Competing Security/Police Forces Under Anarcho-capitalism

People disagree. All the time. Consequently, people setting the policy for security forces will have disagreements.

It will be in their interest not to fight each other. They'll try to agree. But agreeing can be hard. People try to talk things out and come to an agreement a lot, and sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't. So, some disagreements will be resolved without a big hassle. But there will be some others that won't get resolved so easily. The security forces will either need to peacefully co-exist, side by side, *while they disagree about some things*, or there will be violence.

One way to try to solve this problem is not to have multiple security forces. If there's only one game in town, then there can't be any disagreements! Problem avoided. Right?

No. People will still disagree. The difference is that people who disagree with the only game in town have no good options. They'll be forced to monetarily fund a security force that is operating in a way they disagree with, rather than one they approve of more. That's bad! It's not nearly as bad as frequent gun fights in the streets would be, but it is quite bad.

Anarcho-capitalism wants to get rid of that badness. It wants disagreements not to be suppressed. Not expressed violently either. We need something else: a system that is responsive to people's opinions, and non-violent. Allowing multiple security forces, and having people choose which to subscribe to, has the "responsive to people's opinions" part covered much better than having only one security force that everyone subscribes to whatever they think of it. It harnesses the power of the market, so that security forces that please customers prosper, and ones that are not responsive to customers fail. Of course the market doesn't do that perfectly, but it does it better than anything else.

That leaves the violence issue. How will violence be averted?

Let's think about how violence is averted today. Here is one story of how it works: People do disagree with the Government about all sorts of things, like whether marijuana should be treated as similar to cocaine, or not. But they aren't going to take out a gun and do something violent about it. They would be up against overwhelming force. There are disagreements within the Government too. But for any given thing, when it comes down to it, there is always *one law* about who gets their way, and overwhelming force backing up that law. Sometimes the answer is complex, and involves multiple people and even voting, but there is always one unambiguous outcome backed by overwhelming force.

So the general idea is: for any given issue, there is some ultimate authority, backed by overwhelming force. That is how we avert violence. No one who disagrees wants to fight over it when they'll just lose really badly.

If there were a dozen security forces, and none had overwhelming force, there would sometimes be situations where two forces disagree, and taking into account their allies, they are roughly evenly matched. Close enough the outcome is in doubt. So will they fight it out? How do we make damn sure they don't?

First of all, pretend for a moment *you* are in charge of a security force. Would you want to fight it out? Would that be a temptation? Or would you bend over backwards to avoid it? I know I would want to avoid it.

Now let's consider again the story of how we avert violence today. Is it really because there is one clear law everyone follows? No, it can't be, because sometimes the law is ambiguous. Sometimes we have situations the law makers didn't foresee. Our real system involves people making judgment calls, and it's pretty adaptable. Now, those people making judgment calls sometimes disagree. Think of the 2000 election where people disagreed about counting votes. That could have been a serious problem! It could have turned violent! The country was split fairly evenly about which President they wanted. But it did not turn violent. Why? I think the most important factor, the thing that reliably averts violence, is that just like you and me, the people making those decisions did not want violence. It was more important to them to avoid violence than to become President, or get their way. They were willing to bend over backwards to avoid violence. Everyone involved on both sides was so averse to violence that it never came close to violence. I think the fact that people hate violence is a much larger factor than the threat that if they fought they would lose badly. Americans care more about what is right than which side is more powerful.

Why will security forces by run by people who are any less averse to violence than average American is today? In fact they will be run by people who are even more averse to violence, and better at avoiding it, than the average American today. If I have the choice between subscribing to a security force that has that kind of leader, and one that doesn't, it's obvious to me which to choose. And it would be obvious to most people.

Alright, now let's suppose the security forces are run by decent people who are eager to avoid violence. Not just because it'll save them money, but also because of morality. But still they don't agree. What will they do?

I'm sure there are multiple possible good solutions to this problem. Here is one: They will bid money.

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Flaw

The most common human flaw is underestimating the difficulty of figuring out the truth.

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Godwin on Smalltalk

_William Godwin: A Biographical Study_ by George Woodcock, p 178, quoting Godwin writing self-analysis, not for publication:
I can scarcely ever begin a conversation where I have no preconceived subject to talk of; in these cases I have recourse to topics the most trite and barren, and my memory often refuses to furnish even these.
I consider smalltalk a way for people to get along pleasantly whether they are compatible or not. It's a way for people to talk without putting their own values and ideas into the conversation and thus risking disagreement. It's a waste of time; if you disagree, then learn from each other, and if you can't do that, then this is the wrong person for you to be talking with.

