Mr. Libertarian Murray Rothbard was indeed an anarchist. plenty of libertarian anarchists out there. Been around since at least the mid 1800s.
I don’t want to get into the weeds on private law. I was simply responding to the outrageous claim that the problems of a government monopoly are the result of “market fundamentalism”.
If you would agree that the problems with the government courts are not due to rampant capitalism, then we have no disagreement here.
Theil has not used free market courts to make war on Gawker. He has used government courts. I would argue that problems with government courts are due to mismanagement by government. That’s a bold claim, I know.
I think it’s a ridiculous claim. There are no private courts to turn to. An arbitrator isn’t a private court.
Like others, I can’t figure out what strain of libertarian philosophy one must adhere to in order to criticize someone bringing a case to court. If anything, most libertarian thought that I’m familiar with tends to argue that we should rid the government of most regulations and let those who have been harmed by poisoned water, faulty airbags, non-maintained airplanes, or whatever, simply have their day in court.
What the fuck is a “free market court?”
Look, bud. I made a very modest claim initially. I do not want to get into the weeds of how libertarians handle the private law issue. I’m sorry if I was unclear in previous posts.
I repeat the claim clearly: to say that a problem with how the government courts operate is caused by capitalism is an error. It is clearly a problem of government mismanagement if a billionaire is able to harass someone and cause them great harm when they have not infringed on anyone’s rights.
If I was unclear before, I do not wish to comment on the legitimacy of the cases Thiel is bringing. But, if we are to assume he is being a nasty guy(which I did in earlier posts without being clear on this point), the existence of a government monopoly on law makes him more dangerous because he can access the state and use it as a weapon.
The OP is basically charging this one rich guy of buying retribution against an enemy. And you’re going further, in saying he should buy his own judge because it’s unfair that government has a “monopoly on law.”
[QUOTE=Miller]
What the fuck is a “free market court?”
[/QUOTE]
In English Law, from Tudor times there were ‘Basket Justices’, who set out a basket for free-will donations from the parties in front of them — minor judges and magistrates were unpaid by government then, and therefore uncorrupted by government.
By the 18th century, Whig times, there were ‘Trading Justices’:
- *According to a recent presentation, trading justices were corrupt, some so corrupt that they were ‘indistinguishable from the criminals with whom they dealt’. While quite striking, even this depiction pales before that presented in the eighteenth century. For to the eighteenth century, the trading justice was not merely criminal; he actually caused crime. According to one pamphleteer, trading justices connived at ‘the continuance of what tends to the increase of delinquency’. According to a member of Parliament, trading justices ‘frequently let felons esape, unless they could make money by convicting them’. As the *Times stated: ‘the trade of thieving will ever thrive, whilst there exists a trade of Justices’. This chapter will suggest why such statements did not seem outrageous.
Blurb of ***Norma Landau : **The Trading Justice’s Trade
Of course Peter Thiel didn’t bankrupt Gawker. A jury decided that Gawker broke the law did.
Since their verdict was upheld by a judge I see no reason to get upset.
The US isn’t going to turn into the UK with far stricter libel laws anytime soon. Or for that matter Sweden where journalists can and are put in jail for libel.
Sorry, but this isn’t TIME magazine getting sued by Ariel Sharon or the Church of Scientology.
You are basically referring to fictitious history. There was never a libertarian society, though that doesn’t mean it might be a fine thing to start, in eg the Western Sahara for example.
I’m alluding to champerty or the filing of lawsuits by rich 3rd parties for economic gain. [INDENT]Historically, giving a lawyer money to sue on someone else’s behalf was considered illegal. Litigation financing, also known as “champerty,” was originally considered a perversion of the legal system that would allow feudal lords to oppress the poor. In recent years, however, many American courts have loosened those restrictions and in turn created a billion-dollar industry. In one prominent lawsuit, an influential Delaware court held that communications between a legal team and such a benefactor are protected just like those between a lawyer and his client.
Companies that lend funds typically take a percentage of the money won, just as lawyers do. These fees can amount to 20 percent or more of a verdict or settlement. Litigation funding by investors is sometimes the only way a case can proceed. Another litigation finance method—borrowing from banks at high interest rates—has also become popular.[/INDENT] So yeah, the rise of this is closely related to the risk of market fundamentalism. There are other factors at work of course.
