Anarchist Groups Enforcing Drug Bans

[Nick900]

I was talking to someone about anarchism and they brought up the scenario of a tower block that allows the use of drugs and a surrounding suburbs that is very much anti-drugs. The tower block has it in the contract that anyone within the tower block limits is allowed to own and do drugs but the surrounding people have drawn up a contract stating that you can't have drugs. 

 

Through a series of business deals and land purchases the home owners in the surrounding land have purchased all of the land apart from the road leading to the tower block. Under pressure from the surrounding home owners threatening to use a different road the owner of the one road that leads to the tower block caves into the pressure and bans all drug transportation on that road in effect creating a circle around the tower block.

 

It's not inconceivable that a large group of people would get together to enforce something like a no gun zone basically cutting off people who don't agree. In the example given above the people can still take drugs in the tower block because they own that land but they can't get drugs in or out because the surrounding area + road company have forbid it.

 

How does this get resolved?

[BD91]

Same thing that happens now: drug trafficking

[shirgall]

Go to root causes. Why are they using drugs to regulate their mood? If Ancaps aren't beating their children, forcing them to go to government schools, or forcing them to pay taxes, are they really going to medicate except when needed?

[dsayers]

the surrounding people have drawn up a contract stating that you can't have drugs. 

Misleading language. If it's a contract, then the people who have agreed to it have agreed to it. There's no room for being told by an outside source what you can and cannot do, nor would such commands be binding to those who didn't voluntarily submit.

 

Next, why would only the people against something be the only ones to buy land and/or encourage other land/road owners to agree with them? You'd think people that wanted something would be just as motivated to do so. Perhaps even more so since they would perceive others as trying to obstruct them.

 

Finally, if you're a road owner, you're going to want as many people traveling on your road as possible. You're not going to prevent certain people from using your road based on the preferences of nearby people. No successful business plan includes a stipulation for willingly limiting your own customer base.

[Nick900]

Businesses appease groups all the time ... target pulled GTA 5 off the shelves because a group of SJWs said they would not shop there anymore.

[Donnadogsoth]

Misleading language. If it's a contract, then the people who have agreed to it have agreed to it. There's no room for being told by an outside source what you can and cannot do, nor would such commands be binding to those who didn't voluntarily submit.

 

Next, why would only the people against something be the only ones to buy land and/or encourage other land/road owners to agree with them? You'd think people that wanted something would be just as motivated to do so. Perhaps even more so since they would perceive others as trying to obstruct them.

 

Finally, if you're a road owner, you're going to want as many people traveling on your road as possible. You're not going to prevent certain people from using your road based on the preferences of nearby people. No successful business plan includes a stipulation for willingly limiting your own customer base.

 

Once again dsayers fails to grasp the enormous, irrational, and deadly power of PEER  PRESSURE.  An anti-drug zone of sufficient size has the power to suppress drug manufacture, trade and use in a surrounded neighbourhood out of ideological motivation and mass peer pressure.  If that means shutting off the road system it is NOT INCONCEIVABLE that that the road system will be cut off.  If this means crushing any businesses or individuals who object, by means of non-NAP-violating methods then they can and if sufficiently ideologically motivated will do that, and there's nothing ancappers can say about it.

[dsayers]

Once again dsayers fails to grasp the enormous, irrational, and deadly power of PEER  PRESSURE.

Don't tell us, show us.

 

You speak as if it's possible to *poof* area with lots of people who are against something and that something is nowhere to be found. That's not natural, so to arrive at such a point would be at the end of a process. If at the start of that process, there's anybody around that has/wants the item in question, they're going to respond to people trying to take it away by defending themselves, asserting their preference, and encouraging like-minded individuals to join them. In other words, a pretty equal counter-effort.

 

Maybe you don't like bubble gum. For me to live next door to you and own/chew bubble gum doesn't effect you. So you'd have no incentive to try and convince those around us to ostracize me for chewing bubble gum. You can't just say there's a magical place where everybody hates gum and therefore gum-toters won't be welcome. It's absurd.

[Troubador]

They get their drugs delivered by drone. Next question?

