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Libertarianism is the perfect balance between individual freedom and social coordination
(self.libertarianism)
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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libertarianism
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- Libertarianism is the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.
- Libertarians defend each person’s right to life, liberty, and property.
- In the libertarian view, voluntary agreement is the gold standard of human relationships.
- If there is no good reason to forbid something (a good reason being that it violates the rights of others), it should be allowed.
- Force should be reserved for prohibiting or punishing those who themselves use force.
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Source: https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/what-is-libertarianism
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An anarchist society likely would have courts. Read Bruce L. Benson’s The Enterprise of Law. There are plenty of ways to have a privately-operated system of justice.
But then you effectively give the courts some kind of competence over you. Even if it is absolutely minimal. And thats what I'm talking about: How much is justifiable?
What is this notion of “competence?” If you mean authority, it is an inaccurate description. All participation in the justice system in an anarchist society would obviously be voluntary because there would be no state to coerce people to participate. Nevertheless, there are numerous incentives that would entice people to peaceably cooperate with one another, including on matters of respecting life and liberty that would be handled via a justice system.
But why should I abide to the decisions of said justice system if it is voluntary? What if I build up my own totalitarian state and start forcing people to obey me? Of course the others can organize themselves to a militia and start building their communities to better defend themselves and cooperate with each other. But who will be leading this militia? And isn't that already the beginning of a state?
I can try to answer some of this, but I found that books like Benson’s The Enterprise of Law and David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom do a great job.
Basically, cooperation is incentivized by the manifest economic benefits. War is extremely expensive, and it’s much more profitable to trade with others than to fight them.
As to compliance with voluntary judicial decisions, most of that will be in the context of mutual aid societies and private protection organizations, all of which will know that all-out armed conflict is not profitable for them. They will thus be incentivized to put compliance with judicial decisions as a term in their membership agreements. There you have an enforceable contract which will push people toward peaceful compliance with judicial decisions.
Since a state is a monopoly on violence, the existence of many different private protection agencies (ipso facto not a monopoly) does not approach a state.
Thanks!