Law Without the State | David Friedman 

The thumbnail makes it look like he's sticking his head out a window. "Hey kids, wanna buy some capitalism?"

Two corrections. The digitally signed contract has the public key of the arbitrator not his private key-I misspoke. More information on Imperial Chinese law came out after the book chapter I was relying on was published, and it looks as though the system was criminal in form but to a significant degree civil in practice. For details, see the chapter on Imperial China in the webbed draft of my book on legal systems very different one: www.daviddfriedman.com/Legal%20Systems/LegalSystemsContents.htm

Seems that law and order is a prerequisite for government to functionally exist at all, not the other way around.

0:00 property is defended by commitment strategies 11:51 free contract enforcement: repeat players, key signatures, early-backout-security, hostages, reputation 19:55 real examples: suing your neighbors hurts your reputation, Amish, Somolian, Icelandic 22:45 theoretical example of Rights Enforcement Agencies: theft disputes, death penalties disputes 35:47 eBay uses reputation enforcement without the government 39:13 IP 47:00 REAs aren't governments 50:00 REAs turning into cartels

Excellent video. Yet again, spontaneous market practices trump top down government laws.

Really glad you included the questions too

This is a gold mine, thank you.

A great book on the supposed violent nature of a world without gov't (or at least minimal gov't) is "The Not So Wild, Wild West." A couple of free pdf versions of it are online.

Another example of arbitration I like to mention during these kind of talks is debt repayment programs. A person could "declare bankruptcy" to restructure there debts and pay huge sums of money to an attorney, and wait months for the court to hear there case or you can do a debt repayment program through a third party. The debt repayment company, arbitrates on your behalf to reduce your debt and sets up a plan you agree to, to pay off debts, in return the creditors agree to knock off some of the debt because they would rather get something then nothing. No government needed.

Just consider this one logical question: Can a monopoly, or a position advocating that one and only one method can be tried at a time to provide a product or service possibly provide a better version of that product or service than a free market where any and all methods can be tried at the same time?

You cannot win as a politician without either A. having a lot of money of your own or B. being corrupt. Ad campaigns win elections, and cost money. Voter money is nothing, special interest money is everything, so they choose the two that get the only air time. If competing free markets produce better phones, cars, food, etc. why is it that you think that they can't produce better law, dispute resolution, defense and so on?

@zhuhaian its not copied because he came out before Hoppe and differs on the details

Woah. Adam Smith Institute put this up? Good to know they aren't "Beltway Libertarians".

Yeah, I've only been an anarcho-libertarian since the '80s (and an anarchist since the 1940s), probably longer than you have been alive. I guess you didn't like my comment. Have you read any of the books I cited? FWIW, I don't care whether Friedman's version is original or copied as long as it is accurate. From what I gleaned from the above, it is ok.

What if you built something on it? but are not using it anymore?

The only issue that I seem to have about Property Rights is how do you decide who the first person to make claims on property is? Would it be based on first come first serve? or would it be collective?

Hey cool thanks this is a really good video. I just have one question, what if a person has not subsribed to a defense firm amd has agressed someone who has?

"can be" ? Could you cite any example where it isn't?

This presentation seems to be a copy of the Murray Rothbard's "For A New Liberty" and "The Ethics Of LIberty", The Tannehill's "The Market For Liberty" and Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed" and The Economics And Ethics Of Private Property". All of these works espouse essentially the same prescription of private law using insurance companies as protections agencies and arbitration for settling disputes. Instead of jailing people they would be forced to make restitution.

Cogent and descriptive.

From what I have seen, dogmatic insults don't do much to persuade. Truly, however, it is you that has been the cause of my civility. Your comments haven't been rude, judgemental, or assumptive so I would expect the responses you would get to be of a similar nature.

