6 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2023
  2. Aug 2022
  3. Jan 2022
    1. The English common law was "immemorial" custom which ran to a "time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." "In the profound ignorance of letters which formerly overspread the whole west- em world," Sir William Blackstone noted in 1765, "letters were intirely traditional, for this plain reason, that the nations among which they pre- vailed had but little idea of writing. Thus the British as well as the Gallic druids committed all their laws as well as learning to memory; and it is said of the primitive Saxons here, as well as their brethren on the conti- nent, that leges

      sola memoria et usu retinebant.

  4. Feb 2017
    1. But suppose on the way to Wal-Mart, you see a random mom-and-pop store that looks interesting. What do you know about its safety standards? Nothing.

      There exists trust. You trust a lot of people you don't know every day -- you also do the opposite and don't shop in stores that look suspicious today.

      You can also trust small business whose owner or previous records you know personally, that also happens a lot today.

      Besides that, in a libertarian world law would exist and solve part of these problems: https://hypothes.is/a/PBirDvnYEeaWvjeIs4H9kg.

    2. Let’s say Wanda’s Widgets has one million customers. Each customer pays it $100 per year, for a total income of $100 million. Each customer prefers Wanda to her competitor Wayland, who charges $150 for widgets of equal quality. Now let’s say Wanda’s Widgets does some unspeakably horrible act which makes it $10 million per year, but offends every one of its million customers.

      If the person doesn't care if it is "offended" then that's ok, it can still buy. If it is offended in a way the common law qualifies as punishable then the person can sue, and lawsuits are expensive for the company. If the offence is not sufficiently serious then the person should either move to a different culture or try to change its culture, it is not a matter of State, but of law and culture.

    3. 1.2: But aren’t there are libertarian ways to solve externalities that don’t involve the use of force?

      Well, this article forgets about law. Law and justice still would exist in a libertarian society.

      I haven't read the rest of the article, but this is probably the answer to most of his criticisms of libertarianism, and it is fair that this guy is missing it, because law is difficult and most libertarians forget about it or think that purely monetary transactions between persons would solve everything, thus making libertarianism a crazy creed (as I've done myself for a time).