Francois-Rene Rideau wrote: "This is a gratuitous statement, and unless you begin arguing it, hopefully with economic arguments (since this is Armchair Economists). I'll assume that you utter it out of the same blind religious superstition as the other people I've seen defend democracy.":
Uh no, it's not economically based or will it be... this discussion left Economics when it began to address "public policy" choices, not simply monetary policy, benefit maximization, or even questions about drink prices, but began to substitute economic "rationality" as the basis for a discussion of societal issues in general. -----Original Message----- From: Francois-Rene Rideau [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 8:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: monopoly justice vs free market justice [About private justice vs State justice] On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 08:20:06AM -0500, Pinczewski-Lee, Joe (LRC) wrote: > We all can see societies operate on the above > principles, the Yanomami in the Amazon, various tribes in Papua-New Guinea, > Lebanon circa 1975-1990, the Balkans, and Somalia 1992 to present. I don't know enough about the Yanomami and Guinean tribes, but I fail to see how you can account the Lebanese and Somalian problems to a private justice system, when there has precisely been political wars raging - wars for the political control on other people's lives - wars to kill as enemies people of different ethnic or religious obedience. > The line "and taking back 'too much' might raise an endless vendetta war. > Hence everyone's interest in finding a peaceful agreement." is OBVIOUSLY > untrue. In all these societies VENDETTA and war are the result of one > side taking "private" justice. As if governments had eliminated vendetta wars! Mind you, they took vendetta wars to a whole new size. Letting aside WWI and WWII, just consider the recent Afghanistan event. A terrorist attack, itself explainable only because of resentment against the US government, has served as the pretense for a full-fledged war. The same usual illusion of States pretending to eliminate externalities, yet only concentrating them into a huge externality of ensuring there be a good government happens with States pretending to eliminate injustice, yet only concentrating injustice into its own huge administration. > Plus, the line "Both parties, as well as surrounding > families, are interested in peace, and will thus seek a prompt agreement > before court." is also obviously untrue.... The parties and their families > ARE NOT INTERESTED IN PEACE, they are interested in survival, familial > obligations, and power, hence WAR is often the preferable outcome rather > than a court. As if war could bring durable survival and power! As economists, we know that freely agreed win-win exchanges of services is a much better strategy than the win-lose situation of plunder, or the lose-lose situation of war, be it only because the latter are so hazardous. The more commerce is developed, the less people have interest in war. If you want to continue doing trade with civilized people, you'll have to abide by all the court rulings that will raise a consensus on the need to enforce them. > Anarcho-Capitalism is flawed in that it assumes a degree of > rationality and benefit maximization that humans do not truly exhibit. The fatal conceit not just of socialism, but of any kind of statism, is to believe that governments somehow magically have more rationality and benefit maximization (of an altruistic kind, moreover) than citizens. The Public Choice theory showed how untrue this could be. Libertarians never ever claimed that citizens are magically rational and benefit-maximizing - they claim that government are no more such than them, and that things are better for citizens, whatever their objectives, when they are free to choose, with the feedback loop of responsibility directly guiding them into taking good decisions. Anarcho-Capitalists apply this line of reasoning to security and the justice system as well as all other goods and services people can expect to get from the society and the world. You might disagree, but don't claim Anarcho-Capitalism assumes what it doesn't assume - it only discredits you. > A monopoly justice system, tied to democracy is superior > to either "private justice" or system of justice > based on authoritarian principles. This is a gratuitous statement, and unless you begin arguing it, hopefully with economic arguments (since this is Armchair Economists). I'll assume that you utter it out of the same blind religious superstition as the other people I've seen defend democracy. [ Fran�ois-Ren� �VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ] [ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ] Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it -- Richard Feynman
