Reddit mentions: The best state & local government law books

If I was going to provide someone with a list of books that best expressed my current thinking on the Political Economy these would be my top ones:

1. The Law - While over a century old this books stands as the perfect intro to the ideas of Classical Liberalism. When you understand the core message of this book you understand why people oppose so many aspects of government action.
   
2. Seeing Like A State - The idea that society can be rebuilt from the top down is well demolished in this dense but important read. The concept of Legibility was a game changer for my brain.
   
3. Stubborn Attachments - This books presents a compelling philosophical argument for the importance of economic growth. It's hard to overstate how important getting the balance of economic growth vs other considerations actually is.
   
4. The Breakdown of Nations - A classic text on why the trend toward "bigger" isn't a good thing. While various nits can be picked with this book I think its general thesis is holding up well in our increasingly bifurcated age.
   
5. The Joy of Freedom - Lots of books, many objectively better, could have gone here but this book was my personal pivot point which sent me away from Socialism and towards capitalism. This introduction to "Libertarian Capitalism" is a bit dated now but it was powerful.
   
   There are, of course many more books that could go on this list. But the above list is a good sampling of my personal philosophy of political economy. It is not meant as a list of books to change your mind but simply as a list of books that are descriptive of my current belief that we should be orientated towards high (sustainable) economic growth & more decentralization.
   
   Some honorable mentions:
   
   As a self proclaimed "Libertarian Crunchy Con" I have to add The Quest for Community & Crunchy Cons
   
   The book The Fourth Economy fundamentally changed my professional direction in life.
   
   Anti-Fragile was another book full of mind blowing ideas and shifted my approach to many things.
   
   The End of Jobs is a great combination of The Fourth Economy & Anti-Fragile (among other concepts) into a more real-world useful set of ideas.
   
   Markets Not Capitalism is a powerful reminder that it is not Capitalism per se that is important but the transformational power of markets that need be unleashed.
   
   You will note that I left out pure economic books, this was on purpose. There are tons of good intro to econ type books and any non-trained economist should read a bunch from a bunch of different perspectives. With that said I am currently working my way through the book Choice and if it stays as good as it has started that will probably get added to my core list.
   
   So many more I could I list like The Left, The Right, & The State or The Problem of Political Authority and on it goes...
   I am still looking for a "manifesto" of sorts for the broad movement towards decentralization (I have a few possibilities on my 'to read list') so if you know of any that might fit that description let me know.

> A Pigouvian tax need not be "perfect" to be Pareto improving -- just because policymakers calculate the optimum does not mean that they can't enact benefitial policies.

Yes, but it doesn't mean that they can, either. It's a shot in the dark, at best, even if you leave out the political incentives involved.

> Interpersonal comparisons of ordinal utility are impossible, but von Neumann and Morgenstern's formulation and Nash's existence proof may offer a way out of this problem.

I endorse Murray Rothbard's response to von Neumann and Morgenstern, excerpt below:

