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IPFS News Link • Political Theory

A Genuine Check and Balance: Privatize Law and Order

• https://libertarianinstitute.org,by Michael Huemer

– The basic problem of human social life: People are selfish. How do we stop them causing enormous amounts of harm to others, to benefit themselves? 

– A traditional solution: Have a government to police the people. 

– The basic problem of government: Government officials are selfish. How do we stop them from causing enormous amounts of harm to others, to benefit themselves? 

Traditional solutions to the problem of government are pretty lame. They really aren't thought through at all well, and they don't work very well empirically. 

Here, I explain how the libertarian solution is better. I'm only going to talk about police and courts here, though; I'm not going to discuss national defense or anything else. 

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The Private Solution 
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The anarcho-capitalist solution to the basic social problem is similar to the government solution, except that there are multiple, competing agencies for enforcing rights, instead of just one. In other words, anarcho-capitalists want to privatize the essential functions of governments (i.e., the functions that we actually need; other functions can be eliminated). 

So your neighborhood could have an homeowner's association that would hire a private security company instead of government police. Many competing security companies would operate in the same area (like security guard companies in the status quo; today, there are more private security guards in America than there are government police). In case of a dispute (including disputes about whether someone committed a crime), you would go to a private arbitration company instead of government courts. Many competing arbitrators would operate in the same area. 

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by PureTrust
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There are thousands of writings about how things work. Get to some of the basic points. A couple of them. --- The difference between people and persons. You are not a person. You are a man or a woman. This is important. https://redress4dummies.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/office-of-person1.pdf --- Learn that all governmental laws are imposed on government and its subjects rather than people outside of government. Remain a man or woman without being dragged into being a person. Courts are contractual. Learn about the "Four Corners Rule" and its use on your court docs to stay outside of their jurisdiction while manipulating things within government.