If I understand things properly, Thiel was given an unflattering portrait by Gawker which was entirely legal. So he hired lawyers and had them wait until a suitable case came up.* Then he backed it. Then he ordered his lawyers to act in ways that didn’t help Hogan but did hurt Gawker. (Specifically, they dropped claims that Gawker’s insurance company might cover).
Thiel is no prize, btw. He started up a conservative newspaper at Stanford for example, that was big on gay-baiting. Oddly enough, Thiel was gay. Gawker outed him. That made Thiel mad. So he bides his time and gets his revenge.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/peter-thiel-keith-rabois-stanford-review
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/meet-peter-thiel-gawker-suits
Ezra Klein: [INDENT][INDENT]The crucial point here is that Thiel isn’t actually using the legal system as a venue in which to adjudicate his dispute with Gawker; hell, his lawsuit isn’t even about his personal dispute with Gawker. Rather, Thiel is using the legal system as a weapon to bleed Gawker in every single case. [/INDENT][/INDENT]
Felix Salmon:
http://fusion.net/story/306927/peter-thiel-gawker-dangerous-blueprint/
[INDENT][INDENT]Back in 2006, he promised that he would rain destruction on Denton and his associates if Gawker ever outed him as being gay, which they did, the following year. But he didn’t sue Gawker over the articles that they wrote about him. Instead, he just sat, and waited, and waited, for years, as Gawker published thousands and thousands of articles about thousands and thousands of people, most of whom were entirely unrelated to Thiel.
Gawker is a fast-moving site; it can’t (and doesn’t) carefully lawyer every single thing it publishes. No one can. And so Thiel knew that, if he just had patience, eventually he’d be able to seize his chance, and make good on his threats. He hired a legal team, told them to look for promising cases, and then started funding them with millions of dollars. [/INDENT][/INDENT] *Disclaimer: Did Thiel hire the legal team in 2007 or only after the Hulk Hogan incident arose? Not sure. I don’t think it matters, but it’s possible that the lawyers weren’t kept in suspension until a suitable case arose. It’s possible that Thiel monitored developments himself to some extent.
Your cite indicates that American courts have “loosened restrictions”. That is a government entity changed it rules. This line of thinking is quite common in anti-capitalist rhetoric:
If there’s a problem with a market outcome, government must manage it.
If there’s a problem with a government outcome, it has to be the market because something went wrong.
Lawyers in government “loosen restrictions” for the benefit of lawyers. Crony capitalism is not “market fundamentalism” no matter what Bernie Sanders tells you. I wonder by your logical contortions if anything could be turned to a capitalism problem from an obvious problem of government mismanagement. Are bribes problems of market fundamentalism?
To be clear, this alleged anti-capitalist rhetoric was presented in a Bloomberg business piece.
In the 19th century it was understood that the wealthy could harass others indefinitely if they were permitted to file lawsuits that they had no personal stake in. That restriction has been loosened due to the peculiar late 20th and early 21st century faith in market negotiation. There was never an era running according to extremist libertarian principles, though again I’d be amused if these sorts of ideologues set up their ideal state in the Western Sahara. Think of the freedom!
“Are bribes problems of market fundamentalism?”
Mises.org seems to take a sympathetic view towards bribery. They basically imply that bribes would melt away under their perfect world, so it must be ok in this one. [INDENT][INDENT]: "Prohibiting bribes is never perfectly enforceable, but it does increase the risk and cost of the bribes, and of the transactions they make possible. As recently as 10 years ago, virtually all governments, except the U.S. government, did not prohibit their nationals from bribing foreign officials. After having forbidden American companies to compete with bribes, the U.S. government has used the OECD to impose the same sort of prohibition to companies from 33 other countries, through the 1997 Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.
Why should bribes to state officials be illegal? …
Give me liberty, or give me the freedom to bribe!"[/INDENT][/INDENT]
I realise this is a joke but Western Sahara would be a terrible place for a libertarian society. The entire Coastal area is occupied by Morocco and is basically under military rule. They’ve built a series of walls that would put Donald Trump to shame. The remaining inland desert area (which Morocco didn’t want) is under the control of SADR backed by the government of Algeria.
It didn’t necessarily change the facts of the case, but it almost assuredly changed the outcome. At first when I heard this story, I wasn’t exactly sure why this had much broader implications, but then I read about how much the outcome of the case was dependent on this outside money.
