yazadjal.com

Andy Duncan at Samizdata, still drunk over the English Rugby victory (can’t blame him, England seems to win precious little in sports these days), visualizes a functioning system of competing laws.

Competitive laws? As in more than one legal system? You can choose which court to go to? What about the other side? What if the two sides don’t agree on the same court / rules / judgements etc. National defence and law & order are the two irreducible functions of government even according to most libertarians.

Duncan’s sporting logic goes a bit this way:

Could ‘Sports Law’ one day become the foundation stone of anarcho-capitalist law? Let’s take a look at it. Dr David Friedman is covered. If you’re a football player who doesn’t like one set of laws, you simply move to another form of football laws which you do like. And you can do this on the field right next door, whether they’re playing soccer, rugby union, rugby league, American football, Australian football, or even table football, if you fancy going back to the warmth of the clubhouse.

Professor Rothbard is covered. All the players or teams pay a competitive sports administration board (FIFA, the Rugby Football Union, the National Football League), to provide private judges, or referees, to adjudicate on the law. Even within these administrations these private judges compete to satisfy teams better than other private judges, under the same administration, so that they can officiate at the really big games and get the highest fees and advertising sponsorship.

Even Professor Hoppe is satisfied. Should a really difficult decision go beyond the ability of the appointed private adjudicator, this adjudicator goes up to a final arbitrational court, or as he’s more often known these days, the ‘television referee’. The television referee virtually always enjoys an unchallengeable respect within the game, and his decision is always accepted as binding and final, without the need for any further arbitration. Even in the worst cases of rough justice, the final result of the game always stands, regardless of any post-game televisual analysis.

Notice how quick and inexpensive this law is, compared to the years and cost it takes the monopolistic state to bring even the simplest case to trial. It is virtually instant. There may occasionally be a 10 second conference, with more minor adjudicators, or as they’re sometimes known, linesmen, and possibly a 60 second decision going to the final binding arbitrator, up in the Gods.

A rocking debate is on in the comments section.

David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom was my introduction to Anarcho Capitalism and I’ve been hooked ever since. There are many issues still to be sorted out and this is one of the most important. Duncan refers to a chapter in the book titled Police, Courts, and Laws — On the Market. Well worth a read!