Anything that is part of natural law (and I take free markets to be an aspect of natural law) is going to not only work best, it's going to protect against predators and parasites. Free markets are like a healthy immune system to finances. Preserving people's freedom and mobility, so they can thrive. All other economic systems act as predators and parasites.

homesteading. First come first serve, but if you're not using the property you can't claim it.

The audience lol. Short questions only! The first question goes on so long that he has to be cut off lol.

or efficient

What are you trying to say then? First use does not lead to monopoly. First use is not the same as planting a flag and claiming everything you see. In some ways first use is similar to the left anarchist notion of "personal" as opposed to "private" property.

Is there a transcipt of this?

You're right that it doesn't really matter who espoused what, and when, but The Machinery of Freedom and For A New Liberty were both published the same year. While they may both have a similar (but not exact) prescriptions, they were two different approaches; 1) natural rights (Rothbard and the Austrians) and 2) cost-benefit (Friedman). The best anarchist book, though, is The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer.

Politics is the means by which society decides upon what is the proper use of socially sanctioned initiatory violence. While there are many things free people *should* do,... what *must* free people do,... as in literally do this or you will be forced to do so with the proviso that if you resist you may be killed. Consider the following as a starting social contract between free people that is a work in progress. *The Anarchist's Constitution* 1. *_There is no Sovereign Immunity._* Any Person (or Persons) who commits force, fraud, or trespass against any other Person’s life, body, or property is liable for restitution to repair the victim to their original condition. 2. *_The Right to be left alone is Absolute, subject only to the enforcement of the first rule._* Any Person (or Persons) may deny the use of their life, body, or property to anyone else without any necessity to justify the reasons for their denial. 3. There are no exceptions to these 4 rules. 4. These rules being observed,… do whatever you will. Remember,… any additional positive duties imposed necessarily imply the state’s right, even duty, to kill anyone who does not comply. Is the only positive duty that of _if you break it, you must fix it_ sufficient,... or might there need to be more such positive duties. I am basically asking what unchosen, positive duties would all free people *have to observe* always,... even in an anarcho-capitalist libertopia. Rather than considering a contract between the government and a free people,... I am considering a contract between all free peoples with each other and regardless of individual consent. How can it be a contract,... regardless of individual consent,... you may ask? I think of it as the political equivalent of the necessity of all mathematics having to rely upon the use of axioms,... statements that are taken as self-evidently true requiring no further effort to prove. Anarcho-capitalists talk of rules without rulers. Okay,... so I am asking, what are these rules,.. how do we arrive at a consensus of what these rules are,... and what happens to those who dissent from these rules? I am trying to start projects where anyone participating can submit a peer to peer social contract,.. similar to the way the internet itself works so well. Forget governments for a moment. Think specifically in terms of what positive, affirmative duties do we have towards each other. While there are many things free people *_should_* do, what *_must_* free people do,... literally,... or risk being killed for not doing so. I understand Anarcho-Capitalists as believing there should be no unchosen, positive, affirmative duty,... other than everyone has to fix what they break, i.e., restitution. That unless it's consensual, it ain't moral. Minarchists aren't so sure that that is enough. Do people consent to having to make restitution for the damages they cause others? What is to be done with those people who refuse to make restitution for their injurious actions to others? What is to be done with a serial killer, and how is this paid for? Is it okay not to help an abandoned infant who will otherwise die? Would it be okay for a mother to just leave a newborn infant? What do you think should be done about international trafficking in children as sex toys. What do you want done with adults who do this? Is restitution really enough? Is it satisfying? At what point should a child be forcibly taken away from their present guardians/custodians? What positive duties are such guardians/custodians necessarily agreeing to by taking a child from it's biological parents? What is to be done with someone who is very wealthy and regards paying restitution as merely an inconvenience with no qualms about the injuries he does to others? Can no violent response be made to those who gratuitously mistreat and harm animals? Can someone who owns the last breeding pair of an endangered species destroy them at will? Would