>The errors of this theory are numerous and grave:
>
>1. None of the axioms can be validated on demonstrated preference grounds, since admittedly all of the axioms can be violated by the individual actors.
>2. The theory leans heavily on a constancy assumption so that utilities can be revealed by action over time.
>3. The theory relies heavily on the invalid concept of indifference of utilities in establishing the numerical scale.
>4. The theory rests fundamentally on the fallacious application of a theory of numerical probability to an area where it cannot apply. Richard von Mises has shown conclusively that numerical probability can be assigned only to situations where there is a class of entities, such that nothing is known about the members except they are members of this class, and where successive trials reveal an asymptotic tendency toward a stable proportion, or frequency of occurrence, of a certain event in that class. There can be no numerical probability applied to specific individual events.
>
>Yet, in human action, precisely the opposite is true. Here, there are no classes of homogeneous members. Each event is a unique event and is different from other unique events. These unique events are not repeatable. Therefore, there is no sense in applying numerical probability theory to such events. It is no coincidence that, invariably, the application of the neo-cardinalists has always been to lotteries and gambling. It is precisely and only in lotteries that probability theory can be applied. The theorists beg the entire question of its applicability to general human action by confining their discussion to lottery cases. For the purchaser of a lottery ticket knows only that the individual lottery ticket is a member of a certain-sized class of tickets. The entrepreneur, in making his decisions, is on the contrary confronted with unique cases about which he has some knowledge and which have only limited parallelism to other cases.
>
>5. The neo-cardinalists admit that their theory is not even applicable to gambling if the individual has either a like or a dislike for gambling itself. Since the fact that a man gambles demonstrates that he likes to gamble, it is clear that the Neumann-Morgenstern utility doctrine fails even in this tailor-made case.
>6. A curious new conception of measurement. The new philosophy of measurement discards concepts of "cardinal" and "ordinal" in favor of such labored constructions as "measurable up to a multiplicative constant" (cardinal); "measurable up to a monotomic transform" (ordinal); "measurable up to a linear transform" (the new quasi-measurement, of which the Neumann-Morgenstern proposed utility index is an example). This terminology, apart from its undue complexity (under the influence of mathematics), implies that everything, including ordinality, is somehow "measurable." The man who proposes a new definition for an important word must prove his case; the new definition of measurement has hardly done so.
>
>Measurement, on any sensible definition, implies the possibility of a unique assignment of numbers which can be meaningfully subjected to all the operations of arithmetic. To accomplish this, it is necessary to define a fixed unit. In order to define such a unit, the property to be measured must be extensive in space, so that the unit can be objectively agreed upon by all. Therefore, subjective states, being intensive rather than objectively extensive, cannot be measured and subjected to arithmetical operations. And utility refers to intensive states. Measurement becomes even more implausible when we realize that utility is a praxeological, rather than a directly psychological, concept.

I highly recommend that entire paper, by the way.

As for Nash, the fact that we can know there is a Nash Equilibrium has no implications as to whether we can actually calculate it. Hell, mapping Nash equilibrium for a simplified poker game is a PhD thesis in itself.

>This is backwards -- positive externalities should be subsidized, not taxed (negatively taxed). A Pigouvian official would pay the artist to create and display art in her yard.

Interesting. Who knew there could be subsidies without taxation?

>This is what I don't understand. Who, in a stateless regime, is doing the "focusing?"

I primarily meant our focus as economists. Humans have a tendency, however, to create complex systems for the definition and protection of property rights, and these systems function best polycentrically. Most economists are quick to decry even the shadow of a monopoly in industry, but the same critiques (and more) apply to states as monopolies over the production of certain services within given territories. Bruce Benson's book is great on the history of private law, if you've ever got some time to kill. For less of a time investment, David Friedman's case study of the Icelandic Commonwealth is fascinating.

>Is there some kind of dialectical approach where the need for state enforcement of property will wither away, because I am not sure that I could be convinced that a sudden imposition of anarchy would result in clear, focused property rights.

No dialectic, and no "new [ideology] man." I agree that a sudden "imposition" of anarchy would not result in much of anything positive in the short run. People tend to respond badly to sudden impositions in any context. There are many theories regarding this. My ideal transition, for example, would be entrepreneurial advances in technology that allow the market to outcompete the state in the provision of various services despite the state's monopoly by providing higher quality, leading to a gradual decline of state relevance.

> Furthermore, I am not sure that property rights alone are enough to ensure functioning markets, especially in regards to distributive justice (the second welfare theorem). Market outcomes may be "better" without the state, but is this necessarily so if individual utility is a function of income distribution and relative wealth? I think it's reasonable to suppose that an other-regarding individual may choose a less efficient, more equitable state outcome than a stateless, efficient outcome, if given a Rawlsian choice.

I don't think it's at all self-evident that the market outcomes will be less equal than under states. On the indexes of economic freedom (primarily Fraser for credibility, though Heritage's isn't bad even if it carries their name) economic freedom actually has a negative correlation to economic inequality. That said, envy is cultural, but also contextual. If there's no nation, people will tend to look toward more realistic economic regions in comparing incomes. I also hypothesize that the culture of a propertarian anarchist region would tend to discourage such envy (as Protestantism did in Western Europe for centuries, and as seen in Jewish culture).

Freedom and efficiency are both important.

If the consequences of endorsing complete freedom (i.e. anarchy, since all governments take away peoples' freedoms) were disastrous, then, in the name of efficiency, we should support taking away peoples' freedom and establishing a minimal state to avoid that disaster.

