Anarchy, State, Utopia, a final comment
Well, someone answered the right answer to the hypothetical, which is that there cannot possibly be a right answer to any question about the legality of anarchy.
Anarchy is an absence of sovereign law. If there is no supreme law of the land, there is no subordinate law. If there is no supreme nor subordinate law, then there is no law at all, and so legal scheme for how the laws in an anarchist commonwealth should be arranged is mere paradox. If it is anarchist, there is no commonwealth. The question is not just stupid, it is fit only to serve as the butt of a jest (as I have here treated it).
Arguing the nuances of how various branches of the anarchist government or various recognized and accredited yet competing justice provision agencies would lawfully conduct their legal business is absurd, because the hypothesis is that there is no law, hence no lawful means to restrict the law providers from doing whatsoever they willed — including decreeing themselves a monopoly, and taking on the other necessary aspects of sovereignty. There is no point in discussing the exact provisions to be included in the constitution of a nation whose law is that there shall be no constitution and hence no law. It is like discussing the provision of a contract whose terms include a provision that all contracts are null and void.
These anarchist and hyperlibertarians schemes are like hearing a proposal by Cyrano de Bergerac on how to reach the moon by strapping flasks of dew to your legs.
Hear me, thou delirious anarchists — what you propose for a method of competing justice systems has been tried and is being tried. The results of the experiment are all around you.
The various sovereigns of the world have determined, due to overwhelming demands by their customers, citizens and subjects, that the payment of user fees, hereafter called taxes, shall be non-voluntary (this is done to halt the free rider problem).
The sovereign justice providers have determined that they shall each enjoy a monopoly each sovereign in his own territory, and they have all tacitly agreed to a non-competition agreement to that effect, and this was done in order to minimize the disorders incumbent upon having two justice providers operating in the same territory. When this compact is broken, a state of war exists.
You may switch justice providers between any two justice providers whose laws allow for this as an emigrant, or if the receiver justice provider’s law allows for this, as a refugee. You must however leave the territory of operations, called a national boundary, and go to another. (The one exception is the United States, which does not enforce her borders with any regularity, and so tacitly welcomes workers and moochers from anywhere.) This was done due to overwhelming popular demand by the customers, citizens and subjects of the justice providers, who do not want persons immune from their laws living among them. (One special exception is offered to embassy grounds — again, this is done only at the express agreement between two justice providers.)
As for competition, you, dear anarchist, are still free at any time to hang out your shingle and declare yourself your own justice provider.
You may design and raise a flag, put on a crown, publish a declaration of independence, and blow a trumpet on the mountain.
Certain persons in compounds in the midwestern and western states, as I recall, have done so.
However, the laws and agreements of our justice provider, the US of A, in response to overwhelming popular demand, says we will surround your stupid compound and gas you and burn you out and shoot you when you attempt to flee, since declaring yourself to be a justice provider within our boundaries is an act of war or rebellion, and our customers have asked, nay, have demanded we treat all competition to our laws and all disturbers of our peace like the rebels and crackpots that they are. Capice?
If you are so afraid of the corruption of the police or the height of taxes in America, you are free at any time to build a houseboat and set sail for the high seas. No nation claims the middle of the ocean. I am sure you will find a way to sustain yourself by fishing. Also, the conflicting claims on Antarctica have met with stalemate: I am confident the various justice providers of the world would allow you to go there and live however you wish unhindered by our laws.
But if you want to stay HERE, behind our walls, within our borders, and protected by our laws and troops, you must realize we have no imaginable method of protecting ourselves from crime within or invasion without without also willy-nilly protecting you.
Sorry, we did not invent reality, we just live in it.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
