

The Production of Law, Security, and Arbitration in the Free Market - kiba
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Chapter_29.html

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frig
This stuff often feels like electric buggywhips for horseless automobiles, or
early-80s thinkpieces on virtual reality that seriously proposed "online
shopping", when it came, would consist of slipping on vr goggles and literally
walking through a virtual mall.

The entire article is a mix of mildly-interesting speculation with lots of
bizarre shortcomings of imagination (bizarre in the context of such other
flights of fancy; keep in mind this is a guy imaginative enough to come up
with the seasteading notion, so he's not lacking in visionary skills).

A quick idiocy is the capital-punishment example:

 _Consider, as a particular example, the issue of capital punishment. Some
people might feel that the risk to themselves of being convicted, correctly or
incorrectly, and executed for a capital crime outweighed any possible
advantages of capital punishment. They would prefer, where possible, to
patronize protection agencies that patronized courts that did not give capital
punishment. Other citizens might feel that they would be safer from potential
murderers if it was known that anyone who murdered them would end up in the
electric chair. They might consider that safety more important than the risk
of ending up in the electric chair themselves or of being responsible for the
death of an innocent accused of murder. They would, if possible, patronize
agencies that patronized courts that did give capital punishment.

If one position or the other is almost universal, it may pay all protection
agencies to use courts of the one sort or the other. If some people feel one
way and some the other, and if their feelings are strong enough to affect
their choice of protection agencies, it pays some agencies to adopt a policy
of guaranteeing, whenever possible, to use courts that do not recognize
capital punishment. They can then attract anti-capital-punishment customers.
Other agencies do the opposite._

There's many bugs in the logic here. The biggest one is that there's such an
obvious tension between the theory that you can opt out of capital punishment
risk by smart choice of defense agencies and the theory that you can opt for a
better deterrent factor by smart choice of defense agencies (eg: those that
supply capital punishment) that it's surprising someone could even write the
two paragraphs above.

If you don't see it immediately, it works like this:

Firstly is the notion that you can have a greater deterrent to would-be
murderers by patronizing a defense agency that patronizes a court that hands
out decisions that include the option of capital punishment.

So some dude murders me; what is supposed to happen in this world is something
like:

\- despite being dead, my contract with the defense agency specifies that they
are to pursue vengeance against whoever murdered me

\- my defense agency investigates and discovers my killer is Killem Abdul
Murder-ar

\- (following the example of Tannahelp) rather than just hire a sniper to
satisfy the contract in an efficient fashion, my defense agency instead calls
up Murder-ar's defense agency and we set a court date

\- my defense agency presents the case ; we get a pronouncement of the death
penalty

\- my defense agency then tracks Murder-ar down and shoots him, satisfying its
contract

...and knowledge of this hypothetical sequence of events is enough to deter
would-be murderers b/c it illustrates the grave consequences to them that
would follow from murdering me.

Secondly is the notion that I can opt out of capital punishment by patronizing
a defense agency that doesn't patronize a court that hands out capital
punishment.

So I accidentally kill some dude b/c I drive my forklift in an irresponsible
fashion, but his aggrieved widow believes my actions to be murder and has her
defense agency pursue matters. What is supposed to happen is something like:

\- the widow's agency calls my agency and is like "we want to kill frig to
satisfy the murder-vengeance clause in our defense contract"

\- my agency is like "we're a defense agency so of course we're not going to
say 'fine with us'"; a court date is arranged

\- because my agency is one that doesn't patronize courts that hand out death
penalties I can sleep soundly at night because I know that whatever punishment
the court metes out for my manslaughter at least it won't be capital
punishment

Thought of in isolation these both seem cool -- oh wow I can scare away
potential murders with the threat of capital punishment _or_ I can avoid the
threat of capital punishment _if I so choose_! Freedom rocks!

But there's such an obvious tension between the two possibilities:

\- deterring people from killing you via exposing them to capital punishment
risk depends upon being able to expose them to capital punishment risk even
against their own wishes

\- being able to expose people to capital punishment risk against their own
wishes directly works against your ability to voluntarily opt out of capital
punishment risk

...including them back-to-back with no explanation of how the tension
reconciles is (or should be) embarrassing.

There's a lot in the linked essay that's similar (which is impressive in its
own right given how short it is).

I wish it was better thought-out than it is; it reads like a "blub" political
philosopher explaining why X is a better blub than Y.

~~~
kiba
You confused Patri Friedman with David Friedman.

David Friedman wrote the spectulative guide to anarcho-capitalism, _Machinery
of Freedom_ where as Patri Friedman, who was influenced by David's ideas, head
the seasteading movement.

Interestingly enough, where as David Friedman, wrote in opposition to his
father, the eminent economist Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman explictly
implemented his father's ideas and expanded upon it.

~~~
frig
Incidentally I find Patri's stuff much better than David's (if this is any
indication).

Seasteading is far-out but Patri seems self-aware of that and has the wisdom
to take an "I don't have all the answers yet" attitude where warranted.

From what I've seen of David's work (again: if this is any indication) it
seems poorly thought-through (probably) or dishonest (possibly); a post-state
anarchist society is going to be _different_ , this stuff reads like
epicycles-within-epicycles to convince you it'd be "the same but better".

------
fburnaby
That was a fun read. In this scenario, how do I start a protection agency when
others are already competing? They'll kick my ass and shut me down. Do I need
to hire myself protection until I can grow large enough to protect myself? In
other words, how do we deal with anti-competitive behavior?

~~~
tome
And what do you do, if by chance, it happens that one protection agency
dominates and the others recede. What if the remaining one starts forcing you
to pay its premiums, and calls itself the "government"?

------
tome
Not very well argued, but it's a plausible summary of a _potential_ outcome.

------
fatdog789
This is quite possibly the stupidest, most non-sensical article about
"reforming" the legal system that I've ever read. And I've read some really
stupid stuff.

The guy spends half the article saying why arbitration doesn't work...and then
proposes a system based on arbitration as the solution to our woes.

~~~
kiba
Can you elaborate on why you think the guy diss abritation and then propose
abritation?

It seem like you didn't read the article carefully.

