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According to its website, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has two main areas of investigation:"national security priorities" and" criminal priorities." Under the former are included counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cyber crime; under the latter are included public corruption, civil rights, organized crime, white-collar crime, and"major thefts/violent crime."
We've clearly reached the end of the conversation: we've defined our terms and we are clearly working with such different premises that further discussion would be even less fruitful than the previous discussion.
William Stepp -
2/15/2009
[...]the fundamental feudal relationship is the exchange (not necessarily free exchange, though) of service for protection.
All governments are protection rackets, as are war lords; warlordism is a type of government.
The plunder of governments is called taxation.
A government by definition is a monopoly of coercive force over an arbitrarily circumscribed geographical area, which gains its revenue by theft. Theft by the state can take different forms, such as taxation of incomes, property, sales, estates, etc.; or clipping/shaving coins, or inflation of its monopoly money.
A feudal government is just a subset of this; so is a democracy. They differ in form and in certain details, but their essence--a monopoly/crookopoly of force, which entails theft, among other actions--remains the same.
In the modern era, governments wrap themselves in their battle flags, and invoke false idols to justify and raionalize their depradations, such as patriotism, national security and the Keynesian multiplier. These also involve scarmongering, and whipping up fear and hatred of other counries and peoples, and sometimes of people in the leader's own country, such as "economic royalists," which was invented by Commander-in-Chief/Generalissimo Franklin I.
Organized crime is not a government, as it has no jurisdictional claims that would be recognized in common law or any other free market legal system (or by the State, for that matter, which upholds monopoly jurisdictional claims).
I deny your claim that corporate "partnerships" (or any non-corporate business form--corporations are not legally partnerships) have any feudal components. They do not generally involve giving up basic rights, or at least wouldn't in a libertarian legal system. There are some exceptions, such as "intellectual property" rights, and non-compete clauses, but these are the result of statute law (which as Spooner pointed out is not law at all, but just an absurdity, a usurpation, and a crime).
Furthermore, corporations don't have a self-proclaimed right to steal from their customers, or from anyone else. They don't claim a monopoly/crookopoly of force over a certain territory.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/15/2009
You quoted my definition once already:
Feudalism is a system in which private contracts replace public law, and the only limitation on your power is that which you can negotiate.
The corrollary to this is that power tends to accumulate, under a feudal system (which always, as near as I can tell, develops as functional government degrades), in conjunction with the availability of physical force: the fundamental feudal relationship is the exchange (not necessarily free exchange, though) of service for protection. This covers serfdom, vassalage, and all the other aspects of Western European feudalism without the structural baggage you don't seem to be able to see past.
Feudalism is still an active force in the world, though not at all limited to the situations you cite: much of the organization in "organized crime" consists of feudal relationships; many corporate "partnerships" have a strongly feudal component; the surrender of basic rights (free speech, association, search, etc.) by employees of large corporations can be understood in the context of the power/protection dynamic.
When governments break down, warlordism (sometimes in the form of tribalism) is the most common result.
cynthia thomasine hunt -
2/15/2009
A few months ago my family and friends in my town got sick all at the same time. I never in my life was that sick. At the time I had no job and our food was running out so there was a jar of peanut butter and a sack of crackers in my shelf. We ate that for 3 days. I got sick on the first day. I have no insurance and could not afford to go to the doctor. One of my friends went in the hospital with the same sickness and we thought we would wait and see what he had. The doctors did not know. Later we saw the news about the peanut butter. It took us all two weeks to get over it and we all lost weight. I want the public to know that that number they said that got sick from the peanut butter is wrong. All of the undocumented cases like us was not counted because we are all uninsured and we had no proof because we threw the empty containers away unaware that was what made us sick. I will never eat peanut butter again.
William Stepp -
2/15/2009
You haven't defined feudalism, but the way I'm using it is, I think, the way most historians would.
Vestiges of feudalism still exist of course; most South American peasants don't have property titles in the land they nominally own, which is why Hernando De Soto has called for property rights reform there.
That would enable them to start more small businesses and improve their lives. It would also speed the development of a middle class, which might be a brake on the growth of local thugcrockcracies, like the one in Argentina, not to mention Venezuela and Ecuador.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/15/2009
You'd love Smith, really.
I like historical fiction better.
Truer words....
Your definition of feudalism is musty and old, Euro-centric and so heuristically useless that actual scholars of feudal systems gave it up decades ago.
Most of us stopped taking our historical definitions from Marx a long time ago: what's holding you back?
