<p>^The right to civil liberty and property ownership is the foundation of libertarian beliefs. Police, military, and court systems provide these rights. They only provide these rights equally to everyone if they are not privately funded. These rights are the foundation of free markets only if all capitalists have access to these rights.</p>
<p>Thus, the foundations of capitalism lies in government funded police, courts, and military.</p>
<p>You can say that, ideally, an anarchistic society might still provide these liberties. This is not a reality in the world we live in–and, even in this theoretical respect, many libertarians are not anarchists. Minimizing the state means leaving only the bare necessities. The aforementioned entities are the bare necessities.</p>
<p>Correct. Though, if you don’t want to pay for the military, you won’t get the courts and police. No free riders.</p>
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<p>Where and how does bribery follow from what you just said? You will pay for police just as you pay for internet connection. Everyone pays for internet connection, correct?</p>
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<p>Prisons would be funded from the user fees of the courts/military/police. There will be no FDA.</p>
Eh, no, not at all. Minarchists, panarchists, anarcho-capitalists, and so on all do not want the above funded as you claimed. Murray Rothbard is the most obvious example.</p>
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Enforcement of property rights would still exist. Police, courts, military, and some law would still exist. I don’t know what you’re talking about here. No intellectual property though.</p>
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You just cited the biggest example of an authoritarian government as an argument against libertarianism. Eh.</p>
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Nothing to respond to here as nothing is backed up. Though, I’m curious, you’re not using intellectual property in the right context – do you have any idea what it is?</p>
<p>Who do you mean by “they”? Sure, for most common people libertarian X is the same as libertarian Y. I recognize the difference between all different kinds of libertarian. Some libertarians don’t even like to be called libertarians, like Ayn Rand. Regardless, there are indeed different kinds of libertarians. Deontolgical, consequentialist, minarchist, panarchist, blah blah blah.</p>
<p>So if the cops see someone being mugged on the street, do they wait til it’s over to see if the victim’s a protected-one or do they risk giving out free service? Or is there some method of identification for protected-ones?</p>
<p>^^ The police would stop the mugger first. If the victim doesn’t pay for the police services, then the police could let the mugger go if they want.</p>
<p>I think he was mocking the people at tea party meetings that with “no socialized medicine” and “hands off my medicare” signs. Some republican politicians were also apoplectic at the supposed possibility of medicare cuts.</p>
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<p>And he would be free to continue mugging? Seems like a list of people that aren’t protected would be quite valuable.</p>
<p>And what do you mean by “if they want”? Wouldn’t there be established rules?</p>
<p>Enforcement of property rights would only exist for those who pay. That’s ridiculous. Any asset owned by a person is protected by law. The reason its protected is to encourage the accumulation of assets via economic activity. Property rights are a privilege that must be extended to everyone involved in a capitalist society. </p>
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<p>No, I am a staunch fiscal conservative who is not arguing against libertarianism. I am disputing your babblings. </p>
<p>You missed the focus of the example. Zimbabwe offers little to no property rights because the government often expropriates foreign property. Thus, businesses have no incentive to operate in Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>Likewise, when you don’t offer private or intellectual property rights, you offer no incentive for economic activity. Your assets aren’t really your assets. </p>
<p>Now, my logic explaining why a private police and court system doesn’t offer property rights to all was so simple I figured you could follow. Nonetheless, I’ll spell it out:</p>
<p>The courts protect intellectual property by settling HUGE civil corporate disputes over trade secrets and patented intellectual works. Most of the major companies in the USA would be nothing without the court’s protection of their intellectual property. Think what would become of Google, Microsoft, Apple, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, any consulting company, authors, filmmakers, etc.</p>
<p>Now, clearly some of these big companies will simply opt to “pay” for your idiotic idea of private court dues. But remember that these big companies used to be tiny. In order to get investors on board, you need an idea, and it better be patented. Are you going to force all the small start-ups to pay massive “court system fees” above and beyond lawyer dues to patent their ideas? This will discourage ideas and thus slow down innovation. For a developed nation like the USA, innovation is our primary source of economic growth.</p>
<p>In order to provide a private court system that doesn’t provide due justice to all, you are stifling the economy. It’s a lose-lose. </p>
<p>We haven’t even talked about non-corporate issues yet. Who do you think won’t pay to have a police force? Who do you think will pay for a police force? Poor communities won’t have police, and thus theft and crime will be even more rampant. For the poor, even physical property rights will be non-existent. You’d be holding down the working class without letting them move up in socioeconomic status, because their accumulated assets would constantly be stolen. Capitalism is not a caste system. </p>
<p>It’s very rude that you scoff at my remarks when I politely dispute your rather idiotic notions. I could’ve just LOLed, but I tried to help you understand your erroneous beliefs.</p>
<p>We haven’t even got into tort law. What happens to civil malpractice cases, negligence cases, product liability, and absolute liability cases? Can you only sue for pain/suffering and economic damages if you have the money to pay off a judge? So the guy who makes $25,000 and gets cancer from a prescribed medication will just tough it out? What kind of pills do you think would start entering the market if the poor couldn’t sue anymore?</p>
<p>Your ideas would have sweeping effects. Product liabilities from harmful products–especially products targeting lower income civilians who wouldn’t have money to sue–would drop so drastically that companies would have financial incentive to flood the market with harmful products. </p>
<p>Which would be a nightmare for the FDA to take care of…Oh wait, I forgot–we probably already got rid of the FDA, right? =)</p>
Property rights still exist, of course, we are arguing about protection of those rights though. Everyone still has property rights regardless of whether or not everyone wants to pay for police protection. They could protect their own property if they wanted.</p>
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…What? There would be absolute property rights in my ideal society. The government is the one who steals the property of citizens. Zimbabwe has little property rights and the government further infringes upon the little rights the citizens have. There would be no such government to infringe upon property rights in my society.</p>
