Freedomain Radio

Given the supply-side issues involved with Health Insurance in America, it occurs to me that if justice is to be distributed via insurance companies, there is going to be a discrepancy based on wealth and geography. Markets also are not uniform, and so they will experiment with difference instruments for justice if it is in fact left up to the markets. The insurance-based model of the DRO assumes uniformity, as without even distributions of the DRO's, they fail for lack of ability to enforce their decisions. If the grocery store can sell the 3x convicted child murderer his groceries without fearing DRO sanctions, they will.  The only way they will fear DRO sanctions is if everyone else in the market will base their dealings off of DRO ratings.

Further, even if the standard practice of the DRO were to be established, there is still the problem of supply. An example follows this short summary. Even if one assumes perfectly even income distribution (for argument's sake, of course) there is still the problem of distribution. Disparities in infrastructure, population, nonmarket forces, ect. will make for supply problems with DRO's, much like health insurance.

Example: a friend of mine in Tennessee can afford health insurance (outright, if necessary) as she makes a nice salary, but her part of the state (within 6 hours driving distance...) is without HMO clinics, as is common in more rural areas in America. Her insurance is wasted. If this was the case for DRO-based insurance, she would have no justice, either? With healthcare, she can go to the emergency room at the local hospital. With justice, her other options are limited in her rural town. Yet, they still have rape, theft, murder, abduction, domestic abuse, ect.

I am wondering what the issue is if a nonmarket, nonstate entity (or entities) could provide justice; after all, there are scores of nonmarket, voluntary institutions. It isn't anti-voluntaryist to say that the market doesn't have to provide ALL public goods.

Brainstorm?

Welcome!

peoplespublic:

Example: a friend of mine in Tennessee can afford health insurance (outright, if necessary) as she makes a nice salary, but her part of the state (within 6 hours driving distance...) is without HMO clinics, as is common in more rural areas in America. Her insurance is wasted. If this was the case for DRO-based insurance, she would have no justice, either? With healthcare, she can go to the emergency room at the local hospital.

Your example is kinda confusing to me, I was wondering if you would help with some questions.

You say that her health insurance is wasted because there are no HMO clinics in her area. But you say that she can go to a hospital if she needs medical attention. I don't understand... how is her insurance a waste when it pays for her hospital visit?

 EDIT: Perhaps this situation is similar to a person who signs up with a cell phone company... while living outside of cell reception?

 I am happy to answer that.

The hospital is not good for routine/preventative care, only for emergencies and specialists (note: some hospitals DO have other clinics attached, but not generally.) She's better off with no insurance and just payin for emergency room care, as inflated as it is.

The cell phone example is good, provided cell-towers/signal are the supply in question. No sense puchasing a cell phone for use on Gilligan's Island, right?

I'm just wondering how DRO's could work if ot everyone is plugged into that system...it isn't likely that people who cannot afford or do not want health insurance are going to want justice insurance.

I'm quite confused.

Where is the issue? You friend should just not buy insurance then. Just as you shouldn't buy a mobile/cell phone service you can't use. You equally shouldn't buy membership into an organisation that can't service your needs. This isn't really an "issue".

Why does everyone need to be "plugged" into "that system"? The DRO system is just one functional example of a model for justice, and even if it was Universal, the DRO model doesn't rely on a one size fits all system.

It's likely that if you live in an area where a DRO genuinely can't service you in any way, that you won't be required to have a DRO in most of your local interactions - because local businesses will be equally unable of getting service. If there's no DRO services around, and you consider the life adequate enough to stay local, it's probably because you get on well with people and have a Voluntary society that doesn't find that abstraction of justice cost effective. Not so much an issue, as a great saving!

There is a huge supply-side issue

Then there can't be any criminal sanctions. So all a 3x child-molesting murderer wouldhave to do is move to a nice small town in the South where people live without a DRO-system and he/she can live quite well and keep on murdering/molesting, as long as he's able to hold down a job he's fine. But that's not the center of my argument.

Also, with such a supply-side problem, it is unlikely that the DRO would be able to administer justice (supply is key). If enough people are off the grid, then plenty of businesses must be too, and without a DRO rate to incentivize their behavior, fraud will go largely unpunished. As such, people will opt out of paying for DRO service, since it isn't reliable, and the whole thing destroys itself.

