[extropy-chat] The Hidden Luddite was Re: peak oil debate

[Mike Lorrey]

--- david <deimtee at optusnet.com.au> wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote:
> 
> > There are actually non-government regulation ways of dealing with  
> > fraudulent or harmful businesses.  A system of laws against fraud
> and  
> > various forms of aggression on the rights and well-being of others 
> > would seem sufficient. 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> A non-government system of laws against fraud, harmful practices and 
> agression ?
> Who writes them?
> Who enforces them?

Ah, perhaps you have heard about a thing called Common Law. It is a set
of legal precedent established over centuries of near-anarchical living
in England prior to the conquest of William the Conqueror up to the
present day. It was created by no government, it just happened. It is
possibly the finest example of the paleo-extropian principle of
Spontaneous Order (I prefer the older ExI principles myself).

Common Law is 'written' by every judge who issues opinions in
judgements in any common law system. Government is not necessary for
this system to operate.

Prior to the information age, government was deemed necessary to
establish some form of final arbiter in the system of Common Law (and
other legal systems, such as Civil Law, Equity Law, and Admiralty Law),
because vetting persons wise enough to judge the judges and judge those
who judge the judges was seen as of enough import to get right that a
governmental system of consensus building (or simply martial ordering
by divine right) and enforcement was thought necessary.

Today, however, individual humans have far greater information
processing capabilities than was once held by entire nations. For more
thoughts on this, I'd point you to a few articles I've written at Neal
Stephenson's Metaweb, http://www.metaweb.com, particularly on FOQNE's,
the Common Economic Protocol, Protocol Enforcement, and Final Arbiters.
I also suggest a look at ICA's implementation of the Common Economic
Protocol: http://ica.citystateinc.com/library/CEP1_0.html, as well as
the writings of David Friedman, such as his book "The Machinery of Freedom".

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


	
		
______________________________________________________
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
http://store.yahoo.com/redcross-donate3/