[Worlok]

You just sneak the drugs in/out. There is no such thing as a "drug" free zone. That said, the tower had a contract allowing drugs. The owner of the tower can offer new contracts, but if they disallow owning and taking the drugs before new contracts are accepted, then they are in breech and can/will be sued. You face an economic dilemma, on the shoulders of the tower owner. Will you go to court and possibly pay out huge sums to people that you have contracts with in your tower or use some other form of transformation?

 

Troubador brought up drones. You could fly drugs in. Suppose as an extra step, those bastards start shooting down your drug drones in what they perceive as "their" air space. That can lead to violence, which again comes to negotiating contracts. 

 

You could also make your own drugs. Meth? Really? Get a room, state of the art lab and safety equipment, all the meth you want. Grow your own coca leaves or marijuana. Then you sell drugs to everybody in the nearby town that wants to visit the tower.

 

The tower would be a super rich drug den and the surrounding town would be filled with crack heads and would lose all negotiating power. 

[Donnadogsoth]

Don't tell us, show us.

 

You speak as if it's possible to *poof* area with lots of people who are against something and that something is nowhere to be found. That's not natural, so to arrive at such a point would be at the end of a process. If at the start of that process, there's anybody around that has/wants the item in question, they're going to respond to people trying to take it away by defending themselves, asserting their preference, and encouraging like-minded individuals to join them. In other words, a pretty equal counter-effort.

 

Maybe you don't like bubble gum. For me to live next door to you and own/chew bubble gum doesn't effect you. So you'd have no incentive to try and convince those around us to ostracize me for chewing bubble gum. You can't just say there's a magical place where everybody hates gum and therefore gum-toters won't be welcome. It's absurd.

 

No one gets surprised by history?  I can think of a group or two that got surprised by history.

 

Maybe I will be surprised by history when a group of rationalist ancappers come to stop me teaching irrational beliefs to my children.

[vahleeb]

Hi Nick. It would be economically inefficient for DROs to support any kind of restriction to freedom. Because restrictions need to be enforced and the costs of enforcing are not economically viable. Therefore, the anti-drugs landowners would have to set up their own inefficient DRO and subsidize its continued existence. This DRO is highly unlikely to get any sort of reciprocity with other DROs because of its economically inefficient principles. Therefore it's even more unlikely that they can form the pressure on the road owner to the point where he/she wilts.

 

My point is that you are already starting out with a lifeboat scenario, but when you actually try and apply it to a "free society" its probability becomes smaller and smaller. And in the end, if all you claim does happen, then the tower dwellers have two options: 1. Move away from the "crazy" people. 2. Get their drugs delivered by air, while they wait for the inevitable collapse of the "community" surrounding them.

[Mister Mister]

  I don't see why this is a problem.  If you have a friend who is on heroin and you use social and economic pressures to get him to stop doing heroin...why is this a bad thing?

Hi Nick. It would be economically inefficient for DROs to support any kind of restriction to freedom.

This doesn't mean they can't incentivize and dis-incentivize certain behaviors.  If you don't smoke, your healthcare is cheaper.

[vahleeb]

Hi Rose Codex, you are changing Nick's example. In his example it was allowed to do drugs within the tower and banned all around. That presuposes two different DROs. In this case, the second DRO is enforcing a prohibitve, which can only incurr costs that are economically inefficient.

There is a difference between negative incetives and prohibition. Negative incentives means people are still free to do whatever they want, they just have to pay more. And the extra pay is actually the increased cost of the risk the DRO is taking with regards to their long-term health, nothing more.

Now to answer your own question: you could use social and economic pressure on your friend, although it would seem to me dangerously toeing the line with an intiation of force. I say this because you are judging another person with regards to actions that only would affect himself (in a free society consumption of drugs would be free from the associated drug-related crime that we see in the statist universe simply because the price of drugs would go back down to that of aspirin or that of vegetables), and that doesn't seem to me to pass the universality test with regards to morals.

Ultimately, I think the rule of thumb is that your friend still has to have the choice of doing what he wants despite of your pressure. If however, through your pressure, you actively remove part of his choice (apply real restriction), then I think the initiation of force line has been crossed.

