Methods of Curtailing Child Abuse in a Market Anarchy*

by Warren Tilson

There is a test that sometimes makes the rounds in libertarian circles.  It is one of many designed to test the principles of whomever takes the test. 

There are many questions on the test but the one I am concerned with goes like this: 

Your neighbor takes his infant child and places him behind a window so that any passerby can see the baby.  The neighbor then states that he will not feed or otherwise care for the child.  The baby, though, is free to crawl off and seek care elsewhere. 

The question for the reader is “What would you do?” This is to test your principles to see if you would violate the rights of the father by trespassing onto his property or by taking his child without his leave. 

Go ahead and think about it, I’ll wait.

* * * 

My answer has not changed from the first time I heard the question.  Provided that the father was serious, I would trespass, take the baby into my care and, if the father interfered I would shoot the bastard through the chest and walk away.  I would not care for or seek help for the father, though he would be free to crawl off and seek care elsewhere.   

This would probably make some of my friends in the Market Anarchist movement disappointed in my lack of principles.  However, this essay is not to defend my answer.  It is to postulate a non-coercive and thus free-market system for dealing with child abuse.  Such a system would provide protection for those unable to protect themselves and would provide a disincentive for abuse. 

In these essays [1, 2, 3] Robert Murphy has laid out a comprehensive theory of the role of insurance in a market Anarchist milieu.   What Murphy has written about concerns the interactions of, mostly, strangers that occur outside the home.  I want to talk about what happens inside the home. 

Let us remember that there are no police agencies or social services, as we know them now.  Everything is handled by private concerns, either for profit or charitable organizations.  For example most adoption agencies will be private and for profit concerns.  Their incentive would be to move children from where they are not wanted to where they are wanted, charging fees for the effort involved.  This would go a long way in removing children from bad situations especially if the birth parents were paid for giving up custody.  Of course, this might cause some couples to become baby factories.  This, however, is not the focus of my essay. 

Because there are no government agencies in a market anarchy each individual will have a much larger degree of privacy than is experienced now. 

Initially this looks like an invitation for parents of evil intent to literally get away with murder or abuse short of murder, as no one would have the right to pry into the family’s affairs. 

I would say, though, that there is a way to curtail or prevent such abuse using voluntarily contracted insurance. 

If you have read Murphy’s essays, you will see that insurance is a person’s entrée to civil society.  There would be little or no economic benefit to engaging in any sort of relationship with someone that cannot or will not be insured.  This would include marriage.  When two people decide to join in marriage or other long-term relationship, the respective insurance companies will have the prospective partner checked out.  They will do this as due diligence as they would need to know if this partner-to-be is likely to cause harm to their client which would result in a pay out, thus costing the insurance company money.  This due diligence would turn up any unsavory aspects of the soon-to-be partner’s character.  The company would then tell their client that if she chose to marry this person anyway they would have no choice but to drop her coverage.  It is likely that if the woman persisted she would not be able to get coverage from any reputable agency.  Therefore her ability to exist in society would be hampered, and for this reason, unsavory mates will be selected against in the first place.   

In the case of a marriage to someone who only later shows unsavory characteristics the insurance company can again step in, having that right by contract with the insured.   

Upon discovering she is expecting the mother will go to the insurance company that has written her health coverage and add the fetus to her policy.  In addition, she may have a rider on her general or health insurance that would cover the cost of burial in case of a tragedy.  A prudent parent-to-be would also have coverage in case the other parent turned out to be an abuser.  This would be a huge incentive for the insurance company not to be lax in having the other spouse or partner fully vetted.  This coverage, which puts the insurance company on the financial hook for problems with the child that were caused by abuse from the spouse, will allow the insurance company to mandate certain tests or procedures to ensure the child is as healthy as possible.  A prudent insurance company would also have a clause in the policy stating that they have the right to an independent physician checking the child for abuse in certain situations.  This is another reason why abuse would be curtailed; an abuser would not be able to hide the abuse even in a market anarchy.  This would not deter all abusers, though it would weed out the most rational abusers. 

In the event of suspected abuse an arbitrator with experience in the area would be called in and, if a finding of abuse is found, could declare the insurance policy void if the non-abusive parent does not separate or divorce from the abusive parent.  This would prevent any further abuse.  Also the abusive parent’s insurance company would have to reimburse the other insurance company which would make the abuser a high risk client and could lead to a loss of coverage with all that implies in a market anarchy.  In the case of both parents having the same policy, the insurance company would still have to pay the non-abusive parent for health coverage for the injured child plus any punitive damages for letting an abuser slip past their vetting.  

What would prevent a couple having a child, not insuring the child and then abusing or killing it? 

If they live in an area with other people, and it is likely they would, a pregnancy will be noticed.  If, at the end of gestation, a child does not show up in the community or the child just disappears there will be talk.  If the parents refuse to talk about the missing child or are evasive or misleading in their answers, other members of the community could choose to cease dealing with the couple.  This may sound like a massive invasion of privacy, but humans are social animals and will gossip (exchange pertinent information about people they have or may have some kind of relationship with) even in a market anarchy.  Therefore, it is incumbent upon the prudent person to preserve his reputation, as a bad reputation will lead to a general closing off of access to the community.   