Fortunately, the consequences of endorsing complete freedom are far from disastrous. Anarchy need not be a Hobbesian war of all-against-all. As Michael Huemer says, "We're nowhere close to the case where government would be justified."

However, the point remains that if the consequences were bad, then taking away peoples' freedoms to avoid those consequences in the name of efficiency would seem justified. Therefore, efficiency is also important.

Now, you say that freedom is more important than efficiency. But what does this mean? There's a presumption in favor of freedom, but efficiency considerations can override that presumption depending on how inefficient and disastrous the consequences get by allowing people their freedoms.

Unless you want to argue that only a strict consequentialist believes that efficiency is more important than freedom and everyone else believes that freedom is more important, then I think the correct view is just to say that they are both important, but not that one is more important than the other. That would simplify the issue too much.

Anarcho-capitalism 101:

• For a New Liberty [full text] by Murray Rothbard
  
  Anarcho-capitalism: Books on Private Law
  
  
• The Machinery of Freedom [pdf] by David D. Friedman
  
  
• The Market for Liberty [pdf or audiobook] by Linda and Morris Tannehill
  
  
• Chaos Theory [amazon] by Robert P. Murphy
  
  
• The Production of Security [amazon] by Gustave De Molinari
  
  
• The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State [amazon] by Bruce L. Benson
  
  
• Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice [amazon] by Edward P. Stringham
  
  
• Healing Our World [pdf or audiobook] By Dr. Mary Ruwart (some chapters on private law)
  
  
• Complete Liberty [pdf or audiobook] By Wes Bertrand (some chapters on private law)

Anthony De Jasay is one the most smartest yet underappreciated libertarians I guess. Just look up on his books. Besides that Edward Stringham and Peter Leeson are important figures. I always liked Bruce Benson's works. You should also read his article enforcement of property rights in primitive societies

This article on wild west is excellent. It's based on their book Not So Wild, Wild West

I mentioned Peter Leeson, his article on pirates An-Arrgh-Chy is a different perspective on organization outside the state, his book on same subject, The Invisible Hook is a must read. Also his article on Somalia, Better off Stateless: Somalia Before and After Government Collapse is perfect.

And this is another article on law and justice by Bruce Benson.

Molyneux borrows ideas in that book and gives no credit to his influences. The book is not TERRIBLE (it's also not great), but your time would be better spent with another work imo. Stick with Rothbard and Friedman for intro texts.

I'd also recommend The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State by Bruce Benson: http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447

If this is all totally new to you, this video by Robert Murphy is a really great introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0_Jd_MzGCw

>Your quote "too fucking bad for you" was not responding to the text. You are revisionist after the fact.

My apologies if you took offense. I assure you my remarks were intended towards the writer and not you personally. I didn't quote you, I quoted him.

>The "bad guy" is not simply the state nor simply the corporation, but the people who think the free market when left to its own devices by entities by sociopathic by definition will always (or ever) do the right thing.

How many times are you going to build the same straw man? My only claim is that markets, in general, work much better than government. The evidence for that claim is overwhelming.

>You probably enjoy sports without referees and ultimate fighting cage matches.

Government is not the only source of law, nor is it a particularly good source. Try this book if you're interested in private law.

cap·i·tal·ism

1. an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
   
   Yeah sounds like what I want. People voluntarily and spontaneously trading labor or capital for goods and services, unhindered by a coercive authority. A free market whose prices are reflected by consumers and production costs, uninterrupted by government protectionist policies, and so forth. It's obviously more complex.
   
   Here are some good books for ya. Read up.

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

Economist here! A common definition of a government/state is a "legal monopoly of coercion." Anarchy is simply a situation where that is absent. And just as some governments have been awful and others benevolent and good, anarchy per se is neither. The real question is whether anarchy can allow a flourishing and peaceful society to exist? Of course there are also important normative questions: is a radically decentralized system of power likely to be better or worse than one with fairly centralized authority?

A great place to start is Bruce Benson. There are people who write about "Anarcho-Capitalism" mostly from the Austrian economics enthusiasts, and as fringe as these folks are, there's something to it. Benson attacks an important part of the problem by asking about the workings of the legal system in a state setting and in non-state settings.

