Pure capitalism doesn't mean no rules, just no rulers.
Who enforces the rules when someone breaks them? The community? Sounds great! Do all of the people have to vote on every infraction every time? …or are we going to designate some people who understand the rules and regulations deeply (let's call them referees and/or regulators) and put them in charge of making decisions on our behalf. That sounds like a great optimization to me! We just need to make them answerable to the people and not the players. You know, the players would love to have these guys on their side. They will probably even try to corrupt the refs by paying them off.
Why can't we have competing currencies in the market? And then we can see what kind systems & rules evolve and come into being. Fiat currency is like a single point of failure.
Firstly, we do have multiple currencies. Each nation has one and there's nothing from stopping you and all of your friends from doing business in a different one. Yes, you still have to pay your taxes in the one the US gov accepts.
Secondly, why is innovation in currencies important? I'd rather have companies building new types of ship rather than trying to reinvent water. I think something like bitcoin or a gold-backed dollar is interesting to think about, but I haven't seen anything compelling to say it's worth the switch. Maybe some smaller nation/economy somewhere should try it out. I think they will find that it's not all roses as they think it is.
In europe they said: cell phone infrastructure is extremely expensive to build so let's pick one standard, and force all companies to compete and build it out on the same standard. Kind of like how the US originally approached the incompatible railway gauge problem.
With cell phones, the US didn't do that so now we have multiple incompatible standards that all have kind of half-assed coverage. More competition and innovation! Except it's worse for the consumer. If you want to buy a cell phone, it might only work at your home but not well at your office. It might have to have 2 different kinds of radios. I wish the US had picked a different set of priorities to compete around.
I think you're mistaken by one big thing, in a "pure" capitalist state, there would still be court systems in place to enforce human rights, contracts, lawsuits etc.
A privately-run court system which is prone to corruption wouldn't last very long, when a competitor could easily pop up who offers transparency and a lack of vested interests.
If there were competing courts to choose from when entering into contracts, people would pay careful attention to which ones were more fair.
An unfair court would be less likely to be trusted by both parties and would not be as able to compete as a fair one.
Consider what options there are when there is only one court and it is terribly unfair. And that has happened many times.
People who are chronically treated unfairly would be much better off having a choice. And they and people that deal with such groups would have an incentive to choose a fair court.
And this is already there to a slight degree. Many companies incorporate in Delaware because they think its more favorable.
Of course, most things are governed by courts where you do business, so for most things it doesn't matter that much. In a more competitive situation, it could matter much more.
Do you people ever know what you're talking about? Don't you think you owe it to everyone to explain first why the current system of private arbitration does, or could potentially, render better justice than public courts?
The private arbitration system approximates to a high degree exactly what you idiots are proposing, and yet it conforms to almost nobody's definition of justice. (except corporate lawyers'?)
But no. Let's dismantle hundreds of years of common law and the notion of equality before the law, the fundamental basis of our society, because some naive, uninformed kids were convinced by a couple of half-assed comments on Reddit.
Your entire argument hinges on the implicit assumption that all parties have the full and unlimited right to choose the venue in which their case will be heard. That is a complete fiction, given everything we know about human behavior and history.
I did not assert that all parties have full and unlimited right to choose the venue in which their case is heard.
I made no assertions about today's situation.
I was proposing an alternative where people could choose who they do business with based on the proposed final arbiter of the contract.
People can already do this by choosing to business in a different country where a different final arbiter is in charge. I'm just proposing that sort of competition within a country.
I guess today's contract arbitration could be interpreted as exactly that. But people certainly have a choice to sign or not.
A privately-run court system which is prone to corruption wouldn't last very long, when a competitor could easily pop up who offers transparency and a lack of vested interests.
Oh, really? If that were the case, then why does it take so long for people to overthrow the regimes in decidedly corrupt third-world dictatorships, like Libya, or Egypt? Those states were well known to be corrupt and unsustainable, yet it still took decades before Qaddaffi and Mubarak were overthrown.
The fact is, a court system needs a way to enforce it's judgement. Such enforcement necessarily requires force. And once a court system has a monopoly (or near monopoly) on force, then it becomes very difficult and painful to get rid of that court system and replace it with a competitor. In fact, we have a name for that process: revolution, and it's not exactly as easy as you make it out to be.
Hmm you're comparing the pace of change of a facist totalitarian regime that ruled for decades via strict force to a laissez-faire marketplace? Of the all the analogies to choose from, that one is quite weak.
As I mention in other comments, I personally favour minarchy which supports a system of law courts and enforcement, as well as state run military and police.
There are thousands of things more important and much more obviously broken than the court system (military expansionism, war on drugs, domestic surveillance, federal reserve etc, etc).
Are you sure it wouldn't be some kind of private arbitration circuit? I'm pretty sure that in a "pure" capitalist state, the preference would be to allow the market to discover a solution to the problem of injustice. Indubitably, the foundations of such a system would be, essentially, pay-for-play.
Those with means would prefer, rationally, to have a system where the measure of justice they receive is proportional to the means they possess. As long as we're buying and selling justice, who would want to pay more, and receive less justice? I'll take my business elsewhere, thank you.
