The dumbest arguments against statelessness #7

"How will justice be served in the absence of a government?"

Mar 19, 2025

How “justice” is defined is up to the collective values of the society that seeks it. It’s what people want, how many people want it, and how much they want it - meaning, how much skin in the game they are willing to have in its application. It is not up to soulless, corrupt, atherosclerotic politicians or government bureaucrats to arbitrarily decide what should be illegal, how illegal, and what the punishment for illegality would be.

In my article ‘Punishing criminals in the absence of a state,’ I made a case for how “punishments” - within the framework of voluntary decentralised systems of self-governance (in the Rothbardian sense) - are one of three: the deprivation of protection from private insurance, the increase in insurance premiums (since criminals represent higher risk), or the labeling, banning, and ostracism from mainstream society. If a criminal’s crime is so grave, and his unrepentance so provocative, then he is left to the mercy of his victims in a society where the victims are protected, but criminals aren’t. This is in stark contrast to today’s state protection - and even empowerment- of criminals. And what constitutes a crime will be determined by free people who put their money where their mouth is.

This is a more civilised way to deal with crime, since the deprivation of insurance is simply the denial of a privilege, not of a given entitlement. Conversely, the threat to take what is already owned (one’s bodily integrity and property ownership) is the archaic barbaric basis for today’s centralised threat-based governments. Without the ridiculous and irrelevant punishments devised by government, a perpetrator may have the option to reciprocate to the level that is determined by the insurance damages. Giving the perpetrator the chance to redress is a much fairer, more productive, and more corrective penalty than any sadistic state punishment, which often protects criminals more than victims.

In the context of the decentralised emergence of laws without government, social rules are incentive-based, rather than barbaric threat-based as in the case of laws in our current uncivilised society. Such voluntary decentralised rules grant a level of protection to those who choose to be protected. Such rules also grant incentives (for those who wish to be protected) to not harm others lest they lose their privilege to be protected. It is in the best interest of insurance companies to include such a clause to minimise their costs (for example, car insurance can deny coverage if you are found to be driving under the influence).

Uncooperative criminals thus remain ostracised and unprotected in a society where their victims can reciprocate unhindered. There is nothing in a free stateless society that forbids the labelling and ostracism of such people.

In the absence of centralised government, people have an incentive to abide by social rules, rather than be threatened not to break them. This is a much more powerful and predictable motivation.

When someone inevitably breaks a social rule and harms someone or his property, then it is up to society and its voluntary decentralised systems of stateless self-governance to decide what level of punishment is to be applied.

The most civilised, productive, and mutually beneficial way to punish criminals is to give them the opportunity - if they so choose - to make amends for their wrongdoings. Obviously, some inflictions are beyond repair, such as murder (I’ll discuss this further down). But most damages from crimes can be quantified in terms of money: the theft or damage of property, the loss of use of your property, physical and emotional damage - all these are quantifiable even by today’s government courts. Thus, instead of sadistically torturing the criminal as vengeful unproductive punishment, it’s better to give the criminal a chance to make amends for the damages he caused, if he so wishes. This grants him the chance and incentive to continue to be part of society as long as he is reformed - he becomes incentivised to reform by working to provide restitution. There is nothing more redeeming than honest work to try to make amends for your crimes.

Giving a criminal the choice to make amends - otherwise, he loses his privilege to be protected - is not a threat. A threat involves taking something that is already owned by someone. Society’s acceptance and voluntary decentralised systems of self-governance are not owed to anyone. They are optional. They are not a given; they are a privilege that is earned and is lost. If you let criminals work to make amends, there’s a better chance to rehabilitate them than by sadistically torturing them in inhumane prison facilities that make them even more criminally minded and indignant - all on your dime no less. How barbaric is our society? A criminal causes you damages, and instead of incentivising him to pay restitution, you pay on top of that to make him suffer and make him hate you even more. Unless schadenfreude is your kink, you both come out losers from this arrangement.

Now, when a priceless life is lost due to crime, the criminal can have the option to work for life to pay something - anything - to the family members deprived of their loved one. He can surrender his life to servitude, paying most of his income to the victims - much like today, you pay most of your income to the government through indirect and hidden taxes to waste on foreign wars, drag queen promotions, and wasteful government spending on absolutely nothing.

If the criminal refuses to make amends as determined by the insurance company covering the victims, then he will not be covered by any insurance, any decentralised law, and any business or people who wish to dissociate from unrepentant criminals. Most importantly, he will not be protected by any government that seeks to monopolise justice by forbidding vigilantism when vigilantism is a valid last resort. There can be no civility when we treat the victim the same as the criminal simply for wanting to reciprocate the initiation of aggression from an unrepentant criminal.

Sure, an unrepentant criminal will always be able to find some refuge here and there, even if he is ostracised and socially labeled. But he is also subject to vigilantism by aggrieved victims of his crime - people who will not bear any consequences for inflicting reciprocal violence on someone who isn’t covered by any private insurance. There is no shortage of gun-toting trigger-happy enthusiasts of justice dispensing out there.

This is why vigilantism or ‘mob justice’ must be an available option as a last resort when systems fail. The last resort of vigilantism is the motivation for justice systems to work, and for decentralised trials to be as fair as possible. When a government forbids or is unable to deliver meaningful justice, then this becomes a crime in itself.

Even the whole concept of centralised government is predicated on the last resort of mob justice: if the government fails its people, then the implied threat of riots, protests, and revolts is a way for the people to “control” government; or at least believe they do. Regardless, government does fear the destabilisation of its plebs, which is why it invests vast amounts of resources in propagandising and appeasing them.

