Libertarian Solutions I'd Like to Understand

[BigG]

I've been reading the Libertarian Philosophy thread and almost posted this question there, but I think it deserves a separate thread to allow attention to be given to just how common situations might be worked out under a libertarian form of government.

I'd like a discussion without appeals to books nobody has read or philosophers, but your own ideas how simple things could be handled without a meltdown. For example, here is a scenario that occurred to me.

I'd just like a simple explanation of how this would work.

You say that individuals can enjoy their property rights so long as they hurt no one. Yes? OK, in this case, Guy A offends guy B in some way everybody agrees is harmful. You say Guy B can take him to court. Yes?

Suppose the court finds for Guy B. How is the finding enforced?

A. Massive police and court system bears down on Guy A.

B. Guy B can take revenge on Guy A.

C. Anybody who wants to can take a shot at Guy A.

D. Guy A can ignore the court's finding with impunity.

I just don't understand this wonderful concept where everybody has responsibility. And by the way, how is the court funded - and if there is an enforcement function, how is that funded?

Similarly,

I have no need to contribute to public works unless it personally benefits me. Right? Ok, one guy paves the 50' in front of his house, the next guy leaves it a dirt track, the next guy makes his track gravel, the next guy paves his, etc. How does this work?

TIA

 

[pcosmar]

I have never "studied " Libertarian Philosophy,but from the reading i have done, I like some of the ideas.
I think the focus is on local policy, and is handled locally.
Taxes are still a reality, and could be collected for support of local projects. Taxes on the whole could be reduced by limiting waste and graft.
As far as enforcing laws, again the local people would enforce the local laws. If the Sheriff needed help he would call on the community to aid in enforcing law.
I believe that with the Constitution as a guide, local people could decide what is right for the local community.

 

[TallPine]

Actually, I don't think the police are much interested in enforcing civil judgements even under the current system. If the guy doesn't pay, then you have to go back to court and get the judge to rule "we really mean it now" or something to that effect. If that doesn't work then you might be able to get a court order to start seizing assets (if there are any).

I found out to my dismay that it is actually quite a process just to get somebody to move out of your own house

 

[Tim James]

Lately I've taken this approach to nuanced libertarian solutions: who cares?

We can worry about this stuff when we get there. There are lots of easy things to do before we turn off the lights. Start by dismantling the easy things like the entitlements and hand-holding, foreign aid, the drug war, and pork projects. Leave local government road creation alone for now. Once we're all used to that for a few generations, we can start thinking about the crazy anarcho-capitalist ideals. At the moment, all they do is add confusion and ensure that people will run back to the safety of incremental government. Mental masturbation through endless Internet discussions is one of the reasons that libertarianism goes nowhere.

 

[miko]

BigG - the questions such as this one have been extensively addressed in libertarian theory. Go to www.mises.org and look for works or Rothbard (free text/mp3 on line), Hoppe, Walther Block, etc.

It's not terribly complex but a brief post would hardly do it justice.

Basically, the free market would - and did, when allowed - come up with multitude of ways to help people solve their problems, utilising modern inventions like division of labor and specialisation.

A guy B can personally extract restitution from the miscreant (as distinct from revenge) - but doesn't have to any more than he does'n have to grow his own vegerables, do his own lawyering or self-administer dentistry. Most likely, he will be insured - so it will be the insurance agency that will contract some enforcement agency to recover the loss.

The justice would likely consist mostly of private courts and insurance companies - there are extensive writeups on how such systems could operate and they sound quite plausible and what else the free market would come up with one cannot even imagine.

Basically, after the court(s) decision, using (limited) force against the Guy A would not be a crime. Even if nobody does that, it does not mean he can ignore the court's finding with impunity.
If he does, no insurance company would ever extend coverage to him and no court would take him as a client, so hardly anybody would enter into a contract with him, welcome him to his property, allow him residence, rent to him, sell to him, employ him, etc.
Unless he actually wanted to live by himself in the woods, he will not be in a good position.

miko

 

[BigG]

I sounds like you believe in transferring govt force to insurance companies, Miko. How is that better than it is now? I can't see much improvement.

 

[Johannes_Paulsen]

I don't have time for a longer post, but I strongly recommend that you take a look at Randy Barnett's book The Structure of Liberty. He addresses these issues.

 

[deadin]

Put the insurance companies in charge? I worked for an insurance company for 20 years and that is a chilling thought. They are only interested in profit on the bottom line for their shareholders.

