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There’s an interesting interview over at Jacobin Magazine of Daniel Zamora, who has written a book about Michel Foucault’s fascination with neoliberalism in the latter stages of his intellectual life. The whole thing is worth a read, but there are a few parts that stand out:

>Foucault was highly attracted to economic liberalism: he saw in it the possibility of a form of governmentality that was much less normative and authoritarian than the socialist and communist left, which he saw as totally obsolete. He especially saw in neoliberalism a “much less bureaucratic” and “much less disciplinarian” form of politics than that offered by the postwar welfare state. He seemed to imagine a neoliberalism that wouldn’t project its anthropological models on the individual, that would offer individuals greater autonomy vis-à-vis the state….
Foucault was one of the first to really take the neoliberal texts seriously and to read them rigorously. Before him, those intellectual products were generally dismissed, perceived as simple propaganda. For Lagasnerie, Foucault exploded the symbolic barrier that had been built up by the intellectual left against the neoliberal tradition.
Sequestered in the usual sectarianism of the academic world, no stimulating reading had existed that took into consideration the arguments of Friedrich Hayek, Gary Becker, or Milton Friedman. On this point, one can only agree with Lagasnerie: Foucault allowed us to read and understand these authors, to discover in them a complex and stimulating body of thought. On that point I totally agree with him. It’s undeniable that Foucault always took pains to inquire into theoretical corpuses of widely differing horizons and to constantly question his own ideas.
The intellectual left unfortunately has not always managed to do likewise. It has often remained trapped in a “school” attitude, refusing a priori to consider or debate ideas and traditions that start from different premises than its own. It’s a very damaging attitude. One finds oneself dealing with people who’ve practically never read the intellectual founding fathers of the political ideology they’re supposedly attacking! Their knowledge is often limited to a few reductive commonplaces.

The irony is that Zamora may well be correct in his critique of the “intellectual left,” but as Reason’s Brian Doherty points out, intellectuals outside the left have been quite happy to plumb the depths of neoliberal thinking (though one could argue that the intellectual right has its own bugaboos… such as reading Foucault without mocking him).

Indeed, one could argue that we’re in the middle of a golden age of serious intellectual histories of the topic. Angus Burgin’s “The Great Persuasion,” Daniel Stedman Jones’s “Masters of the Universe,” and Jennifer Burns’s “Goddess of the Market” have all recently looked at how free market advocates managed to emerge from World War II to advance a set of ideas that became intellectually dominant a half-century later. The great thing about these intellectual histories is that they take the ideas and the progenitors of the ideas seriously, without being either hagiographic or oppositional.

Zamora’s interview closes with his pretty astute observation about Foucault’s significance in today’s academy:

>[I]t seems to me that relations of power within the academic field have changed considerably since the end of the 1970s: after the decline of Marxism, Foucault occupied a central place. In reality, he offers a comfortable position that allows a certain degree of subversion to be introduced without detracting from the codes of the academy. Mobilizing Foucault is relatively valued, it often allows his defenders to get published in prestigious journals, to join wide intellectual networks, to publish books, etc.
Very wide swaths of the intellectual world refer to Foucault in their work and have him saying everything and its opposite.

One of the virtues of teaching at a policy school is that Foucault is not quite as central to scholarly conversations as in traditional humanities departments. That said, Zamora’s observation rings true — which is why conservatives should embrace him and his work. From a conservative perspective, the great thing about Foucault’s writing is that it is more plastic than Marx, and far less economically subversive. Academics rooted in Foucauldian thought are far more compatible with neoliberalism than the old Marxist academics.

In some ways, Zamora’s book is an effort by some on the left to try to “discipline” Foucault’s flirtation with the right. It will be interesting to see the academic left’s response to the book. But Zamora also reveals why free-marketeers might want to give Foucault another read and not just dismiss him with the “post-modern” epithet.

First of all lets compare to a government program.

Anyone who thinks the heartless compassion-less bureaucratic government who treats EVERYONE like a freaking number, and a statistic on a filled out request form, and which can't make an independent decision based on real need instead of the 'program guidelines enacted by the legislature' is better than REAL private charity is just in denial of reality.

