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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Libertarian position on certain 'law
Message-ID: <1712@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-Aug-84 00:39:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.1712
Posted: Thu Aug 23 00:39:42 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 02:12:58 EDT
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Nf-ID: #R:ccieng2:-47100:inmet:7800127:000:3686
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Aug 14 13:04:00 1984

>***** inmet:net.politics / ucbvax!faustus /  6:42 pm  Aug 13, 1984
>Much of the argument in favor of less government and more
>personal freedom people have been giving makes sense, but
>"private courts"?  This is something I can't understand. Say I
>have some gripe against you and decide to sue you.  Who gets to
>decide which court we will go to?  

VERY briefly, you and I both subscribe to private police systems
or arbitration services.  Such services would provide (as a matter
of course) agreements with each other about what happens
when their members conflict.  If, for example, you subscribe
to Alpha Security, and I subscribe to Beta Security, chances are
that Alpha and Beta would ALREADY have some agreement on 
how to arbitrate disputes in the situation where a client of
Alpha's and a client of Beta's conflict.  They would have
these agreements to enable them to avoid costly (and embarrassing)
armed conflict.  For more details, read "The Machinery of Freedom",
by David Friedman.  

>Say you have been burning
>tires in your front yard, and it just happens that the judge who
>sits in the court of your choice also burns tires in his spare
>time. Hardly fair, I would say, but I have no more power to
>force you to to a different court than you have to force me to
>go to this one.  

We indeed have no power at all.  The problem, though, is that whichever
one of us seemed reluctant to go to such a court (by refusing to go,
unreasonable demands about evidence, whatever) is showing himself to be
guilty.  Will their insurance company keep up protection if they aren't
willing to adjudicate a valid complaint?  Will anyone deal with them
except on a cash-up-front basis if it's clear that they won't deal with
a civilized court?  Illegal behavior is EXPENSIVE.

>Now, with government-run courts, this problem
>doesn't occur...  
It's certainly true that with government-run costs CERTAIN problems 
don't occur.  I'd rather have this "problem" (no single final court
system) than a court system where judges need not prove their competence
except to voters and officials.  I'd much rather see one where
judges must prove their competence to a market.

>Or say that I win a decision against you, but
>you decide that you want to continue burning tires anyway. So I
>call the police and tell them that you aren't obeying the court.
>What are they supposed to do, enforce the decisions of every
>private court that decides to call itself that? 

Right now, arbitration agreements are written so that failure
to obey the decision of the arbiters is a BREACH OF CONTRACT.
If a state court system remains, you sue the leaf-burner for
breach of contract, and you wait the several years for
the state court system to get to your complaint.

>Or maybe the
>police force should be private also, or perhaps every private
>court should have its own police force to enforce its
>decisions. I think it's obvious where this leads. 

I suggest you read the above-mentioned book to find out
where it might lead.  Until then.....

>I think that the problem with most Libertarian thinking is that
>it assumes that without government, people will be resonably
>civilized and cooperative.  This is absurd -- without a big
>powerful government keeping order, within a few months everybody
>would be at each other's throats and it wouldn't be long before
>society would degenerate into a bunch of armed feudal states...

I suppose that's possible.  It didn't happen, though, in medieval
Ireland or Iceland, both given in a lecture by Friedman as examples of
minimal-government societies.  There were plenty of clans, or small
organizations, but no big, powerful, government keeping order.