Don't take the "airlocks" literally. They represent a means to terminate an offender. Any handgun represents the same function. The important thing to keep in mind, as I mentioned earlier, is that although there was much talk about that option and everyone was aware of it, in practice it was rarely used, precisely because it was available. Just like a handgun. I now live in Virginia, where I carry a gun almost all the time and have not had a need to use it, when as when I lived in NYC, where no citizen is allowed to carry a gun, I've had several occasions where a legitimate use of the gun was very much called for. So, we can leave the issue to the State, which will only protect itself and the elites running it, or we can leave it to the citizens, who will protect themselves, and do a much better job of it.

A good bit of information. But it didn't matter that the general population did not accept the Dons as legitimate feudal lords. The residents of the various Little Italies in major American cities did, and that was enough. The rest of the population accepted that those men had guns, but generally would not train those guns on bystanders, so long as said bystanders "minded their own business" and "kept their traps shut."

In short, the general American population tolerated the gangs.

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre changed all that.

I don't regard the American Mafia as comparable to lords in a feud system, because their sort-of feud system was never accepted by the general population. The original M.A.F.I.A. in Italy in the Middle Ages, though, was.

You may have lost the point of this thread. We are discussing what a free society would be like in accord with Rand's vision. Are you saying that in a free society everyone would deliberately go out of business? In other word's, Galt's Gulch fails?

The biggest difference between Heinlein's moon and present day reality was not the uncaring government but the fact that there were always airlocks close at hand, and thus, any group of three or four adults had the ability to easily kill someone if they felt the need. (Even a cop, though that would take more people, maybe 20 or 30 against a squad of cops.) Of course this would lead, initially, to plenty of vigilante justice, but that soon stabilized because if it had not, everyone would be dead.

For us to get close to that situation, the best weapons (things only the military has now, not just machine guns and grenades but tanks, rockets, and weaponized drones) would need to become available to everybody. Which may happen sooner than we think, if the stories about drones being successfully taken over by radio are true.

If it does, then those western countries that have largely disarmed through gun control laws are going to be at a big disadvantage in the next major war. Because I don't think the military on any side will be able to keep civilians out of the line of fire as they have in the past.

I'm really struggling with trying to figure out how privatized roads would work. It's never really been done, so we have no template. It is pretty much a monopoly infrastructure thing, but the problem comes down to ownership: are you going to try to control who drives on the 10' of road in front of your house? And it is incredibly inefficient to do road projects (resurfacing, etc.) piecemeal. It sounds noble from a ideological perspective. I'm just trying to figure out the practical application and just not picturing it.

And regarding gated communities, what about the ancillary traffic like delivery trucks, moving vans, relatives coming to visit, etc.? Anytime you want to restrict access, you're going to have to pay for the administration and overhead of running such and then charge fees to cover those costs, hold neighborhood meetings (and get everyone to agree) on policies, etc. Sounds like a lot more work than I want to deal with.

You are completely overlooking the context in which this would exist, namely the availability of multiple competing providers, all of whom would do their utmost to establish a stellar reputation to attract and retain clients.

Moral hazard only exists in the context of coercive monopolies such as we have today.
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Exactly what I was trying to say. Worse than Rand's hypothetical example is the very real example of the history, in the United States, of that phenomenon that goes by the names (translated from the Italian) "Our Thing," "The Sicilian Union," or simply "The Mafia." Neighborhood protection, in the context of a negligent government authority, became organized crime. And the people tolerated this organized crime, up to a point.

Then, on 14 February 1929, several men, disguising themselves as police officers, stood seven other men against a wall--and facing said wall. They then withdrew--and a squad of other men carrying Thompson submachine guns proceeded to execute those men summarily.

And instead of committing a fresh atrocity of his own, the leader of those seven, severely injured himself in an attack his rival co-ordinated with that summary execution, did something gangsters weren't supposed to do. He broke the Code of Silence. He said, "Only [Alphonse Gabriel] Capone kills like that!"

The perpetrators of this Saint Valentine's Day Massacre all came to ignominious ends, some sooner than others. But that did not satisfy a badly frightened and disgusted public. Rather than believe none of them need ever suffer from such an attack, they voted for whoever promised to crush the gangs. With the result we have today.

Men can not be "free", at their core they are nothing but beasts and must be ruled with force.

The only reason fuel taxes haven't kept the roads repaired is that politicians have been diverting them to stupid things like mass transit since the 1970s.

I'd much rather see all the roads privatized. Neighborhood streets would most likely become owned in single blocks by the people living on them, and would be gated. Through streets would be tolled, but with transponders there wouldn't need to be any toll booths. And in cities where people still live on major streets, some redevelopment would take place so that locals wouldn't have to have through traffic on their streets. The best feature of this system is that nobody would have to ask permission to build or widen a road -- just buy the needed land and build away.

