Would there be a Death Penalty in Anarchy?
Shawna Forde has a problem with undocumented immigrants. She was so upset about it, she joined a minuteman group and did press interviews at the Mexican border with a handgun tucked into the back of her pants. Then she was kicked out of the group and formed her own. Then she was convicted of murdering a Hispanic father and daughter by a Pima county, Arizona jury. She faces the death penalty.
What would this situation look like in anarchy? First, the border and illegal immigrant issues would be minimized. Current-day borders are created by states. In anarchy, there are no states, and so no borders. Well, if the anarcho-capitalists get their way, there would be a border at every property line. But it’s unlikely the border crossings would be as traumatic since issues of national identity would be less important and property owners would have a financial incentive to expedite the crossings.
If social anarchists get their way, borders would likely be even further minimized. Instead of having to get permission from road owners – however perfunctory – to use them, the roads might be commons and thus open to everyone’s unhindered use.
Would there be a death penalty in anarchy? If we take the example of contractual law, restitution would likely be favored over retribution (punishment). A victim of the death penalty can not make restitution. Thus, someone like Shawna Forde would more likely be sentenced to restitution in anarchy.
Would restitution be a cake walk? No. In anarchy, Forde might be stuck in a prison-like mental hospital or heavily-monitored halfway house setting. The kind of work she could get might not be very pleasant. But at least the surviving mom would benefit. Punishment, on the other hand, serves no one but the state.
George Donnelly, 
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Sovereign Curtis 2:20 pm on February 23, 2011 Permalink |
“the roads might be commons and thus open to everyone’s unhindered use.”
And thus no one would have the incentive to maintain the road
George Donnelly 2:38 pm on February 23, 2011 Permalink |
Not true! There was a case recently where a restaurant was filling potholes and using that to promote their service. In Colombia, people fill in potholes and go around asking for donations for their work. Perhaps it’s analogous to how putting intellectual property into the commons promotes further use and purchase of said media.
PunkJohnnyCash 4:06 pm on February 23, 2011 Permalink |
This road issue can be one that is highly relative to Professor Elinor Ostrom and What Derek Wall posted this morning http://www.gonzotimes.com/2011/02/state-private-or-commons-and-the-public-choice-theory/
The commons will be better maintained than the state will maintain such resources.
Meadester 5:03 pm on February 23, 2011 Permalink |
Would there be a death penalty in anarchy? I see you don’t answer that with an unequivocal “No.” And rightly so. While you say “Punishment … serves no one but the state,” some victim’s family members might disagree. They might find the feeling of vindication from taking the murderer’s life to be worth more than any amount of money. Also, the killers vital organs could be sold, with the proceeds going to victim’s family members, thus benefiting them and numerous people in need of life-saving transplants, all just by killing one person who, arguably, deserved to die.
Now, you can say that the death penalty is wrong because it’s irreversible, and someone innocent who is less likely to have evidence found exonerating them before it’s too late than they would with a life-long prison sentence. That’s a fair argument (and the only argument against the death penalty I’ve ever found convincing). Of course, someone who spends many years in prison (or a mental hospital or halfway house) for a wrongful conviction can never get those years back, and may not find any amount of money or other material consideration makes up for that wasted time. Such are the risks of pursuing justice in an imperfect world – the death penalty varies only in degree. In any case, whether you believe this proves executions wrong or not, there is nothing in the principles of anarchism which you have stated that rules out the death penalty.
LibertyVini 9:51 pm on February 23, 2011 Permalink |
@ George;
“There was a case recently where a restaurant was filling potholes and using that to promote their service.”
Looks like a case of (temporary) homesteading to me. I think we lose something when we think of all resources as wholly owned or wholly in common. Many roads in the northeast started as game trails, then footpaths, then dirt roads, then paved roads. People and animals improved them on ad-hoc or concerted bases. They would be abandoned, then reclaimed. Institutional “common” ownership requires constant unending funding of all existing roads and as many new ones as they can shove through.
EvZe 12:20 am on February 24, 2011 Permalink |
“And thus no one would have the incentive to maintain the road”
If all roads became easements to the property which they adjoined then the obligation for maintenance of the roads could fall to the property owners (or letters in the mutualist model) themselves, which is fair and just as inaccessible property is usually worthless property. Because easement is a right of common law it needs no institutions of a formal state, such as a parliament, to enact and codify it. It is as it is.
