So, I live in my own house, and one of my neighbors killed another neighbor and his entire family. What happens to the price of my house because a dangerous psycho lives next door? It drops rapidly. Who am I after that? A victim.
In a situation where law is decentralized, your moral judgment can always become the basis for your actions. There is no one to forbid you from doing something, but the responsibility will be entirely yours.
If I have enough evidence of how my neighbor killed an entire family, and I kill him afterwards, then to whoever accuses me of this murder, I will show this evidence and explain that I had sufficient grounds to fear for my own life, as the deceased was far too unpredictable. And I’ll bring up the argument about the house price, just as a cherry on top.
And then we’ll see if I can make peace with the relatives and acquaintances of the deceased.
In the modern world, which is largely individualistic, moral evaluations of actions usually play a more significant role than kinship ties—after all, we no longer live in a clan society where the kin effectively acted as a single legal entity.
I wrote that an outsider can use the rich arsenal of peaceful resolution techniques with impunity, but applying violence or the threat of violence is at their own risk. If you see a fight, it would be appropriate to inquire whether it is a private fight before intervening. Similarly, upon seeing violence against a child, it is appropriate to ask the child if they need help. If there is no opportunity or desire to clarify this important point, the consequences may be unpredictable.
Yes, the guardian is using violence against the child and thereby violating the principle of non-aggression toward them. However, by manifesting aggression against the child’s guardian without the child’s sanction, you also violate the principle of non-aggression toward the child. And it is the child who will be the first one asked after this incident who exactly caused them harm. And you could very well turn out to be the one who caused that harm.
Your evidence regarding the extent of the violence against the child must be damn convincing for an arbitrator, whose jurisdiction both you and the child’s guardian recognize, to rule that guardianship rights should indeed transfer from the current guardian to another party wishing to obtain them, in a situation where the child does not demonstrate a desire to change guardians.
The principle of self-ownership means that every person belongs to themselves. A child, however, is a person who, due to the finite speed of development of the human organism, is not yet perceived by other people as fully legal-capable. Therefore, while they do own themselves, they do not actually exercise full disposal of themselves—the right to dispose of the child is partially usurped by one adult or another (a fully legal-capable person), with the consent of other adults.
And then a situation arises where the way this adult exercises this usurped right ceases to satisfy the child. It does not matter whether it is a case of direct physical violence, psychological violence (regardless of what adult behavior is called such), or simply a clash of tastes. What matters is that at any moment, the child can both declare their full legal capacity and delegate the right of partial disposal of themselves to any other adult—that is, offer them to assume the rights of a guardian—provided, of course, they can come to an agreement with the candidate for guardianship. In this case, it is simple. The adult who, in the child’s opinion, performed their guardianship duties in bad faith, is deprived of the corresponding rights, and now nothing protects them in the event of violence against the child.
But what if the child does not insist on stripping the adult of their guardianship rights (being too young, too intimidated, or, most likely, generally satisfied with the situation), yet from the point of view of an outside adult, the guardianship duties are being performed unsatisfactorily? All that an outsider can do without penalty is to express their judgment on the matter, share this judgment with other adults, try to explain the child’s rights to them—in short, apply all the rich tools accumulated by humanity for the peaceful resolution of misunderstandings.
If for some reason they consider such measures insufficient, they may, of course, decide to use violence, thereby turning the conflict into a war, but as a fully legal-capable person, they must realize that they are fully responsible for the consequences of this decision, and that these consequences may not be what they expected.
To begin with, the neighbor must be prepared to prove that it was not he who stole the ball or the cow, but that it landed on his land on its own. Then, he must be prepared to prove that the landing of a foreign object on his property caused him damage. And finally, he must be prepared to prove that he did not know and had no simple ways of finding out who owned the object, and therefore considered the appropriation of the object as the most logical way to compensate for the damage, rather than approaching the owner of the object with a demand for compensation.