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People Are Complex

I agree with Feynman that figuring things out is hard. Godwin writes (The Enquirer, part 2, essay 8, page 292)
No one man ever completely understood the character of any other man.
Or the way I say it, "People are complex." Godwin elaborates on this well; read the essay if interested.

A few sentences later Godwin writes:
Let every thing be examined, as far as circumstances will possibly admit, before it as assumed for true.
Or in other words, figuring things out is hard.

I would go even a bit further than Godwin: if circumstances won't admit sufficiet investigation, then you don't know the truth. No excuse about unfortunate circumstances is good enough; the truth isn't easier to come by just because you have only limited ways of trying to find it.

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Godwin on Plato and Aristotle

The Enquirer, part 2, essay 8, page 285
The poets and fine writers of antiquity still appear to us excellent; while the visions of Plato, and the arrangements of Aristotle, have no longer a place but in the brains of a few dreaming and obscure pedants.
Most people today think highly of Plato and Aristotle. A notable exception is Karl Popper.

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Adam Smith on Burke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke
The economist Adam Smith remarked that Burke was "the only man I ever knew who thinks on economic subjects exactly as I do, without any previous communications having passed between us".[76]
The cite says: E. G. West, Adam Smith (New York: Arlington House, 1969), p. 201.

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Differences Between Bakunin and Godwin

http://web.archive.org/web/20010505221015/medusa.twinoaks.org/members/(I)An-ok/bakunin.html

Quotes are all from Bakunin. The page of quotes was collected by someone who likes Bakunin.
If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him. - God and the State, 1871
Godwin didn't hate God.
Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, and socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality. - Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism, 1867
Godwin didn't criticize freedom itself.
There can be no equality between schoolmaster and pupils. - The Bear of Berne and the Bear of St.Petersberg, 1870
Godwin said there can and should be such equality.
No one should be entrusted with power, inasmuch as anyone invested with authority must, through the force of an immutable social law, become an oppressor and exploiter of society. - Statism and Anarchy, 1873
Godwin didn't see the people in power as exploiters. He saw them as victims, too, of bad ideas.
No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will ever save the world. I cleave to no system, I am a true seeker. - correspondence, n.d.
Godwin didn't trash theories.
Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life. The urge to destroy is also a creative urge. - Reaction in Germany, 1842
Godwin didn't trust destruction and annihilation.
One must distinguish between the prejudices of the people and those of the privileged classes. The prejudices of the masses are based only on their ignorance and run counter to their own interests, where the prejudices of the bourgeoisie are based precisely on their interests. Which of the two is incurable? The bourgeoisie, without any doubt. - The Politics of the International, 1869
Godwin said the prejudices of the privileged classes were *not* in their interest. That means they would voluntarily change things if they understood more.
Everywhere religious or philosophical idealism(the one being simply the more or less free interpretation of the other) serves today as the banner of bloody and brutal material force, of shameless material exploitation. - The Knouto-Germanic Empire, 1871
Godwin never writes stuff that sounds like that.
I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity, and the happiness of men can develop and grow; not that purely formal liberty, conceded, measured, and regulated by the State, an eternal lie. No, I mean the only liberty truly worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the powers - material, intellectual, and moral - that are latent faculties of each; liberty that recognizes no other restrictions than those outlined for us by the laws of our own individual nature, so that properly speaking, there are no restrictions...

I mean that liberty of each individual which, far from halting as at a boundary before the liberty of others, finds there its confirmation and its extension to infinity; the illimitable liberty of each through the liberty of all, liberty by solidarity, liberty in equality; liberty triumphing over brute force and the principle of authority which was never anything but the intellectualized expression of that force; liberty which, after having overthrown all heavenly and earthly idols, will found and organize a new world, that of human solidarity, on the ruins of all Churches and all States. - The Paris Commune and the Notion of the State
I bolded the three parts of the quote I'm commenting on, and replied to them in order.

Godwin thought we should live according to objective morality, not follow our individual nature.

Godwin thought our liberty did need to halt at the boundary of the liberty of others.

Godwin didn't want to create any ruins, i.e. didn't want to destroy things.

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