Edited March 3, 2016 by vahleeb

[Hi there]

I think the developers are wrong to negotiate to deny others freedom to participate in the market.  While it may be to their economic gain, and within their power, and they may even put forth empirical evidence to support claims that drugs are bad for you, their choice to exert influence in this direction is still not supported in an objective moral framework that respects voluntarism, is it? The existence of a "free market" (people behaving in accordance with free market principles), I would argue, implies that individual people are operating under some sort of moral framework that respects voluntarism.  It cannot be a "free" market if the actors are not free.  The act of performing or directing labor to ends that violate the principle of voluntarism, like cutting off populations from economic choice, does not adhere, then, to free market principles and is an act of statism. When a group maneuvers resources with the intent to deny a population choice defined by some imaginary line around them or others, that's a state, right?  Do they have to put on badges?  I guess the short argument is, when people don't adhere to a moral system that respects voluntarism, there you will find a state, and there is no anarchy in the example given, at least not in the aspect in question.  I could be wrong...can a group that negotiates for a third party without consulting them, claims land/road ownership over another group's access to the market, and pays other entities to enforce arbitrary restrictions, extract resources, etc., claim any material difference to a government?  I guess the defining feature would be the lack of negotiated consent with the third party, the ones that lived within the new border imposed by the land of the developers interested in the imaginary barriers.  Perhaps the key to immorality of the act is they negotiate to destroy, or with value set against value that has been established (in this case, in the road).  To put it bluntly, they used their economic power to destroy value in the road for that set of people, just as if they had mined it or directed a waterway against it.  They made war.  

 

Would the above imply, then, that anarchy cannot exist where there is no moral framework that respects voluntarism, in that as soon as two people interact, economic incentive will be for one to exert dominance over the other and form a state relationship (master/slave, serf/vassal, majority/minority voter)?  The free market certainly cannot exist where status in negotiation for prices is subject to initiation of force.    

 

Is the question, "How would this be adjudicated?"  I would think that residences would have negotiated ahead of time with the road owner for guaranteed unrestricted access, with penalties and agreement that disputes be judged in...and so on.

 

Don't most of these "how's the utopia going to work if...?" questions boil down to moral decisions on right action by the involved parties?  The "free market" is just a set of behaviors that, by definition, can only occur where parties are operating under a moral framework that respects voluntarism.  Negotiating to deny free exercise in the economy to another party isn't respecting voluntarism, it's people being shitty, it's statism, and therefore not anarchy. 

[regevdl]

It would just create a black market.  But also, why isn't the option of social ostricism....why all of this 'block entry road' etc.... the people by then...if the society was stateless would have already been using the method of social ostracism for anyone who uses drugs.  If you are in the preferred drug-free zone, it would be too costly to actively enforce and block roads and rally everyone to pressure the road owner etc, instead, anyone who is known to use drugs in that area will be cut off from goods and services.  If I own a gas station and I don't approve of the drug users, then I would refuse service to them.  The grocer etc. Then the drug user would either stop using or move to more drug-friendly areas.  Which....why wouldn't the drug user do that from the beginning?

 

But honestly, in order to get the road owner to 'cave', the surrounding neighborhood would have to make a STRONG case as to why a few individuals doing drugs is wreaking absolut havoc on their society and infringing on their prosperity and peace and privacy, etc.  If they can factually pinpoint that the individuals buying/selling/using drugs is somehow violating the non aggression principle, destroying their property or disturbing their livilood (beyond just being nosy busy bodies), then by all means.  I mean if the Tower block was turning into a total crack town with prostitutes and STDs rampant and doing some vile things violating non-agression (sex slave children, etc) then the surrounding 'hood would have a reasonable case. 

 

But I just can't see any other scenario where it would be worth or conducive for a neighborhood to try to turn another neighborhood into a drug free zone.  I mean that 's WHY they are the drug free zone by voluntary compliance so they can live in the standard that suits them.  So it shouldn't be up to them what is being transported on the road so long as it's not infringing on their personal safety, property, etc

[vahleeb]

We all seem to forget that before the government got into "regulating" and "banning" drugs, there was no drug related violence, no drug related sex trades and basically no reprehensibility of drug usage. Seems funny to me how we wanna get rid of the state, but not of the scar tissue it created in our brains.

