As someone who is personally a minarchist, I'm wondering how the Non-Aggression Principle would be enforced in the AnCap model.
Given that there definitely is definitely no executive branch, people would obviously have to take personal defence into their own hands. But would there be trials for people who pollute your land? Surely not all 'aggression' is the type that would give you the right to shoot someone on the spot?
On another note, what about defense from external forces? You would need an organised and unified military. While I hate the government, I cannot understand the AnCap solution to an armed conflict with another country .
It wouldn't be "enforced" it is something all accept. every 3year old is taught not to do to others we don't want done to us. To detour violence the threat of reciprocal violence and the mystery of if you impose on someone if they will accept being the victim or defend themselves.
Can we use aggression to enforce the NAP?
I would goddamn hope so. If we are taking the extreme definition then I would presume even looking at someone in a way that made them uncomfortable would violate the NAP. It sounds good but it's also extreme the way how marxists believe that employment is slavery for access to food. :/
Can you try to make an example?
Aggression is the initiation of violence. You can't initiate violence to prevent the initiation of violence because that's a paradox.
That being said, you can use force or violence to defend against someone who has already initiated violence. Pacifism is not the opposite of aggression.
If someone is obviously about to commit violence, you need to commit it first, otherwise you are going to get fucked
How can you know they are about to commit violence? If they are threatening you, then that is the initiation of violence. Maybe it's better to say aggression is the initiation of force, but some people don't like that because they try to include things like asking people to pay rent as an initiation of force.
https://youtu.be/A8pcb4xyCic
Here's a talk Robert Murphy gave, posted and illustrated by bitbutter. Even if you dont find Murphy very convincing, that channel is still useful for minarchists for things like minimum wage laws and over regulation.
Will watch. Thanks!
Ostracism Many things are under a contract basis. There will be some common things throughout the society such as don't rape or kill. If those are done a person may lose their homes.
Ostracised where to? You would be violating the NAP if you sent them into another's land.
Where they go is up to them but if they violated their current contract(s) then they're out.
By ostracising you are making someone have to enter the land of a another country and the other country will hold you accountable. This does not seem like it would hold up well in the long term.
It Doesn't need to be another "land." In a society where everything is privately owned it could be somewhere down the street. You don't make them did anything. Somewhere is willing to accept him. Somewhere will be ready for this type of person who committed crimes. It's not aggression.
So you simply tell the person to go away? Prisons are starting to look like a better alternative now. Anyways, who would dictate what punishment is worthy for what aggression? What is the replacement for courts in minarchism?
Let's say a person breaks a contract with their apartment. Well only enough force is allowed to forcibly remove the person of he won't leave voluntarily once it's clear he has no more right there. I Don't have all the answers. I'm not a legal theorist but I'm trying with this.
That sounds quite reasonable. But what about situations where the lines are a little blurry and both parties disagree? We would need a court to decide the outcome and punishment. There should definitely be a judicial branch of government for sure. I know it's a work in progress.
Ostracism doesn't require that you be physically removed from anywhere. The more modern definition would include people not willing to talk to you at all.
I don't think all crimes can be punished by either execution or ostracism, even by this definition. It doesn't sound all too convincing.
Agreed but punishment is not a goal, its a means to a goal. Mainly deterence. In an ancap society the goal would focus more on conflict resolution. It makes more sense to me that if somebody robbed me or attacked me or whatever that I should be compensated rather than my attacker be punished.
Friedmans book "machinery of freedom" is the most thought out work on how the service of conflict resolution could be provided soley in a free market. If you Google that, im sure you can find a video or podcast of him giving the summary.
At the end of the day though, you have to realize that an ancap society is not going to be perfect. People are going to rob and murder and rape. Just like they do in our current society. And just like they would in a minarchist society. The biggest thing that ancaps scoff at minarchists over is the attitude that "government is really bad at providing services, so the government should only be in charge of the most important services." I know you don't see it that way, but it's worth considering. Should the government be in charge of the most important things in society? And if so, then why shouldn't it be in charge of everything? Why would governments be competent in the realms of defense but incompetent when it comes to baking bread?
I'll take a look at the Friedman. I understand that in a state of nature, you are living on a plain of anarchy with a structure of government on top of it. Since because having a government (not necessarily like the ones we interact with today) is natural and anarchy is natural, I take a careful approach to approaching either extreme. While I genuinely do believe that government sucks at everything, (e.g) government has a bad problem with military innovation because operations have to be kept secret so contractors cannot just operate as they wish, thinking up an an alternate system to national defense is quite annoying as generally I think the system should be chosen by the free market. I sort of have a pavlovian response of 'ugh' when the time comes to cover how a system should be implemented because it reminds me of socialists experimenting with their stuff but I'll take an interest in this side of things rather then just the moral argument now.
it ends up looking a little bit like government but not the same
consider if there was no government: people might be able to shoot each other, but if person A shoots person B, then person B's friends might shoot person A, so they end up coming to an agreement of not shooting each other (a law, voluntarily agreed to: "on my property you will not shoot me or I will shoot you", something like that), these kinds of agreements will be made with respect to trespassing or stealing or whatever else.
These kinds of laws might become standardized and multiple properties would accept them so that in effect stealing or trespassing might be illegal everywhere.
You might ask, "but what if someone just wants to break the law anyway?" Well, that's the same as under a government, some of the same threats of consequences exist if people break laws, it's just different who enforces them.
Now you could set up courts and people would make use of them because, just like under the State, if people will not make use of the courts then they are in "contempt of court" and subject to whatever penalties. Say person A shoots person B and now person B's friends want to have a trial about it, but they won't go to court. They are subject then to person B's friends shooting them at the extreme, or less extreme subject to lesser penalties person B's people might attempt.
This is all kind of a thought experiment, but to me it seems pretty easy to see how anarchy matures into something that looks like government but there's not just one government entity in charge of everything. (Just like thinking about if you were to build businesses from scratch, about how that would be developed)
Also you might want to read about "no rule of law" situations, or what happened in countries where the rule of law broke down like when there were civil wars. Ancap would build further beyond those primitive conditions but it shows what the starting point is. (Some of them might not be the best examples but rather would be more like states)
To me I just envision everything we have now but it's owned by private entities and instead of there being like one roads company for example, there might be multiple road construction agencies.
So you would need a social cohesion for this to be less risky. I think that in the situation of gangs, one guy kills another and then there's a retaliation and a retaliation in return and it just keeps going.
yes, to note: a State doesnt guarantee social cohesion (examples: states that devolved into chaos and no rule of law like with civil wars). Similarly there could be social cohesion in the absence of a centralized State (various separate governing companies/agencies still exist to provide that check and balance). I argue minarchy and anarchy (in the context of ancap-ism) may be very similar in practice in how they look and operate. Social cohesion becomes rational to avoid the heavier losses of violent conflict: people voluntarily agree to abide by many of the laws that commonly exist under centralized States.
Good question I have had similar questions and it sounds like minarchist is more along the lines of what I am too now that I'm looking into it more