“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[Modern Panther]

Six police cars being required to prevent me from speeding is a lot of police cars.  And in your example, if six weren't enough to follow me all the way home and encourage me to stop without the use of force, in think it likely that more would appear.

So they do have the authority to investigate? Because before you seemed surprised by my suggesting they could investigate.

The issue with a voluntary court system is this...If I am taking someone to court, and have a choice of court, I have no incentive to suggest a court that I think might find against me.  If I have enough money, I'm likely to have contacts in a private court.  It's likely that that court is going to find in my favour.  All a court company has to do is have a few wealthy friends, and those people become immune to the law.

The bank taking money from my account is taking my money.  That's them forcing their will upon me.  This is a private company, possibly under incentive from a private wealthy customer, causing me harm and the only way I can defend myself is putting enough of my own money on the line to buy a defence.

Execution doesn't mean shooting people.  Would it be better if I said "hanging"? By the way, why are we executing criminals? Is it to keep costs down, because that's a horrible reason to take anyone's life.

Could a poor man buy his way out?  In your example, the victim ensured that the rich man is properly punished by setting the level of his fine at a higher level.  What's to stop the victim setting a poor man's punishment at a high level?  What about the elderly or the disabled?

My most fundamental reason for not wanting a libertarian society?  People fought for hundreds of years to enshrine a democratic system where we choose our leaders.  A system of one man, one vote.  It's flawed.  Sometimes it fails, but everything we have as a people, we built through this system which shares burdens and tries to provide for our needs.  Everyone puts in a share, everyone gets healthcare, education, clean water.
In the libertarian system, money buys you power.  You want a crime investigated? You better have the cash.  You're sick? Either pay up or hope that the rich are feeling charitable.  Time for kids to go to school? you better have saved the money. This places a burden on the poorest, whilst allowing the wealthiest to thrive.  it takes power from the individuals who we elect into and out of office, and gives it to those with money. You think things are bad just now because they have the best lawyers and bribe politicians? Wait until they own the courts themselves.  Wait until those G4 police are referring you to a G4 court because you pissed off a G4 board member.

Yes, I know that the current system allows the wealthy to get away with too much.  A libertarian system removes any barrier to their power.

[The Legendary Shark]

New internet rule, in the spirit of Godwin's Law:

When someone advocates  reinstating slavery as a means of criminal punishment, then the argument is over, and every piece of subsequent nonsense they have to say on the subject can be safely disregarded.

Re-instating? What do you call imprisonment at present? What do you call compulsory education? What do you call sweatshops? What do you call conscription? What do you call taxation? Each one is a case of forcing human beings to perform tasks they might not want to do voluntarily - i.e., slavery.

At least using slavery as punishment for the worst crimes, and not imposing it arbitrarily at the whim of some profit-mad oligarch, and calling it by its true name instead of by some comforting euphemism is honest. Unlike classical slavery, punishment slavery will not generally be unending and its fruits will be used to compensate the victims of only the worst crimes - that compensation being earned by the transgressors themselves. Maybe you'd prefer it to be called constructive imprisonment, compensatory incarceration or bad-person-fluffy-time?

New internet rule, in the spirit of Godwin's Law:

When a person advocates ending an argument simply because they encounter a word or concept they don't like and can't be bothered forwarding a rational rebuttal but instead rely on crass populist sentimentalism to arbitrarily dismiss it, then that person is invalidated, and every piece of subsequent nonsense they have to say on the subject can be safely disregarded.

[Modern Panther]

Sharky, calling people "slaves" because they pay taxes is really under valuing the millions upon millions of people who suffered and died in abject misery as actual slaves.

[TordelBack]

Also, it fails to address the essential quality of slavery: ownership of human beings, and their transformation into property.  I think what the Shark describes is indenture.

[TordelBack]

Companies will spring up dedicated to relieving you of this burden, much like an insurance broker. They may send you a form once a year where you take advantage of their research and expertise in evaluating and engaging the available companies

Aren't you describing a political party?  A 'company' who will use their expertise to recommend who to choose in order that I get my services delivered the way I want? 

[The Legendary Shark]

The police cars weren't there to prevent you from speeding, neither were they all following you at once. They were there to protect other road users. One took over as the last reached the limit of its jurisdiction.

The police don't investigate. The private insurance company's investigators investigate.

A private court will rely upon its reputation for impartiality and professionalism to survive. A court that consistently makes biased decisions or has ties to either party (beyond purely commercial ties) will soon go out of business and will not be immune to being asked to defend itself in another court. (Even our current courts frown upon having your relatives in the jury box or sitting on the magistrates' judges' bench - so they're not all bad.)If you believe you are right, and you believe the court is impartial, what's the problem? The only reason to fear a negative outcome is if you are sure or suspect that you might be in the wrong. If you know you're in the wrong you still might want to attend because you believe your opponent is requesting too much compensation and an impartial court might find a lower level of compensation more appropriate. And even if you do refuse to attend because you're certain you're in the right and the suit is frivolous or mischievous, what's to say that court won't find you not guilty in absentia?