[Donnadogsoth]

It would just create a black market.  But also, why isn't the option of social ostricism....why all of this 'block entry road' etc.... the people by then...if the society was stateless would have already been using the method of social ostracism for anyone who uses drugs.  If you are in the preferred drug-free zone, it would be too costly to actively enforce and block roads and rally everyone to pressure the road owner etc, instead, anyone who is known to use drugs in that area will be cut off from goods and services.  If I own a gas station and I don't approve of the drug users, then I would refuse service to them.  The grocer etc. Then the drug user would either stop using or move to more drug-friendly areas.  Which....why wouldn't the drug user do that from the beginning?

 

But honestly, in order to get the road owner to 'cave', the surrounding neighborhood would have to make a STRONG case as to why a few individuals doing drugs is wreaking absolut havoc on their society and infringing on their prosperity and peace and privacy, etc.  If they can factually pinpoint that the individuals buying/selling/using drugs is somehow violating the non aggression principle, destroying their property or disturbing their livilood (beyond just being nosy busy bodies), then by all means.  I mean if the Tower block was turning into a total crack town with prostitutes and STDs rampant and doing some vile things violating non-agression (sex slave children, etc) then the surrounding 'hood would have a reasonable case. 

 

But I just can't see any other scenario where it would be worth or conducive for a neighborhood to try to turn another neighborhood into a drug free zone.  I mean that 's WHY they are the drug free zone by voluntary compliance so they can live in the standard that suits them.  So it shouldn't be up to them what is being transported on the road so long as it's not infringing on their personal safety, property, etc

 

What if Cracktown is the source of the drugs that are hooking Straightsville kids?  If you were living in Straightsville wouldn't you want the pipeline of drugs pinched and the perpetrators neutralised?

[labmath2]

Are all enforced rile initiation of force?

 

Think of a homeowner's association passing an anti drug rule and forcing violators to pay fines. Would that be immoral?

[Donnadogsoth]

Are all enforced rile initiation of force?

 

Think of a homeowner's association passing an anti drug rule and forcing violators to pay fines. Would that be immoral?

 

You're sick with cancer.  Marijuana's the only drug that lets you live without debilitating nausea from your chemotherapy drugs.  Your "homeowner's association" passes a law banning marijuana on pain of fines you cannot afford to pay, backed up by eviction if you can't pay the fines.  There is nowhere else for you to go, everywhere else has banned marijuana too.  Are you doing something immoral by surreptitiously procuring marijuana for your personal use?

[labmath2]

You're sick with cancer. Marijuana's the only drug that lets you live without debilitating nausea from your chemotherapy drugs. Your "homeowner's association" passes a law banning marijuana on pain of fines you cannot afford to pay, backed up by eviction if you can't pay the fines. There is nowhere else for you to go, everywhere else has banned marijuana too. Are you doing something immoral by surreptitiously procuring marijuana for your personal use?

No, but you are violating your homeowners association contract. Which means they can enforce the terms of the contract.

 

Unless you believe such contracts are immoral or invalid.

[vahleeb]

Are all enforced rile initiation of force?

 

Think of a homeowner's association passing an anti drug rule and forcing violators to pay fines. Would that be immoral?

 

If the rule has not been agreed to unanimously then yes.

If it has been agreed to then the rule-breakers are violating their own contract.

 

To go back to your example, if the homeowner association passes the rule by majority only and not by unanimity, then the case you describe is immoral.

[dsayers]

I think "homeowner's association" is confusing terminology. If a person owns their home, then they are free to do as they please within it. If people make rules for themselves, then it is more than association. Of course people can agree to whatever they like and violating that agreement is a breach of contract.

 

However, the HA model is unsustainable. What happens when somebody dies and leaves their house to another? That person cannot be bound by the contracts of other people. Say they do something that HA doesn't like. They can ostracize them or buy the house from them. But these things are true without an HA in place.

[labmath2]

I think "homeowner's association" is confusing terminology. If a person owns their home, then they are free to do as they please within it. If people make rules for themselves, then it is more than association. Of course people can agree to whatever they like and violating that agreement is a breach of contract.

 

However, the HA model is unsustainable. What happens when somebody dies and leaves their house to another? That person cannot be bound by the contracts of other people. Say they do something that HA doesn't like. They can ostracize them or buy the house from them. But these things are true without an HA in place.