A book I haven't read, but that I've heard good things about is The Invisible Hook. Ask yourself this: where do you least expect social cooperation with decentralized authority? Maybe a place filled with short-sighted, uneducated, criminals. An 18th century pirate ship is just such a place. And yet it turns out pirates were among the first to establish checks on central authorities with constitutions.

Another hard case is the case of prisons. And yet the prison economy is flourishing with drugs, cell phones, and other contraband changing hands in a market dependent on trade and cooperation. This happens in spite of a central authority outlawing this activity. Think Soviet black markets in music, except instead of innocent Russians you've got some pretty un-peaceful dudes.

All of these situations shed important light on the possibility of anarchy. They show that some of our basic assumptions about the role of government rest on shakier foundations than we might have thought. People can, and probably will cooperate. Just as surely, they will try to rip each other off. But of course that's true in government too.

Well before the United States even existed, there were several examples of law, justice and accountability systems being provided on a societal scale without government involvement. As a matter of fact, some of western law today derives from some of these systems. Merchant law is a prime example.

So the idea that government is the only, or even the best method of holding companies (or even individuals) accountable ought to be very seriously challenged.

Asking how would the marketplace provide accountability without government is impossible to answer definitively as is any future theoretical concept. Many theoretical answers could be given and if you search diligently enough on the internet you'll find many scholarly writings from reputable sources. If you really want to know, Reddit probably isn't your greatest source. Here's a great book on the subject. And here's a free eBook that deals with this subject as well.

However, we don't need to know how problems in society could theoretically be solved in order to advocate for the end of immoral behavior (the government usurping power from the people and failing to perform). Did the people of the 19th century need to know that tractors and complex machinery would be invented to harvest and process the food we eat to advocate for the end of the chattel slave labor that was being used at that time to harvest food?

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).

If you would like a good discussion of this topic generally, Ilya Somin (a law professor and very staunch Libertarian) has good book discussing why smaller governments are always better:

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Ignorance-Smaller-Government/dp/0804786615/ref=la_B000AP9XW6_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405799469&sr=1-2

Note that "small" here refers literally to the size of the governed territory, not a metaphor for a limited Federal government.

I'm a libertarian urbanist, and the rank and file libertarians hate the morgage interest deduction, zoning laws, urban renewal, government subsidized highways, and other sprawl creating policies.

Good book on free market urbanism:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Cleansing/dp/1587317753

http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Cities-Revitalizing-Centers-American/dp/0738201340/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714503&sr=1-1&keywords=wealth+of+cities

http://www.amazon.com/Zoned-Out-Regulation-Transportation-Metropolitan/dp/1933115157/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714530&sr=1-1&keywords=zoned+out

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Lot-Real-Estate-Came/dp/B005Q69JJQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714545&sr=1-1&keywords=our+lot

http://www.amazon.com/Snob-Zones-Fear-Prejudice-Estate/dp/0807001570/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714560&sr=1-1&keywords=snob+zones

http://www.amazon.com/Financial-Fiasco-Infatuation-Ownership-Afterword/dp/1937184412/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714575&sr=1-1&keywords=financial+fiasco

http://www.amazon.com/Housing-Bias-Rethinking-Diverse-America/dp/0230110509/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714629&sr=1-1&keywords=the+housing+bias

http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/159420277X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714641&sr=1-1&keywords=triumph+of+the+city

http://www.amazon.com/Reckless-Endangerment-Outsized-Corruption-Armageddon-ebook/dp/B004H1TM1G/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403714658&sr=1-1&keywords=reckless+endangerment+gretchen+morgenson

http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO
Their are a lot more.

http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/1884829988/ref=sr_1_1?s=textbooks-trade-in&ie=UTF8&qid=1405054547&sr=1-1&keywords=the+high+cost+of+free+parking

Yeah, it's just in my head that the average voter is so on top of things. They pour over statistics and spreadsheets day and night trying to formulate their opinion. They totally care more about public policy than their favorite TV show or that co-worker they want to ask out on a date.

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Ignorance-Smaller-Government/dp/0804786615/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1463629617&sr=8-4&keywords=somin

As I said, call it whatever word you want, the key aspect is consent. Here's a good resource on law in that context: The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598130447/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_44i2BbHJ4N8SJ

we actually aren't. our citizenship is not by blood, but tied to the commonwealth. The day we get out of the commonwealth, and decide to become independent we also lose our citizenship (its the same thing that happened with the philppines).

