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Comment by jnosCo | Hacker News Reader

I think this has the same problem as all non-legal security. I can see entrepreneurial big guys deciding this a good business, and just paying some people a nominal amount to squat, while offering their services to the property owners to "remove them". Eventually, they don't even need the squatters in the loop, just "Nice place you got here. It'd be a shame if someone squatted in it."

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That's what the government does already with the police / court system / lawmaking. You pay taxes for protection. In the past they were at least removing squatters. We're at a point where they don't even bother doing their job.

Any use of violence need opposing and competing forces in a market to work.

Judging by the quality of service, it obviously doesn't work when the government has a monopoly of legal violence.

As you mentioned, having people doing it illegally is prone to the creation of a black market. Black markets need to stay hidden so they'll have lower standards and generally a worse experience for everyone involved. If there wasn't any control on these "big guys", eventually someone would come up with a way to broadcast these "big guys" reputation. Someone could easily hire some other "big guys" to keep the other ones in check.

"it obviously doesn't work when the government has a monopoly of legal violence."

I heart afganistan has no such monopoly, opportunity!

That's because Afghanistan isn't a government, the Western world just tries really hard to try to make people think it is or should be for a variety of mostly grifting reasons

The black market can have higher standards because the barrier for entry is much smaller or nothing which creates more competition.

Having a legal and black market operating side by side can mean more quality and variety for the black market. The drug market is a great example where in places a legal market exists the black market can offer better prices, better quality and a variety of strains the commercial growers cannot.

That's a very interesting point of view! I wonder if maybe you're describing a Canadian point of view? I've heard the government screwed up / over-regulated (not sure about the details) distribution of Cannabis in Canada and people still had to use the black market to buy cannabis.

We don't need a black market, we just governments not to get in the way in what they consider legal or not. I think you're advocating for small independent producers vs big monolithic ones (which sounds great, I'm in!). In a world where licenses don't cost half a million, that can be a legal market as well.

> The black market can have higher standards From my anecdotal European experience this hasn't been the case. Eg. If I think about cannabis in Netherland, what you can buy in a coffee shop is generally much better than any black market deal you can find in all of Europe. You can get cannabis from Amsterdam in the rest of Europe as well (amongst the dozen fakes) but it will cost much more.

In a black market you have a higher risk of getting scammed, lower quality and no controls. Online marketplace with reputation systems help a lot but it's still not like buying on Amazon.

The barrier to entry is higher because you have to setup the tools to act anonymously (eg. Tor, cryptocurrencies), you have to worry about stealth and you're running the risk of going to jail. The quality / price ratio goes down pretty quickly. Sure, you're not paying taxes and you don't have to do accounting, but I think the negatives are more expensive than that.

Monopoly on violence doesn't necessarily mean that self defense and defense of property is illegal.

The US governments have a monopoly on violence and sanction self defense and defense of property.

If the government comes for you, good luck explaining the officers you don't accept their laws and that you're just defending yourself. You'll end up in jail, a fugitive or dead - unless you're in GTA.

That doesn't conflict with what I wrote

But the legal system probably wouldn’t treat these types of thugs as nicely as garden-variety squatters, no? Otherwise such gangs would have already taken over France.

I think in order to avoid open conflict from law enforcement, these types will try to avoid residing at the scene of the crime. Instead, they will rely on referrals for repeat business, while keeping things on the down low.

Or forcing out legitimate residents and becoming the squatters themselves. Privatized legal enforcement comes with a whole lot of problems.

Regular state-employed cops can and often do employ largely the same strategy but on a much bigger scale.

Well, a large percentage of new property owners by now is most likely to be some money laundering organization, pumping there ilicit gains into a new housing bubble. So why should we be concerned with thieves stealing from thieves while a third type of criminals actually uses the value created to contribute to society -for example by raising kids?

Who cares about the old lady stealing sweets from the reception candy dish during a bank robbery on a mafia bank?

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