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Rebutting the Absurdities

by Lazarus Long

In various message areas, I have seen some people using absurdities as a basis for refuting libertarian and anarcho-capitalist arguments. In the interest of clarification, I will take some of the common questions and strawmen used by the other side and show how a solution to their posited position would evolve.

1. How would you get justice in a private court, if the court was paid for by the opposing side?

I could ask the same question.... how does one win a case against the government when they provide the prosecutor and the judge?

Most disputes would be settled using arbitration, where both parties would present their case to an independent arbitrator, who would collect a fee for service from both parties. Certainly one side could renege on the agreement, but only for a limited time as his reputation would become tainted and people would be hesitant to deal with that person. Would you sign a contract with a known deadbeat?

2. How about protection of property?

If you sign with a protection agency, you would receive from service. This service could be passive defense, such as alarms and locks or it could be a reactive service that would have you providing your own passive defenses while they concentrate on apprehension of criminals. You would have to shop around and decide what would suit your pocketbook and your needs.

3. What if two protective services where in conflict? If one arrested a client of another agency?

Protective services would, in the interest of economic health and smoother relations, enter into contractual agreements with competing agencies specifying which court would be acceptable to each and agree to abide by the ruling of that court.

4. What would keep the protective services from becoming corrupt and overly aggressive?

The companies that would insure your property would soon put economic pressure to bear on any inept or corrupt protection agency. It is in their interests and yours, to keep their payouts to a minimum. If a protection agency A has a higher loss record than agency B, insurance companies would soon either raise the premiums of those who dealt with agency A or refuse outright to insure property protected by A.

An agency that is aggressive and causes a lot of damage and injury would find itself spending more time and money than it makes defending itself in court.

5. Wouldn't the poor receive less protection?

Possibly, but that is also the case in the state funded system that we have now. It is an innocent person who believes that the poorest neighbourhood in a town receives the same level of protection as does the high income part of town.

6. How would private roads work?

A company or cooperative that owned a road would charge a fee for use, just as we pay a fee for use today(only today it is hidden with the other fees in taxation).

A private firm could charge a fixed fee for monthly or yearly usage, possibly even charging an off-peak fee for those who use it in offhours.

With todays technology, it wouldn't be difficult to put a transponder in cars that would signal a computer that would log time and distance of trace. In a case like that, you would be billed weekly or monthly. Those who enter the road system from another corporation's road network, might pay a flat fee upon access, or if a frequent user, say from a neigbouring road net, might have an aggreement between his local provider and the neigbouring system to facilitate the exchange of road usage.

7. What if the road owner wouldn't let you drive on the road?

It would be unlikely that a road owner would do this. He is, after all, an entrepeneur who is trying to make a living off the the proceeds of the road. Owning and paying the cost of maintaining a road and turning away customers would be cutting his own throat. If he tried to extort higher fees from an individual than he charges on a regular basis, he might be liable in a court.. depending on the laws of that community.

8. The problem of pollution is commonly raised by those who question libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.

A major reason that pollution is so prevalent today is that air and ocean are considered ownerless. "Why not adopt a principle that those who live, say alongside a river, had a property right in the river itself and that those who lower the value of the river to them by polluting it without consent, is liable to suit. Some things, such as air, are extraordinarly difficult to deal with in this manner. Consider the consequence of absolute property rights by each landholder above his head. If I smoked a cigarette, some tiny amount of smoke will eventually spread very far."(David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom pg 102). A solution to this problem would be to allow injured parties to initiate class action suits against the polluter.

9. A difficult question to answer for libertarians has been National Defense. If the Government doesn't pay for it, who will.

The same people who pay for it now would pay for it in a libertarian society; The citizens of the country.

One solution would be the development of local defense organisations (militias). These would be funded from within the community. However, to provide the "big ticket items" such as Fighter-bombers, Armoured vehicles and such, there would have to be something else than the voluntary contributions of a community. Perhaps corporations, who would desire a stable country to operate their businesses in would contribute to a national organisation, the funds with which to purchase and operate the aircraft, ships and heavy artillery and armour. On the other hand, the citizens of the land may decide that they would be willing to pay a set fee per person to a national organisation or government that would organise and equip a military force.

Or as suggested by Friedman, since millions are spent by people on charities on an annual basis, why not fund our national forces on a charitable basis. In any case, this group would be supplemented by the locally trained and equipped militia. The local militias could be totally voluntary forces paid only a stipend for equipment maintenance or they could be formed around a cadre of professionals.

10. What would prevent this national organisation from taking over and installing a military dictatorship?

We already have a group of armed men equipped with aircraft and ships and they have yet to show any signs of wanting to overthrow the government, despite being the targets of cutbacks and political opportunism.

Why would this change in the future?

A brief answer is that people act according to what they perceive as right, proper and practical. The restraints which prevent a military coup are essentially restraints interior to the men with guns.

11. How will the poor receive an education?

One solution could be to allow parents to direct the funds to schools of their own choice. Certainly a school in a poorer section of town would not have the cash input that a school in a higher income area would, but would that mean that the school would be bereft of good teachers?

Throwing money at education has never been shown to be effective in raising the quality of education. Some private, church run schools have better records for producing scholars than do many of our state funded schools.

If local firms, realising that having better educated workers would be beneficial to their business, contributed by way of scholarships and grants, the schools would be able to make up the difference in tuition.

The parents could also contribute to the local school by volunteering for secretarial chores, library and other tasks.

 
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