The title of ownership to an object does not transfer from one subject to another simply because the object changed location. But, of course, in a situation where it is unknown whose cow grazed on someone else’s plot for two years, managed to calve, and then the owner of the cow appears, the owner of the plot would probably be able to justify his rights to the calf. Similarly, if the owner of a ball comes to claim it after a week, the owner of the ball is unlikely to be entitled to demand rental payment for the fact that the ball was used to play football.
Protection from homophobia isn’t necessary. Anyone has the right to be afraid of us, since we’re so scary. Protection is needed from violence. When we choose an insurance plan, we’ll need to mention that we’re in a same-sex union; perhaps the insurance will be a bit more expensive. But if we wear a badge with the insurance company’s logo and a built-in tracker, there should be a discount. If we get weapons, the discount will increase.
Of course, the rate will become absolutely ridiculous if we choose the right neighborhood to live in, but those are capital investments, and we need to look closer—such paranoia might not pay off. On the other hand, the atmosphere there is friendlier, which is even more important than saving on premiums. Regular medical check-ups, first aid courses, and other ways to save on the insurance price—well, if we aren’t too lazy; most likely, we’ll manage without them.
And once we’re strolling together, having taken all these measures—then why should we, as ancaps, care? Let the homophobes be afraid; it’s very funny 👩❤️👩
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I have already been asked on what principle nuclear bombs will be privatized, but with this low-liquidity commodity, things are indeed different, because off the top of my head, I can think of only two useful applications for a nuclear bomb specifically as a bomb, and both boil down to burying it deep in the ground in the right place—and blowing it up. First, this would make it possible to register seismic vibrations at different points on the planet and use them to refine information about its structure. Second, this allows for the release of seismic tension in seismically hazardous areas, so that instead of rare large earthquakes, there will be a series of frequent small ones.
But anyway, the question is about land. Land, unlike a nuclear bomb, has a vast number of useful applications, and therefore competition for it can be quite substantial.
Privatization scenarios will, of course, differ greatly depending on how great the mentioned competition is in a specific case, and how developed the mechanisms of self-governance are in that location.
Where competition is lower, homesteading is more likely. Whoever hustle first takes the best plot. Whoever is a bit later takes the adjacent one. The latecomers take a couple more, and the rest figure that they won’t get the cream of the crop here and go look elsewhere.
Where competition is high and local self-governance is weak, the plot will be seized by the first person to hustle, and then a stronger subject will arrive and declare: dude, you’ve gotten too arrogant, get the hell off my field right now! The arrogant dude will haggle a bit to save face, perhaps receive symbolic compensation—and get the hell out.
And where lawlessness has long been eradicated by the local community, the most likely scenario is the hiring of an auctioneer, who will prepare the land lots for sale, conduct an auction, and then distribute the proceeds, minus their own commission, among all the local residents who also claimed the land but were not ready to pay too much for it.
The scenario you mentioned—”let’s democratically vote on who gets a tasty piece of the pie for free, which any of us is smart enough to want as private property”—seems less likely to me: if I receive no compensation, why on earth would I agree to vote for someone else? In such a vote, it is most logical for everyone to vote for themselves, and this would lead to the need to form a joint-stock company with equal shares for the voting participants. Then, the person who needs it more will gradually buy out the shares of those who need it less, and we will arrive at the same model as simply selling the plot as a single lot with subsequent compensation to the losing participants.
Dividing the pie
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With judges and courts under ancap, not only will nothing be difficult—it will be much simpler than it is now.
Currently, one must perform a multitude of strange ritualistic gestures just so the monopolist condescends to review a request and decide something, and these processes drag on insanely long; very often, both litigating parties end up as victims in fact, while only all sorts of intermediaries benefit from the procedure. The majority of disputes under ancap will resemble modern commercial arbitration: when establishing certain relations, the parties decide in advance whom they trust to resolve their conflicts, and then, having sought a court, voluntarily execute its decision.