 

[budney]

The problem giving a definitive answer is that we can't predict what the market will come up with; if we could, then central planning would have a prayer of working.

Here's one scenario, though, proposed by Rothbard. A accuses B of stealing A's property. Someone from B's security provider (or A's security provider, if B doesn't have one) knocks on B's door and informs him that an accusation has been made, and the security provider is investigating the matter. He gives B a pamphlet with contact numbers and general information about the process. Ideally, B cooperates with the investigation. If he refuses to cooperate, see below.

If the security provider(s) decide that a hearing is warranted, A and B are both given a list of private mediators, and asked to choose from that list or suggest another mediator. Once a mediator is agreed upon, the hearing proceeds more-or-less along familiar lines. If B refuses to select any mediator, see below.

If the hearing finds B at fault, a decision will be issued ordering B to make restitution as appropriate, plus costs of investigation, etc. Ideally, B complies.

If B refuses to cooperate in some way that balks the investigation or hearing, or refuses to make restitution when ordered, what is done? A few things.

1) First, if B is represented by a security provider, the provider will terminate his contract. They don't want the hassle of representing someone who is going to burden them with costs and refusal to cooperate. This will likely result in loss of homeowner's insurance, at minimum, since homeowner's insurance is likely to require some minimal security contract.

2) Second, security providers will have contracts of cooperation with each other and with their clients. If you refuse to cooperate with an investigation, refuse to agree to mediation, or refuse to comply with the outcome of mediation, the security provider will give your name to the local grocery stores, utilities, etc: you will not be allowed to shop in any local stores, and your electricity, phone and cable will be shut off. The owner of the local roads will ban you, so you will be unable to leave your property.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

--Len.

 

[budney]

Deadin and BigG, it isn't about putting insurance companies in charge. The insurance company can insure you, or it can refuse to insure you. That's it. It can't force you to have insurance, for example, because that can only be done using government force backed by police with guns.

Insurance today is different from insurance in a free market in lots of ways. Today insurers are in bed with government to force people to carry policies. Auto insurance is a textbook example. And health insurance is deep in bed with government--the health industry is riddled with government interference.

The problem isn't precisely that insurers care about the bottom line--so do lap-dancers, but they manage to make you pretty happy anyway. If you were muscled into the gentlemen's club by armed goons, the lapdances there would cost twice as much--and you'd be bruised and traumatized when Big Bertha got through with you.

--Len.

 

[deadin]

I think I will wait until pigs learn to fly before I would back any of these "solutions".

 

[budney]

Deadin: if you prefer the "solution" that involves disreputable people of every stripe climbing into bed with Teddy Kennedy and convincing him to shove his hand down your pocket, and to send cops with guns to bring you in if you refuse... then you don't have to do anything: we already have that system.

--Len.

 

[pcosmar]

How did this change from libertarian questions to insurance companies?
If it was not for being forced to I would not have insurance. It is just another example of government involvement(force) in my life.

 

[Tim James]

Again, people can't get away from the false dichotomy of anarcho-capitalism or incremental centralized big government. budney laid out the two choices for us.

There is something about humans that make us instantly organize into two tribes.

 

[BigG]

How did this change from libertarian questions to insurance companies?

Because whomever it was that characterized the solution to be insurance companies (Miko and helped by Budney) made me think they just wanted to switch from our current system to a powerful company system. Gulp - hello fascism.

The point I'm trying to make - apart from philosophy which is only guesswork and not welcome in this thread - is HOW TO SOLVE COMMON PROBLEMS without some quasi-governmental juggernaut to enforce the solutions.

ANSWER: No way possible, I'm afraid.

 

[budney]

Pcosmar: a lot of what government does is, if you think about it, the job of an insurance company. Most of the "social safety net" consists of one or another "insurance" scam, and you can actually buy insurance today for most of the same sorts of risks, such as disability or unemployment.

Health care, if it were deregulated, could be paid for directly by the patient, but folks would still buy insurance against catastrophic illnesses and such.

Law enforcement is another form of insurance. Most people don't need a cop, most of the time. They're there for when someone does need them. In a free market, banks would hire full-time security guards--but regular people wouldn't. They'd get an insurance policy that would pay for security services, investigation, mediation, etc., when it was needed. The same with fire departments: most people would carry fire insurance, which would pay the cost of the fire department's response.