William Stepp -
2/15/2009
You're actually making my point, but you draw the wrong conclusion. Of course people would be willing to pay against criminal intrusion by rogue "defense"--note the quotes--firms. But invaders by definition are not defense firms: they are outlaws.
There's no reason to think that free market defense would end up in gun battles.
You're caricature of free market defense is uninformed by history or theory. See Bruce Benson's book _The Enterprise of Law_.
Wrong on my favorite novelists, and I am no Randroid, not by a long shot.
She was ignorant of economics and wrote some boneheaded comments on Mises (see _Ayn Rand's Marginalia_).
She also loved intellectual monopolies (patents and copyrights), and hated anarchy.
I've never read Smith.
Reading H.G. Wells when I was a kid turned me off from sci fi, unusual, I guess, for a libertarian. Heinlein is cool, but not my favorite.
I like historical fiction better.
Feudalism is a system in which private contracts replace public law, and the only limitation on your power is that which you can negotiate. Sounds a lot like your dream world.
Feudalism is a system in which a feudal lord owns the land, and serfs labor for him in exchange for enough of the product (food, shelter, alms for the Church, etc.) to keep body and soul together.
There are no private contracts under feudalism. The feudal lord has all the power; every one else is a serf or a vassal (or part of the Church hierarchy), and works for the lord/(or Lord).
Oddly, today's issue of The Economist has a special report on the global emerging middle classes, and quotes Marx from _The Communist Manifesto_, which refutes your point:
Historically it has played a most revolutionary part. The bourgeoisie, whereever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal... relations.
He goes on about how capitalism has grown along with the increase of markets and world trade.
The passage ends:
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.
We are not going back to feudalism, despite the best efforts of the Obamaramadrama-baby regime-circus to turn Washington financialcrats into the new lords of finance, and to break the world anew. (Never mind that Liaquat Ahamed got the gold standard wrong and overlooked the bastardized gold exchange standard in his _Lord of Finance_.)
Feudalism is dead! (Except maybe in the minds of certain history professors, and I hope the taxpayers of your state like their ro"i".)
Long live feudalism!
Jonathan Dresner -
2/15/2009
Why would a private defense firm prevent another one from investigating a crime? That would ruin its reputation with its customers and potential customers, and put it out of business.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....
Are you telling me that you really think there wouldn't be people willing to make money providing forceful defense against intrusion by other private defense firms, and that the biggest, best-paying clients wouldn't win the resulting gun battles?
Let me guess: your favorite novelists are Ayn Rand, L. Neil Smith, and Robert Heinlein, in that order.
Feudalism is a system in which private contracts replace public law, and the only limitation on your power is that which you can negotiate. Sounds a lot like your dream world.
William Stepp -
2/15/2009
According to the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Peanut Corp. filed for bankruptcy because it was "unable to conduct any business."
The free market at work, shutting down a questionable business.
Contrast that with criminals like Bush and Blair, who were able to get away with massive crimes for years, including mass murder, before leaving office. No free market at work there.
Jeff Riggenbach -
2/14/2009
Yeah. "Know doubt."
JR
William Stepp -
2/14/2009
Why would a private defense firm prevent another one from investigating a crime? That would ruin its reputation with its customers and potential customers, and put it out of business.
What does feudalism have to do with the free market or capitalism?
Feudalism predates the participatory fascism we have. The next step is liberty. You might like it, or maybe not, as you'd have to take your hands out of the local taxpayers pockets, who know doubt include lots of poor taxpayers.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/14/2009
And what happens when the subject of the investigation has a bigger private defense firm and doesn't want to be searched?
Why don't we just skip ahead to the part where we reimpose feudalism....
William Stepp -
2/14/2009
This case presumably involves multiple consumers of peanut butter. I doubt that they collectively lack the resources to fund a full investigation. Furthermore, in a private court system, plaintiffs could arrange contingency fees with lawyers that included compensating private investigators. One could imagine other payment options as well.
A criminal defense lawyer once told me that his minimum fee for a garden variety murder case is $25,000.
When I asked him how poor people accused of murder afford his services, he said I'd be surprised at what people do to come up with the money when their life is on the line.
For one thing, they get money from relatives. Another thing that happens a lot is that churches in poorer neighborhoods (I gather mostly Catholic or evangelical Protestant) constantly take up collections that are earmarked to pay for things like members' legal defense. Contributions are voluntary, but every member experiences group pressure to contribute, and is probably shunned to a degree if he doesn't.