This is where contract law would need to address. I imagine some contracts are enforcible even after death, like a will. I do not know what people will pactice in a free society, but it is possible to make the contract part of the deed of the house. Which means inheriting the house also means inheriting the contract. If such a contract is immoral, i would like to know why.

 

 

As for not agreeing, if the contract stipulates you will agree with decisions made by the association, then it is part of the contract, even if you disagree with one specific instance.

[dsayers]

This is where contract law would need to address.

 

Your use of the word "law" here is misleading. Man cannot make laws, nor supersede reality.

 

I imagine some contracts are enforcible even after death, like a will.

 

Wills refer to the dispensation of the author's property Human beings cannot be property.

 

it is possible to make the contract part of the deed of the house.

 

Deeds cannot make contracts, only people can. In order for what you describe to be plausible, the person who writes the deed would have to be the owner of the house. At which point it is their consent that binds them, not the deed. Once that person is dead, the deed could not bind another.

 

Which means inheriting the house also means inheriting the contract. If such a contract is immoral, i would like to know why.

 

Same reason any behavior can be accurately described as immoral: lack of consent.

 

As for not agreeing, if the contract stipulates you will agree with decisions made by the association

 

I did not argue against that. I only pointed out that at that point, you're not actually talking about an "association."

[labmath2]

Use a different word if its more convenient, but the point is that there will need to be some notion of what the limitations of contracts are.

 

On the will, lets assume the lawyer decides to take all the property for himself, can the beneficiaries of the will sue him? If so, why?

 

I realize now the deed is a bit confusing. Istead, lets say you inherit a stock (share in a company), does that mean you are not bound by the rules that all other stock holders are? What about inheriting a company with investors? These are just cases that enter my sleep deprived mind.

 

The last part was a response to someone else.

[vahleeb]

It is true and legal precedent that you can inherit obligations that are connected to a property. This is valid even today in a statist society and I don't see why it wouldn't be valid in a free society either.

 

If you inherit property and the former owner of that property had signed contracts in which he agreed to use the property only under certain restrictions, then you are bound by the same restrictions when wanting to make use of said property. 

 

The principle that applies is that if someone dies owing you a large amount of money, you are entitled to recuperate your debt from the dead person's assets before they are distributed to his/her inheritors. If we accept that property can be transmissible through inheritance, I don't see why obligations can't.

 

That being said, you do realise how far off the original example we have arrived, right?

[labmath2]

If the rule has not been agreed to unanimously then yes.

If it has been agreed to then the rule-breakers are violating their own contract.

 

To go back to your example, if the homeowner association passes the rule by majority only and not by unanimity, then the case you describe is immoral.

 

I addressed this point earlier, but i did it in a chunk with response to dsayers, so i can see why you might have missed it. 

If the contract states you will abide by the rules put forth by the association and you agree to it, is it still immoral if you disagree with this particular rule they just announced and if so why?

[dsayers]

legal precedent

 

Meaning one thing one guy said one time. This is not a standard.

 

obligations that are connected to a property. This is valid even today in a statist society and I don't see why it wouldn't be valid in a free society either.

 

Because inanimate objects cannot have obligations. People do.

 

If you inherit property and the former owner of that property had signed contracts in which he agreed to use the property only under certain restrictions, then you are bound by the same restrictions when wanting to make use of said property. 

 

That which is binding upon a moral actor without their consent is immoral.

 

The principle that applies is that if someone dies owing you a large amount of money, you are entitled to recuperate your debt from the dead person's assets before they are distributed to his/her inheritors.

 

I personally don't see a problem with this. Though admittedly, I haven't given it much thought.

 

That being said, you do realise how far off the original example we have arrived, right?

 

Conversations flow. This looks like you're putting forth a standard for others while not holding yourself to it.

[vahleeb]

Dsayers, if you do not inherit obligations with reference to use of property and connected to said property then aren't you in a position of perennial conflict?