Not only is almost everything the government does really a kind of insurance; but everything the government does that isn't a form of insurance is usually blatantly unjust: punishing victimless crimes; waging war on drugs (but not booze) and poverty; building pyramids; etc.

If you don't want insurance, you won't have to buy it. You'll just have to pay out-of-pocket for security or firefighting or what have you. Today you are required by law to carry insurance, and on top of it you essentially pay a big fat insurance premium to Uncle Sam, who gives you only slightly more than diddly squat for it.

Insurance is the libertarian's duct tape.

--Len.

 

[budney]

Because whomever it was that characterized the solution to be insurance companies (Miko and helped by Budney) made me think they just wanted to switch from our current system to a powerful company system.

BigG, we already have a fascist "powerful company system." The muscle is provided by Uncle Sam. Companies can't do that sort of thing in a free market, because killing people is bad for business; it's one thing to get in bed with the Mafia, and quite another to start your own Mafia.

Again, people can't get away from the false dichotomy of anarcho-capitalism or incremental centralized big government.

Tim, I'm definitely in favor of anarcho-capitalism, so it isn't accidental that I'm advocating it. That doesn't make my point useless to you minarchists, though: in your ideal, the government-run police will still exist--but most other things would be privatized, and would look roughly the same under minarchism or anarcho-capitalism. I'm not trying to create a false dichotomy here.

On the other hand, I do think the dichotomy exists and isn't false. Government is a big dangerous machine, and the lowest sort of men are always drawn irresistibly to it so they can harness its power for their own gain. You might build the smallest, least dangerous government you can, but evil men will immediately get busy souping it up, adding weapons, and generally turning it into a hideous menace. In the long run, there's no such thing as limited government. The solution, I suggest, is to destroy the bloody machine in the first place. Then there are no gears and levers for the evil men to get hold of.

--Len.

 

[Justin]

Again, people can't get away from the false dichotomy of anarcho-capitalism or incremental centralized big government.

Which is why I've generally stopped chiming in on threads like this. If people can't even take the time to figure out extremely basic stuff like the difference between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism, then I really don't hold out much hope for them being able to figure out what a libertarian solution would be to problem X.

In many cases, though, I suspect that the people who can't see the differences between the two are being deliberately obtuse.

 

[budney]

If people can't even take the time to figure out extremely basic stuff like the difference between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism...

Justin, liberty is a fairly big tent. There's room inside for minarchists and anarcho-capitalists. I do submit that sooner or later the minarchists must face the fundamental contradiction of their position: they abhor initiation of aggression, but believe that society requires a little bit of it in the form of forcible taxation. But that's an in-house argument. Anyone who believes in non-initiation of force is a libertarian, including us anarcho-capitalists. We might be the crazy cousins you don't like to talk to, but we're still family.

--Len.

 

[BigG]

If people can't even take the time to figure out extremely basic stuff like the difference between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism, then I really don't hold out much hope for them being able to figure out what a libertarian solution would be to problem X.

With all due respect, I want to hear actual possible solutions to problems that crop up every day. Not appeals to Ludwig Von Mises, etc. who only philosophize but have never actually tried any of their suggestions.

If you can't explain something in simple English, it will never fly politically, no matter how clever you think it is.

 

[budney]

BigG: fair enough. There's a fundamental problem with that, though. The market comes up with solutions we couldn't have foreseen. It does that all the time. Nobody could have predicted the SUV, for crying out loud! That was the market's way of evading silly government regulation on cars: invent a "car" that's legally classified as a "truck," and hence exempt from the silly regulations.

So when a libertarian says, "We don't need government to do X; we could do X this way in a free market," he's only trying to demonstrate that it can be done in the private sector. He isn't remotely claiming that that's the best way to do it, or the way that it actually would be done if a free market sprang into existence tomorrow. But people don't get that. They quibble that doing X that way is no good, so we should just let the government do it. Which is of course a false dichotomy: there are lots of ways to skin a cat.

Walter Block does a fabulous job on all sorts of questions like this. His handing of "eminent domain" is especially brilliant: if you want to build a road without eminent domain, don't start buying land; start buying options to buy land, along more than one route. If there are holdouts on one route, just don't exercise the options, and instead buy the land along the route without the holdouts. Brilliant! And nobody gets evicted at gunpoint; no Kelo v. New London; none of that nonsense.

--Len.

 

[Fosbery]

Most libertarians would NOT abolish government-run police forces. NO libertarian would abolish government-run courts (that's anarchism, not libertarianism).

