[quote]phaethon wrote:
Ahh I see, so if a high ranking member of a defense company kills my sister, at best I am entitled to monetary compensation? Both firms may end up happy, but justice won’t have been served. So the outcome from this system isn’t even as good as the outcome the state gives me.[/quote]
Why would any private business that is trying to make a profit try to get consumers in a way like this? You really think they’re going to get many customers by giving special privileges to high ranking members of their company? I certainly wouldn’t pay for a defense company that used a court that acted this way. Why would any court have a law which pays a monetary sum for murder? It is ludicrous to think that this court would get any patronage from private defense companies who are trying to benefit their consumers and, more importantly, stay in business.
The success of the arbitration court would depend on its reputation for honesty and reliability to resolve disputes. If they don’t do this, they are dead because no one would want to use that court. This is an advantage that we don’t have today, as our present judges need not retain this reputation of honesty.
In any event, this same argument could be used for government officials. But if it’s on the market, it is subject to the will of the consumers, so (ideally) the best courts would be chosen.
Your recourse is market competition and the fact that it is suicidal for any company to attempt this.
[quote]
And if the company doesn’t let the consumers leave and hire another private company? You are assuming the consumers are able to act in a collective which has much more free capital than the defense corporation.[/quote]
Only a government can force its people to pay it money. It could only collect money in this way from its customers as well (another feature that is different from governments). Do you think other agencies wouldn’t act to suppress this private defense agency that is enslaving its people and building an army? All of the other private defense companies would cease doing business with this one in order to avoid war.
Not only that, but again, it would be seemingly so difficult for them to arrange the funds for it, that it seems unrealistic. Wouldn’t banks cease doing business with a defense agency that intends to enslave the population? If the company doesn’t let the consumers leave, then they are likely going to be shut off to any sort of help from anyone else who fears for their property as well.
And, why would people fund a business that appears to be building an army which could be used against them? Also there would most likely be written contracts between customers and their defense agency, whereby they could be inspected for creating an army every so often.
Again, war is an extremely expensive endeavor that has no guarantee of success. I’m not saying that no company would try this, I’m just saying that it would likely be a complete and utter failure.
[quote]Then you have to look at the economics of running a defense corporation.
A company with 1 million customers that handles protection of small geographic area will always be more cost effective than a company that handles 1 million customers located all over the place. By an order of magnitude.
So naturally you will end up with the country split up into geographic based sectors controlled by different defense companies. It would be extremely costly for a defense corporation to provide security on another defense companies ‘turf’. So the defense corporations will be able to use force against the population and provided they don’t use ‘extreme’ force nothing will be done about it. Once again sounding more and more like nation states.[/quote]
They don’t have “turf”. What don’t you get about the idea that people can hire ANY company they want? Of course, naturally, people would hire one that is close to them. These companies provide defense to individuals (and families), so I’m not really seeing the conflict here.
You assume that war is profitable for non-coercive institutions. It isn’t. And, like I said above, it is extremely unprofitable to then try to do this by force. I doubt any company could survive it.
Completely unfounded. Voluntary transactions between individuals require a medium of exchange. Hence, money. And I hate to break it to you, bud, but almost everything in this world costs something. Ain’t no free lunch.
Money isn’t a desire. Wealth is. And those are two very different things. Not sure what your second statement is getting at, as I’ve already explained that it is not profitable to go to war in a stateless society.
I agree with your statements here, but fail to see how they discredit anarchy. One more thing I haven’t pointed out yet: Individuals would, of course, in a stateless society have the right to bear arms so long as they could afford it. It isn’t like these private defense tyrannies are going to get no resistance from them.
So obvious that people never even try to think about it apparently.