it be okay for entrepreneurs to create limited liability corporations in which costs from debts and pollution are socialized and profits are held privately? Is it just that such shareholders are liable only for the money they have invested, with no liability for any costs that corporation may have involuntarily imposed on innocent third parties? A very practical question is what duty would citizens have in libertopia to cooperate with those trying to enforce what rules are to exist upon everyone,... even without everyone's individual consent? How would court orders be issued opening up private information/property to criminal investigators? Is justice always satisfied simply by paying restitution,... even when someone has violently violated your daughters? This list is in no sense exhaustive. I consider all of this to comprise various works in progress. What are the minimum set of rules (these rules without rulers ) that even anarcho-capitalists seem to recognize as necessary? How do we arrive at such a consensus? What happens to those who dissent? Again, politics is the means by which society decides upon what is the proper use of socially sanctioned initiatory violence. This is unavoidable, even in libertopia. Just curious, but would you hold that *The Anarchist's Constitution* is sufficient for a functioning free society. Can you really not think of various instances where even free people would have to submit, regardless of their individual wishes? And please remember, I would be just as happy to learn more from this debate, but where Libertarians only see violence as a means to protect value and not as a means to create value, I am now asking, in all good will,... is this really necessarily so? *Because certainly we are alone in believing this to the extent that we do.* Does the truth derive from authority or Does authority derive from the truth? Does respect flow more from admiration or from fear? Is it easier to effectively organize people using voluntary association or threats of violence? If it is wrong for the strong to exploit the weak,... how is it not wrong for the weak to exploit the strong also? *_I wish men to be free, as much from mobs as kings, from you as me._* ~ Lord Byron, 1788-1824 I recently submitted the above to Walter Block, author of *_Defending the Undefendable,_* and he responded with... *Dear David:* *In my humble opinion, there are NO positive duties, only negative ones.* *You ask: Is the only positive duty that of if you break it, you must fix it sufficient.* *I think that’s a NEGATIVE duty. It’s part and parcel of the negative duty not to violate the non aggression principle.* *Once we let the cloven hoof of positive duties into the tent, there’s no stopping them. Soon, we’ll have a positive duty to feed other people, not discriminate against them, who knows what else.* *Best regards,* *Walter* Basically Libertarians seem to be mostly concerned with avoiding sins of commission while Progressive seem to be mostly concerned with avoiding sins of omission. Before I tell you how I responded, I would appreciate your thoughts and comments. I am worried that I may have been guilty of falling into the following error. *_[W]hen a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds._* ~ Jonathan Haidt, _The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion_ By my love of Liberty, I don't want to be either binded nor blinded by that love. But I want to know if it is possible to come up with a fairly universal set of rules for how socially sanctioned initiatory violence is to be used and restrained. I hope I will eventually succeed. I fear I may instead be painfully missing my objective. Consider also,... *_If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself._* ~ James Madison *_I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it._* ~ Judge Learned Hand *_In reality, the Constitution itself is incapable of achieving what we would like in limiting government power, no matter how well written._* ~ Ron Paul Consider the life & death (literally) importance of having these questions answered, whatever those answers may be. This reminds me somewhat of how mixed the reception was when Kurt Gödel delivered his _Essential Incompleteness Theorem_ to the somewhat bewildered and bemused mathematical community in 1931. I hope (but know I must not insist) that answers can be found to such questions,.. or else I fear the worse for the world at large. Perhaps that fear is where I make my greatest error. _While Liberty is never _*_Utopian,_*_ it is always _*_Melioristic,_* but that can *never* be good enough for the _left,_ and so the world *_burns!!?_* To anyone who is interested,.. leave your thoughts and comments, *please.*

What separation from government does this system hope to gain? Private companies will become government. Private companies control government now. I love the concept of anarcho capitalism but the more I consider it the less applicable it becomes.

@13:00- he is suggesting the markets are enough to eliminate fraud. He offers one theoretical example as evidence. There exist contrary examples -- life insurance has been chased out of parts of Africa because it became to easy to falsify a death certificate.