See what I'm getting at? Markets aren't efficient at distributing public goods. But that isn't an argument against voluntaryism, not at all.

What I was trying to work out is what sorts of nonstate, nonmarket institutions could function as civil/criminal "courts"?

peoplespublic:

There is a huge supply-side issue

Then there can't be any criminal sanctions. So all a 3x child-molesting murderer wouldhave to do is move to a nice small town in the South where people live without a DRO-system and he/she can live quite well and keep on murdering/molesting, as long as he's able to hold down a job he's fine. But that's not the center of my argument.

Couldn't a 3x child-molesting murder just do this now?

Also, with such a supply-side problem, it is unlikely that the DRO would be able to administer justice (supply is key). If enough people are off the grid, then plenty of businesses must be too, and without a DRO rate to incentivize their behavior, fraud will go largely unpunished. As such, people will opt out of paying for DRO service, since it isn't reliable, and the whole thing destroys itself.

Is it possible that the people in these small town wouldn't want/need a DRO to adminster justice?  I used to drive through a town daily that in fact had no police department.  If the people living in the town felt there was a pressing need for police protection wouldn't they lobby the mayor/town council to 'legislate' one into existence?  My guess is that for such towns it's in impractible.  However, when there are violent crimes the state police or the police from a neighboring town is called to handle the problem.  Do you think that DRO's would be the only way the market would react to solve the problem/need to administer justice.  I have a feeling that private subscription based police protection services would arise as another way to handle this sort of problem (assuming a DRO could not handle it). 

See what I'm getting at? Markets aren't efficient at distributing public goods. But that isn't an argument against voluntaryism, not at all.

What I was trying to work out is what sorts of nonstate, nonmarket institutions could function as civil/criminal "courts"?

I don't think there is such thing as nonstate and nonmarket, unless you mean supernatural, lol!  We already have other market solutions that operate in society within a niche created by the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of the public court system.  If the market considered the state (Federal & State)court system as a sufficient way to handle disputes within society you would not see people using private moderators and arbitrators to settle their disputes.  These disputes when handled through the court system are very expensive and very long and do not always dispense justice (despite the fact that it is often referred to as "The Justice System").  As an aside, it should be noted that disputes between players and clubs in Major League Baseball are resolved during binding aribtration cases that they voluntarily abide by.  Now contrast that with the NFL labor process where the players backed away from the negotiations in order to file a lawsuit (and use the power of the state) in the hopes of getting a favorable judgement enforced in their favor.

I.G.Y.

Prevention over cure. Prevention over cure. Prevention over cure.

Don't forget to ask yourself, "how does the current system deal with the problem of X?"

I know it's frustrating, but it doesn't have to be perfect to be better, and it doesn't have to be better (in the short run) to be moral.

 Since I am not arguing in favor of the current system, I find that question to be irrelevent to the problem at hand. The problem at hand is a supply-side discrepency.

So yeah, I don't really see how the current system plays in at all. I was trying to think of other ways to settle the issue, other than the state as I mentioned above.

 -a homeowner's association is an example of a nonstate, nonmarket institution

-I am not arguing in favor of the current system

-a 3x child-molesting murderer would be in jail now;

-private police services are another example of an inefficiency of markets; anybody who has a subscription is in essence bailing out all the people around him/her and so will not want to continually bear the cost of his neighbor's problems, and hence will cease to subscribe; this is because police protection is non-excludeable and non-rivalrous;

-everyone would want justice somehow, just as everyone wants to be healthy; your example of towns without police doesn't match up to not having courts (this is why circuit courts exist); business can't survive without a set of rules that are clear, that they canhold business partners, clients, and other actors accountable for. Justice is a requirement of a market.

-what does the MLB example tell you about human nature? one of my voluntaryist friends recently lost his job and is suing his former employer for not paying him unemployment, even thought he was an independent contractor placed there for less than 2 months. (btw, he is so hardcore into it that he is openly bigoted toward anyone who disagrees with the standard program---and THIS is what he wants, to sue them...) People will do anything when there is personal gain to be had.

It's not realistic to assume that "lots of businesses would be [off the grid]".

Being in business requires working with diverse suppliers, creditors, dealerships, agencies, customers---the list goes on and on. My parents own a small business and I know they would not want to risk hurting their business' own reputation and be forced off the grid. Also, if there was so much opportunity off the grid, then what would be the service offered by a DRO, exactly?