George Donnelly 8:09 am on February 24, 2011 Permalink |
It’s very difficult to give absolute answers to what people do with their freedom. That’s the nature of freedom.
It doesn’t matter what the victim’s family feels or wants, it only matters what is fair or reasonable or has already been agreed to. Taking ownership of another human being is slavery and I don’t see anyone agreeing to that. Would you?
Vini, commons ownership means everyone has access and nominal ownership but not that a state will be formed.
Great point EvZe. Thanks everyone for commenting.
Michael 5:34 pm on February 24, 2011 Permalink |
I would think the family of the deceased would have a large say in what happens to person who committed the act of violence. If they chose to hang the aggressor, then so be it. However, “State” sponsored death penalties would no longer exist and I would presume that the rate of “death sentences” would decrease.
I would go on to say that a voluntary society, that has to deal with it’s problems directly, would act as a larger deterrent for potential aggressors that violate the NAP. At some level the individual will be required to take responsibility, instead of relying on the state for assistance.
LibertyVini 9:01 pm on February 24, 2011 Permalink |
Well, yes. State-mediated common “nownership” was what I was against, nominal commons / effective ownership / homesteading was what I was for.
Meadester 10:56 pm on February 24, 2011 Permalink |
If what the victim’s family feels or wants doesn’t matter, then nothing does. “Society” is an abstraction – like The State, it does not bleed and feels no physical or emotional pain, so any interests it might have are miniscule compared to the individuals affected – victims, surviving loved ones of victims, and/or likely future victims. That is not to say we have to support the most outrageous revenge fantasies, but to recognize that no amount of money can compensate for a life or violation of
bodily integrity. The only compensation worthy of the name involves the perpetrator suffering.
You can frame the act of treating people, who have forfeited their rights by callously and wantonly disregarding the rights of others, the way they deserve to be treated as slavery. I would consider slavery something imposed upon people who have done nothing to deserve it (including people imprisoned for victimless “crimes.”) That’s a matter of semantics, though. Most people would not support slavery as such, but would not consider evil people getting their just desserts as slavery. I know that a majority opinion does not make something right but since you brogught it up, yes the vast majority of people throughout the world, even in Europe, Canada and other such places where elites thwart their will, do support making people who commit terrible crimes suffer the worst possible fate for them. It will not change under anarchy. The vast majority of people will always want people who commit unspeakable acts of evil to suffer. You may be able to convince people to reject the death penalty on the basis of its irreversibility in the face of exoneration, but I can’t imagine most people accepting that the value of human life can be reduced to a monetary amount. That is what would be required for people to give up the idea of retribution and punishment.
LibertyVini 12:07 am on February 25, 2011 Permalink |
Isn’t imprisonment and / or forced labor, likely for life, retribution enough? Why couldn’t the range of restitution be broad enough to cover rich people who kill? The present system produces retribution at terrible cost, and without any compensation, as well as outrage beyond what might occur in the light of justice. Private courts / protection agencies might be incentivized to pursue criminals, versus the state system which pursues drug users.
George Donnelly 9:15 am on February 25, 2011 Permalink |
Michael, why would the family have any say whatsoever? Where would that authority come from?
Meade, why would then nothing matter?
I hope everyone interested reads Murphy’s Chaos Theory chapter on private law. It is a very interesting and useful start on this topic.
http://georgedonnelly.com/opinion/murphy-private-law-market-anarchy
Meadester 11:28 am on February 25, 2011 Permalink |
If the people whose rights have been violated don’t matter, then who’s rights do? The rest of us who might have our rights violated by the same criminal in the future? The rights of the rest of us as potential future victims do matter, but without taking into account those who have already been violated we are trivializing the crime, basically denying the reality of it, reducing it to a transaction gone bad rather than acknowledging the full reality of the human suffering it has caused.
I will say that I should have said “I believe the vast majority of people will always want people who commit unspeakable acts of evil to suffer,” rather than state it as a certainty, I can’t predict the future, and people who have said things will always be this way, or never be that way, have been wrong before. I just think it is several orders of magnitude less likely than discovering a race of super-intelligent dogs on one of the moons of Saturn.
Meadester 11:31 am on February 25, 2011 Permalink |
That should have been “I just think it is several orders of magnitude less likely than discovering a race of super-intelligent dogs on one of the moons of Saturn that this will change.”