Well, I can think of a few. What about the risks of offshore drilling and the recent BP oil spill disaster? If BP knew there was no legal authority to take them to task for screwing up, what reason would they have to be careful, so long as they get all the oil in the ocean possible? Things like strict liability obligations if screwups occur as well as compensating those affected, such as fishermen, are sometimes necessary. Or how about if a company dumps in your local lake or river, for example? Now, I know all about Ronald Coase and his study about property rights, but from what I've gathered, it would seem very difficult for a town to actually negotiate, esp. if it has millions of citizens with NO gov't, with a big corporation that makes billions.
I'm not so sure voluntary agreements and the market would always work in the absence of a legal authority to punish negligence, fraud, etc. Maybe I just don't understand all the intricacies, but I think anarcho-capitalism has too much blind faith in the market. As much as I like the free market, I'm a bit more moderate in this regard. I think there surely are a few cases of reasonably-defined market failures and times when a little regulation here and there is needed to fix a problem. The companies don't ALWAYS have the incentive or reason to act responsibly. Sometimes they screw up. Market fundamentalism seems to me to be just as bad for our cause as gov't fundamentalism for so-called welfare liberals. Or neocons.
Well, I guess I should've elaborated a little more on morality and complexities. My mistake. I did mention the utmost importance of responsibility in my first post, btw. Yes, I do also look down upon things like incivility, crudeness, etc. Promiscuity, it depends. I don't encourage it, esp. without protection, but if they're responsible enough to be a little promiscuous, with protection of course, and handle their other life duties, who am I to get in the way or make a big deal? I don't encourage it, but if a few people out of a million are promiscuous and safe, that's a risk I'm willing to take for a free society.
Maybe it's just a difference in our personalities that's the biggest issue here. I like to think a lot, esp. about empirics, economics and politics. I have a very analytical mind, so I question things a lot. And things, esp. so-called moral codes that don't make sense to me, like calling homosexuality wrong, makes no sense to me. You have every right to have your opinions, but I just don't care for this notion among many Americans that we should cling to certain traditions that really make no sense. Tradition for tradition's sake, if you ask me, is dumb, quite frankly. If you wanna uphold a tradition, at least one that tells people how to behave or what's "wrong" or "right", you need a greater reasoning. Unless it's something real harmless and practically pointless like a bar mitzvah, clinging to a tradition can be detrimental to society, like the tradition of slavery we didn't abolish until at least the Civil War era. Or things like segregation.