Getting assistance from the government is DEHUMANIZING because,

• Government has no heart
  
  
• Government has no compassion
  
  
• Government does not help someone based on their individual need
  
  
• Government does not care
  
  
• Government does not bend the rules to the situation to help someone
  
  
• Government does not dynamically find solutions to problems but can only blindly follow rules, laws and work within legal boundaries
  
  >Take, for example, the case of a poor person who has a job offer. But she can't get to the job because her car battery is dead. A government welfare program can do nothing but tell her to wait two weeks until her welfare check arrives. Of course, by that time the job will be gone. A private charity can simply go out and buy a car battery for that person, while someone else needs a totally different sort of unseen help.
  
  
• Government does not hug you when they give you your check
  
  
• Government does not wish you the best
  
  
• Government does not love
  
  
• Government does not want you to get better
  
  
• Government does not stay late and talk to you about your problems
  
  
• Government does not call you the next day to see how your job interview went
  
  
• Government does not see the big picture
  
  
• Government does not care if you REALLY need the help or if you would be taking away from those that really do need it...as long as you meet their quotas and strict program guidelines in some way either right or through trickery you get the money
  
  >Because eligibility requirements for government welfare programs are arbitrary and cannot be changed to fit individual circumstances, many people in genuine need do not receive assistance.
  
  
• Government does not care if its doing the 'right thing'.
  
  
• Government does not care how this happened to you and want to keep it from happening again
  
  
  
  
  Getting help from your neighbor and caring charities helps, strengthens character, builds communities and heals.
  
  If you really want an education read this heart-wrenching book by a former welfare mother that documents how government is NEVER EVER EVER the solution to providing charity:
  http://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Kindness-Dismantling-Welfare-Poverty/dp/0871135787
  
  
  When George Washington warned that "government is not reason, it is not eloquence--it is force," he was making an important distinction. Government relies on force and coercion to achieve its objectives, including welfare.
  
  In contrast, the civil society relies on persuasion--reason and eloquence--to motivate voluntary giving. In the civil society people give because they are committed to helping, because they believe in what they are doing.
  
  Thus private charity is ennobling of everyone involved, both those who give and those who receive. Government welfare is ennobling of no one. Alexis de Tocqueville recognized that 150 years ago.
  
  Calling for the abolition of public relief, Tocqueville cheered private charity for establishing a "moral tie" between giver and receiver.
  
  In contrast, impersonal government relief destroys any sense of morality. The donor (read taxpayer) resents his involuntary contribution, while the recipient feels no gratitude for what he receives and inevitably believes that what he receives is insufficient.
  
  Consider this simple thought experiment: If you had $10,000 available that you wanted to use to help the poor, would you give it to the government to help fund welfare or would you donate it to the private charity of your choice? Which do you think will do a better job?

So the OP was not the author of this post, I was. But stating property rights just wasn't necessary for the point I was trying to get across here.

In formulating those three dimensions, I was trying to generalize as broadly as possible to encompass the views that liberal Democrats have. The key term there is "however they may be interpreted." As you point out, some liberals, especially libertarians and neoclassical liberals like John Thomasi, view property rights as a basic requirement of justice which pre-exists the formation of the political community. If that's your view, then respect for property rights would be viewed as required by the ethical dimension.

However, that's not the unanimous view. Most contemporary liberals, like Thomas Nagel, take a more Rawlsian view that property rights are not required by any principles of justice (are not "basic liberties), and are only created by the state's legal procedures out of practical necessity. If one takes this view, then respect for property rights would be required under the proceduralist dimension.

I agree with you in taking libertarian view that property rights are required by liberal ethics, but for the purposes of this article I did not need to take a stand on this issue and doing so just would've invited tangential criticisms from Rawlsian liberals. All I was trying to show is that it's not possible to hold attain three dimensions at the same time. Regardless of whether you view property rights as required by liberal principles of justice or required by respect for legal procedure, this point still stands.

If you take the libertarian view that property rights are ethically necessary, respect for proceduralism threatens them when the state's laws run afoul of your conception of property rights, such as with civil asset forfeiture or eminent domain. If you view respect for property rights as required by procedure, some other ethical demands of liberalism might require you to violate the procedure of property rights. For an example, a Rawlsian belief in the difference principle might require the state to violate legally guaranteed property rights to redistribute wealth. And however you justify property rights, majoritarianism obviously still threatens property rights when populist movements demand the state take action against some group.

I also think you're mostly correct here:
>Maybe what is successful about Western "Democracies" is not Majoritarianism at all. Maybe the liberalism (i.e. respect for property) combined with Legal proceduralism (if there ever was any) that limits the state is what has made Western "Democracies" successful. Now that Majoritarianism is more valued than in the founding of the US and Legal proceduralism is potentially more lax, and liberalism no longer refers to respect for property there is less appreciation for what likely made the US succesful.

