Sadly, no.

1a. The defendant will fire any representative that collaborates with his intended victim's representative just before committing the crime and take his chances until contacting a security provider subsidiary of Acquittals R Us that he read about on clearlybusted.com, a defendant's web forum which gives it rave reviews.

5a. The Mobster: "I'm looking at 8 to 10, so I need a representative who cares more about me than being able to work with other insurance companies. Here, take this large roll of hundreds and get a ruling in my favor from your parent company Acquittals R Us."

I take it you don't subscribe to the "treat everyone who doesn't join our favored courts as Somali pirates with no rights" school of anarcho-capitalism then.

EXCEPT THE VICTIM'S SECURITY FIRM WILL NOT WORK WITH ACQUITTALS R US. THE VICTIM WILL NOT GO TO THE ****TY COURT AND GET SCREWED

That means that the corrupt security firm cannot offer the service you claim they do. Period. They might produce a huge pile of "verdicts" that nobody respects, which still leaves open the possibility of the victim being taken to a fair court, with the same result as if he had used the fair court in the first place, except he loses the money he paid to the corrupt one.

This is not a long term business plan, and the corrupt firm will quickly go out of business.

No one in this thread subscribes to that view. The view you are (seemingly willfully) mischaracterising is that once you initiate force you have no right to claim injury if someone uses force against you. I think the somalia "pirates" are a bad example as they have had force initiated against their property but the argument is they have gone outside the "law" and initiated force so then lose their "right" to not have force used against them.

LOL @ the defendant giving a ****, as long as the case against him can't go forward.

Nonsense. The mobster just passed them a fat roll of hundreds to put on a black robe and say, "Not guilty." That's business, baby.

WTF? Double jeopardy is okee dokee in ACland as long as the first verdict was from a court you don't like?

What corruption? Acquittals R Us rules exactly as promised every time. How is that dishonest or illegal?

Again, a complete absence of thought or effort in this post. Come back when you're ready to have an honest debate and not copy and paste the same post over and over again.

I think it's not correct to assume 2 firms always wish to co-operate.

There is a possiblity a firm could do quite well simply providing protection from others. They may not be able to go after villians after the fact (since that requires co-operation) but could provide deterrence quite well, no questions asked. Not just criminals but I bet a certain segment of law-abiding people would support a philosophy and there would be a profitable market.

Besides that, it is very likely that some competitors will be created to suit the varied beliefs of their customers. There are certainly enough divisive isues that large segments are passionate about.
Is Sharia Ltd likely to run into areas of dispute with Liberal Inc.? Ya and if they want to keep their customers happy, neither may back down.

Disputes in this case deadlock without ever worrying about who or how biased an arbitrator is.

Strawn,

Do me a favor and really read this one.

There are only 2 scenarios that can happen.

1.) The two security firms work together and get the case into a private court.

2.) The two security firms can't get together and get the court into a private court. Now the only options are to let the case drop (the victim is going to be pretty damn pissed making this option inviable) or to go to war with each other.


Your hypothetical that the mobster can block the case by using a non-cooperative security firm can't happen. If they tried this, it would be war. So your options are cooperate or armed conflict.

And the firms that have to do the least amount of armed conflict are going to be the ones that can offer their services the cheapest because armed conflict is extremely expensive leaving only the firms who cooperate. When your two business choices are make a phone call, or armed conflict, it's pretty much a no brainer.

But before you go all "ZOMG coercion" on me, REMEMBER THIS ONE IMPORTANT ASPECT:

The courts are divorced from the security firms. All this so called oligarchy is doing is getting both sides of a dispute to agree on a private court. The private courts are the ones making the ruling. And I've already explained why those private courts would be fair due to the market.

Good post! This handwringing over "zomg what if I like a different arbitrator" would be more compelling if state intervention had somehow put an end to international disputes. Throwing up a roadblock here is basically double standardism in action.

Yes a firm could do quite well simply providing protection provided their own customers never harm anybody. But once they start harming people or even being accused of harming people, they're going to have to cooperate with investigations or become outlaws.

Sharia vs Liberal doesn't matter. Remember, the security firms are DIVORCED from the private courts. Both sides just have to agree on a private court to avoid armed conflict. And both sides will only agree on a court that is unbiased which will be created by the market.

And the only things that can be litigated upon is harm. So most issues you are thinking in your head won't be prosecutable. Try bringing a case to court arguing that you are being harmed by somebody being gay. Good luck with that.