We'll have to decide between "puertorican" or "US".

edit: adding a link to a great book about the topic.. By the US Attourney General of 1991, he analysed and explained the law that oversees the island and stressed on the topic that the US has a strong stance against dual-citizenship for puertoricans, highlighting how many laws would cause people to have to leave the island if they would like to retain their citizenship.

I read these 2 books and they were pretty good. They didn't mention a cover letter but they went into the overall career and generally what departments are looking for. It may give you a better idea of what they would look for in a cover letter.

https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Police-Officer-Insiders-Enforcement/dp/0595380786/

https://www.amazon.com/Police-Oral-Board-Secrets-Officer-ebook/dp/B004QOAGLY/

Historians get their knowledge of ancients societies from the sources like tribes living on isolated islands. For those interested in the topic of decentralized law in history, I recommend a book The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State by Bruce Benson. The author is austrian economist. It is ancap-safe reading, doesn't trigger a reader by statist propaganda.

Hold your horses there buddy, I'm on your side. But since you seem like a feisty, *competent up-and-comer, maybe you would like to be paid tons of money? Just master these and you too can make money in the great, homestead haven of Texas:
Property Code 688pg.
Probate Code 327pg.
State Tax Code 2389pg.
That's not including Federal Banking Regs, Federal Tax Code, or case law that really governs foreclosure sales.

My point is really this: real estate transactions are not simple endeavors, and believe it or not the people completing these transactions are humans. Humans with families, distractions, hangovers, and Reddit browsing to share their attention with. Humans that make errors the more complicated the transaction gets. Good news is there's a remedy for most of these that doesn't involve a court or ridiculous attorney's fees.

Insurance, arbitration, private security, bounty hunters, mutual aid societies, there is actually quite a bit of work on the private production of justice and defense.

https://mises.org/books/private_production_of_defense.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law

http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

> everybody is only subjected to laws that they agree to.

You'd only be legally obligated to laws you agreed to.

> This is basically impossible. The whole reason that politics exists is that people disagree about things.

No it's not impossible. The link I referred to gave many historical examples which prove it's possible. For example, Merchant Law was not developed or administered by governments, but by private merchants and utilized private courts, enforcement and dispute resolution. It successfully resolved disputes outside State jurisdiction for hundreds of years and was integral to international commerce. There are many more examples.

I highly recommend Bruce Benson's "The Enterprise of Law" which is a historical and theory review of various types of legal systems: http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447

James Dwyer may be a lawyer, but he has a PhD in philosophy from Stanford and has written extensively on the legal and philosophical underpinnings of the rights of children and the obligations of parents. His book The Relationship Rights of Children is his most recent work on the relationship and conflict between the rights of children and parents, and is well-worth a read for his analysis. Hope that helps.

> In this way, a conditional statement with the form 'If you do x I do y' is a law, where x is something I find undesirable and y is something you find undesirable.

A few points on this:

(1) That y is undesirable is not enough to make the statement a law. For example, if I live across the street from you and I say "If you do x, I will demolish my house so that the view from your front window is terrible," then I don't think this isn't a law in the traditional sense of the word, even though you don't want me as your neighbor to ruin the view from your front window by demolishing my house. (Maybe it is a law under some broader definition of law, but it wouldn't be like the laws that states make.) In order to make it a law in the traditional sense, I think y has to involve some use of something that is not your property in the eyes of the subject. So: 'If you do x, I do y' where 'y' involves you using something that I consider to be someone-other-than-you's property without that person's consent.

(Note: There may be good reasons to define "law" more broadly than the "traditional sense" I am referring to. IIRC Bruce Benson used a broader definition of "law" in his book The Enterprise of Law which I read a couple years ago. My intention is merely to point out the differences between your definition and the kind of law that the state makes (a kind that would also exist in an anarcho-capitalist society).

(2) x does not need to be something that you find undesirable in order for the statement to be a law. For example, the state may not find it undesirable for people to possess marijuana (on the contrary, they may want people to possess marijuana so that they can have an additional excuse to hire more police), yet their command "If you possess marijuana, we'll lock you up" is still a law due to what the state will do if you don't obey the command.