But I would add one thing to be said for majoritarianism: it acts as a release valve against populist revolutions and allows for more stability. If the majority of people believe, rightly or wrongly, that their opinions matter for the formulation of policy, they're less likely to want to overthrow the state. If people begin to believe that the state is largely unaccountable, they might revolt. This is all that is usually meant when people refer to "release valves of democracy." At the very least, paying lipservice to majority opinion in the way most democracies do helped ensure stability, even if doing so has the danger of leading to crises of populism.

Well, one thing it's important to keep in mind is there is a significant difference between increasing economic growth, or what I like to call economic progress, and merely increasing output. Conflating the two is to make a serious mistake.

Genuine economic progress is about getting more bang for your buck. This is why we can have rising standards of living while using fewer real resources-- productive techniques become more efficient, we have better ideas, etc. That's the economic problem society faces, namely adding value while minimizing opportunity costs, and it's why it's so important to allow people to experiment in the market process to see what works and what doesn't-- because no one can know the solution ex ante from the armchair, as it were.

Increasing output, on the other hand, can merely be a case of expending more resources to get more products. Opportunity costs in this conceptualization of growth need not be minimized relative to the value they create. This isn't necessarily conducive to raising standards of living at all for a variety of reasons, and it's really no more interesting than the fact I can spend twice as much money at the grocery store and get two times the groceries.

So (real) growth need not be wasteful at all, and can even minimize the use of resources relative to a society's needs and wants. And no, I would not say growth in the West is necessary for poorer nations to grow. What those nations need is better institutions that provide incentives and feedback mechanisms that allow their own citizens to better themselves. Generally this is going to mean things like protected and well-defined property rights, a clear legal system without excessive corruption, broadly free markets, some degree of trust amongst the people living there, and so forth.

It's very difficult to try to impose better conditions on those third world countries from outside, precisely because outside interveners lack access to the specific circumstances of time and place in those countries. And that's knowledge which is needed to genuinely fix things. If you'd like to read more, try Chris Coyne's Doing Bad by Doing Good.

Very interesting. I'm surprised the portion is as high as 90%.

I think it's true that libertarians take intuitive moral principles and apply them more consistently than non-libertarians. One interpretation would see this as evidence for libertarianism. Another would see it as a reason to be cautious of extrapolating from simple intuitions.

Libertarian writers naturally adopt the former interpretation, often stressing how consistent the philosophy of liberty is with people's basic ethical intuitions. Examples are everywhere, but here are a couple:

• Landsburg's book Fair Play is about extending the ethics people learn as children to political and economic issues.
  
  
• Caplan has suggested that libertarianism is analogous to overlearning.
  
  
• Ethical intuitionism is sometimes taken, as by Michael Huemer, to support libertarianism.
  
  Not surprisingly, non-libertarians are more likely to favor the second interpretation.
  
  
• The libertarian says, "People are intuitive libertarians until it gets indoctrinated out of them." The statist rephrases this as, "Libertarianism sounds good until you think about it/learn more about how the world works."
  
  
• Less charitably, a progressive friend of mine described libertarianism as "political autism."
  
  A quibble with Ruwart's intro as written at the podcast link: it says she is a "former presidential nominee on the Libertarian Party ticket." But according to Wikipedia, she ran in 1984 and 2008, when the nominations went to Bergland and Barr, respectively.

I wouldn't recommend MES(man, economy, and state) for starter reading material. MES is an economic treatise, not a libertarian political theory book. Rothbard was a crazy good economist. Think of MES as just economics. In fact, I would recommend for pure ancap theory,

For a New Liberty by Murray Rothbard. Here is the Mises Institute link https://store.mises.org/Pocketbook--P301.aspx
This book describes everything about libertarianism(anarchocapitalism), how it is more efficient, more ethical/moral and the strategy for liberty.

Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard. Here is the amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Liberty-Murray-N-Rothbard/dp/0814775594
this book uses aprioris to deductively examine a libertarian legal code. I would recommend this to Friedman's machinery of freedom(which is more utilitarian than based on natural rights)



Also, Hans-Hermann Hoppe has an Anarchocapitalist bibliography, it is on Lewrockwell.com, a paleo-libertarian website(also ancap).
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2001/12/hans-hermann-hoppe/anarcho-capitalism-2/

In that bibliography Hans gives a bunch of libertarian journal articles too, if you want to print them.

