There are 182 comments.

1. Inactive
   Asquared

   @ASquared

   7:06 AM EDT ⋅ May 8, 2015

   Ed G.:

   Asquared:….That kind of arbitration only works with tribes/gangs that can enforce punishment within their tribe/gang. I’m not sure it works in our individualistic society.

   Not in a consensual way, anyway.

   Depends on what you mean by consensual, but in that situation, membership in the tribe/gang is a net positive from a safety and security perspective, so “banishment” from tribe / gang is much worse than the punishment you are being asked to accept.

   Finally found the econtalk I was referring to.

   when a member of a gang is involved in some sort of social or economic conflict with another gang, it’s the gang leaders that get together from these rival groups. They discuss the situation and they say, you know, what are the facts, what’s gone on, who has disrespected who, and how can we resolve it. And those gang leaders then go back to their own groups and they exert tremendous pressure to gain compliance from the individual that caused some trouble. So, if a member of one prison gang is insulting someone, he may be forced to apologize by his own members to the person he was insulting. So there’s tremendous internal group pressure to facilitate inter-group cooperation.

   The whole podcast is well worth your time.  It is a fascinating discussion that I happen to think provides real insights into what an anarchocapitalist economy would look like (even thought it operates inside a highly structured prison environment).

2. Inactive
   Ryan M

   @RyanM

   Post author

   9:18 AM EDT ⋅ May 8, 2015

   Asquared:

   Finally found the econtalk I was referring to.

   when a member of a gang is involved in some sort of social or economic conflict with another gang, it’s the gang leaders that get together from these rival groups. They discuss the situation and they say, you know, what are the facts, what’s gone on, who has disrespected who, and how can we resolve it. And those gang leaders then go back to their own groups and they exert tremendous pressure to gain compliance from the individual that caused some trouble. So, if a member of one prison gang is insulting someone, he may be forced to apologize by his own members to the person he was insulting. So there’s tremendous internal group pressure to facilitate inter-group cooperation.

   The whole podcast is well worth your time. It is a fascinating discussion that I happen to think provides real insights into what an anarchocapitalist economy would look like (even thought it operates inside a highly structured prison environment).

   yes… well… another example of internal gang problem solving is this:  I had a client with some fairly serious mental health issues (and a history in her family).  She seemed to be something of a liability to the gang (although she was useful for child prostitution).  I believe there was talk of “selling” her to a cartel in mexico – another internal discipline structure is to drive her out into the middle of a park somewhere, throw her out of the car and then surround her with other gang members’ cars, all shining their lights in the middle of the circle, where some older girls would get out and beat the living sh** out of her, and she may or may not walk away from it.

   Also had a kid once tell me, when I asked the question bluntly (you say you’re not in the gang, what do you do when you run into old gang members?): “well, if you want out of the gang you either have to ‘get knocked out’ or run away while they shoot at you.”  (there was quite a bit more to the conversation, but I’ll consider that statement to essentially be common knowledge.)  Point being, gang justice is often something that we choose not to accept as a society.  We turn to state coercion to ensure that vigilantes don’t enforce social laws in ways that we find despicable.  Beating up (and killing) little girls – regardless of what they’ve done – is something that has always made my stomach turn.