Topic: With no taxes, what about firestations and garbage service? - page 2. (Read 11384 times)

Moonshadow - read your own post.  "...the king's judges..." <- that gives a hint of royal involvement doesn't it?

Well, wikipedia isn't the end all, but it's right there in the section that you linked to, in the preamble...

"The term "common law" originally derives from the reign of Henry II of England, in the 1150s and 1160s. The "common law" was the law that emerged as "common" throughout the realm (as distinct from the various legal codes that preceded it, such as Mercian law, the Danelaw and the law of Wessex)[29] as the king's judges followed each other's decisions to create a unified common law throughout England. The doctrine of precedent developed during the 12th and 13th centuries,[30] as the collective judicial decisions that were based in tradition, custom and precedent.[31]

And there is this...

"In 1154, Henry II became the first Plantagenet king. Among many achievements, Henry institutionalized common law by creating a unified system of law "common" to the country through incorporating and elevating local custom to the national, ending local control and peculiarities,"

Granted Henry II gets much credit for acting as a unifying force, but Common law was derived from local customary laws that developed independently of the crown, due mostly to a vacuum of judges in the preceding couple centuries.  At most, however, he established the intent to unify the law, he didn't do it.  There were judges that existed before Henry II, that had no backing whatever from the crown.  It is from these local judges that common law received it's base.

I've not the time nor inclination to educate you, so if you really would like to enlighten yourself, I suggest you start with Whatever Happened to Justice by Rich Maybury and The Path of the Law

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#Medieval_English_common_law

Feel free to point to the period in history where the common law was not the king's law. 

Actually, your history is bullshit.  British common law was not developed by the crown nor the courts established by the crown.  The crown didn't give it any credence at all up almost until the Magna Carta, which itself was law developed against the will of the crown.  And there is plenty of existing examples of competing systems of law that coexist.  One such example is the International Business Court, which had (has?) zero government backing.

Actually the common law only existed in the Royal courts.  The Crown/State was and remains actively involved.

Bitcoin pools can co-exist.  Competing systems of law cannot - one will end up being the supreme law.

Not necessarily all the powers of a government, as this was not the case for British common law, which was developed as case law over generations without much interaction or support from the British crown.  However, I do see your point.  You assume that any consolidation of judicial (or perhaps otherwise) power will eventually become indistingishable from a deliberate government structure, so we might as well keep the devil we know, right?  This is a rational point, but not necessarily a correct one.  The ongoing consolidation of such powers assumes that the public does nothing to contradict it, for which we have a real example of a society that actively avoids majority concentrations of power despite the very real advantages to consolidation of power.  Namely the Bitcoin pools, which are not permitted to exceed (or even dramaticly approach) a 50% total network hashrate.  Users don't attack the pools to prevent it (well, most don't) they either switch pools or drop into solo mining to prevent individual pools from hitting that mark.

Arbitration means no litigation.

Property, domestic violence, divorce, child care, contract, probate, the list of things that laws need to address is long.  My point is that if there is a free market in courts with each court able to make its own rules, there will end up being only 1 court as the rest get eliminated dispute by dispute.  And when that one is left,it will have all the powers of a government.

Arbitrator or judge being involved is litigation. If you are reffering to breaking laws, without a central government there wouldn't be any laws to break, and protection of property by private security would be a separate issue

From "arbitrator/judge, or even be aware of a dispute in the first place?" - that sounds like a dispute that can be resolved without litigation doesn't it?

Where did you get "people who have no need for the court" from  "most disputes are about how much the one who screwed up needs to pay the other" ? What do you think people use courts for???

You are avoiding the point.  Of course people who have no need for the court won't use it.  Why would they? But people who do have disputes that require litigation will end up with a monopoly provider and that provider will become an unelected government. 

Considering most disputes are about how much the one who screwed up needs to pay the other, I don't see why bloodshed would be involved. How would they prevent the two parties from going to their own arbitrator/judge, or even be aware of a dispute in the first place?

If you have created a situation where one private company owns the courts and the police, anyone who tries to set up against them has to face the likelihood of being killed in a legal dispute.

Being killed is a fairly high barrier to entry, don't you agree?

The generally accepted law will be a monopoly. If there's a court that's a monopoly, and it starts being inconsistent with its decisions in order to manipulate outcomes for its own benefit, people won't trust it and won't use it. Two people having a dispute can easily go to their elder to help them decide the issue in front of a jury of their neighbors, based onestablished law they already trust. There's really no barrier to entry when it comes to setting up a court, besides trust, and that's already established in local communities.

Yeah, that. Monopolies exist when barriers to entry are high. Completely forgot about that. Courts dfon't have those.

Exactly!  So if you have multiple competing courts to begin with, after a few conflicts where the one with the ability to enforce its decisions wins, it will end up being a monopoly.  The head of its enforcement agency will be an effective dictator.

If a court can't stay consistent, no one will trust it, nor use it.

Courts will always give a decision.  The issue is that it won't be the same decision.

Can you think of an example where one person wants to take it to a sharia court, the other wants to take it to common law court, neither can agree on a court, and someone's rights get infringedon due to lack of court decision?

The whole concept is of ideas like Sharia law, Common Law, Roman Law and so on competing sine there won't be a legislature and there won't be any official body with law making authority.

And as a matter of law, in any system, if the argument is that the deceased was improperly influenced then it likely doesn't matter where they entered their will.

I think in your example, the court that the deceased chose to enter their will with will have the final say, and if any dispute does arise, both parties will have to agree on a court before proceeding. Yes, even if it's directly the third arbitrage one. Though I can't see two competing lines of law emerging. Just like today, some court will eventually settle the difference between then, and others will simply adopt it.