I wouldn't recommend reading David Friedman or Caplan, you should read Rothbard, Hoppe, and Walter Block has great books, one is Defending the Undefendable, Hoppe has a wonderful book, Democracy the God that Failed.

Hopefully that helps :)

I did this for half a decade, 2011-2016.

I lived in Canada, Mexico, Panama, Netherlands, Spain & Portugal. I also made many other trips to visit places in the Americas & Europe.
For countries other than Mexico & Panama I always obeyed visa rules. No more than 90 days in Canada at a time, no more than 90 days at a time in the Schengen area (mainland Europe). Panama and Mexico have visa laws but they either didn't care or don't enforce them. I never applied for work visas and always maintained that I was on vacation.

For taxes I used what is called the Foreign Income Tax Credit. This allows a credit or deduction on up to $100k of income earned abroad.

Two things were much more difficult when I started compared to when I finished my adventure: Cell phones and renting places to live. Starting out I would purchase a local prepaid SIM card and pop it in my iPhone and it would usually work. Once it came out, I upgraded to Google Fi cellphone service and it is exceptionally good for perpetual travelling. Free calls and texts anywhere in the world. Renting apartments when I started out meant dealing with tourist-oriented property managers, walking around town looking for places, or blind luck. Then Airbnb and Homeaway became popular and made renting a place much easier. When I started out being a digital nomad was a new idea, but now it's becoming more and more mainstream.

On a personal note it was the best experience of my life. Before doing this I was a shy, anxious person. I read the book The 4-Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris and it set my mind off on this goal of becoming a digital nomad. I am not a trust fund baby, I went to a public University and took out a mountain of loans to do so. I would say any single person could do this lifestyle. If you have a family you're going to need your family to be as crazy about the idea as you are. After having to make my way in foreign lands mostly alone, I feel like I could do anything. I'm currently settling down and starting a family of my own. I hope to get back on the road with my family once we are ready!

If you have any questions let me know!

You've already made the first step, deciding to homeschool / unschool. I'm very proud that my children have never spent a day in government indoctrination centers.

Start looking up the homeschooling laws in your state now. If your state laws are tough on homeschooling, then start planning a move to a homeschool friendly state now, I would suggest New Hampshire!

Find a local homeschool group to be involved in. If you're religious, the options are pretty good. If not, it is tougher to find a secular group in some areas (like the Memphis area we used to live in). The support and friendships in these kinds of groups are a big help.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that homeschooling is one sacrifice after another. We sacrifice my wife's salary, which would be substantial. We sacrifice the benefit of our tax dollars going to schools for other children. We sacrifice paying money on events and stuff we would get for free if our kids were in the system. But, the sacrifices are worth every penny.

Also, this book was a big help to my wife: https://www.amazon.com/Children-Learn-Classics-Child-Development/dp/0201484048/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473526899&sr=8-2&keywords=john%20holt%20unschooling

> What would be the subject of your next book? I'm reading Choice right now and I think it's wonderful.

Thanks! I am working on a book with the other members of the Nelson Nash Institute that summarizes the content of our seminar. So it's a combination of Austrian macroeconomics and the mechanics of IBC.

(If you don't know what this means, check out:
https://lara-murphy.com/ )

> 2.) How would you respond to the question in this post?:
> I've been listening to a lot of contra Krugman and the Tom Woods show which often argues in favor of free trade. One argument that Bob Murphy often uses against protectionism is that it is silly to argue that if China or anyone else gave us a bunch of free stuff that it would hurt us, and by the same measure, them selling us a bunch of stuff for very cheap doesn't hurt us either. However, in Poverty Inc, a libertarian documentary that rails against the way Foreign Aid currently works, makes a compelling case to show that all the free stuff our governments and charities flood third world countries with (clothing, food, etc) is actually keeping these countries from becoming economically advanced by limiting the ability of local farming, textile, and even technology industries to develop and grow the economy. So which is it? Does free stuff hurt an economy, or not?

That's a great point, and I had the same doubts when I saw that documentary. I explicitly pointed out the apparent contradictions here:

http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2016/08/misguided-charity-and-standard-free-market-arguments.html

There were a lot of things documented in that video that definitely hurt the alleged beneficiaries (like "aid" to dictators that merely propped up their regimes), and I'm sure that massive and irregular dumps of medical supplies could be better timed to not have a flood/drought rhythm, but when push comes to shove, I don't think sending free goods to Africa makes Africans poorer.