It would just bring the problem of a lack of final arbiter to a local level.

Maybe society would fragment completely or maybe it would force people
to get more homogeneous ideas. Hard to say.

Or maybe people would stick to disagreeing about things with direct, measurable harms.

EDIT: disagree is a terrible word, here, but I can't think of the right one. They would only take action is closer, though still not there.

I always really read them.

Say what? I thought war was prohibitively expensive. Why would one business declare war on another over a $10,000 stickup job?

Says who? Are they regulated?

You have not explained why the market for guaranteed acquittals would be neglected, other than by saying the rulings would not be respected, to which our friend the defendant says, "I'll show you what you can do with respected. I'm outta here, bye!"

See #1.

We have already established that no security firm the plaintiff is likely to hire will work with a subsidiary of Acquittals R Us anyway.

Can we just concede that Strawn's sociopathic security firm could exist, and could perform the service he describes so I never have to see Acquittals R Us again?

I mean, it's obvious to anybody that thinks through the full consequences of the existence of the firm he describes that it won't last long or be an effective force, but he's never going to actually read and attempt to understand the alternate view.

That's a zinger. Since when is taking advantage of huge demand by providing honest services a "sociopathic" trait in the free market?

Not an argument.

If your case is so "obvious" then why are you doing such a poor job of making it? And why don't you address my points directly instead of through snide side comments to others?

In order for a private court to gain any type of business, they need to be able to convince two separate conflicting parties that their court would be a just arbitrator of their dispute. Acquittals R Us would never get a case. With all of the actual interesting questions and debates about how private courts would or wouldn't work, your hang up on Acquittals R Us seems bizarre.

You've completely ignored my points, or just handwaved them away.

It's sociopathic because they're refusing to work with anyone.

There are going to be some occasions when the co-operative security firms are forced to go to war IF there are so called firms (I call them protection rackets) that won't negotiate to decide cases in private courts. Just like if I hire a security firm to protect my vessel from Pirates and the pirates keep attacking. They are going to have to step up and use armed conflict to defend their clients.

But you have 2 types of firms.

Firm A: This is the firm that negotiates with all firms that are willing to bring cases to neutral courts to be decided and willing to do battle with the few outlaws that exist.

Firm B: This is the firm that has to do battle with every single firm in existence because it only protects criminals.

Which firm will be extremely more profitable and efficient?

And without black markets, how are these criminals going to pay for wars? Even an organized crime spree is not enough money to fund non-stop war against every single security firm in existence. You would need black markets to even attempt this.

You're right. Because any plaintiff would choose to bring his case to the court that is owned by security firm of his opponent. Yup, that would happen.

Come on. The only courts that would get any cases consistently are the fair and balanced courts. Do you dispute this point specifically?



OK, we're going to try this again:

In order to have an acquittal, both sides need to FIRST agree on a MUTUALLY ACCEPTABLE COURT. There will be no trial until both sides agree on a court.

The plaintiff against Bob would not agree on his aquittals are us court so that trial would never happen.

Now if Bob's security firm is unable to agree on private courts with the other security firms, Bob's security firm can now ONLY PROTECT BOB WITH FORCE.

So now Bob's firm is going to fall into category B of firms that have to go to war with everybody. That firm will quickly go bankrupt because it is doing battle with other firms that have the majority of their money earned by simply making phone calls and negotiating peaceful trials. Firm A is sustainable business, Firm B, constant war, is NOT.

The Firm A's would simply have to outlast the Firm B's and eventually they'd go under. Once and awhile they might pop up again on the fringes of society, but this is no different from the state.

Show where I did this please, and I will gladly answer it now.

Are you joking? They're working with their clients.

The defendant pays them for an acquittal, they provide such. Transaction competed. Both parties go home happy.

That's the way it's supposed to happen in the free market.

How are they securing the acquittal? How stupid do the victims of crime have to be for your scenario to work?

This is my previous post that said this, and your handwave response, btw.

I saw this deluge of stupidity coming and took a forum break =)

If there is anything important that I missed, please point it out.

They are not "securing" an acquittal. They, the court, are ruling their client, the defendant, acquitted.

Since when do two private parties need a third party's permission to conduct business in the free market? Whether anyone else "recognizes" their transaction is beside the point. Acquittals R Us does not need anyone's permission to operate, nor is there any authority with competence to overrule its judgements.

Simply reposting the entire exchange doesn't add anything. Show me your specific question and where I handwaved it, and I will do my best to set things right.