I get that the rationalist community is really trying very hard to figure out novel ways to solve difficult problems and I am very supportive of that goal. I love reading Marginal Revolution for one, and I'm highly susceptible to the argument that there are likely to be surprising ways we might shift our thinking about difficult issues.
However private enterprise has so many unpredictable incentives that I simply would never want to subject myself to a system like this unless it had been proven to work for a long time someplace else (color me a private crime fighter NIMBY).
My view is that we need to improve our traditional government run justice and law enforcement systems, not privatize them.
You can only come up with truly innovative solutions to old problems once you've understood the history of the problems and reasons behind the old solutions. Otherwise you're just starting over again on the old problems while adding a few more problems of your own.
I'm not sure to what degree describing one's first impressions honestly consists of snark.
> However private enterprise has so many unpredictable incentives that I simply would never want to subject myself to a system like this unless it had been proven to work for a long time someplace else (color me a private crime fighter NIMBY).
And even then, you would have to have a deep understanding, and be able to replicate the exact cultural quirks that allow such a system to "work" in the first place.
Yes, because privatization of the prison system worked out so well, didn't it? So let's go the whole hog and privatize the entire justice system.
Also, how are cash fines going to work against broke criminals? "Oh, you stole a bunch of money because you have no money. Pay a fine"
For example, community service if you can’t pay a fine. If you don’t have time due to multiple jobs, kids, etc. then perhaps the state offers services to give you time (day care, food or travel credits, whatever). Sure, the state pays for that but is it really so bad to pay for these things when we pay to run jails anyway? Seems we’d have fewer desperate “criminals” if we just treated them like people.
If you have little money and need to be working multiple jobs, etc. then of course bail, fines, and jail time will completely screw you and you’ll end up even more desperate and likely to (say) steal again. And since people aren’t just leaving stuff around to be stolen, you’d probably accomplish that through property damage (more charges! more jail!) or, unfortunately, weapons (despite best intentions, things go bad and you’re desperate and assault occurs: more charges! more jail!). This is an insane cycle.
And if the criminal refuses to submit to the judgement of the civil court, that's contempt of court which needs to somehow be enforceable.
You could make the contempt of civil court a criminal matter, but then the same insurer ends up having to pay restitution to itself and this doesn't seem to end well.
Or if the civil court has its own enforcement arm then we don't seem to have moved enforcement to the place he thinks we have.
IIRC, if you accidentally run over someone with your car in China, it makes legal and financial sense to back up over them to make sure they're dead. The restitution payment for accidental death is much less than the lifelong restitution payments for the victim's medical care and disability.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...
> In China the compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is relatively small—amounts typically range from $30,000 to $50,000—and once payment is made, the matter is over. By contrast, paying for lifetime care for a disabled survivor can run into the millions. The Chinese press recently described how one disabled man received about $400,000 for the first 23 years of his care. Drivers who decide to hit-and-kill do so because killing is far more economical.
A nice book that explores a little how problems were actually solved in the wild west is:
> The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier
> https://www.amazon.com/Not-So-Wild-West-Economics/dp/0804748...
Sounds like a perfect opportunity to bring back debtor's prisons, where the interest on your debt and the fees for your keeping compound at a rate just higher than the rate you're "earning off" that debt...
Et voilà, endless, legal slave labor.
As I understand it, the western frontier was actually relatively crime free (low rates of murder, robbery, etc.)
With regards to training, it seems like something vocational schools could offer at reasonable rates.
1. Require insurance to live? Do you know how hard it is to even keep the PPACA? And you want everybody insured with criminal liability insurance???
2. Ah, I get it. So rich people can just pay to make it go away.
3. What about poor people? Unless you're subsidizing that "insurance", they ain't gonna get it. Cant afford it. You're just grinding people into more poverty.
4. And you think getting rid of jury trials is a good thing? The other main system is "Judge or Professional Jurors" Nope, nope, and fuck no.
There are different ideas how to innovate and sometimes privatize certain aspects.