> 3.) How would you respond to this common progressive argument: "Single payer/universal healthcare works in other countries, so why shouldn't the U.S. do it?"

My book on US health care / health insurance is here:

https://www.amazon.com/Primal-Prescription-Surviving-Sick-Sinkhole/dp/1939563097

We actually were going to devote a whole chapter to international comparisons, but the manuscript was already way too long.

I'm sorry that I don't have a really great answer for you. I don't know enough of the specifics to be able to confidently say, "Ah yes, the deal in Sweden is such and such, and when we think of New Zealand, keep in mind blah blah blah..."

However, the standard comparisons that say, "The US spends the most per capital on health care and has only a mediocre outcome," definitely leaves a lot of stuff out. For one thing, we sure as heck don't have laissez-faire in the medical sector. If they got rid of FDA and state-based medical licensure, you'd see prices plummet without a huge change in quality.

For another thing, there is definitely anecdotal evidence that these other countries have long queues for standard procedures. There are lots of stories of Canadians coming to US to get hip replacement etc. So if Canada seems to be OK, it's partly because the Canadians can avoid the failures of their own system by crossing the border.

She's got a book mark in the book though. Looks like she read the first 20% or so. Maybe the shirt is worn ironically? (I want to believe)

Meh, fuck it. She's still a leftist witch:

>Great research and writing. A wonderful review of the origins and progress of efforts to repeal the New Deal. Very effective in helping illuminate the work of the conservative movement to remove the US Federal social and financial safety net. This is an important work -- very useful to those of us today who work to preserve and even expand it. Thank you.


https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/0393337669/ref=cm_cr_dp_syn_footer?k=Invisible%20Hands%3A%20The%20Businessmen%27s%20Crusade%20Against%20the%20New%20Deal&showViewpoints=1

First, I don't know much about the graph or the data. Statistics can be used to mislead and I wouldn't be surprised if there was more hiddden in this.

And then, there comes his rant. My god, what a shitshow.

>Let’s go back before World War II to the Great Depression. Speculative unregulated policies ruined the economy.

Seriously? How can someone believe that? This is for people who do.

>The New Deal policies reflected that national purpose, honoring a social safety net, increasing bargaining power for workers and bringing public interest into balance with corporate power.

Come on. This is not that hard...

> In this narrative, they [CEOs] deserve more wealth so they can create more jobs, even as they lay off workers, close factories and invest new capital in low-wage countries.

Yep, fuck those poor people over there. This is the hypocrisy I find most astonishing. The entire article is his complaining about wealth inequality but when the market starts leveling out the greatest example of income inequality (first world vs third world countries), then he's all up in arms to prevent it.

>In the new moral view, anyone making “poor choices” is responsible for his or her own ruin.

No comment.

>Millions of part-time workers must please their employer to get hours.

Thanks, Obama.

>We can start rebuilding our social cohesion when we say all work has dignity. Workers earn a share of the wealth we create.

How can socialists still argue this? Workers can earn a share of what they create. Anyone can. It's called a stock exchange. The problem is that few of them want to. And why would they? An important part of having a steadily-paid job is the risk-minimalization. Why would the worker want to decrease their income uncertainty and increase it at the same time?

This whole thing is just ridiculous. And sad.

Top 3 is obviously going to vary from person to person. Here's a good set of 3 books I'd recommend:

• Economics in One Lesson
  
• The Ethics of Liberty
  
• Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
  
  Between those three, you should get a basic grasp of economics and the ethical arguments for libertarianism.
  
  (Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal also comes with the bonus of reading an article by Alan Greenspan in defense of the gold standard.)

The realistic answer is that private property is defined as "that which you can defend." If you have an apple tree in your front yard, the assumption is that a small percentage of that fruit will be taken by sojourners since guarding it 24/7 would be impractical and would not be cost effective. Likewise if you claim to own 10,000 acres of land but squatters occupy 1,000 acres, realistically only 9,000 of those acres are your property. Socialists would be totally okay with this if they had any semblance of ideological consistency or pragmatism.

But obviously private property as a construct is necessary for society. So in an anarcho-capitalist society people would take measures to secure their property in a communal fashion, i.e. arbitration and hired security guards. It would be similar to the system that early settlers had in Texas where the "homeowners association" you would willingly join would essentially fulfill all purposes that the government does. And it was very effective by the way.

Yeah I'm researching now, and I've forgotten that of course what's needed is a combination of tort AND contract law.

