be a matter of self-interest for courts insofar as it is a way of establishing brand-name capital. (...) From a more dynamic perspective, however, one can see why the incentives to articulate precedents would be likely to dominate. First, one can envision a market in legal decisions in which enterprising couits would sell the written opinions of their judges to law firms or to the various retrieval services on which lawyers rely. Beyond this, one would expect the formation of insurance organizations to help individuals and firms pool risks with respect to liability and litigation costs. (...) To the extent that these organizations had clients with conflicting interests—with some clients more likely to be plaintiffs in certain classes of cases, and other clients more likely to be defendants—the organizations would have an interest in having courts articulate unbiased precedents, so as to minimize the number offuture disputes occurring and, in turn, their costs. These organizations would also have an interest in reducing litigation costs by encouraging lawabiding behavior on the part oftheir clients. (...) In a private legal system, one would expect courts to compete with each other to establish contractual arrangements with such organizations. The organizations would agree in advance to bring their disputes to those tribunals that had reputations for setting clear precedents.
   
   
3. But the more important point is that the degree of the law’s uniformity that does, in fact, emerge under more pluralistic legal institutions (e.g., the Law Merchant) contributes to the view that there exists a rule of law that is independent of the will of state rulers. Indeed, the existence of pluralistic legal institutions makes the rule of law necessary as a means ofeconomizing on the costs of resolving disputes among courts with overlapping jurisdictions. And the rule of law is the protector of liberty.
   
   
4. Businesses, including private courts, certainly welcome a strong demand for their products, but one must be careful about exactly what it is that people want. Depending on the circumstances, people demand litigation-avoidance rather than litigation. More specifically, one would expect insurance companies in a private legal system to associate only with those courts that economized on the need for litigation. This association would be the private sector counterpart. to companies’ lobbying of politicians for no-fault insurance under current institutions. In a private legal system an enterprising court could announce that, effective on such-and-such a date, it would offer new contractual terms for insurance companies so that, in return for a flat fee that was based on a company’s past involvement in legal disputes, the court would hear any cases the company wished to bring before it during the next 12 months—under the proviso that the court would refuse to assign fault in accident cases involving motor vehicles. Assuming insurance companies would prefer a no fault system, such acourt could charge lower fees and gain a competitive edge.
   
   
5. The point is [na enkele empirische voorbeelden] that people can be excluded from security if they do not pay for it; spillover benefits need not exist. (Als reactie op het monopolie-argument van externaliteiten.) (...) To say, as Buchanan does, “conflicts may occur, and one agency will win,” is to assume that agencies continually fight each other until only a single one is left instead ofsettling disputes in a more peaceful, lower-cost fashion that enables many firms to survive and prosper.
   Several examples of stateless societies serviced by private protection efforts have existed in history. Some ofthese societies lasted far longer than countries that tried to forestall a general outbreak of lawlessness by subjugating a state to a constitution.
   De auteur is echter ook niet bang voor het inzien van de beperkingen: "Needless to say, a purely private legal system would not survive in such conditions."
   
   
6. Zijn bespreking van dit laatste punt is heel genuanceerd en is, waarschijnlijk, het meest interessante van heel de tekst (pg. 519-521 of 23-25 van de pdf) en zou ik dus zeker aan willen raden aan iedereen. 'k kan echter niet weerstaan aan de laatste zin toch te citeren - dat zeker geen conclusie is van al de rest, maar simpelweg een laatste opmerking aan een genuanceerd stukje: " A strength of a nongovern mental system may also be that, if a disagreement about fundamental values does arise, no one has a state readily available through which he can try to impose or subsidize his views."

Hierna vervolgt de auteur door de implicaties van zijn visie te bespreken op het vlak van Tort en Contract law, de relatie tussen moraliteit en wetgeving, de relatie tussen individuele rechten en nut en anarchisme en libertarisme.

Over tort law

A thoroughgoing Austrian position would thus maintain that the extent to which strict liability prevails should be the object of a discovery procedure. The issue could be resolved in a market for court services.

Over contract law

To be sure, no judge would know the “correct” damage award that would generate precisely the “proper” subjective experience for B, but there are undoubtedly occasions when compensatory damages would be preferable to all parties concerned, especially if high bargaining costs existed to hinder A and B from negotiating a settlement among themselves. Again, the matter could be resolved in a market for courts.

Over de relatie tussen wetgeving en moraliteit

[the market process] at least offers the prospect of uncovering the information that is relevant for deciding when it is worthwhile to resort to the formal enterprises of the law.

(Hij kiest hier ook voor een comperatieve analyse. Het is waar dat sommige zaken onderdeel moeten zijn van de legale structuur en anderen zuiver van moraliteit, maar de vraag is welk proces we laten oordelen over wat bij wat hoort. Centrale (wetgeving) planning of een gedecentraliseerd proces?)

Over de relatie tussen individuele rechten en nut

Speaking more concretely, the paper emphasizes that a deep respect for rights of private property (and the liberty they secure) is the sine qua non of the system under discussion. At the same time, the paper has argued that in some cases a process of articulating and enforcing a complete set of private rights is probably too costly. As in other matters, resource scarcity would constrain what people would choose to do.

Over libertarisme en anarchisme (uiterst relevant!)

This paper has cast doubt on the germaneness of such a perspective. [Een perspectief dat 'anarchisme' noodzakelijkerwijze direct en compleet 'libertarisch' is.] As previously discussed, the legal rights to property and contract would probably not be absolute in a private legal system. To some extent, then, the system might not be purely libertarian. Nor would a private legal system necessarily consider a person’s legal rights to be infringed only if he (or his tangible property) had been physically invaded or defrauded.

en

People can, of course, try to persuade others, including the judges in a future private legal system, to adopt a philosophy ofstrict, or even ultrastrict, “anarcho-libertarianism,” just as they can try to persuade today’s legislators to enact a particular combination ofpolicies or, for that matter, persuade private enterprises to sell partictilar products at particular prices. The problem is that people in whatever politicoeconomic system is under discussion are faced with incentives that are not systematically consistent with the particular actions being asked ofthem. Thus, if an ideological movement succeeded in bringing about a pure state ofanarcho-libertarianism (as improbable as that seems), this result would probably not constitute a stable politicoeconomic equilibrium.

Een compleet privaat systeem kan echter moeilijkheden hebben om met bepaalde situaties om te gaan:

1. (1) Especially in areas threatened by external forces, such as predator states, one cannot dismiss lightly the concern that protection agencies may constitute natural monopolies;
2. (2) there may be public-good/prisoner-dilemma situations such that even those wary of government powers would deem a state to be a necessary evil; and
   
3. (3)the process that is to guide the formation and sustenance of norms and values does not inspire great confidence. As previously discussed, this last concern can be seen as a special case of the second concern above.
   

We stappen over naar de conclusie:

One can favor a stateless system, believe it could be reasonably stable for an extended period, and still conclude that, like it or not, the system would eventually break down or evolve into something else. The same can be said with regard to a system oflimited government. Nothing lasts forever, and to arrive at this or any other truism one does not need much of a discovery procedure.

En nu mijn conclusie.

Het was zonder enige twijfel een goede tekst. Vooral omdat ik zelf rondloop met enkele gelijkaardige gedachten (zeker omtrendt de relatie tussen anarchie en liberalisme, i.e. dat anarchisme niet noodzakelijk compleet liberalisme betekent en dat er in anarchie ook rechtsregels zijn die niet veel met liberalisme te maken hebben). Hij was ook enorm genuanceerd - en duidelijk beseffend wat de beperkingen zijn van een anarchistisch systeem en wanneer dit in de problemen kan komen.