I've wanted to see this sort of thing for a long time. Even better, a police (or guard) service or an alarm service could be combined with insurance against theft and the other problems that service is supposed to protect against.

The problem is that the combination could also create a conflict of interest (moral hazard). If your police service is also your theft insurance agency, and they decide to rob or burgle you, they will certainly rule that your claim isn't justified. Now try to prove them wrong, when all the evidence is in their hands.

Once the initial act of force or fraud or theft is over, there's no longer an emergency demanding the immediate use of force. So naturally some form of court is called for to decide the issue first, and then send police to carry out the decision.

Privatization doesn't change that, because privatization can't be allowed to go so far that you have protection agencies that won't recognize rulings from the same set of judges. If it does, then the problem in Rand's example exists, and the agencies fight a war until one side defeats the other.

Friedman's apparent ideal -- and mine -- is something like the Icelandic system he talks about, in which the highest courts belong to the state but enforcement is something each injured party has to obtain (or do) for himself. That results in a very minimal state, but it is stable only as long as no faction controls anything close to a majority of the enforcement power. In effect, preserving it becomes the puzzle of how to enforce an "antitrust law" on the enforcers themselves.

Ultimately, that state, like any other, will fail if most of the people stop wanting it to succeed.

On that we agree completely!

In the current situation, the courts have arrogated to themselves the notion that their word is law--and the executive has arrogated to himself the notion that his word is the supreme law of the land. Under the circumstances, revolution becomes a moral imperative. I am merely asking you to plan properly for the aftermath of such revolution.

Would you agree that the current state of affairs, with the courts doing whatever they want to do outside of the Constitution and the police openly admitted that it is not their duty to protect the citizen, is not an ideal situation? Would you agree that we have gotten to this sorry state of affairs by consolidating more and more power with the State, while giving up individual freedoms and responsibilities? If you agree with the above, perhaps it would make sense to roll back all government functions? Seems to me that going in the direction that has gotten us into this mess will only get us deeper into it.

You just said it: all the townsfolk hired the sheriff. You did not have competing sheriffs, each the sheriff for some but not all. Therefore, you could never have the scenario of sheriffs going to war with one another to protect the interests, reasonable or un-, of their respective clients. You had one voice speaking for the law that applied to everyone.

Laws are a dead letter without one voice speaking to uphold the laws for everyone.

You lament the obviously lawless behavior of many levels of government today. You lament certain sheriffs who have forgotten their Constitutional duty and who have made themselves little more than lackeys for the half-Communist, half-poor-man's-caliph who now (illegitimately, I maintain) occupies the White House. As you should. As do I. But Don Vito Corleone is a poor substitute for an honest speaker-for-all in matters of law.

This is not to say that the police should have a monopoly on force. It means only that if anyone challenges the police without cause, the police have to respond.

Of course the police ought to allow each stakeholder to arm himself and his guard force to the extent he can afford, to protect himself and his employees, relatives, and associates, as appropriate. Of course the police--which again I define as the upholders of the law for everyone--ought to work in concert with any guard force that does not behave like the fictitious Dons Fannucci and Corleone and the very much real-life Alphonse Capone. But when some guard force gets out of line, and goes from being guard force to gang, someone has to have the authority to stop them, or at least to raise a posse comitatus to stop them.

Even the Gulch, I maintain, had a Committee of Safety. It consisted of the largest stakeholders, or their proxies. John Galt attended as proxy for Midas Mulligan. Francisco d'Anconia attended as a stakeholder in his own right. Ragnar Danneskjöld brought to the Committee its sole offensive, power-projecting capability--for offensives against the world, that is. But we do not hear of enforcement actions in the Gulch--because if anyone had any criminal tendencies, John Galt would never have invited them.

We come together here to plan law enforcement for--what did John Galt call them? Ah, yes--"such outposts of civilization as you will build." Crime will occur. Someone will have to deal with it. At least a Committee of Safety would be a recognizable entity everyone would acknowledge as speaking for everyone--and not even charging them for it. Security for those beyond the Committee would be a commensal, not a charitable, function: members of the Committee serve their interests by ensuring a law-abiding community of end-users. But if even that does not exist, a venal Don arises. As Al Capone did in real life, even before anyone ever heard of the word prohibition.

Yes, let's try it again... I agree with you that police forces have and do belong to the State. However, I disagree that they have to. In fact, in the so called "Wild West," sheriffs very hired by individual towns that had little to do with each other. Yet, the homicide rate was much lower than in today's State controlled, policed and protected Detroit, Baltimore or Chicago. It seems that the root of our disagreement is in the amount of trust (or mistrust) that we have in our fellow citizens. As it stands now, given the irresponsibility, lack of education and overall decay of the average American citizen, I agree with you - they are incapable of self rule. However, that state of decay came about intentionally, with the citizens giving up their freedom and responsibilities to the State in exchange for the State doing all the thinking for them. The original America did not start that way - it was in fact much closer to the Gulch version - people did come here by a sort of an invitation - only the few that were determined to improve their lives through their own efforts. If that is ever possible again, perhaps even in a different country, I think that what I am suggesting should be looked at. As to implementing it here and now - I'm not crazy!