Some interesting reads that people might enjoy. David Friedman (son of Milton) has been studying this for quite a while. For example in he had this talk about how criminal law should be abolished in favor of more use of civil law.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KsMZbuGNj8
He has a whole book about different legal systems of different societies. A lot of his talks are very interesting.
If all of thst is done and we still see a need for greater efficiencies in a much reduced system, then we can talk.
Efficiency is actually a very high goal because in the context of a legal system it means that more people get the service of justice and get it more effectively. Its sort of a meme of modern politics that efficiency can be thrown overboard and as long as everybody can feel good about it we can move on, but that is the wrong attitude to take.
Also, these problem don't vanish if the government does something. Your proposal about ending the war on drugs for example, do you think profit has nothing to do with it continuing. I'm not saying its all about money, but stopping something that consumes billions will be opposed by many people. The same goes for many of these other things, like jailing people and so on.
The economists and judges who look at these things systematically try to understand the intensives faced by different actors in the system and to change the legal system to get a better outcome.
You might not agree with the person in the video, but you would learn something about Law&Economics at least.
> If all of thst is done and we still see a need for greater efficiencies in a much reduced system, then we can talk.
So any conceptual discussion about an ideal system should not be had because the current system is not ideal? Contrary to what you seem to imply the people who are having these arguments don't want to implement a new system tomorrow that changes everything. They are arguing about principles to inform the direction reform should take.
It seems very strange to suspend imprisonment for a system where everyone has to buy insurance for their own potential criminal conduct and allow the insurance companies to resolve the cases based on damages.
I think criminals will be more than happy to buy their right to commit crimes.
Your next round of insurance will cost significantly more after that, and if they decide that it wasn't an accident but a deliberate act, it might as well cost s much as a new car.
The author wants to suspend imprionsment for this insurance based damages system. Between the difference in car insurance and this criminal conduct insurance I think it equals a right to commit crimes. We have a criminal and civil court system (think on OJ case acquitted in the criminal case and liable in the civil case). I think the proposal amounts to mandated “criminal insurance” which suspends then crimaljustice side of things and allows insurance companies resolve the damages from crimal acts.
I've had this discussion a million times in college. It's always a dumpster fire.
> I've had this discussion a million times in college. It's always a dumpster fire.
This, a thousand times. Simple theories can be beautiful, compelling, and wrong (both in the sense of correctness and morality). There's an vast minefield of "knowing just enough to be dangerous" between ignorance and wisdom, it seems like many fans of economics and its associated ideologies get stuck there.
But in actual economics people who one could describe as libertarian politically have been on the forefront of research on externalizes. In fact the most important work on that was done by Ronald Coase. And since then many people like that have worked in that space.
http://libertarianpeacenik.blogspot.com/2011/12/big-mouth-li...
You're correct that there are many who are actually reasonable and pragmatic, but it's disingenuous to claim that the other kind of pseudo-intellectual libertarian doesn't exist. They do exist, and they give the reasonable ones else a bad rap.
Yes, he's trying to solve a real problem. This ain't the solution.
Requiring insurance for drivers is one thing - being able to afford a car presumes some ability to afford insurance. However, his solution requires insurance just to exist.
That's not workable.
> someone who can't or won't afford crime insurance is a net liability to the rest of us. The insurance premiums will vary greatly with the conditions one agrees to. Very few people would be unable to afford any such conditions.
Bypassing the "won't pay" for now - if someone can't pay, they're a liability? Then what? Let them rot?
A very large number of people live in conditions where they are unable to affect the overall crime levels. Sure, they can keep them from going up by one, by not committing a crime themselves, but they don't have any control over externalities.
All that aside, it's very easy step to the idea that if one doesn't have crime insurance, that, in and of itself, is a crime. This already happens with car insurance.
This is a stupid idea that taxes a person just for existing and if they can't pay, could possibly wind up making them a criminal themselves.
It's basically a cheap shot at the poor.
So, to fix one minor problem, we're getting rid of equality before law, and paving the way for feudalistic corporations, getting one step closer to Snow Crash?
No, thanks.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertari...