I somehow doubt, then, that such a system would tend toward what most people consider fair and justice -- those notions today, at least ideally, embody the concept that all participants are equal, regardless of any other consideration.
> those notions today, at least ideally, embody the concept that all participants are equal, regardless of any other consideration.
Equality as defined by the government/state... which as we have seen, is susceptible to corruption and enforcement of laws that were created with influence from special interests.
Yes, the selection and implementation of equality is open to suspicion.
I reject your implication that the state/government are somehow separate from those governed, however. Without that, all you are saying is that equality is a flawed concept, owing to the fact that government has so many stakeholders, with disparate, wide-ranging and sometimes conflicting interests -- and therefore any notion of equality formed by consensus will fail to completely satisfy someone.
The ideal of equality before the law, however, remains -- something which cannot be said for a pay-for-play justice system. You are changing the subject by drawing attention to the flaws of the current justice system. The original statement you made was a positive assertion about the qualities of a theoretical private arbitration system.
I see that you added "when a competitor could easily pop up who offers transparency and a lack of vested interests" since I wrote my comment. To this, I can only groan and roll my eyes. Who will pay for such a system? Why would someone who can pay prefer a fair system to an unfair system? All other things being equal, if you have to pay $X for justice, would you rather have a fair hearing or one where a favorable outcome is determined?
Well, I personally favor Minarchism [1] over anarcho-capitalism.
> (Minarchism) maintains that the state is necessary and that its only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and the only legitimate governmental institutions are the military, police, and courts.
But I still believe theoretically a private court system could
exist and function properly.
This is based on the concept that private court firms would have to have a good reputation in order to stay in business.
1) What individual/business acting in their own self-interest would enter into a contract enforced by a court system that favours the other party?
2) No judge would ever get hired again if he was found out to have been bribed, so why would they risk their career?
3) The courts would have their own policies to maintain a good reputation, for example, they could have a very strict contract with the judges they employ and enact policies to maintain fairness (such as transparency measures).
4) The courts would also be exposed to lawsuits from citizens just like any other business. Any type of malpractice would expose the court to a large amount of legal/financial risk.
1) Someone who has no choice e.g. there are no "honest" courts, or all service providers with whom an individual could contract with demand the right to choose courts of arbitration.
2) First, this is an unsubstantiated statement of faith. Second, we're not talking about bribes but systemic bias i.e. the entire private court is lopsided. You're thinking that the problem would be of the form of "I'll just pay judge X to render my preferred verdict." I'm talking about a problem of "all courts have a fundamentally pro-business bias and impose a severe burden of proof on plaintiffs pursuing business defendants."
3) Again, bribery is not the issue. Selection of the judges is the issue.
4) And in which court will these suits be heard!?
Perhaps you think that there will simply be other private court systems set up with select mostly "liberal" judges. Who will pay for these? Wealthy individuals?
And which business would insist on being heard in these courts? As it stands, almost every large business with whom you contract has an arbitration clause which you accept when you engage them. Those clauses always reserve for themselves the right to select the arbitration venue. Why would that change? Which business would ever decide to concede that right, or to choose a consumer-friendly venue?
4, a higher legal association, that deals with lawsuits against courts. The association would be in as much market pressure to be honest and reputable.
You would choose courts based on their contracts with these associations.
But as I mentioned above, I personally don't believe in having a private court system. I support a state run law court (ala minarchy).
There are thousands of things more important and much more obviously broken than the court system (military expansionism, war on drugs, domestic surveillance, federal reserve etc, etc).
That being said, I fully support the non-aggression principle in all other contexts and (obviously) in the efficiency of the market model.
Who enforces the rules when someone breaks them? The community? Sounds great! Do all of the people have to vote on every infraction every time? …or are we going to designate some people who understand the rules and regulations deeply (let's call them referees and/or regulators) and put them in charge of making decisions on our behalf. That sounds like a great optimization to me! We just need to make them answerable to the people and not the players. You know, the players would love to have these guys on their side. They will probably even try to corrupt the refs by paying them off.
Why can't we have competing currencies in the market? And then we can see what kind systems & rules evolve and come into being. Fiat currency is like a single point of failure.
Firstly, we do have multiple currencies. Each nation has one and there's nothing from stopping you and all of your friends from doing business in a different one. Yes, you still have to pay your taxes in the one the US gov accepts.
Secondly, why is innovation in currencies important? I'd rather have companies building new types of ship rather than trying to reinvent water. I think something like bitcoin or a gold-backed dollar is interesting to think about, but I haven't seen anything compelling to say it's worth the switch. Maybe some smaller nation/economy somewhere should try it out. I think they will find that it's not all roses as they think it is.
In europe they said: cell phone infrastructure is extremely expensive to build so let's pick one standard, and force all companies to compete and build it out on the same standard. Kind of like how the US originally approached the incompatible railway gauge problem.
With cell phones, the US didn't do that so now we have multiple incompatible standards that all have kind of half-assed coverage. More competition and innovation! Except it's worse for the consumer. If you want to buy a cell phone, it might only work at your home but not well at your office. It might have to have 2 different kinds of radios. I wish the US had picked a different set of priorities to compete around.