I think I've found what I'm looking for, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State - Bruce L. Benson

I'll be going over this article as well by Kinsella: A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability

The best book for debating with statists is The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey by Michael Huemer. He recommends to ask questions and put the burden of proof on your interlocutor. Would it be fine if I taxed you for leaving on your property? Why then the IRS allowed to do so? The conversation goes like that:

• Why obey?
  
  
• Because social contract.
  
  
• How to exit?
  
  
• Leave it or love it.
  
  
• Why they can claim land?
  
  
• Because social contract. (oops. logic circuit. Somebody tries to justify the implicit application of the social contract in certain land by the contract itself)
  

I also hope automod doesn't harass me for linking here, but you might also really enjoy a book called The Enterprise of Law, which is dedicated to this topic, and perhaps To Serve and Protect, another work by the same author (Law Professor Bruce L Benson).

https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232

I recommend you start with Hazlitt's book.

Try to avoid the capitalism vs socialism dichotomy, that is not going to be majorly helpful.

The most obvious is that taxes that is reducing the incentive to make a profit, but there are a myriad of other reasons that reduce the incentive that the book elaborates on.

> Isn't it sort of a prudent obligation to read conflicting materials to maintain objective and rational views...

This is why I love Huemer's book. His argument for libertarian anarchism (specifically his argument against political authority) consists almost entirely of examining all of the best arguments for political authority and then explaining why they don't work.

Your shadow list would ideally be a list like that found in Huemer's book plus more and better arguments of the kind that Huemer examines in his book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Problem-Political-Authority-Examination-Coerce/dp/1137281650

If you're new to econ, I would suggest either Basic Economics, as /u/snatchinyosigns suggested, or "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt.

http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=economics+in+one+lesson&qid=1555251994&s=gateway&sr=8-1

From there, you might want to get into some of the morality-focused books, if you want a short/easy one, I suggest "Anatomy of the State" by Murray Rothbard

https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state

If you want to learn about how an anarcho-capitalist society could work, I'd read Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman

http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=machinery+of+freedom&qid=1555252140&s=gateway&sr=8-1

No problem. Well in the comments here I point someone else to a source and a few legal systems. So, I suggest looking for that. It should only take a second. You can also google/YouTube the topic at hand and you will be met with a lot of introductory material. Going these routes will be far more comprehensive and easier than getting that info here on a thread.

Anyhow, here
are a few places to
start

I assume you're asking how that would be handled without a state. Of course the system I described could be implemented under a state and without implementing the entire anarcho-capitalist system, and in that case liability would be enforced just like any other liability is today in our current legal system. As for how it would be done without a state, that's covered by many descriptions of legal systems and enforcement under anarcho-capitalism:

• The Machinery Of Freedom [Illustrated summary][1]; [Second edition pdf][4]
  
• [Anarchy and the Law][2]
  
• [Chaos Theory][3]
  
• [For a New Liberty][5] - The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts
  
  It may also be useful to understand that our current civil legal system is relatively new and that many different kinds of legal systems have worked throughout history.
  
  
• Legal Systems Very Different From Our Own
  
  [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o
  [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-Law-Political-Economy-Independent/dp/1412805791
  [3]: https://mises.org/library/chaos-theory
  [4]: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
  [5]: https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf?file=1&type=document
  

Without a doubt The Problem of Political Authority. It's explains things so clearly and convincingly, you'll wonder how you ever tried explaining libertarianism another way.

Along those lines, there's a book my gf read a while back that was very good. https://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-Childhood-Cherubs-Chattel-Changelings/dp/1107420989/

​

And there's this as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Sleep-There-Are-Snakes/dp/B006Q9NI0S

​

Basically - there are a lot of things people assume about primitive cultures and societies which are not universal or are outright incorrect.

> How can you have criminals without laws or laws without a state.

Ancap society is not one without laws, but rather laws are privately produced by agreement with others.

Imagine a private city, it established rules of conduct and (financial) penalties for breaking those rules.

Any visitors coming in must agree to these rules in order to get in. Thus if they agree not to steal and are caught stealing, they agreed to pay the value of the thing they tried to steal to the person they tried to steal it from, or w/e was agreed on.

Here's a whole book on the topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without-State/dp/1598130447

Worth reading:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Deal-Raw-Economic-Damaged/dp/1416592377

https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Political-Authority-Examination-Coerce/dp/1137281650

Huemer is one of the most important modern philosophers. His
The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey is a must read for those who talk to non libertarians about social contract.