Eventually, word will get to the parents’ insurance carrier, and even if the child was not insured, the company will investigate as they will want to find out just what kind of people they have policies on.  If it turns out they have written policies on Satan’s Little Helpers they will move to void said policies.  This will leave the parents without insurance, and with a bad reputation.  They will have no one to turn to and will eventually die off.  This will not bring back a dead child, of course but it will save one who is still alive. 

Who would take over the care of the abused child and how would the child be removed from the parents’ evil clutches? 

Getting the child from the parents would be a matter of making the parents a deal.  “Give us the child, and we do not kill you right now.” The couple would be uninsured and would have no one to take their side in a conflict and so it would be wise for them to give up custody.  This is coercion however and may not be something an ethical person would resort to.  Another option would be to lay out the probable slow death of the couple through lack of trading opportunities and suggest that if they agree to a certain contract they would be assured of survival.  This could include voluntarily imprisoning themselves and selling their labor, being sterilized, becoming test subjects for experimental medicine or procedures or other situations that would not lead to their death or mutilation.   

What if, despite all the rational arguments, they do not give up custody, choose to die a slow death and take their child with them, or if they choose to commit murder-suicide? 

In the first instance, a person could monitor the situation and when the parents appear weak enough, steal in and take the child.  Not truly ethical of course, but I do not see the savior’s reputation suffering.  In the second instance, there is not much that anyone can do, except try to stop the event.  Both of these scenarios would be unlikely.  So unlikely that the response by the various savior parties (insurance representatives, kin of the parents, other folk) would be a major news story.  This would mean that what works and what does not work will be spread through society.  This makes it even likelier of a successful “save” on the part of the saviors.   

This leaves the issue of what to do with a living, abused child.  The parents giving up custody implies that someone else has custody.  This could be kin of one of the parents, an orphanage, a charity, a local family or some other disposition.  In negotiating the transfer of custody, the parents could have stipulated a custody arrangement.  If this were not possible then I would suggest that all that would want custody of the child go before a board of arbitrators and state their reasoning.  The arbitrators would then decide the issue.  If no one wants custody of the child then it would be up to an orphanage or charity.  It is implausible that no one would want the child; a home would be found.     

What would prevent a couple from having a child, hiding the pregnancy, giving birth, hiding the child and then abusing or killing it? 

Nothing, the same as now.  People like this are rare (I hope they are!) and might go undetected for a long time.  Eventually I would hope that they are discovered and are treated to the kind of care they saw fit to give to their children.  They would likely be spared that in a market anarchy, but they would die from complications due to ostracism all the same.    

Ostracism is a powerful deterrent and remedy for those who will not act with respect for the rights of others.  In the above case, being cruel to a child will bring certain penalties in civil society.  The worse the behavior the greater the sanctions.  Child killers will have no ability to provide for themselves outside of having a totally self-contained farm.    Even with such a farm they would never be able to leave as who would let a child killer pass over his property? It would be a self-contained prison.  This would be much cheaper than the way prisons are run now.   

If, due to privacy reasons or the very low cost of medical care in a market anarchy a mother or father would not have health insurance on their child, they, the adults, still have to have insurance to prove they are risk worthy.  They would also have to be the kind of people insurance representatives want to be associated with.  These representatives do have their reputations to maintain.  Abusers would find themselves shunned by one rep after another.  Eventually, a severe case of ostracism would set in. 

I have been asked: What, then, is to stop a community from ostracizing anyone whose actions they disagree with? It must be said that child abuse is of much graver concern than other sins they may commit or vices a person may have. For example, an irresponsible gambler who is impoverishing himself through his bad habit of shooting dice might very well be thought of with disdain and have a low reputation with others in the community.  The same with a drunkard, or a slut, or someone who spends an inordinate amount of time debating issues in online forums.  These behaviors are not of the same class of offensiveness as is child abuse.  While such persons may find themselves shunned by a certain percentage of people, there would still be others who would trade with them.  Depending on their habits, they may have increased insurance premiums but I doubt they would be cancelled entirely.  In the case of a child abuser, on the other hand, it would be of vital importance for an insurer to rid themselves of that person as a client.  No rational owner of an insurance company would want to be known as the person who “will write policies for child abusers”.    

To summarize: In a market anarchy, insurance (voluntarily purchased) and societal pressure would prevent most, not all, instances of child abuse.  I believe that this would be far superior to what is extant now.  This superior market prevention would result from four tendencies: 

One: A better, more efficient adoption system will move children from being unwanted to being wanted.  Two: Insurers will demand that children be treated well as the insurer is not interested in covering the costs of abuse.  Three: Societal pressure will fill in the gaps that insurance cannot cover.  Four (though I did not cover this in the main part of the essay): In a market anarchy, a high percentage of stress that people feel now will simply be gone leading to more relaxed individuals.  This would eliminate much of any type of abuse.  This, though, will be the subject of another essay. 

Going back to that test of libertarian principles that led off this essay, I think you will see that such a person would never have been insured in the first place, no woman would have a relationship with him and no woman would have borne him a child.  Therefore, there would have been no child to abuse.  In the case of this cruelty only being discovered later, after the birth of the child, there would be effective ways of removing the child from his “care” without shooting the bastard through the chest.  

March 6, 2002

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