Justice, Law and Order

A liberal definition of an injustice is an act of force initiated by one or more people against another person or group of people. Examples of this would be theft, fraud, murder, enslavement and unprovoked violence, and liberals often sum up such acts as violations against our three natural rights to life, liberty and property.

Other definitions of justice, such as equality, maximum good, and Sharia law, are all in conflict with the liberal definition, because they all imply that force can and should be initiated against individuals in certain situations. Forcible redistribution of wealth and suppression of free speech are just two aspects of the above mentioned alternatives that violate the liberal notion of justice, and most people who support one or more of the alternatives admit this.

However, most people agree that murder, enslavement or theft are unacceptable and repugnant acts regardless of any “higher” purpose, and therefore inherently unjust, and this essay will not go into a lengthy defense of the three natural rights, but simply base the following argument on the liberal definition of justice that states that every individual has a natural right to be protected against coercion.

The primary, and indeed the only, purpose of the state in a liberal society is the enforcement of justice. A liberal state will therefore only have laws that concern itself with coercion. All its laws will have to refer to a perpetrator and a victim, where the perpetrator forces the victim to give up some property or liberty against his or her will, and to have someone convicted of a crime it must be shown that the defendant did indeed violate one of the plaintiff’s natural rights.

There is in fact no need for more than a single law in a truly liberal society, and that law would simply state that the initiation of force against others is illegal. If there is no coercion, no injustice has been made.

For practical purposes, there will be all sorts of secondary laws, legal references to previous court cases, and general rules on how to decide whether or not there has indeed been some form of coercion, but all of this will only be guiding principles and references. In the end, the only thing that matters is whether or not there has been some sort of theft or coercion.

The interesting thing to note here is that justice can in fact be derived from a single law, and that theft and coercion are the only acts that are truly unjust. Any act, however distasteful, unseemly or repulsive, is not inherently criminal if it does not violate anyone’s natural right to life, liberty or property. Running a gay brothel or an opium den is not a violation of anyone’s natural rights if everyone participates by their own free will. However, most countries have laws with strict penalties against such activities.

In fact, most laws in most countries do not refer to natural rights at all, and have nothing to do with justice. They are simply laws to regulate business and everyday private behavior. Norway has laws to regulate when stores can keep open, and where and when alcohol can be sold. Running a business without a license is illegal, and all businesses are regulated by numerous rules and regulation that are illegal to ignore or violate, even if the customer is fully informed and happy to see the shortcuts performed.

The consequence of having a lot of laws that do not relate to natural rights is that many people are pulled into court and have to stand trial for activities that have harmed no one. To be prosecuted for possessing drugs, for prostitution, or for keeping one’s store open after closing hours makes no sense from a liberal perspective, because there is no violation of any natural right. No one has been forced to do or accept anything against their free will, and most people who find themselves punished for this kind of activity feel quite rightly that they have been treated unjustly.

Laws that punish people for doing things they want, either for themselves or with others through mutual agreement, are simply unjust. Such laws ignore the free will, and seek to regulate behavior regardless of what the individuals desire for themselves. They are basically moral laws, based on a sense of what constitutes decent behavior, and they are always derived from the moral conviction of the lawmakers. People who implement such laws put themselves above the free will of individuals and act as priests or moral guides rather than protectors of people’s natural rights to life, freedom and property.

Moral laws are not only unjust they are also criminal from a liberal perspective, because they violate at least one of the natural rights of individuals due to the punishment that they entail. For not only are people forced to stay away from activities they want to take part in, but those who are caught breaking the unjust law are subjected to a fee, a jail term or in some cases even a death penalty.

To enforce a moral law is in fact a sort of oppression. When mutually voluntary activities that do no harm to any third party is deemed criminal and liable to punishment, the freedom of those who would like to participate in that activity is violated.

Being busted for smoking pot at home (illegal in Norway), or playing cards for money with friends (also illegal in Norway), is an intrusion of privacy and a violation of ones freedom to do things that harm no third party. However, law enforcement officers are only concerned with the law, and do not distinguish between just and unjust laws, and the police is therefore just as likely to dedicate resources to law enforcement that limit the freedoms of individuals as to law enforcements that protect and guarantee their natural rights.

Law enforcement is of course a matter of priorities, and these priorities are generally political and determined by the department of justice. New laws are often vigorously enforced for a while until the desired results can be measured and reported as a victory for the administration. Then they fall back on the list of priorities due to other new laws, changes in public opinion, or for pragmatic reasons of finance.

When there are few new laws, or little debate on law and order in the media, law enforcement becomes a pragmatic matter of balancing costs against income. Arresting people and putting them in jail is a cost, while fining people is an income. With a tight budget, it makes sense to collect fines and keep people out of jail, which means that there is a natural incentive for law enforcement officials to focus on the income generating part of law enforcement.

Busting people for minor crimes is a profitable activity, and traffic policing is an example of this. Speeding fines is a reliable source of income. The result of this is that traffic policing has become highly sophisticated and efficient. Automated monitoring of traffic generates fines with a minimum of bureaucratic effort, and very few people with a driving license in Norway have never had to pay a fine for speeding. The next generation of traffic monitoring devices will also be able to detect if seatbelts are being worn, and if the legal distance from the car in front is being kept, and this is expected to generate even more income for the state.

Other minor crimes that generate incomes through fines are gambling, prostitution and the possession of drugs. Violating opening hours and breaking other business related rules are also fined; making this too a source of income.

However, theft and violence related crimes, in other words those crimes that are truly unjust and not merely moral breaches are not income generating but a cost to the state, and they are therefore not very highly prioritized. There must of course be a minimum of effort put into fighting these types of crimes, but it makes no sense from a financial viewpoint to fill up the jails with criminals, and the state is willing to go a long way in order to keep people out of jail. First time offenders are very rarely put in jail, and even repeat offenders get very minimal jail terms.

The net effect of this is that the moral laws that are basically oppressive by nature are enforced vigorously and efficiently, while the just laws concerning theft, violence and coercion are enforced a lot less diligently, and while those breaking moral laws are feed, sometimes quite severely; those committing real injustice are generally punished as little as possible.