so Merry posts bond... (thought experment)

Rather, the arbitrator needs to find a solution that both parties are OK with.  He makes his suggestion, one party or the other raises objections, and it's back to the drawing board for another go, until both sides either like it or like it better than fighting.

Not all situations are guaranteed to have a just and reasonable solution that meets that test.

Crop rotation is indeed a good idea, but I suspect we're likely to be dealing with a farming population that is just barely able to feed itself, and is either dependent on chemical fertilizers or is slowly destroying its land. Crop rotation would only work if the farmers could cut their calorie intake by a third.

It doesn't really answer the question to simply assume benign conditions compatible with AnCap. There's no law of nature that demands such favorable conditions must always be the case.

But does it look to you like for an AnCap arbitrator it ought to be an easy cut-and-dried decision?  [...]  I'm interested in what an AnCap society ought to do about them.

?  Is an easy cut-and-dried decision called for?

Arbitration -- it's not a matter of the two parties agreeing a priori to do whatever the arbitrator (or arbitration council) suggests; that's ripe for abuse (an arbitrator who accepts bribes will lose his rep, but for a large enough bribe, is he going to care?)

Good point.

Rather, the arbitrator needs to find a solution that both parties are OK with.  He makes his suggestion, one party or the other raises objections, and it's back to the drawing board for another go, until both sides either like it or like it better than fighting.

Creativity is called for.  Creativity can't be laid down in law.

VERY good point.

If they asked me, I'd note the importance of crop rotation and leaving a field fallow at least once in a while.  Grazing on a field in its fallow phase -- by the time the field is ready for planting again, the manure left by the herds should have decomposed nicely.  It's possible that the farmers ought to pay the herders for the value of the manure; but it might be friendlier just to share in the rotation time.

Interesting idea. It isn't at all a full solution, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

So rather than focus on who's right and who's wrong, who *deserves* to get things his way, you looked for ways for people to get along by helping each other. I don't know how hard it would be to make that a central part of AnCap tradition, but the better it's managed the better a society you're likely to have.

I'll go farther -- the better that tradition is established, the less trouble governments are likely to cause even when governments claim sovereignty.

Not all situations are guaranteed to have a just and reasonable solution that meets that test.

I know.  My local Quaker Meeting has split over the issue of known child sex offenders, with some wanting to extend dignity & respect to all God's children, and some insisting that the KCSO always always always be accompanied by a non-KCSO adult member.  Quakers are normally very good at finding a third way; in this situation, that third way has not yet appeared.  And, normally when the third way doesn't show, one side or the other agrees to "withdraw" their objection so that the whole Meeting can "move forward".  That has also not happened, and it's not going to, as far as I can see.  The KCSO in question remains in limbo, rarely comes to Meeting, and sticks close to the friendlier adults when he does.

It seems to me that the solution here lies with the KCSO himself.  If he proposed always being supervised, the one side would be satisfied, and the other side would have to grant him the dignity of accepting his voluntary self-restriction.  If he does not have the creative wisdom & insight to see this himself, I don't know how to help him.

(I bring up Quakers because self-arbitration is what Quakers do.)

It's quite true that there is no guarantee of a good outcome.  I keep saying that AnCap isn't a good system for people who need guarantees and other assertions of safety and security.  Government makes promises of guarantees and security, but it can't deliver:  life isn't safe, and not even government can change that.

The Quaker Meeting above has been existing in this unresolved state of uncertainty for several years now.

As to the Africans in question, the farmers may indeed be sacrificing their future by spending their present (overfarming with chemicals, kind of thing).  Self-arbitration would require both sides to go extra-hungry for a while; if they turned to an outside arbitrator, however, that outsider might be able to ask his people and their neighbors for emergency donations, just a year's worth or a season's worth, to get the crop rotation started.  On second thought, even in self-arbitration the two sides could together appeal to outsiders for emergency help -- and I think they'd be more likely to get it if they showed how they were working together to solve rather than enforce.

No guarantees again.  Not anywhere.

Interesting idea. It isn't at all a full solution, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Not at all a full solution.  The next steps are better taken by the former contestants themselves, I think.

