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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Laws of Libertaria
Message-ID: <1092@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jan-86 00:27:28 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.1092
Posted: Tue Jan 28 00:27:28 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:48:54 EST
References: <28200585@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 80

In article <28200585@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes:
>OK, though you would do better with someone who  has  spent  more
>time  figuring  out  these  things.  Let  me second Nat Howard in
>recommending "The Machinery of Freedom" by  David  Friedman.  The
>following  answers  are  mine but his are likely to be better.
>(You realize it is not a matter of true vs. false but of a better
>or  worse solution to a practical problem). Those I give are *not
>known (by me) not to work* - and this is all I claim.
>
>>Who do you contract with for laws?  Everybody you meet?  A private law
>>maker/judge/enforcer?
>
>You shop around. Let's call an organization that performs all  or
>some  of these functions, a *jurisdiction*. It may be commercial,
>or cooperative, or a republic, or a  cult,  or  a  dukedom.  You
>choose a jurisdiction (or several of them) to your taste and con-
>tract with them, as you do now with your phone company, or health
>plan,  or  insurance  agency. Come to think of it, *crime protec-
>tion* could be  usefully  combined  with  *crime  insurance*  and
>*health care* with *health insurance*.
>
>At present people *also* belong to different jurisdictions;
>you enter one as you move to a town, county, state or country.

There is a difference.  To a fair approximation, all the jurisdictions
recognize each other.  If I commit a crime in Peoria, I can't get
away with it by coming back to East Hartford.  Or even (for serious
crimes) by going to France.  I can probably get away if I go to Albania,
but this is (1) difficult, and (2) a penalty in itself.

So if you don't have geographical districts, how do you decide what
company has jurisdiction in a case?  Suppose, for example, that I want
to play my stereo loudly in the middle of the night.  The company I
contract for for laws says this is perfectly legitimate.  My next door
neighbor, however, objects, and the company he contracts with has
passed a law against this.  His company tries to compel me to stop,
and I turn to my company to protect me.  Is it shootout time?

I assume not.  I assume it's time to go to court.  But what court?  He
and his company have contractual arrangements with one court, which will
doubtless uphold their point of view.  My company and I have contractual
arrangements with another court, which will doubtless uphold our point
of view.  (We wouldn't have selected them if they didn't agree with us.)
How do we decide which court to use?  Is it shootout time yet?

Perhaps I am misreading you.  Perhaps your jurisdictions are meant to be
geographical.  But then they will need extradiction treaties and/or barriers
to movement.  To be precise, each jurisdiction must ensure that there are
barriers to movement to *any* other jurisdiction with which it does not
have an extradition treaty.  This means that if there is any jurisdiction
which is not willing to sign a general extradition treaty, and any
neighbor of such a jurisdiction does not impose adequate controls on
movement to that jurisdiction, then every jurisdiction must control all
of its own borders.  (If the jurisdiction is selected by the property owner,
this gets even worse.  In this case, barriers to movement are impossible,
and the only way to deal with a non-cooperating jurisdiction is force.
This also provides no possible solution for my neighbor who is complaining
about my stereo.)

Even if the above-described intolerable limitation to free movement is
avoided, people are faced with the problem of dealing with potentially
different laws in the variety of jurisdictions they must deal with.
This entails either extraordinary effort to keep up with all of them,
or the risk of falling foul of some unexpected law.  (This risk is
present now, but I think it would be much worse with a large number
of independent jurisdictions to deal with.)

>And it is strongly to the interest of everyone in a society  that
>everyone have some orderly protection and some access to justice.
>Anything less is too dangerous. The problem is  to  channel  that
>self-interest.  The present system in USA, at least, does it *so*
>badly that any change is likely to be an improvement.

The historical evidence is all against you here.  The present system
in the USA does a better job than almost all other existing or
historical systems.  I would say, on the contrary, that any change
which is not very carefully thought out is likely to be worse.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108