(3) y does not need to be something that I find undesirable in order for the statement to be a law. For example, I may love giving money to charity and find this very desirable, but if the state says to me, "If you don't give $1 to a charity of your choice, we will imprison you for a day" then this is still a law due to the kind of consequence the state will impose if I choose not to obey.

Private Security and Dispute Resolution in a Free Society (part 3)

-------------

History

• Article: "Merchant law developed in medieval Europe without the involvement of the state. This is particularly remarkable given that it sought to provide dispute resolution and basic legal standards across a wide territorial expanse that included peoples who spoke different languages and practiced different customs. You can read a good discussion of it in the classic work of Bruce Benson, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State."
  
  
• Medieval Iceland and the Absence of Government (Free Market Analysis) "The history of Viking Age Iceland has lessons to teach. One is the importance of a decentralized enforcement power. Iceland's decentralized legal system managed to keep its leaders on a short leash for much of its history. Chieftains only had power if they could convince people to follow them, without the use of coercion. This minimized the principal-agent problem. Who wants to voluntarily follow an incompetent or evil leader? And even if an evil leader did sucker a few free farmers into following him, in the long run he would lose credibility."
  
  --------
  
  Recommended Videos:
  
  
• Law without Government - Pt 1 - video (basic) & Part 2 & Part 3
  
• Funding Public Goods: Six Solutions
  
• Prof. Edward Stringhman: Security and Law without government (moderate)
  
• Private Law - Hans Hoppe (advanced + economics)
  
• Anarchy and Efficient Law - David D. Friedman - video/lecture (advanced + economics)
  
  

The Law by Frederic Bastiat (super short, free)

https://www.amazon.com/Law-Frederic-Bastiat/dp/1940177014/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487742542&sr=1-3&keywords=The+law


Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell
https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Society-Expanded-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465025226

Here's a good slogan: "Do what you want, pay for yourself."

You left out he's a republican who champions smaller government. Here's a link to one of his books

https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Ignorance-Smaller-Government/dp/0804786615?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Couldn't agree more! Throughout history, the provision of justice without the state has been the norm at many times in many places: https://smile.amazon.com/Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without-State-ebook/dp/B00BKRY6QG/

The Art of Legislative Politics was written by a former WI legislator and gives a good overview of state legislators with WI specific examples.

Do you have examples? Because I know of quite a few critiques along that vein coming from conservative sources:

• Ben Domenech at The Federalist complains that Trump's populism is tapping into "White Identity Politics" rather than conservative principles, and that it's bad for the Republican Party.
  
• Libertarian Ilya Somin has been attacking Trump for a while, attributing his success to widespread ignorance (which is kinda a broader topic in itself that Somin is obsessed with and argues is justification for limited government)
  
• William Galson at the WSJ argues that Trump's appeal can be attributed to the GOP's alienation of the less educated white working class, and highlights their anti-trade, anti-immigration beliefs (which in a place like the WSJ, is politely saying that they're misinformed) as an example.
  
  Part of it, of course, is that we have poll data that shows that Trump supporters are less educated than, say, Rubio supporters. So people on the left and the right start from that premise, and run with the narrative that fits their views best.

> 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

Benson would be the go-to guy: Enforcement of Private
Property Rights in Primitive Societies:
Law without Government and A Description of a Modern
System of Law and Order
without State Coercion, as well as a couple others. He also has a 400 page book which expands on those articles.

Regarding Friedman, I'm confused by you saying you "know it's not true". David Friedman is an anarcho-capitalist, albeit of the neo-classical, consequentialist variety. His book Law's Order demonstrates that economic incentives founded on private property relations are sufficient for law and order.

Just type in polycentric law.

Edit: Mistakenly said Friedman is a neo-classical. He's more of a monetarist. Bryan Caplan is the neo-classical ancap.

