[Shivetya]

Sorry, someone in government has control over this. They have a military and I am quite sure its not multinational's run amok. When people blame capitalism in many cases it simply is government run amok. These companies cannot operate where a military is without someone allowing it.

Governments have been selling out people forever, whether to other individuals or whatever business group they formed. that is not capitalism, its exploitation

[jegutman]

Their incentives are to burn the dead crops to maximize profit. There is not a system of property rights and a government willing to enforce them to prevent them from burning. I kind of doubt it's even a Coasean outcome given that it's causing quite a lot of damage to the air quality in Singapore and neighboring countries where they might be willing to pay them not to burn, but somehow that solution doesn't work (neutral enforcers of the agreement is obviously one difficult issue, and nobody is willing to go to war over it).

[ZenoArrow]

> "that is not capitalism, its exploitation"

Let's put it like this. Imagine the Indonesian government didn't exist. What would the people be able to do to stop the environmental destruction? Would you advocate vigilante justice?

[talmand]

Without a structured government, then the people are the "government", so to speak, and vigilante justice would not be so vigilante.

[ZenoArrow]

> "vigilante justice would not be so vigilante."

Explain why.

[talmand]

Because vigilante justice is usually defined as people taking legal authority for themselves because they feel the government's authority or response is lacking. If there is no government to define this by, then it is not vigilante justice and starts to delve more into natural rights. Think of a remote village with no semblance of what we would describe as a modern government, they still deal with problems in their own way. You wouldn't call them vigilantes.

[ZenoArrow]

I'm not asking for the dictionary definition, I'm asking about why vigilante justice (whether you want to call the participants vigilantes or not) would be less troublesome.

For example, imagine I've discovered Starbucks is doing terrible things, and to express my disgust I go around throwing bricks in the windows of the Starbucks in my area. What prevents/discourages this sort of vigilante behaviour?

[stavrianos]

In a hypothetical where the government doesn't exist to provide justice, "vigilante justice" would be the only justice. Whether vigilante justice is preferable to a total absence of justice is the question.

More generally, the whole point of vigilantism is going outside the established judicial framework. If there is no such framework, the concept of vigilantism is meaningless.

As to what prevents/discourages this behaviour, the answer is mostly going to be "the presence of an existing judicial structure, backed by force, which disallows such behaviour".

[talmand]

I would imagine that, without a structured government to prevent your destructive behavior and the inevitable response, the owner of the Starbucks in question would shoot you for damaging their property. Neither your actions nor the response of the owner would be considered vigilante justice.

[scroy]

The only thing to discourage it would be the better sense of the people in the community. Presumably there are better ways to stop Starbucks than throwing bricks. You have to convince enough people that the place needs to be shut down, then go in and confiscate the coffee beans.

[toomuchtodo]

If there is no government stepping in to prevent Starbucks from doing terrible things, it's no longer vigilante justice.

[mikeash]

In a place where there is no government, I don't see what would be wrong with vigilante justice. If there are no authorities and no help then you have little choice but to take matters into your own hands.

[ZenoArrow]

> "In a place where there is no government, I don't see what would be wrong with vigilante justice. If there are no authorities and no help then you have little choice but to take matters into your own hands."

The problems with vigilante justice are universal, it doesn't matter if you have little choice or not. Generally speaking the problem is that vigilante justice is much more open to the whim of individual desires and views.

Why is that bad? Let's use the 'brick through the window of Starbucks' example I've used before. If you agree that Starbucks are bad, then the brick through the window may look justified, but if you do not believe Starbucks are bad then the action may appear unjustified.

Consider that the problem some people have with government is that decisions are made on your behalf and you feel powerless to change this. However, if you consider what you have without government, you still have people making decisions on your behalf, except you now have millions more of them, and there's less chance to influence what happens as a result of their actions if you disagree with what they've done. Is that better?

[mikeash]

What you outline is basically why I think it's a bad idea to live in a place with no government. There's a huge potential for problems and often there are no good choices.

The moment you say "Imagine the Indonesian government didn't exist," well, it's going to be a complete shithole. At best you'll be at the mercy of the local warlord or gang leader. Quibbling over exactly how you live your life in this lawless shithole doesn't seem very relevant to the actual situation.

[ZenoArrow]

Yes, I agree, but the argument that I responded to considered there was a distinction between capitalism and exploitation. My point is that exploitation is not the sole domain of government, if you had a capitalist society without government intervention then exploitation would still exist, but you'd have to rely on different methods in order to resist this exploitation, and those methods would not necessarily be an improvement over what we have now.

[mikeash]

Gotcha, I must have missed the context and taken your comment too literally.