In the case of the bank taking your money, I did concede that is a gray area. However, the money spent on your credit card belongs to the bank and it has the right to recoup that money. Don't forget that in the example given you had been placed on the Dishonourable Register, which indicates that you are untrustworthy (in the example given, I hasten to add, not in your real life). If you had no credit card debt, the bank would simply have returned all the money in your accounts to you.

"We" are not executing criminals. It is an option open to the next of kin of a murder victim. There is no reason to assume that every murderer will be executed. If someone murdered a member of my family, I would not call for execution - except, possibly, in the case of an exceptionally vicious and sadistic crime, but even then I'd be extremely unlikely to call for that punishment. I don't know what you'd do, I hope you'd do the same as me, I'd even beg you to do the same - but I have no right to force you. The point is that its the victim's decision and not handed down by some hanging-happy judge or vindictive state.

There is nothing to stop the victim's next of kin setting the price of a murderer's compensation to an unrealistic level beyond the advice of the court and jury and the pleas of the murderer. The next of kin might do this to ensure the murderer spends the rest of his life in prison. There is, however, the possibility of parole - at the next of kin's discretion. Professional parole boards might interview the imprisoned murderer at the request of the next of kin or the murderer and forward their observations and recommendations to the next of kin, who would make the ultimate decision on release or continued incarceration. People's attitudes change, so life in prison might not mean life in prison if the next of kin feel the murderer has suffered enough.

The elderly or disabled murderer is no different in the eyes of the law than the teenage or athletic murderer. Age or disability are not excuses for murder - though they might mitigate lesser crimes. Each case must be judged on its own merits.

So, anything which people fought for, and presumably died for, must be preserved? How about the people in Spain who fought and died for a libertarian society? How about the Native Americans who fought and died to preserve their ancient cultures and lands? How about the white supremacists and Nazis who are still fighting and willing to die for their right to dominate what they believe to be inferior races? How about the Mafia clans who fight each other and die at each others hands for supremacy?

The current system is broken. It has become overdeveloped and overbearing. It takes what it wants from you and punishes you if you refuse. It gives you back as little as it can. It doesn't give you education - education is a lifelong and ongoing process - it gives you schooling. Schooling in obedience with a bit of general knowledge thrown in, just enough to make us smart enough to operate the machines but not smart enough to ask why. The schooling it gives stifles education. It gives you water of the lowest quality it can get away with. It borrows billions in imaginary money in order to preserve itself and comes after you for the repayments. It brings nothing to the table but unlawful and arbitrary and uncaring force. It is broken.

In the libertarian society, the power and right returns to its rightful owner. It returns to the place where it's been all along. To You. In the libertarian society, money buys you exactly the same as it does today - better stuff. It doesn't buy you power because there's no centralised power-mongers to buy it from. It might buy you a bit of localised power, for a short time, but that's all. You'll still pay for all the mechanisms, processes and trappings of a modern society but without having to support unproductive, parasitic bureaucrats along the way. There will be no protectionism of big business to bar entry to the marketplace by smaller firms. No inflated taxes to make earning a decent wage difficult for the underprivileged and unskilled. No fear of being bullied or railroaded by an uncaring and jealous state police monopoly (look at what's happening to JBC (and I hope he doesn't mind me using him as an example here) - if he paid a small subscription to a private protection agency, they'd be falling over themselves to listen to him - the state police care a lot less; they still get paid whether they listen to him or not,). You'd have a choice of courts based on their reputations instead of just one option - the state courts which, like the state police, get paid whether they listen to you or not, make sensible judgements or not.

It takes power from the flawed human beings we set up as our masters and returns it to our hands. It returns to us true choice, not the faux "freedom of choice" we are forced to endure now, where the things we can choose from are a narrow and controlled subset of the whole. G4 police might try to refer you to a G4 court but you won't have to accept that. You will have the right, and the power, to choose a court mutually acceptable to you both. The lack of a "government" monopolised court system does not mean a lack of justice, it means precisely the opposite - a flowering and expansion of justice. Courts will cease looking for the legislation to impose on any case and go back to their true purpose, examining each case as a unique thing and picking it apart to discover what's right.

Libertarian society does not remove all barriers to oligarchical power, it is made of barriers to oligarchical power. It gives each and every person their own barrier, to raise or lower as they choose. It allows for cooperation and mutual benefit. It gives you back, so long as you follow a handful of simple rules we all instinctively know already, the most powerful barrier to oligarchy there's aver been - the word "no."