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<em>Sigh</em> all these rights would exist. Every company or person that pays will receive the protection of those rights. Except intellectual property, because this is not a right. </p>
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You haven’t yet proven how and why intellectual property is a right. I’m waiting for that.</p>
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There would be no court fees for patents. Patents are a government granted form of monopoly, and would not exist. </p>
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The latter does not follow from the former. Not at all.</p>
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Poor people can pay for the user fees of the police with the money they won’t be forced to spend on taxes. The user fee is not a large amount, no more than $100. Regardless, even if they couldn’t pay, this would not be a just argument for stealing from X to pay for Y. </p>
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Where did I scoff? You have been the one hurling insults at me. Show me one time where I -scoffed- at you. </p>
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The court system would be the same as it is now, except participation is voluntary. Paying off judges would occur no doubt, but the paying off occurs now as well.</p>
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What kind of company purposely sells medication that kills? This is not a profitable practice. </p>
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Huh? Companies would purposely sell harmful products? Oh, I dunno, my understanding is that people would not buy these products. And if in some extreme anomaly some companies do purposely sell harmful products, a class action suit would occur. Selling harmful products and getting sued is the exact opposite of profitable. The hypotheticals you are dreaming up are in no way based in reality. </p>
I’d appreciate if next post you could leave out the insults and stick to the argument. Most people tend to fall back on insults when they are unable to get their point across, and are losing the argument. It’s quite common actually. Listen to any old argument – even two middle graders arguing over if Spongebob or Jimmy Neutron is a better TV show. Whoever starts losing the argument will almost immediately resort to name-calling tactics: like “idiot” or “you don’t know what you’re talking about” or “It’s incredible what one dumb idea can do to the world.” Thanks.</p>
<p>It is tough to note tone through a computer, so I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. Lets ignore ad hominem attacks and focus on what you’re saying.
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<p>Yes, good. I think I mentioned “enforcement of property rights,” but I am typing quickly so if this got muddled I’m glad we straightened that out. The question we need to ask is whether private court systems and private police forces adequately protect property rights and, if not, what implications this has on economic growth.
First of all, we need to agree on what are property rights. You said this:
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<p>Intellectual property is an intangible asset–it is not a right. However, intellectual property is
protected under US common law, and thus there are intellectual property rights. You will see these classified
as copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, etc. These rights are very real, and you can search through a
database of them here: [Intellectual</a> Property Rights (IPR) search - cpb.gov](<a href=“http://iprs.cbp.gov/]Intellectual”>http://iprs.cbp.gov/). Recognizing intellectual property as an asset that must be protected is crucial,
because intellectual property ensures profitability of original ideas–the same original ideas that push
technological progress and ultimately economic growth. </p>
<p>You’ve ignored these points so far, so I’ll make this as concrete as possible with
a simple example. Consider a music artist that practices with a band, writes a song,
and pays money to record the album. If he is successful, he might get a record company to distribute CD’s or mp3’s
through distribution channels like music stores or iTunes. The initial recording, the distribution, the cost of CD’s,
the record company’s employee salaries, and the musician’s time are all costs that need to be offset by profit
from music sales. If however, a copyright didn’t protect the musician’s creative work, then another record company
would swoop in, burn the cd, and redistribute it at a fraction of the price. All the upfront costs of creating the CD
are lost, and since the redistributor never had to pay to record or create the music, it is much cheaper for them
to create the same CDs.</p>
<p>Now, this might seem like a good thing to consumers in the short run–they get cheap music. In the long run,
however, this discourages any artist from recording music because profits can not be earned.</p>
<p>Likewise, every technological and every data systems company has a huge balance of intellectual property on its
balance sheet. If you stopped protects these assets, then competitors will swoop in and sell the same stuff for less.
That’s fine today, but tomorrow’s Bill Gates will have no incentive to create Microsoft. </p>
<p>Hopefully this clears up why intellectual property right protection is a must in your private court systems.
The same logic is applicable to patents, thus the idea that:
is very misguided. Patents do grant companies exclusive right to sell, and create short term monopolies.
But once you remove patents, there is no incentive for companies to waste private research and design dollars.
If and when they discover new, applicable technology for the business world, they will immediately have competitors.
The company which spent all its money developing new technology reaps no benefit from its labors without patents.</p>
<p>So I think this clears up the idea that the “latter does not follower from the former”–it does. Economic
suffocation is inevitable when you don’t provide intellectual property holders with due justice.</p>
<p>Finally, we have to address liability claims. You say:
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<p>You need to realize that any product that enters the market underwent
a cost-benefit analysis. The cost of a product is not just its design and production costs–these are obvious.
Businesses also include expected liability costs (lets ignore insurance because risk transfers are irrelevant
from a macro perspective). The lower the expected liability claims, the less revenue you need to maintain
a profitable business. Thus, if you artificially lower liability of harmful products (by making certain people
unable to sue for wrongful damages), then you allow harmful products that were previously unprofitable
to enter our markets. </p>
<p>To be honest, I think both of us live in such a privileged market system that we take our consumer rights for
granted. Clearly, consumers do not buy harmful products–when they know they’re harmful (well, besides notable
exceptions like fast food). But a company is not going to tell you: “My product will kill you.” Unless, of course,
the FDA or Consumer Product Safety Commission forces them to. </p>
<p>Okay, so this took a lot of background information, but I wanted to be thorough. Now let’s see how privatization
of the police force and the courts affects the points above:</p>