Private Policing I Find Disturbing

Some residents of New Brighton, Christchurch are sick of the police failing to control crime and have taken to patrolling the streets. I would be all for that were these guys not a bunch of white supremacists.
A “white pride” group, Right Wing Resistance (RWR), claims to be patrolling New Brighton streets that “the police and the system [...]

Nazi Parents and the State

Janet Keeping writes in the Western Standard:
The Manitoba government is seeking permanent custody of a brother and sister already in care. What’s wrong with the parents? Media reports have mentioned possible drug and alcohol abuse. But if press coverage is accurate, the main issue is that the parents have been teaching their children to hate [...]

419 Baiting, Altruistic Punishment, and Ideology

Al Roth at the excellent Market Design points out that 419 baiting is a form of altruistic punishment. Spending your own time and resources in order to waste the time and resources of email scam artists makes it less likely that they’ll bother the rest of us. 419 baiters are voluntarily contributing to a public [...]

Governments and Seasteads

Eric makes a good point in the comments:

The problem with meddlesome preferences on seasteads would be that Iran can always afford to spend more on punishing a Theo Van Gogh than a seastead can spend on protecting him.

I think if we consider the long-term dynamics of a world with both seasteads and land-based states, the [...]

Seasteading and Sects

We should expect sects – cohesive groups which instil extreme preferences on their members in order to ensure commitment – to be more prevalent under anarchy than under a state. Eric Crampton and I make this argument here. From the abstract:
Using insights from the economics of religion, we argue that anarchy is more likely than [...]

How Sincere are Anti-abortionists?

I find this video [hat tip: Francois Tremblay] confusing. Anti-abortion protestors are asked whether abortion should be illegal, and answer in the affirmative. When asked what the punishment should be, however, most say they haven’t thought about it and will not endorse time in prison, or any punishment at all. 

In addition [...]