Do you see how the monopolistic judicial system of the state works? When it fails you, and when it is blatantly corrupt, you have nowhere to turn to. You have to sit down, shut up, and take it. There is nothing you can do. Voting between two identical candidates every now and then won’t change anything.

Vigilante Marianne Bachmeier, who killed the rapist and murderer of her 7-year-old child, was sentenced to 6 years in prison. Why? What better justice could the state provide in such a case?.. Throw the murderer-rapist in prison where his sexual frustrations and indignation would magnify, and then let him out at some point to freely walk among you and your children, while his victim would still carry the irreversible trauma of such a horrendous affliction? Why shouldn’t the victim herself decide how to respond to such an initiation of aggression against her? In a stateless society, an insurance company insuring the lives of good people could decide not to provide any coverage for someone as heinous as that. He would represent too much of a risk, given that his life would be threatened by so many motivated victims of his. And thus, his only option remains to either be executed by society or agree to surrender his remaining life in literal slavery to his victims; whatever the victims agree.

Should the state execute rapists then? The state shouldn’t even exist, let alone do anything. I’ve always said that rapists and murderers of children deserve the mercy of euthanasia. But still, it is up to the victims to decide. Voluntary systems of stateless self-governance can try to quantify (as life insurances and governments do) the worth of a human life, and so give the chance - even to a psychotic rapist and murderer of a child - to dedicate his remaining life to working to the bone to pay the victim. He would essentially reduce himself to a slave for the privilege of being protected from the fury of his victims. If this is what society as a whole (and more importantly the victims) accept as something satisfactory, then this would work much better than what any government could devise as punishment for such sick people. Not only that but there is nothing in a stateless society stopping good people from maintaining and sharing registries with offenders, which means offenders are stigmatised and labeled for life. Offended can thus be deprived of their ability to move, work, shop, and associate with anyone other than people like them at best.

The deprivation of a privilege is a better predictor of human behaviour than the threat of punishment.

Still, if a society collectively determines that such vile criminals should be denied any mercy, and therefore put to death (an analogous reciprocity given their crime), then so be it. Not that there can be no “authority”-driven “sentencing” because perceived “authority” does not exist without government… A free stateless society would simply choose to ostracise such a person; deny him the right to have his bodily integrity insured, and therefore, leave him to the mercy of any motivated individual. Such individuals would not face consequences from their insurance company for reciprocating violence against an unrepentant criminal. In other words, you could reciprocate proportional violence against an aggressor without being punished yourself. “Proportional” is key here, because if you kill someone for simply stealing your bike, then you become a liability to your insurance company.

Also, this allows the victims to choose not to reciprocate; they still have the right to this choice, if their moral convictions or religions or whatever compel them to. There are many cases when victims forgive their villains, but the state still jumps it to carry out punishment. In such cases, no one should have the right to interfere. Even though I don’t agree with pacifists (pacifism enables predators), some people are pacifists, and they have the right to be. Why deny them the right to feel aligned with their principles? As long as the rest of society can know who the criminal is, then the victims can choose not to expect any further punishment.

The great thing about statelessness is that any private business can have the right to vet its patron. You wouldn’t want an unrepentant criminal to enter your business, and it wouldn’t be illegal to maintain and share such databases. No government would protect criminals or try to reintroduce them into society.

There are countless examples - such as this below - where vile killers of children remain unrepentant, provocative, and immersed in schadenfreude for their victims. What justice can the government ever deliver? Life in prison to keep them separated from society - at best? A free stateless society can eject such people much better than an inefficient, unmotivated monopoly of “policing” by corrupt government.

But in most cases, even murderers are eventually allowed to step out of prison. And there is nothing you can do about it, no way to know who among you has been to prison for murder. And we know that prison does not reform - it takes monsters and makes them worse, then tries to find jobs for them and “reintroduce them into society” after it unleashes them - more networked with other criminals, and more indignant against a society that tortured them. See how government protects criminals, and how it facilitates them to repeat offenses?

To assume that the state’s judicial system is somehow fair or functional is a delusion. But then you’ll hear the ad hoc fallacy: “But it would have been even worse without government.” Nonsense. I wouldn’t because you don’t understand what a judicial system is.

A legislative and judicial system is just risk management, like any insurance. Nothing more, nothing less. The state takes the role of the enforced monopolist of risk management on several key areas of your life: you pay it heavy taxes and so it can provide a bare minimum of reciprosity when harm befals yous on its watch. It doesn’t even provide you with security (if anything, the government creares more crime with its warmongering, its senselss prohibitions, its welfare, its brutalizing classes (police).
You erroneously assume that only the state can provide these services. Yet, the free market can better provide every single “service” that the disincentivised monopoly of government struggles to provide. The free market can provide such services much better and cheaper due to the self-regulating forces of competition, which result in better prices and better quality.
Insurance, policing, security, defense, lawmaking, justice, public property, private property… all these can and are already provided by the free market even under the weight of despicable centralised government.

If anything, it is under government that we get normalised injustice and unfairness. And I don’t see statists objecting to that.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your time. All my work here is free.

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The dumbest objections against statelessness [series] & why we get government

Sotiris Rex

Feb 3

A collection of straw men, non-sequiturs, false dichotomies, false equivalents, false attributions, appeals to tradition, appeals to emotion, appeals to incredulity, and simple odes to sheer stupidity.

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