A libertarian society won't be perfect, no society can be. It will be a complex, dynamic, sometimes frightening process of mass human interactions, entrepreneurship and invention. A society with which you can engage on any level, and to any extent, that you choose.


There is more than one type of slavery. I trust you don't think I am in any way dismissive of all the victims, past and present, of the worst kind of slavery. Tax-paying may, in comparison, be velvet slavery but it's still slavery. Try not paying any and see how soon the velvet overseer takes to bring his velvet whip to bear. As to the enslavement of the worst criminals, indentured servitude may well be a better description but I didn't want to dance around the core concept of the work-prison. It's punishment for heinous crimes but punishment designed to focus as much on the victims as on the criminals. (I seem to recall the Irish Kings of old did something similar, recompensing the victims immediately and then setting their men to seek restitution from the criminals. That's only a hazy memory and may well be wrong but I'm sure you, Tordels, can set me straight on that!)

Tordels, no - no more than an insurance broker is a political party.

[Modern Panther]

Shark, I think its obvious that this isn't something that we're ever going to agree on.  Your entitled to your opinion. Good luck with it.

One last thing...

A private court will rely upon its reputation for impartiality and professionalism to survive.

No company relies upon a reputation for impartiality.  The current judiciary does, but companies don't.  They rely upon providing paying customers with what they want.

You'll dispute this.  I'll disagree.  That's fine.

[The Legendary Shark]

A company survives or fails on the quality of its products or services. The private court's products and services are impartiality and professionalism.

Thank you for the conversation, Panth, I've really enjoyed it. Your questions, observations and probings (oo-er, Missus!) have helped me to understand my own position - its strengths and weaknesses - a lot better than I did at the outset. In the end, I think that's one of the true joys of a good debate.

I know we don't agree but I hope I've at least given you something to think about, as you have given me.

Thanks again.

[JayzusB.Christ]

How about the people in Spain who fought and died for a libertarian society?
.

I assume you're referring to Anarchist Catalonia, which was a very different libertarian society from the one you're proposing, founded as it was on Marxist principles. 

[The Legendary Shark]

Yes, that's the one!

[IndigoPrime]

New internet rule, in the spirit of Godwin's Law:
When someone advocates  reinstating slavery as a means of criminal punishment, then the argument is over, and every piece of subsequent nonsense they have to say on the subject can be safely disregarded.

Indeed, although I'm seeing an awful lot of similar postings online to this of late (presumably due to Tory NHS bullshit seeping into people's brains):

In countries with private healthcare, including this one, "government" taxation, tariffs, licenses etc. add to the cost both directly and indirectly. I think the fairies are all in your mind.

It's amazing how few people understand the basics of economy of scale and also the basic goodwill that allows the NHS to perform as it does (in terms of many staff working for far less than they could get in the private sector).

Still, I'm sure when everyone has a mortgage-sized chunk removed from their wages every month, they'll understand — although it'll be a bit late by then (and somehow still blamed on Labour's 1997–2005 govt).

[The Legendary Shark]

So, a prison system is the same as a health system? Wow.

A health system must rely on goodwill rather than sound market economics? Double wow.

What's the reasoning behind your last paragraph? Tory NHS bullshit seeping in?

[IndigoPrime]

I never said that a health system must rely on goodwill. The reality, however, is that the NHS does. In a sense, the entire system is quite close to aspects of the utopia you dream about. Staff from top to bottom do their jobs because of a love of what they do. It's a calling for them. That doesn't work once you inject rampant free-market capitalism into the mix. Similarly, once you eradicate the NHS's other key benefit — its sheer size — everything becomes significantly more expensive. At best, you end up with a system akin to what we have now, with the illusion of 'choice' (see also: almost every other privatised industry in the UK and elsewhere), but where you are paying out mortgage-sized chunks every month to be covered in case of the worst. (Quite how this tallies with the Tories and their attempts to get more people self-employed, I've no idea.)

What's the reasoning behind your last paragraph? Tory NHS bullshit seeping in?

My last paragraph is simply a reference to the fact the current government continues to blame all ins on the 'mess we were left'. Fair enough to use that common argument (even if sometimes inaccurate) in 2010 and 2011. But we're now some way into the second post-Labour government. I'll bet we'll head into the 2020 general election with the Tories still blaming Labour for everything that's gone wrong in the UK.

[The Legendary Shark]

Can't fault you on the blame game. Reminds me of the old joke about the new leader finding two sealed envelopes on his desk...

[Professor Bear]

Fair enough to use that common argument (even if sometimes inaccurate) in 2010 and 2011. But we're now some way into the second post-Labour government.

The argument is pretty much beyond use once you start butchering public finances under the austerity banner and then miss every single economic target you've set in six years.