In situations where the parties, while establishing relations, do not fully trust each other’s integrity, they can immediately deposit a sufficiently large sum each, granting the arbitrator the right to deduct a penalty from the deposit in favor of the party to whom that penalty is awarded after the conflict is resolved.
An indispensable condition of a court is the voluntary consent of the parties to execute any of its decisions in advance. Forcible summons to court, as well as the forcible execution of a court sentence, is simply ritualized retribution.
Will there be an institution of such retribution under ancap? Yes, it is quite likely there will be.
Imagine that Bob caused some damage to Alice and disappeared. Alice hires detectives and establishes who caused the damage, after which she seeks judgment from persons who are, in her opinion, sufficiently authoritative: what compensation she could forcibly seize from Bob. The court examines the evidence and becomes convinced that the damage was indeed caused by Bob, then decides what compensation would be appropriate, and Alice, with the court decision in hand, begins to seize Bob’s property. The more authoritative the court Alice turned to is for those guarding Bob’s property, the easier it will be for her to achieve the seizure. Sooner or later, Alice receives her compensation, rewards everyone who helped her, and with that, her claims against Bob are exhausted (though he may still have claims against her, since the conflict between Alice and Bob was not settled amicably).
Finally, it may happen that Alice demands Bob’s head as compensation rather than property. Then, if the court recognizes her demand as justified, she, with this decision in hand, begins to hire bounty hunters, setting a reward for Bob’s head. They will be all the more willing to sign up for this work the larger the reward and the more authoritative the judge is for them. And here it will be in Bob’s interest to find Alice and try to reconcile with her (killing Alice may not be enough, as it would not cancel the contract on his head).
Dad has his opinion, mom has hers, you have yours, and I have mine. As long as I am actually dependent on my parents, it makes sense for you and me to be interested in their opinions on such matters. Once I stop being dependent, seeking their opinion can only be done for the purpose of building a friendly relationship with them.
And if they don’t agree with each other, then they can figure it out between themselves somehow.
But there is another possibility. You asked my opinion about hooking up, I’m for it. You asked Dad’s, he’s also for it. You asked Mom’s, she’s against it. We decide to ignore Mom’s opinion, and she shoots you in the back of the head for your lack of understanding. Now, when the court hearing happens, Mom will depend on the judge’s opinion regarding the permissibility of her actions, but you will already be indifferent to that.
no mom jokes here!
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The topic of direct military conflict was best explored by Vladimir Zolotorev, whom I have mentioned repeatedly, in the series of articles “Insurance Company ‘Sonechko’ versus the Tsardom of Muscovy”. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Most likely, this volume of material will be sufficient for you to address both the question you asked and several related ones.
But I will still make a small clarification regarding one of the models of creeping expansion you mentioned. Buying up all the land is very unrealistic, because the less unsold land remains, the more expensive it becomes, and the happy sellers of land receive more and more resources, which they can invest in assets that seem more profitable to them than the land they have just sold.
At the same time, the fact that a certain NAP violator is a landowner does not protect them in any way. They violated it — a conflict arose, now they either pay a penalty or they are fought against. In a state, the law may protect a NAP violator, but for ancaps, dealing with such problems is much simpler.
I am sure that under libertarianism, farming in the area of, say, the current Vostok Station would be very profitable. See for yourself:
First, constant katabatic winds, meaning energy surplus.
Second, a constant freezing blast, no problems with heat dissipation. It’s the perfect place for mining, right!
All that’s left is to solve the problem of material strength in such frost, and probably some tinkering with lubrication in the wind turbines, but those are just trivial “boy problems” 😏
Meanwhile, there is an abundance of land in Antarctica—we simply don’t have enough crazy miners to overrun an entire continent; there are other types of business in the world, after all.
Therefore (I am finally starting to answer the asked question), in the foreseeable future, no more complex mechanism for acquiring land ownership than a simple homestead—that is, seizing unclaimed territory—will be required there.
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