So rather than focus on who's right and who's wrong, who *deserves* to get things his way, you looked for ways for people to get along

Getting along, by definition, works.  I'm a little disturbed by the quality of surprise I perceive (or imagine) in your tone; is it really that strange?

So rather than focus on who's right and who's wrong, who *deserves* to get things his way, you looked for ways for people to get along

Getting along, by definition, works.  I'm a little disturbed by the quality of surprise I perceive (or imagine) in your tone; is it really that strange?

The discussions I've heard about AnCap have tended to focus on how to coerce governments not to coerce people, how to enforce arbitrated decisions, where are the boundary lines between somebody else coercing you so it's OK to force them to stop versus you coercing them first, and what kind of guns are best. Also why free markets will work best if nobody does any planning or forethought except (secretly) for themselves alone.

So yes, I'm a little bit surprised to hear such a refreshing point of view in this context.

It ought to be implicit in all the discussions. And it might be. It just doesn't get explicit all that often.

Getting along, by definition, works.  I'm a little disturbed by the quality of surprise I perceive (or imagine) in your tone; is it really that strange?

I've got nothing against people working harder to get along. Still, though, it doesn't always happen, and so it seems to me that if you forego the option of having a government, you're creating a situation where it had better always happen, because there's no plan B any more.

The trouble is, of course, when there is a government around, coercion tends to become the only game in town, and getting along not only isn't plan A any longer, it isn't even plan B. So part of the argument against government does make sense, even if the AnCap alternative seems to have scary loose ends.

In the old fashioned Hearding society , cattle is wealth.

The Cattlemen and the sodbusters are fated to conflict because they face the tradedy of the commons , it isn't practical for a heardsman to own and defend a whole range , but he might make war on his compeditors just to reduce their success, as long as it remains a zero sum game that is a winning strategy.

how to enforce arbitrated decisions

Arbitrated decisions that both parties agree to are going to tend to be self-enforcing.  Recently, Pablo asked the brothers and Merry's clients if they agreed to his ruling.  Merry's 3 guys did agree, though evidently without fully understanding what they were agreeing to, which could be cause to renew arbitration; or, on having it explained, they could agree (and seemingly have agreed) to the decision anyway.

Morris skipped out.  In Fairbanks today, where this sort of thing is being tried as an alternative (rather than involving local police, the few thousands involved in the experiment come to arbitration), so far none of the ones found "guilty" and owing restitution have skipped out.  There, the penalty is:  if you don't deliver what you agreed in arbitration to deliver, you don't get to use the system yourself in the future; you are "out-law", outside the law.  Evidently that's incentive enough for all of them folks (to date).

Also why free markets will work best if nobody does any planning or forethought except (secretly) for themselves alone.

Huh.  I don't see that in the discussions.

It ought to be implicit in all the discussions. And it might be. It just doesn't get explicit all that often.

I thought it was implicit, on the aforementioned "self-enforcing if agreeable to all parties" concept.  Where there is no enforcement agency, all you have is the power to make the solution agreeable to all concerned.  I guess we should make it explicit more often.

the AnCap alternative seems to have scary loose ends.

You got it.  And sounds like you're starting to get it that governmental tying up of those loose ends only makes the loose ends less visible.  Someone who is coerced into cooperating with you only looks like he's cooperating; he might secretly be spitting in your dinner.

The Cattlemen and the sodbusters are fated to conflict

The past does not equal the future.  There are ways to share, and reasons to, as well.

I've got nothing against people working harder to get along.

I'm going to pick a minor nit.  I know what you meant, but I prefer better language, as being conducive to better thought:  I do have a great deal against people "working harder" to get along.  If it's hard work it's likely not to get done, and less if it's harder.  I prefer to make it easy to get along, to make getting along far and away the more attractive option.  Find ways that getting along saves face as well as wealth and effort, and those involved will flow like water into the channel cut for it.

I'm still waiting to learn (perhaps I missed a response) who the real-life counterpart is to "Merry Petzger". I assume it's "Perry Metzger", but that's a name I'm unfamiliar with.

I think the real-world counterpart is this person, whom I ran across in a recent discussion. He does seem to be the type of person who would shout "You don't know how to run an anarchy!"