This is why a free society is evil.

[Ray Dillinger]

On Sat, 16 Dec 2000, Jim Choate wrote:
>> > Crypto-anarchy and libertarianism are just another  form
>> > of fascism at best and socialism at worst. It's a  means
>> > for one group of people to oppress and control another.

Note:  I really wish that people would "get" the distinction 
between socialism and fascism on this list.  I realize both 
look substantially the same from the libertarian/anarchist 
perspective in that they involve controlling people.  But they 
have different ideologies and reasons for controlling people, 
and to use them interchangeably is to be WRONG slightly more 
than half the time.  If you want a word you can use for both 
types of government, plus dictatorships and feudal/aristocratic 
systems, try "totalitarian".

>Is your premise that anarchy doesn't lead to a 'socialist' society? A
>society in which the choices of the individual are made en masse? Consider
>the congruency of world view a working anarchy requires? Then consider the
>disparity of world views between any two people. How do you resolve this
>obvious conflict? 

I have long felt that we could comfortably shrink government 
if open markets were established to help settle such conflicts. 

>How does a working anarchy resolve real world disputes? I offer you the
>example of a tree which is rooted in my back yard but has limbs impinging
>on my neighbors roof. Is it his or my responsibility to cut the limbs back
>to deter damage? Why? Whose responsiblity to pay for any damage that does
>occur to the roof from limbs? Why? When the tree dies who is responsible
>for the bill to remove the dead husk? Why? What happens if at any point
>during this resolution phase one of the parties refuses to participate
>further? Who do they go to for arbitration? What standards of arbitration
>will be used? Who is responsible for assuring compliance? What are the
>limits of compliance enforcement?

If there are no laws, and both of you are committed to resolving the 
issue without violence, you probably both put money on the barrelhead 
to be paid to the other in the event you don't abide by an arbitrator's 
decision, and then go to an arbitrator and ask his opinion.  That's if 
you're civic minded, I suppose.  The fact is though, a lot of people 
wouldn't do that if they thought the arbitrator was likely to side 
with the other guy. 

Things become a lot easier if your property deed is a truly *complete* 
description of the property; in that case you know who owns the volume 
over the fence (or whether it's held in common) and your neighbor 
started charging you rent for the encroachment of your tree into his 
volume years ago.  If you don't want to pay the rent, you have a few 
choices; you can trim your tree to keep it in your property, you can 
buy from him the volume over the fence where the tree's limbs are 
spreading, or you can offer tenancy in common of the volume in question, 
giving him the right to encroach into the volume near your house too. 

Note, this assumes sufficient government that property rights and 
contracts are meaningful.  This is not true in a complete anarchy.
If you don't have at least that, then you and your neighbor will 
eventually either work things out in some non-specific way or one 
of you will kill the other.

The closer to anarchy a system gets, the more completely every last 
thing in it has to be accounted for and owned in order to avoid 
breakdown.  


>Now, let's assume we've a neighbor making bombs and his garage is 15 ft.
>from your childs bedroom? Let's ask the same sorts of questions?

If it's a residential neighborhood, then it was probably developed 
by a commercial real estate developer.  In order to improve his bottom 
line, he will probably retain ownership of certain property rights and 
sell the rest.  For example, he may retain the sole and exclusive right 
to build bombs on this property -- and advertise far and wide his intent 
not to exercise it.  Now the guy with the 55-gallon drum of gelignite 
is in violation of the developer's property rights and the neighbor 
calls the developer who sends around some security guys.  This is really 
just an extension of the kind of "neighborhood association" bullshit 
that a lot of real estate developers try to do now -- they deny the 
homeowners the right to paint their houses purple, etc, as a condition 
of sale.   This puts the property developer in a sort of lawgiver role, 
but it does not establish a government that can pass arbitrary laws; 
every right of ownership *NOT* sold to the homeowners would have to be 
spelled out in the purchase contract, and there wouldn't be grounds for 
anyone to change those laws after the point of sale.  Basically, you 
could see right up front what property rights were withheld from you, 
and what property rights were withheld from your neighbors, when you 
were contemplating the house purchase decision.  

I think this is the ideal of a "functional" anarchy: You are beholden 
only to the rules and restraints which you personally have freely 
chosen.  There may be just as many as there are laws in the current 
setup, but they are there because you personally chose them and they 
are enforced against you because you voluntarily signed contracts 
accepting them.

If you bought the house with the understanding that you had no right 
to build bombs there, and that your neighbors also had no right to 
build bombs in their houses, and you have a contract with the property 
developer that says the right to build bombs in your neighbors' houses 
will *NOT* be granted to your neighbors without your explicit approval, 
that's fine.  It's a restraint you (and your neighbor) have chosen.  

If you wanted to build bombs in your home, you should just have bought 
a house that was sold with that right intact.  But if you bought your 
house with "all" property rights and then some twit far away changes 
the value of your house by changing what property rights you have over 
it, then  you have a problem.  Currently we allow people to change 
the sets of rights we own (including property rights) without 
recompensation -- hell, without even *bidding* for those rights on an 
open market.  

>As we've discussed before on the list, in the cases of commen services
>like fire fighting which are converted to profit making enterprises, how
>is intentional fire starting to be prevented? 

It's very hard.  Probably the best route would be again through 
property developers; the property developer could retain the exclusive 
right to sell fire insurance on these buildings, and then license the 
right *only* to insurance companies who contributed a set percentage of 
premiums to a local firefighters company.  Getting all these services 
straightened out is just good business from the property development 
POV.

				Bear