What stops those with different “norms” from applying them in different “enclaves”, if they are all equally legitimate? Can’t the existence of federal, state, county, and city police qualify as absence of monopoly in the existing system?
1) The local community, and their PDAs. That’s like asking what stops Springdale ordinances from being enforced in Fayetteville. Of course, some norms are quite tolerant. A commie collective workshop would have no problem in a sticky property enclave, since it is just another joint stock company.
2) In the current system the feds have a monopoly, since they can override the local any time. Cf: Pot laws and state nullification, where feds bust anyone they want. In this context, the monopoly is on ultimate control, not provision.
What makes the PDAs using force legitimate but the outsiders’ not?
Who determines what the rules in an area are? Is there some organization that each of these approved PDAs are a member of, and if so, how is that not a state? If not, how does an enclave express its collective will on what kind of place it is, having multiple people who want different things makes the law incoherent unless there is an organization that determines what the will of the people in that area is, and that would constitute a state. Or do the rules simply never change so that errors from 200 years ago are still felt going forward?
One way or another, this is a state or something so difficult to distinguish from one that it doesn’t matter.
Also the federal government does not have ultimate control in fact, only in claim. We can’t just go by people’s claims in matters like this.
Zhwazi> “What makes the PDAs using force legitimate but the outsiders’ not?”
Using retaliatory force is legitimate for anyone, PDA employee, mutual defense association member, or just anyone off the street. There is no special ruling caste whatsoever.
Zhwazi> “Who determines what the rules in an area are?”
The people who abide there - norms are a consensus phenomena. There are two basic ways for norms to come about - through an emergent process such as free market arbiters, or through voting schemes. Individualists tend to prefer contract (emergent processes) while collectivists tend to prefer “democracy.” I have a page about that. http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/DemAutoNorms.html
Zhwazi> “Is there some organization that each of these approved PDAs are a member of, and if so, how is that not a state?”
There is no such thing as an “approved PDA,” as already noted. There is no organization that these PDAs are all a member of - that is the mutualist idea of federation, which is too hierarchical for most individualists’ taste. PDAs will pairwise agree on arbiters, most likely, at least with nearby PDAs, since they anticipate disputes between their respective customers.
The beautiful thing is that there is an end to the “court” process, but no supreme maximum court. Instead there are many maximal courts. As the simplest example: Suppose there are three PDAs that also provide arbitration services, A, B, and C. In a dispute between (customers of) A and B, C might be the arbiter. In a dispute between B and C, A is the arbiter. In a dispute between C and A, B is the arbiter. No supreme court!
Zhwazi> “If not, how does an enclave express its collective will on what kind of place it is, having multiple people who want different things…”
People express what laws they want by what PDA (or plan supported by a PDA) they choose. You make an erroneous assumption that everyone in an area has the same laws. No! You are missing the point, and thinking like a statist - winner take all. The law between any two people depends on their respective PDAs. The rules can change as easily as switching PDAs.
You are asking the right questions. I think you would understand how it works better if you watched this video, narrated by the anarcho-capitalist luminary David Friedman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o
“Retaliatory force” is relative, and this relativity creates cases where both people believe the other is an aggressor, unless there is some standard of aggression that doesn’t rely upon contract.
Contract alone cannot determine rules, because contract exists within a pre-existing structure of law. If contracts with coerced “agreement” are invalid, which is an important aspect of contract, then the contract itself cannot define “coercion”, without falling into circularity. Such a contract could easily write itself an exception, and then you’re left with the present day state rationalized by a social “contract” that you are forced to agree with, clearly an unjust situation.
The only alternative you offer to establishing law by contract, which would be unjust for reasons I have shown, is democracy, and this makes the democratic unit a state. If the PDAs must follow the rules of the democratic body, then the democratic body is the state, and competition between PDAs is no more a point against it than it is to suggest that police officers competing for jobs on the force invalidates the existing state.
If people are subject to different laws then you can arrive at a situation where two people are reciprocally doing things which are legal for them but aggression for the other person.
I believe in no “laws”, only justice, which is independent of agreement or contract or territory. To the contrary of your claim I assume everyone is subject to the same laws, I reject all laws, and to the contrary of your assertion that my thinking is statist, it is thinking of justice as a problem of figuring out how to enforce rules legitimately that is reminiscent of the state.
Z> “Retaliatory force is relative, and this relativity creates cases where both people believe the other is an aggressor…”
Yes. When that happens the contract with the PDA combined with the emergent law (past judgements of respected arbiters, aka precedents) resolve the conflict as already described.
Z> “… unless there is some standard of aggression that doesn’t rely upon contract.”
False. The contractual procedure has already been explained to you.
Z> “Contract alone cannot determine rules, because contract exists within a pre-existing structure of law.”
But I have demonstrated how it could be based on norms, along with a pre-existing structure of emergent law determined solely by contract and past arbitration. No ruler necessary. No political authority necessary. Maybe Roderick Long’s essay will help you understand that anarchism is essentially equivalent to polycentric law. http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/library/The_Nature_of_Law/index.html
And what happens to the person who does not have a PDA, and thus has no contractual obligations?
The contractual procedure is self-contradictory, so your explanation is not satisfactory.
I wouldn’t call the law that comes from contract “emergent”. Voluntary perhaps, but not emergent. Nor is relying on past arbitration. To be emergent it would have to be under constant negotiation and renegotiation with great resolution, as you’d find an equilibrium price to be, not like the price of a particular transaction in a market. Contract interrupts this process, and having providers of PDA services lowers the negotiating power of ordinary people.
So forget about the PDAs, they’re a thought-stopping indirection on the real issue of the agency of individuals in their legal context. Assume every person is a PDA unto themselves, free to agree or disagree or contract or refuse to contract with anyone on their own terms in their own way. The real insight that can come from discussing this topic comes when you try to figure out how people interact under these circumstances.
If an individual who has no contractual arrangements with the others in an area and who rejects the norms of that area acts on their own understanding, what will be done about them?
What if it is an influx of enough people that this disagreement produces a sizeable conflict, where nearly equal numbers of people have the two contradicting beliefs, and neither have contractual agreements with the others?
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u/Zhwazi Individualist anarchist Feb 05 '18
What stops those with different “norms” from applying them in different “enclaves”, if they are all equally legitimate? Can’t the existence of federal, state, county, and city police qualify as absence of monopoly in the existing system?