/r/Polycentric_Law

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Polycentric and Decentralized Law Studies and Development

"To make legal systems better, we must make them compete against each other.

Do you like having options when you look for a new bank, dry cleaner, or veterinarian? Of course you do. You want to find the service that will best satisfy your particular demands, after all, and you know that when banks, cleaners, and vets have to compete they have a powerful incentive to make you happy. A monopoly, in contrast, can take its customers for granted.

Polycentric law simply extends that observation from commercial services to government ones. Just as competition makes life better for those who seek banking, cleaning, and pet care services, it can benefit those seeking fair and efficient legal systems. Competition helps consumers and citizens alike.

Polycentric law regards the legal services that governments provide—defining rules, policing their application, and settling disputes—as a ripe field for competition. When a government claims a monopoly in the law, it tends to neglect its subjects' needs.

In a polycentric system, however, providers of legal services care more about what consumers want. They have to, if they don't want to go out of business..." - Tom W. Bell


David D. Friedman: Police, Courts, and Laws---On the Market


Rothbard quote on the Private Law Society


A concise summation of the COLA concept, how it works, and why it will put an end to the kind of crony corruption we suffer under today


How do Communities of Legal Agreement (COLA) work?


What happens when you are born into a COLA?


How do COLAs differ from the society we have now?


'Is the major difference between what happens in a COLA and a currently existing state is the assumption of consent vs explicitly required consent?'


The Use of Contractual Trigger Provisions To Apply Social Pressure / A Replacement for Regulation of Things We Don't Like


The Osmotic Strategy for Mass Change


Further resources:


Order Without the State: Theory, Evidence, and the Possible Future Of - David D. Friedman


The End of Politics—Part One


The 4 Rules that will create Eternal Peace - HHHoppe


Once David Friedman did an AMA, and I asked him the question I'd been waiting to ask him: why not take law all the way down to complete decentralization, put it in the hands of individuals?

Here is his response, and my own thoughts on it, and here is a 3rd party who wrote his own thoughts on both of ours.


Private Governance: Creating Order in Economic and Social Life by Edward Peter Stringham


The Jurisprudence Of Polycentric Law by Tom W. Bell


Market Chosen Law by Ed Stringham


Inside the mind of Nick Szabo on P2P-Law

"It turns out there’s only one thing that guarantees production of good laws. The people bound by the laws have to agree to be bound by them."


Video explanations of a polycentric legal system:


Rothbard on the legal theory of Concurrence and its implications for new legal systems.


Anarchy and the Law - Tom Woods & Gary Chartier


"The Jurisprudence of Polycentric Law" by Tom W. Bell


"Chaos Theory" by Robert Murphy, ideas of how a free society could be structured


Read the Voluntarism FAQ


Tom W. Bell's open source law resources page: ULEX


Hoppe on Covenant Communities and Advocates of Alternative Lifestyles


Forget Politicians: How To Crowdsource Better Laws (Tom W. Bell)


The Four Pillars of a Decentralized Society | Johann Gevers | TEDxZug - [16:13]


HHHoppe: "The Future of Liberalism - A Plea For A New Radicalism" --- A classic short-piece on what went wrong with the Liberalism of the past and how we fix it: "Liberalism will have to be transformed into private property anarchism (or a private law society)..." (PDF)


**Transcending Government — A Future of Competitive Governance Driven by “Governance Entrepreneurs”**


Tiebout Model: a non-political solution to the free rider problem in local governance. Specifically, competition across local jurisdictions places competitive pressures on the provision of local public goods such that these local governments are able to provide the optimal level of public goods.


Juarez vs El Paso: What a difference the law makes


Meet Me in St. Louis an article music about how much wealth people would have if the State weren't in the picture.

/r/Polycentric_Law

2,808 Subscribers

1

I made an image which summarizes decentralized NAP-based law enforcement. Do you have any feedback to add to it to improve it?

0 Comments
2024/12/18
09:20 UTC

2

CRUCIAL realization!

0 Comments
2024/12/13
15:08 UTC

6

One day...

0 Comments
2024/12/12
08:51 UTC

6

A VERY useful graph. It deciphers the rosy language of Statism SO well.