What is your definition of market institution that does not include HOAs?

Andrew S.:

It's not realistic to assume that "lots of businesses would be [off the grid]".

Being in business requires working with diverse suppliers, creditors, dealerships, agencies, customers---the list goes on and on. My parents own a small business and I know they would not want to risk hurting their business' own reputation and be forced off the grid. Also, if there was so much opportunity off the grid, then what would be the service offered by a DRO, exactly?

 

 By  "off the grid" i meant outside the reach of a DRO, not off the electric grid per se; what I am trying to illustrate is how the market is inefficient at providing public goods; while public goods can be marketed in a limited variety (mediation/arbitration), markets are still inefficient at distributing public goods, simply because markets make money off of excludeable, rivalrous goods.

The general idea is the DRO could only really thrive on a limited basis, so there needs to be some other nonmarket way of administering justice. Somalia, for example, uses tribal law. I am not sure how a modern post-industrial society would choose to do it.

 

 

peoplespublic:

Then there can't be any criminal sanctions.

So all a 3x child-molesting murderer would have to do is move to a nice small town in the South where people live without a DRO-system and he/she can live quite well and keep on murdering/molesting, as long as he's able to hold down a job he's fine.

This is exaclty the point. The current 'justice' system is based on the violation of the rights of the criminal. If you live under DRO protection, this criminal is excluded from your society.

What do you care what he does, so long as he is safely removed from you and those you care about?

If the people he lives near are also okay with his child molestation.. there really isn't much that we can do about that. (I would consider them criminals as well).

People who live in remote areas outside of the reach of a DRO must live with this choice, the same as they do with every other service (piped in water, cable TV, internet, cell phone, newspaper). Do the benefits outweigh the costs? That is for them to decide. If they really want DRO protection they must be prepared to pay the higher costs required to service their remote location.

People will do anything when there is personal gain to be had.

I could be barking up the wrong tree. but sometimes "throw-away" side comments actually reveal deeper premises that make lower-order discussions moot. I just like to clarify.

This particular side comment suggests that there may be deeper issues at work than the perception of logistical problems with the DRO model.

If this is a window into your fundamental view of human nature (which it may not be), you have already answered your own question on the only level that really counts.

That is: If enough people are crummy enough, often enough, then any system that requires higher standards in any of these categories can't work, by definition, no matter how you rearrange the pieces.

If so, it still doesn't mean you've come to the wrong place, though. Human nature is the subject of much discussion around these parts.

However, looking at human nature, as opposed to economics, might provide a more interesting and productive context for exploring how and why non-coercive social systems would or wouldn't work.

Just a thought. Feel free to ignore it.

As far as what's right or wrong with the DRO model, from an economic perspective, I don't know.

All questions are good questions, though, because someone's going to try it one day, and they'll need the biggest running start they can get.

Andrew S.:

It's not realistic to assume that "lots of businesses would be [off the grid]".

Being in business requires working with diverse suppliers, creditors, dealerships, agencies, customers---the list goes on and on. My parents own a small business and I know they would not want to risk hurting their business' own reputation and be forced off the grid. Also, if there was so much opportunity off the grid, then what would be the service offered by a DRO, exactly?

 

peoplespublic:

 By  "off the grid" i meant outside the reach of a DRO, not off the electric grid per se; what I am trying to illustrate is how the market is inefficient at providing public goods; while public goods can be marketed in a limited variety (mediation/arbitration), markets are still inefficient at distributing public goods, simply because markets make money off of excludeable, rivalrous goods.

The general idea is the DRO could only really thrive on a limited basis, so there needs to be some other nonmarket way of administering justice. Somalia, for example, uses tribal law. I am not sure how a modern post-industrial society would choose to do it.

 

 

First, please use the quote feature correctly to avoid confusion.

Also, I understand what you meant by 'off the grid'. Businesses need to interact with eachother in this stateless society and generally turn to DROs when they are working with another company that they have no history of interractions with or has been accused of being less trustworthy in the past.

Of course, businesses would continuously work with suppliers and customers both with and without DRO involvement (perhaps they would have a blanket contract for general transactions). For example, bringing some cardboard to the recycling yard may be done without a DRO.

However, no business in a free society would want to eliminate the possibility of working with a DRO when necessary. For instance, wiget supplier A may only deal with other businesses with a DRO contract, accepting higher overhead in exchange for lower risk.