So there are a few salient issues here. Clearly in this case, the outsized money on one side had a distortive effect that discouraged moderation and reasonability. The latter two things are necessary for a functional legal system. The fact that Hogan specifically dropped a claim that would have been covered by insurance despite the fact that doing so was almost assuredly not in his best interest, is problematic. Hogan’s further refusal to settle is also bad for the public writ large.
There is also the issue that anti-SLAPP laws which could prevent frivolous lawsuits would likely not apply to a common outside funder who is bankrolling multiple independent plaintiffs like Thiel. Thiel was basically plaintiff shopping. Even if you think Hogan was wronged, and that Thiel was right to help him in this case, the fact is is Thiel did not care about the specifics of the case or Hogan’s dignity and privacy. Thiel is not a hero for that reason alone. That’s why Thiel basically strong-armed Hogan to go to trial, forcing him to testify to embarrassing things in court like having lied about the size of his penis. Thiel encouraged him further debase himself to serve Thiel’s own specific interest in vengeance and financial destruction. It’s not even clear that Hogan himself is going to be financially better off for having done so rather than having settled.
Regardless of how you feel about whether one should be able to out someone or publish a sex tape with impunity, the fact is that this will have a chilling effect on real journalism. Look what happened to Mother Jones when they wrote about a billionaire. Basically it means that you can never anger a thin-skinned billionaire because they can effectively put you out of business by financing endless lawsuits against you for better or worse. Few media institutions can afford that. Either you need to be part of a huge conglomerate, or small enough to have no recoverable assets.
And it’s not just journalists. Few doctors or lawyers could afford to defend themselves from multiple, endless lawsuits from multiple aggrieved parties backed with near infinite resources. Or just imagine a situation where some crazy billionaire announces he will vigorously defend any football player accused of any crime at their alma mater, including paying settlements. It’s already hard enough to prove sexual assault, but I can easily imagine a climate like what we’ve seen at schools like Baylor being even worse if the state knows they are up against limitless resources and accusers know they will be publicly smeared and fairly unlikely to see any real justice.
It basically comes down to whether you want the legal system to function purely as a way to hold people accountable for their crimes and transgressions, or whether you want it to potentially be a tool for the rich to exact their vengeance and silence people they don’t like.
Gawker’s insurer would have refused to cover the negligence claim anyway, because Gawker’s actions were not merely negligent. If Gawker’s insurance does not cover deliberate wrongdoing, they would be out of pocket no matter what Hogan did.
As far as the assertions that Hulk Hogan was being manipulated against his own interest, i have two questions:
-
Has Hogan said anything about this yet? Perhaps he wanted to see Gawker destroyed as well, as opposed to being a naive shill for a billionaire.
-
Legally, who are the lawyers in the case obligated to look out for the best interests of? The plaintiff, the moneybags, or both?
Do you have a cite for that? Because everything I have read states the opposite. At least given the facts at the time.
I am sure he did, but I suspect given he supposedly lost almost all of his remaining fortune in his divorce, I think he would have settled and spared himself further embarrassment absent a financial backer.
I am pretty sure it’s the plaintiff, but having the money obviously changes the calculus.
“That restriction has been loosened due to the peculiar late 20th and early 21st century faith in market negotiation”
This is the leap of faith you are taking. What I attribute to blatant crony capitalism, you attribute to an imaginary faith in markets that has no resemblance to real life. The Bloomberg thing you quoted did not take such a leap. From what you quoted it was barebones history without the anticapitalist flavor you added.
If anything the loosening of restrictions would have more to do with a misplaced faith in the efficiency and justice of government courts.
The alleged anti-capitalist flavor was in your head. I certainly didn’t have that in mind and neither did Bloomberg. It’s simple history.
There has been an attempt in the law and economics field since the 1970s to loosen such ancillary restrictions on free negotiation and marketplaces, be they in antitrust or in the patent area.
Why? It’s basically anarchy there right now, without all the guns of Somalia. Introduce freedom fries into the area and the barren desert will be replaced by libertarian unicorns and sparkleponies. Hardy settlers can feast on the freedom, for there’s little else there.
Try Bir Tawil. A section of land between Sudan and Egypt that’s claimed by neither of them because of Britain making a mess with it’s colonial borders (as usual). 800 Square miles of pure freedom, just waiting for all those Sovereign Citizens to set up and make it home!