0 Comments
2024/12/07
19:09 UTC

6

Out of curiosity, do you have any other books you would recommend to see added to this graphic?

0 Comments
2024/12/04
10:04 UTC

1

I have written this text about NAP-based decentralized law enforcement. I would like to hear your feedback on it! 🙂

0 Comments
2024/11/23
13:47 UTC

8

Decentralized law enforcement is possible without polylogism

https://liquidzulu.github.io/the-nature-of-law/

"So to sum up; the job of the rational jurist is to explicate–discover–objective standards of law, the role of the judge is to attempt to apply this objective body of law in a given case—the rational judge attempts to do justice rather than apply or create (posit) arbitrary rules based on whim. This is an important insight, those in the David Friedman camp, called polycentrists, view an anarcho-capitalist legal order as one of multi-legislation–multi-centralised law–rather than de-centralised judge-found law. The free-market judge is not a mini-legislature coming up with arbitrary decrees, he is and must be attempting to apply objective legal principles. We can–from the armchair–explicate such an objective body of law, what we cannot do is actually elaborate every possible case that might come up—this is the role of the judge, to attempt to apply abstract and objective principles to concrete cases."

0 Comments
2024/08/03
08:18 UTC

6

There are only three possible political systems: autocracy, democracy, and unacracy.

18 Comments
2023/09/07
14:14 UTC

6

Customary law (and Kanun)

Hi, I am searching texts and books about customary laws and oral transmission. I am interested in customary laws and their modifications during time, with a specific focus on the customary law of Kanun. Can you suggest me something? Thanks

1 Comment
2023/01/25
14:31 UTC

4

A discussion I'm having about polycentric law.

1 Comment
2022/11/02
01:30 UTC

3

What attempts have been made to encode and/or formalize polycentric social systems?

Hoping for an informatics approach. Usually that means computer code, but an ontology, set of diagrams, network model, or draft spec or RFC would count.

2 Comments
2022/09/30
22:04 UTC

5

A fascinating post. I haven't seen many folks using the Pashtuns as an example of polycentric law before.

0 Comments
2022/09/28
10:43 UTC

6

[AskLibertarians] u/ScarletEgret provided links to some academic papers on polycentric law

1 Comment
2022/09/16
03:46 UTC

8

Living Toward a Decentralist Future, with Max Borders | Libertarian Christian Institute

0 Comments
2022/08/31
20:44 UTC

3

Do you think law can exist without government? - Ask a Liberal thread

4 Comments
2022/08/30
17:28 UTC

18

Can a Society Exist Without Government? | Guest David Friedman

0 Comments
2022/08/18
00:37 UTC

6

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the Nations, States, and Scale

1 Comment
2022/07/13
00:10 UTC

16

Rothbard on Competitive Protection

0 Comments
2022/06/18
21:17 UTC

2

Building a Polycentric Legal System

I've been thinking about how to go about building/transitioning to a polycentric legal framework, in particular what is the best "first step" enterprise. In a sense, we already have some elements present today, such as binding arbitration and merchant disputes in amazon/other retailers. However, none of those appear to be interested in expanding their business into other areas. It could just be a failure of imagination on their part, but I suspect it's more to do with the how minor their concerns are.

An argument over the delivery of an instant pot is a far cry from even something so common as an employment dispute.

So, that said, what is the easiest business to introduce a more substantial kind of Polycentric framework? In my opinion, it's real estate. Particularly leases and rentals. It covers a domain with enough value that, once someone has gotten used to it, it wouldn't be much of an ask to suggest using the system in other domains.

It's also an arrangement that is, at heart, very straightforward: You get to live here. You give me money. You don't break my stuff (or you pay for damages if you do). There are even some polycentric elements (if you think about it) already present in the form of a security deposit.

Given that, do people here think it would be viable to implement a parallel law-like institution by (essentially) expanding the deposit to cover the whole contact/lease?

4 Comments
2022/06/16
01:35 UTC

17

Michael Malice on Polycentric Law

0 Comments
2022/06/15
16:06 UTC

15

"If you're planning on visiting San Francisco... your car windows will get smashed and you'll lose it." - Inability to exile petty criminals means cars have become eternal targets

0 Comments
2022/04/19
14:48 UTC

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