Mandatory reading:

https://www.amazon.ca/Marc-Stevens-Adventures-Legal-Land-ebook/dp/B01AYTSMWO

Wenn es dich wirklich interessiert, haste hier einige Buchvorschläge:

Justice without a State Über Herkunft und privatrechtliche Alternativen im Staatswesen

Oliver Janich mEn einer Meinungsbilder im deutschsprachigen Raum

Stirner klar einer der Vordenker des Individualanarchismus

Die Österreichische Schule Wiki einer der Hauptströmungen

edit: Voluntarismus eine Weiterentwicklung basierend auf der Idee der Freiwilligkeit - das "V" im Video

I mean, save for the time he worked for Jim Tedisco's failed House campaign and the book he wrote after, he was the only weekend morning anchor they ever had. Given this market, that's telling.

> Yanez emptied his fucking clip. Doesn't that indicate excessive force? Doesn't that indicate very poor judgment?

Actually, that part is a problem with US police training.

Putting a bullet into someone is not like Hollywood. You rarely get a visual confirmation that you've hit the target. So just to be safe, police training in the US tells the police officer to keep on shooting.

European countries have an opposite policy. And that's to shoot and pause (at least, I think that's what he called it). Changing that one rule of their training in the US would automatically save many lives each year. See this book. It's very interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/067497218X/

Its author spoke to KQED radio. The podcast is available here:

https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/02/27/criminologist-franklin-zimring-on-reforming-police-use-of-force/

Based on what I read in Snob Zones, no amount of money could get me to work in ~90% of CT.

I certainly agree that (rational) political ignorance is a serious problem and a huge contributing factor to the current state of affairs. I was persuaded of that even before 2016, thanks in large part to the work of Ilya Somin (whose politics I don't share otherwise).

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There's no viable alternative, though, at least not one I'm aware of. And if we are going to operate as a representative democracy, then attempting to reduce the franchise is unjust.

Unfair lawmakers lead to unfair laws....and guess what else?

...government corruption.

Edit: Frederic Bastiat covers this phenomena (of tendency to corruption and what affects will manifest in the culture when the law is misused) really well in his book "The Law" It reads like it could have been written last year even though it was written in 1850.

https://www.amazon.com/Law-Frederic-Bastiat/dp/1940177014/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1527552266&sr=8-2&keywords=the+law&dpID=51uAsvXWbiL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Is that considered a "product review or recommendation?"

There's in interesting concept called 'rational ignorance' which in a political context means that for most people the cost of educating themselves about political matters outweights the potential value they might get from making more informed decisions. (By voting or campaigning for issues that are more in their interest.)

If political ignorance really is rational then it's not so much a flaw in the political system as a fact about human nature that any political system has to work around.

The volokh conspiracy has written about the topic quite a bit and one of their contributors actually wrote an entire book on it.

> Place is full of sick fucks that try to justify child rape

That's a violation of the NAP, so it's not justifiable under an-cap ethics. You're wrong.

>their whole world view collapses if they have to say some laws, like those preventing child rape, are needed.

An-caps favor private law and thus aren't against laws existing per se. Further, much libertarian thought has gone into how to protect children in a free society, how terrible violence (the use of which is required by the state) is for children, and critiquing the current regime that is clearly failing to protect children:

https://mises.org/library/legal-child-abuse

https://mises.org/library/case-against-government-child-care

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf7uq9NUOnY

Because I believe that the answer to the problem of having violent individuals is not to lock them in cages (where they tear each other apart) and force the community to pay to house and clothe them.

There are a few good books about how you'd have security,courts, law and restitution to victims without a government that enforces a monopoly on these vital services. One of these is Bruce Benson's The Enterprise of Law: Justice without the State
http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/1598130447

There are better ways to dissuade violent criminals and better ways to punish them than what the state currently does. If you have a prison, it has to be paid for. If it's not private, then it's funded through taxation which is theft.

This isn't anything I've heard from another ancap, but I also hold the belief that the vast majority of violence committed by individuals, on individuals stems from either abuse, poverty or both. You just don't have well adjusted, well cared for children growing up to be killers or rapists (unless they're a sociopath, but that's a different animal altogether). So it's my belief that a stateless society, where the NAP and natural rights for every man, woman and child (including right to self defense) are championed would both produce and attract minimal numbers of individuals who intend to do harm.

Edit: Just as an afterthought, I wanted to emphasize that societies who centralize the security force, dissuade individuals from learning to defend themselves and houses and feeds violent criminals instead of encouraging them to pay restitution will attract and encourage violent criminals.