Libertarians are in favor of search warrants; but they'd be executed by private defense firms, not the local court 'n cop monopoly known as the government.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/13/2009
So, libertarians -- as described by Mr. Stepp -- are against crime, but also against court systems that are available to people who can't afford private investigators with forensic abilities.
They're also probably against search warrants, which makes the whole "proving" thing kind of challenging.
William Stepp -
2/13/2009
No, libertarians are against crime, including fraudulent conveyances, murder, mass murder, theft, and taxation. They do have to be proven first though in a court, which evidently some non-libertarians don't accept.
By far the greatest crimes are committed by the State, an organization Rothbard called "the biggest mass murderer, armed robber, enslaver, and parasite in all of human history."
Shipping tainted peanut products, however bad that might be, pales in comparison to the stuff the State does every day in the routine execution--and that is the operative word--of its "business."
Better to be a private criminal than a "public servant," as the New Class parasite, professional con artist, and Ponzi scheme abettor Schumer likes to call himself.
Ralph Luker -
2/13/2009
Is it Mr. Stepp's position that venders should be free to ship salmonella-tainted food if they want to? That's pretty free, isn't it?
William Stepp -
2/13/2009
States are criminal gangs, thugcrockracies, so no one need recognize their "compacts."
Jonathan Dresner -
2/13/2009
The thing about deliberately poisoning: it's a counterfactual intended to highlight aspects of the actual situation.
Though you may not recognize federal jurisdiction, it can easily be explained as a simple organizational convenvience, a negotiated compact between the states to prevent conflict.
I don't think anyone who's commented here, except L&P bloggers themselves, is actually a libertarian. So no worries about consistency there.
William Stepp -
2/13/2009
David Gross,
The peanut firm was alleged by the FDA knowingly to have sold tainted peanuts. They are innocent until proven guilty. As you said, you could have looked that up.
Ralph Luker,
Libertarians don't recognize such a thing as a federal crime, or make a distinction between a federal and a non-federal crime.
If Smith murders Jones, that is a crime whether the Feds recognize it as such or not. Conrariwise, just because the Feds define an act as a federal crime doesn't make it one.
The Feds define transporting drugs from Mexico to the U.S. as a federal crime; however, in libertarian theory there is nothing criminal about it.
Jonathan Dresner,
No one has alleged, let alone proved, that anyone at the plant deliberately poisoned random chosen jars.
You say this qualifies as a white-collar crime and a violent crime, but no crime has been proven, so at this point neither category is true.
As for interstate commerce, we can solve that problem be abolishing the states.
Or to approach it from another perspective with a question, why do non-libertarians think state boundaries change the essential reality of a situation (other than adding layers of bureaucracy and increasing the cost of transacting thanks to the vig ripped off by the state[s])?
The fact that the alleged crime and the injury happened in different jurisdictions shouldn't make law enforcement different, and shouldn't make it a federal crime.
James Otteson is correct that local law enforcement could handle this.
(Of course, you have to get them away from the Dunkin' Donuts shops first, and get them to do some real work.)
And I love to see self-professed libs defending the FBI. Maybe next they'll be defending J. Edgar Hoover's black record of crimes.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/13/2009
Interstate commerce: the crime and the injury happened in different jurisdictions. That's why we have federal law enforcement.
And puns in blog titles? That's pretty common stuff these days. You could have gone for "the squeaky wheel gets the butter" or "cracking down" or "P-men" or "shell games" or ... never mind. It's too easy.
James Otteson -
2/12/2009
No need to get snippy. Mr. Gross, nothing you said Would seem to require a federal agency--why couldn't it have been handled by local law enforcement?
And not a single compliment on the pun in my title? Gee, tough crowd.
Jonathan Dresner -
2/12/2009
If someone at the plant were deliberately poisoning random jars, it would qualify as a violent, terroristic act.
How does a libertarian argue the difference between premeditation and depraved indifference?
Even following the premises of the question, this qualifies as a white collar crime as well as a violent crime.
Ralph Luker -
2/12/2009
Yes! Would libertarians want to decriminalize the shipping of salmonella-tainted food to American consumers? It's a federal crime. Why wouldn't the FBI investigate it?
David Gross -
2/11/2009
Because they knowingly sold salmonella-tainted peanuts, sickening many people and killing some, and the FBI is concerned they will destroy evidence that shows they disregarded the results of tests that prove this and that they negligently evaded responsibility for ensuring their facilities weren't a danger to their customers. You could have looked that up.
