Ancap-kun

I don’t know if Heinlein read Hayek, but in the book “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,” he effectively describes through examples the emergence of spontaneous orders, specifically a court that does not rely on any laws handed down from above or precedents coming from the depths of centuries.

The essence of the procedure is as follows. The parties to the court turn to anyone who is willing to arbitrate between them and whom they would like to see as a judge in their case. There are those who make judicial practice their profession, those who supplement this with other activities, and those who may suddenly find themselves invited to judge.

An interesting feature of the judicial proceedings is that the judge takes an equal amount of money from each party before the start of the hearing, based solely on the size of the claim. The more that is at stake in the conflict, the more the judge risks their reputation, and the more money they charge for it.

If either party wishes, the judge may call in any number of volunteers as jurors. The task of the jurors is to deliver a verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty,” and for their work, they receive a fixed payment set by the judge. To be honest, this tradition seems to me a rudiment from Earth, and in the described society, it looks like a tacked-on addition.

After the case has been examined on its merits, the jurors, if there are any, deliver a verdict, and the judge announces the sentence, stating who owes how much to whom.

The point of the entire ritual is to defuse conflicts and prevent vendettas. Instead of a court, one can agree to a judicial duel, where, again, there will be a referee and possibly seconds.

Of course, I like the described system, especially since it strongly resembles how I myself described the proposed judicial proceedings under ancap. I am asked about courts often—this is already the fifteenth question—but everything can be easily found via the corresponding hashtag.