 

To illustrate. Say there's a few houses close together and person B lives in a house that is neighbouring the house of person A on the left and person C on the right. Do persons A and C, individually have the right to agree with person B that person B will not build anything on their property that exceeds 30 feet in height and vice-versa? I would say that they do, correct me if I'm wrong. And since the obligation is related to behaviour about the physical property then the contracts themselves are tied to the property. (This is accepted practice all over the world, from the US to Switzerland where they have property obligations that go back hundreds of years, and I don't see how it would constitute a violation of the NAP.) Why would people do these agreements since like forever if all it would generate is a potential conflict once one of the parties dies?

 

If then person B were to transfer his property to person D through sale, then he is also transferring the obligation. He would, obviously be required to disclose the obligations that were connected to the property prior to the sale, but assuming both B and D are acting in good faith, the obligation is lawfully transferred to D. Again looks to me like no breach of the NAP has occurred. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

The situation is perfectly analogous to the transfer done between B and D through inheritance.

 

Here's trying to preventively shoot down some foreseeable counter arguments: 

- B would have to be expected to ask permission from A and C before sale.

You realise that that is not only impractical but conflictual as hinted above(maybe one agrees, maybe one doesn't). Then why were these contracts created in the first place (historically speaking, between private entities without any enforcement from the state)?

 

- B is not allowed to create obligations that would transfer beyond his death. 

Not true. See dying in debt as described above.

 

- B cannot sign a contract that creates an obligation in perpetuity because he will not exist in perpetuity to honour it.

Maybe true, but this is why the contract is signed in reference to the property and becomes a part of the obligations of the owner, irrespective of the identity of the owner, a de facto addendum to property rights and obligations.

 

It sounds to me that you have a dead-stop in your reasoning: a principle that you feel the situation I described above is breaking. Can you state it specifically and how the case breaks it?  Thanks!

[dsayers]

Why would people do these agreements since like forever

This is also not a standard. You cannot get an ought from an is.

 

Unchosen positive obligations cannot be ethical.

[vahleeb]

Was that a rebuttal or the dead-stop that I asked you for?

[labmath2]

This is also not a standard. You cannot get an ought from an is.

 

Unchosen positive obligations cannot be ethical.

Not sure you read my respose above since you did not respond to it. I might as well just ask, why is it immoral to attach an obligation to ownership so that when ownership is transfered obligation is also transfered? This creates the condition that if you accept ownership (which you are free to reject) you also accept the obligation.

 

Please show me why its immoral from first principles.

[vahleeb]

I addressed this point earlier, but i did it in a chunk with response to dsayers, so i can see why you might have missed it. 

If the contract states you will abide by the rules put forth by the association and you agree to it, is it still immoral if you disagree with this particular rule they just announced and if so why?

Sorry, labmath2, I missed the question when you first addressed it.

 

Some contracts may abound by moral rules and some may not. For instance, you can sign a medical proxy that someone else be in charge of medical decisions once you are incapacitated (in a comma), but if then that person refuses to allow you to get any treatment because of their own convictions, that is obviously immoral.

 

Let's go back to the HA example. The problem there is the process of decision. Decisions with universal (i know you love this word ) effects that have been made by majority rule and not unanimity cannot be moral because a majority implies opposition that does not want the effects but is forced to submit. If the word "forced" rears its ugly head into the conversation, this is how we know it can't be moral. And just because you signed a contract saying you'll agree, doesn't make it moral either because morality is not always what contracts are made for.

 

Going back to a general situation: the problem stems from the fact that you are entering a contract where the provisions are forever likely to change without them being under your direct control. You obviously have every right to do that, but you will end up losing which means someone will be taking advantage of you and taking advantage of someone is immoral because it cannot be reciprocated.

[dsayers]

This creates the condition that if you accept ownership (which you are free to reject) you also accept the obligation.

I spoke of unchosen positive obligations. You're referring to a chosen positive obligation.

[Libertus]

Drugs would become very expensive, therefore smuggling becomes extremely profitable. At some point the drug dealers would have made enough money to buy the surrounding anti-drug blocks or pay off the DRO agents who are supposed to enforce the ban. There would still be a drug market inside, of course, but now the drug cartels control whose drugs are allowed. At some point the surrounding blocks will ask themselves why they pay huge sums for a drug-free zone when it costs a lot of money and doesn't work.

 

Sounds familiar?