From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 16:59:35 MDT
> (Alexander Sheppard <alexandersheppard@hotmail.com>):
> How can there be such a thing as "anarcho-capitalism"?
> I mean, private property itself is the hugest state intervention in the
> natural order of things around. The state exists to protect private
> property... that's what it is, it is the thing which enforces the existance
> of private property. It's a common organization formed by those whom people
> are subservient to to protect thier wealth by force.
So the lock on your house only exists because of the state? Clearly
"personal" property (which is generally recognized even by socialists
because there's simply no rational alternative) is a natural thing
that requires no intervention--simply the commitment of the user to
retain direct physical control. You don't need states and laws to
chase an intruder out of your cave--you just need a club.
But even the more abstract forms of property that today are protected
by the state will arise from natural systems like that by mutual
agreement. It would be harder, for example, to chase intruders off
of a large field, for example, but methods will be created: fences and
other technologies, and cooperation agreements. For example, a small
village /does/ have enough human labor to protect a large field, so
they can agree among themselves to all protect the field from outsiders
in exchange for part of its produce. This is a much better deal for
them than a complete commons, because without the ability to plan for
the furute one cannot make progress--and one cannot plan for the
future unless you have some assurance that the resources you have
today will still be there tomorrow. "Ownership" is just a simple
way of making that possible--indeed it's the simplest possible way
to achieve that goal (any other system requires complex laws). And
once they all have a fixed set of rights (and that all property is--
a set of exclusive rights), they can and will trade them to increase
efficiency by comparitive advantage.
Property, trade, and cooperation are what make specialization and
progress possible. Humans will find ways to accomplish these things
with or without a state. For example, Posner offers several examples
of where property rights have arisen among people that directly
conflict with laws, but the people protect them because they are
more economically efficient than the actual laws.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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