Political Philosophy
Jim Hlavac
Political Philosophy
Political
Philosophy
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While the vast amount of current libertarian believers are probably above
average in intelligence, white, very stable people and are generally
morally upstanding, the reality is that this is not the case for a huge
amount of people.  Achieving a libertarian society will not cure greed,
sloth, stupidity, nastiness, fights, violence, murder, theft, fraud -- in fact,
some of the most miscreant people around will look to the new libertarian
order as a license to step up their nefarious deeds.  

     So a certain amount of government -- a police force and an
investigative force, coupled with prosecution, will have to be maintained.  
Even though the numbers of crimes may well plummet, not only from the
wholesale legalization of certain activities, but from the better condition all
will be living in.  There will still be the matter of human nature.  

     We might want the ideal where every person gets to go to some
privately run court system and solve their disputes in a civilized way.  But
there is still going to be the neighborhood bully who beats his wife.  She
is in a situation where it becomes impossible to just take him to court.  
Also, since the society is so complex, the vast numbers of people will be
unable to comprehend the intricacies of negotiations and deals and
contracts and their enforcement.  The private courts, too, would be over
run.  

     Therefore some sort of constabulary is necessary.  And even in the
most primitive societies there is some sort of judicial system.  Because
sometimes people just don't get along.  When one neighbor takes a
baseball bat to another neighbor -- is this merely an economic crime?  
The injured party merely takes the bad guy to court to pay for the injury?  
And what if the bad guy refuses to go to the court.  One thing about a
private court system is that both parties must agree to follow its dictates.  

     Arbitration is only good when both parties are in a good faith
expectation that the other party will follow the rules.  So what if someone
simply refuses to follow the rules?  That's when a society must step in and
solve the problem.

     Now, with societ-wide required accounts and insurance, there would
be resources to solve some problems.  The injured man would fall under
one of several different health care situations.  The trip to the emergency
room and the visit itself would fall under the Ambulance and Emergency
Room insurance schemes.  Any follow up medical care would be covered
under catastrophic health care insurance.  But all of us are paying into the
system. The bad guy is still off the hook, because the costs are taken care
of.  He can be billed directly for the problems he caused, and he'd have
the money because he has his own required accounts.  But some official --
someone with the ultimate force would be necessary to effect the
payment.  Because if you have a private court say -- yes you must pay --
what's to stop the bad guy from simply refusing?  There must be a resort
to final law.

     Also, suppose this man is going around beating lots of the neighbors
or the same neighbor over and over again?  There must be some
mechanism to remove him from society as a danger to all those around
him.  Yet if we leave it totally to private institutions then we would
necessarily have to have private police forces, and that would bring the
whole idea of pitched battles between a bad guy's private force and a
good guy's private force.

     So a police force of some sort would still have to be involved.

     Now, when it comes to theft and fraud, embezzlement -- the idea of
simple restitution hardly serves the purpose.  Some sort of punishment
must be meted out.  Otherwise there would be no incentive to not engage
in these acts.  And anyone would try to do it, if the only penalty is that he
must make restitution. If the punishment is to take money away from
him, then how can that be effected without recourse to some sort of
public law and law enforcement agency.

     Even if we eliminate half of our criminal laws because after all they
are not really morally wrongful acts or they are not "crimes" as a
libertarian would argue, such as marijuana and other drugs, or all sorts of
business practices, we would still be left with a rather large number of
laws for criminal conduct.  Such things as murder, rape, endangering life,
assault, stalking, child abuse and the other physical crimes.  We are left
with the need for some sort of police and public laws to deal with these
issues. Sure there's sufficient theory to back up a totally private solution --
but is this really possible in reality?  Or is it possible in reality any time in
the near future?