Are you not suggesting that neither courts nor police ought to exist? Have you not in fact plumped for anarchy--meaning here "lack of a ruler," not necessarily (on your terms) lack of law? Now you've changed your case in an effort to accuse me of unreasonable construction on your remarks. Tsk, tsk.

Police, by definition, are a State agency. Period. End of memo. The first police, or literally "rod bearers" (Greek rhabdouchoi, from rhabdos a rod and echo I have/hold) were municipal slaves, armed with sticks, assigned to keep order at public events in ancient Alexandria in Egypt.

What you propose, are competing guard forces, not one of which is accountable to everyone in the community, and not one of which would be accountable even to a Committee of Safety within a community. Therefore, if one guard force decided to protect the "interests" of its customers, no matter how unreasonable said interests might be, who's going to stop them? The result is the Mario Puzo scenario. Young Vito Andolini di Corleone assassinates Don Fanucci and becomes the new Don in his stead. Eventually he takes the title of "Godfather" and "makes one an offer he can't refuse."

I once had to deal with a bully who was as brave as you could ask for, and worse: just plain crazy. Sociopathic. (Only when they are minors, one calls it "conduct disorder, socialized, aggressive.") That guy would have killed me one day, if my parents had not physically intervened and applied physical force to him, and threatened to sue his parents. Under your system, I would have had no recourse save to try to train my totally unco-ordinated eyes to squeeze off a straight shot. Under your system, if a man can't shoot straight, he has no rights.

Now. Do you want to try your argument again?

In no way am I suggesting that courts or the police should not exist. Nor an I suggesting that property cannot or should not be recovered. I don't understand how that misconception came about. What I am suggesting is that the same function of the police, and possibly the courts, could be performed by the same people as currently and essentially using the same rules and laws (hopefully fewer of them, as I believe less will be needed), only working for different bosses. Instead of working for the State, with responsibility and accountability to the State, these same cops will be responsible to a corporation that actually values its customers (not because corporations love customers, but because customers are free to switch to a different corporation, something that they can't do with a State). Closer to the customer is always a more efficient and effective way.
As to self-defense, an 80-year old woman, as long as she can pull the trigger, all of a sudden becomes as powerful as a 300 pound gorilla - a weapon is a very effective equalizer. And you may find that many of those bullies that you've mentioned, when hit back, learn to behave very quickly, even if they are not the brightest examples.

Wouldn't stay in business long that way.

Sir, I have observed that people left to their own devices will cut each other's throats. I've had my throat cut too often to recount here. Yes, that's a metaphor (for if it were the literal truth, once would be enough). But if men were always rational, crime would never occur, would it? Yet crime does occur. That it does not occur in Galt's Gulch in AS is only because membership is by invitation only, and the community is hidden from view and even from human ken.

In my school days, people could behave badly toward me with no consequence. I can't tell you how often people stole or simply damaged my property with obvious malice aforethought. And let me once answer in kind, and BOOM! Detention.

The transition period would necessarily be Hobbesian. You seem to propose that the only defense be self-defense, that property, once stolen, be counted as irretrievably lost, and that he who cannot by himself--or by dint of his own personal hire--defend himself and his goods, have no recourse at law, because courts of law would not exist.

You seem to be making a common fallacy that people left to their own devices will cut each others' throats. Keep in mind that the government consists of those same people, and not necessarily the best of the lot; I would argue that often, the government consists of the worst of the lot - the most incompetent and power hungry predators that are only too happy to cut their neighbor's throat. In the case of the Bounty, yes, those were the bottom of the society and they acted accordingly. However, contrary to the popular belief and pushed by the Ministry of Propaganda, the "Wild West" was actually not wild at all - the average annual homicides per capita were lower than in the current USofA until recently (the current homicide rate has been steadily dropping with more citizens being armed; the two levels matched about 10 years ago). Of course, people that have been brought up in an environment of slavery, where most decisions were made for them and they have no experience at being responsible citizens, all of a sudden given the freedom to act on their own, will often do poorly. But the answer is not more slavery, until the society becomes a safe jail, but a gradual re-learning of freedom and responsibility. And, btw, in Heinlein's version, although there was much talk of vigilante justice and violence, in actuality (in his scenario, of course), there was very little of it, as everyone was aware of the result of bad behavior. Kind of like when I lived in a rural area in Texas and often left my apartment door unlocked and never locked my car - everyone knew what the result of bad behavior would be, so no one misbehaved. Pretty simplistic, but it worked.

My concern is that there is an incentive to attempt to "game" the system. I agree that the market will push against this, but it is not clear to me that the market would succeed in overcoming the desire to get something for nothing. Not the end of the world just something I have thought about.