Then someone makes a religion that says someone's rights defense agency is immoral and they go on a crusade or two agencies form a 2 party like system but are two sides of the same coin and the two sets of customers anger at each other until they crusade and a government is established or some other form of oligarchy occurs.

I don't think you are understanding what I'm trying to say.

I don't know why people call this forms of anarchism... why can't they say: We would like a system without a giant who monopolizes power. Because preventing such monopoly on power takes an organized society, not anarchism.

That's the path to monopoly.

The very weak are food for the cruel.

Rothbard explains this with the first cliam principle. The first user of the property owns that property. If you aren't using it anymore then you still own it if you were the first user. However in the example above I doubt that you wouldn't want to sell it if someone offered it to you. Otherwise to take it they have to use violence.

bean dip

No it isn't.

But money is power, and eventually people consolidate power which brings a new ruler whatever the name you want to give it.

The problem with that premise is the belief that law with a state is ethical in the first place. There has never been, in all of history, a system of law that is based on a monopoly that is ethical because ethics are universal, they don't have exceptions for people just because they're called "authority" and wear special clothes. How the stateless society is created is a secondary question. If you become convicted of the morality, logic, and efficacy, then you spread the message.

Minarchist? Come one, how can you think State is justice.

You must be new to anarcho-capitalism

Gosh, animals don't even have mutuum and commodatum.😬😬😬

His opening "proof" that government doesn't create property seems like an appeal to nature fallacy. He claims property is natural, but he can just as easily claim that violence is natural. edit: He even makes the exception "unless they very unequal in size and strength." This is the rule of the strong. Not the rule of property.

One imortant reason people dont violate boundaries IS because of the existence of the government. We have a tacit knowledge or notion that certain things are not okay or are ILEGAL and that one could suffer consequences far greater than the reward for transgressing. I could potentially loose a lot of money, property rights, my freedoms could be restricted by going to jail, etc. Without that tacit knowledge, people can use FORCE to prevent the consequences of transgression from occurring. Also one of the parties could be unable to impose large costs to the transgressors, and thus powerless. Also people can band together mob-like to get their way and go around having to pay for consequences as well. How can you rely on private arbitration with the existence of corruption? But then again...our current government is like a mob I guess. But how in the world do you get EVERYBODY to respect libertarian principles without some kind of enforcement?

LOL property predates humans? False. Property is ONLY something that can be kept by force. That's it. Something that desires to keep something doesn't imply that its "theirs". It only implies that its successfully able to defend it. Something protecting its desire to have "property" is only the protection of what it wants, not what it owns (ownership is an illusion). Government is one the ONLY entities that can use its force via massive overwhelming power to guarantee that you can keep your "property" by force or by at least regaining your "property" if you lose it (and even then its not a guarantee, so its still isn't your "property" by right, only by defense). A single person protecting their land could ONLY call it their property if they can amass a large enough force to guarantee protection (which no one can do in reality). This is why we see giant human societies last the longest anywhere in the world. The only other way to guarantee property is to get everyone around you to agree that some plot of land is yours or what you have is yours. That way the agreement is what keeps your property yours. That's also a contract of sorts, and you dont necessarily need government for this reason, but its VERY HARD to do without it. Namely because of the motivations to fight for survival, and natural human states that would cause breach of those contracts. However if everyone had land, people wouldn't really need to invade others. The same goes with foods, water, health care, etc. Not that im for communism here. Im not. Its patently false that the idea of property (something that belongs to you) exists because certain animals are willing to fight for it. Humans aren't the same as other species. And the fallacy is to think that you can own anything. Because at some point someone someone could just kill you and claim it.

The only reason anyone listens to this clown is because of his daddy. He's riding daddy's coat tails. Nothing he is proposing is an improvement. He assumes away the source of the problem by assuming markets are efficient and self-regulating. "Assume everyone cooperates and now you don't need govt."