Criminal law would continue as it does now: if guy A hurts guy B, guy B can call the cops who take guy A to trial and then send him to jail or fine him or whatever if he is guilty.

Police and courts can be funded in a number of ways. Firstly what you might call 'soft' libertarians would fund them through flat income tax, a flat sales tax or an apportioned general tax.

'Harder' libertarians who would not tax, would provide funding through user-fees. For instance, when you use a government business like the post office or the roads you pay for the service and some of the profits go towards funding the police force.

There can also be user-fees for police and courts themselves. For instance, although police would always respond to calls and investigate crimes to administer justice, an area might have to fund the local police to actually patrol the area. Courts can also be funded partially by fines and having the losing party cover some of the cost of the trial.

There can also be private investment e.g. firms paying to put adverts on the side of police cars and on police officer's clothes and also charitable donations which should not be under-estimated*.

As for roads:

One solution is to simply have the government continue to own the roads and charge a user fee (road tax, road pricing etc). However, a market solution is also possible.

When residential areas are built, roads are often built by the people making the houses and since houses are built in large numbers all in one go there is no problem with this. Nobody will buy houses with no road access, so housing firms make sure all their houses have it.

For roads in commercial areas the solution is much the same: private firms will fund the roads - either the firm building the buildings builds the road (nobody will buy or rent their buildings if there is no road access) which already happens in many cases, or firms in the area will club together to fund the road network. Firms already provide security guards, malls, parks, squares, statues, fountains and other things in this way.

For other roads such as highways they will also be funded by private investment. One possibilty for larger highways is tolling but a more likely solution is road pricing or simple provision by private firms e.g. Ford wants workers to get to its factory and for trucks to take its products away and bring in raw materials, so it builds highways to facilitate this. Many firms would likely contribute for any given stretch or simply for one big network.

*Private individuals give vast sums every year to charity and this sum would only increase if the burden of taxation was lifted. People do not only spend money on tangible goods that benefit themselves - they also spend mnoey to benefit others in order to feel good. Many people will also pay for goods even when they can be had for free - this can be proved by Britain's past private provision of police forces where there was plenty of funding despite many free riders and in mroe recent times be people paying to download music from iTunes and similar services when they could dowload for free from Limewire, Kazza etc and in the provision of services like Wikipedia, Firefox and Bittorent solely through private donations (and also merchandising, which is a further possibility for police forces who could sell toy police cars, shirts etc like football teams do in the UK).

 

[budney]

Fosbery: good stuff. However, some libertarians would indeed privatize the courts. Not all libertarians are anarcho-capitalists, but all anarcho-capitalists are libertarians. (Note: "Anarcho-capitalist" and "anarchist" are not the same thing. Most "anarchists" are not libertarian--they're socialist.)

As an aside, private roads are actually key to free-market environmental protection. You can't sue each and every driver for pollution--but you can sue the road's owner. Government creates a problem, by socializing roads, and then resorts to force to solve it, in the form of emissions regulations. A free market can regulate emissions without coercion: road owners stipulate pollution standards in their road-use contract, in order to avoid liability for soot, stink, etc., trespassing on the properties along the road.

--Len.

 

[Tim James]

The solution, I suggest, is to destroy the bloody machine in the first place. Then there are no gears and levers for the evil men to get hold of.

I hear you, but I just don't see it happening. You can label me a minarchist, but like I said in my first post, lately I've been exploring practical, incremental roads to libertarianism. It's so frustrating that the way these discussions always go is to create the image of a utopia, then let people come in and pick apart at it with their own little concerns: But what about the dirt roads, man?! I'd rather start from the other direction -- talk about rugged individualism, personal responsibility, and then propose slowly cutting away some of the safety net to return valuable resources to individuals. After a few generations people will get used to less hand-holding, and then...

I do submit that sooner or later the minarchists must face the fundamental contradiction of their position: they abhor initiation of aggression, but believe that society requires a little bit of it in the form of forcible taxation.

That's fine!! We can worry about it when we get there. Why scare everyone off now? The fundamentals of the two concepts are very similar. The only worry is not ripping the bandaid off quickly enough to prevent a return to incremental big government, but I'm unconvinced that we can't just go the same speed in the correct direction toward small government. Maybe I'm too young and naive.

 

[pacodelahoya]

BigG, I think you don't want answers so much as you want to bust on Ron Paul supporters.

The manner in which you phrased your question and you signature says it all.

I just don't understand this wonderful concept