In my posts I've attempted to map out the inner workings of a free society. I've attempted to give adequate accounts on private property, homesteading, and responding to criminal behavior. I've tried to show that a free society is not a utopian ideal but one that can work very well, or at least much better than any system of governance around today. But what is the point of writing on such things without making the endpoint of living in a truly just society. A free society is exactly that, a just society. I now plan to give an account on why every form of State "justice" is a farce.
There is no justice when the State exists.
Free market anarchists are often attacked on the efficacy of privately owned judicial and protective services. The attackers constantly claim that corruption will be widespread and only those well connected would benefit from such private services. I have no problem saying that this might occur in a free society, but there's no economic reasoning to believe this would be a widespread issue given such the fact of market competition.
It's precisely when monopoly privileges are given by the State when corruption occurs and there's no market competition to stop it. It's well known that judges and police are bribed by the very wealthy in order to get away with certain things. Inequality in justice then becomes obvious because the poor who cannot afford to bribe the judges and police are left to the side and end up being jailed for crimes other people can get away with. This is why the richest drug cartels get away with selling millions of dollars worth of drugs but the small drug peddler gets 20 years. This is why blacks are arrested and eventually imprisoned much more than whites, for the mere possession of drugs. This is not justice.
When this corruption is evident the only hope we have as individuals to curtail it is hope charges are brought against the corrupt, they resign, or hopefully replace them the next election cycle.
If this very same corruption were to occur in judicial/protective services in a free society individuals have a much stronger say in who will survive. Granted the corruption wouldn't be over drug issues but could happen in the cases of theft and the like.
When this corruption is evident we have a much greater arsenal to make sure it doesn't happen again. In any arbitration service there will likely be an appeal process if the the verdict was unfair, and would be your chance to achieve the correct verdict. This is an opportunity to show the corruption involved which would bring certain demise to the corrupt. Why? Well that's because once corruption is evident market forces will now come into play. People now knowing that that arbiter does not give fair and impartial opinions will no longer seek to purchase their services. Arbiters now have an economic interest aside from a moral one to seek fair decision or else they will no longer have a job. Naturally, the next attack would be to say that a monopoly of corrupt arbiters would be created to benefit the wealthy. Sure, but non-government granted monopolies do not last long because typically members of that cartel will see that more profit can be made by undercutting the agreed upon monopoly price. Even if this doesn't happen when monopolies aren't granted by the government someone outside of this cartel will see the ability to profit from undercutting and will do just that by offering fair and impartial arbitration.
Free markets are well known to produce products with better efficiency and better quality for any given product than the government can produce, judicial and protective services are no different.
The next big point is an attack on State run protective services and how they perform minimal amount of justice compared to their free market counterparts. There are two areas of concern I will discuss: police brutality and restitution.
Police brutality and wrongful murder is a widespread and well documented problem that occurs in America and I'm sure around the rest of the world. Now I will not claim that every police officer commits such heinous acts but it does happen and these people are usually protected. They're protected because of two reasons, they're backed by unions and they are not held liable to the same set of laws as citizens are. Unions make it practically impossible to fire bad cops when they do bad things. Cops that are caught doing these bad things are usually put on paid administrative leave. They are rewarded with paid vacation time for hurting innocent people! Had a regular citizen done the same to another citizen or even a cop the results would be much different, and it's because police are not held liable to the same set of laws we all are. If they were they would be much more consciences in their decisions since they too could be imprisoned for initiating force on innocent people. Police are also funded by taxes so no matter who does what they are still going to get their paycheck.
A private protection agency would act much differently when it comes to rendering their services. Protection agents would be MUCH less likely to be mean and hurtful to people. This is because those who hire them would want courteous employees to attract as many customers as possible. If customers saw Agency A hire mean people that constantly harassed individuals, they would not survive on the market for very long. Only those companies who go about rendering their services in a professional and courteous manner have a chance in surviving free market competition. Also, since in a free society all individuals are held liable to the same set of laws if a protection agent were to use force wrongfully he would become a criminal and tried as such. Motivated by profit earned from paying consumers protection agencies have economic reasoning to be courteous to individuals, for if they aren't other agencies will take hold of the profit incentive and fill the gap.
Restitution is another area that most people are not accustomed to hearing about, but was the prime way justice was given to victims of theft and the like long before the State instituted its own form of "justice".
Currently if someone steals your car or breaks in your house you do the routine of calling the cops. The cop then does a report and files it and all you can hope for is that they catch the criminal and or your insurance will replace the stolen goods. The police who are supposed to protect you from theft can only file reports and your stolen goods are usually gone forever. On top of that you have not only paid the police for their failed services of protection but you are still forced to continue to pay them even though your goods are gone, what kind of justice is that?
In a free market protective services would be tied to a kind of insurance contract. The protection agency would be paid not only to keep you safe but to make sure your goods are not stolen. What happens if your goods are stolen then? This is where the insurance contract comes into play. If the protection agency fails to keep your goods safe then they must indemnify you by replacing whatever is stolen. If your car or tv is stolen they must replace that car or tv. The protection agency now has an economic incentive to retrieve any stolen goods or else they have to shell out the extra costs of replacing stolen goods. It is a well known fact that insurance agencies today are much more efficient at finding stolen goods than the police can ever dream to be. Restitution is justice that can only be served by private protection agencies.
I hope to have shown how the State is a complete failure to providing for a just society and that it is in fact the exact opposite in its actions regardless of what its intentions are.
Therefore, we must accept that the only just society that can exist is a free society.
No comments:
Post a Comment