You don't seriously equate detriment to your property to holding a gun to your head? Violent situations are different. The problem with the Ponzi scheme operators is that they're anonymous. Give your money to someone you don't know, whose fault is it when they run off with it? With Madoff (and other Ponzi schemes), people don't get their money back because it's already gone. But holding the perpetrator responsible for paying them back will eventually result in them getting their money back - if he's held to it. Simply finding him "guilty" and tossing him in a cage doesn't help anything, especially if you then force his victims to pay for the cage. You need to make him pay restitution, and that's how a private decentralized court would get a different result.
As for the property, renters have historically been much worse on their property than have owners. And I propose that projects that would impact more than just the owner of the land require not just a democratic approval (simple majority, usually), but approval of all affected people. Due diligence, remember? If you don't get approval of someone who is affected, you have to pay damages.
In fact I consider damage to property or to the environment in general as even worse than having a gun to your head. If I can poison a water supply, I can kill a million people. What legal restitution can there be then?
I don't really understand your second point. They confiscated all the money they could find from Madoff. They even took all the money from his wife. However there were tens of billions of dollars, and most of it will never be found. A lot of it was already paid to early investors, or lost in the market. He is being held responsible, but the money is gone. So again what will a private libertarian court do different to get the money back? Obviously fear of the law did not have much effect.
I would have to disagree about renters as well. For example, the native peoples of Australia see their land as being 'borrowed from our children', as corny as it sounds. Their civilization was sustainable for a long time and they contributed a lot less environmental damage than our private land ownership model.
Finally,
all affected people agreeing to a project seems like a good idea; my only difference to you here is that they have to agree
before the project is put into action rather than after -- since by that time profits could already be booked and somebody could be on their way to the Bahamas with a suitcase full of cash while we get to deal with the consequences. This has happened so many times that it's not even worth giving examples.
Well, you have a point with the water supply, intentionally doing something like that ranks up there with Hitler-level of evil, and all you can really do at that point is erase that shit-stain. Of course, I don't need to own the headwaters of a river to do that, I could simply dump a barrel of poison into a water reservoir.
The second point is holding him financially responsible for repaying his victims, not just tossing him in a cage. Put him to productive work, and let him pay off his debt, not to society, but directly to his victims.
As to the renters, it's a proven fact that people are rougher on things that aren't theirs. I agree that considering the land you own to actually be on loan from your children is a pretty good way to look at it, though, because it drives home the fact that you have to retain the value of the land for your kids. (also, loaned items get treated differently than rented ones, so there's that working in the benefit, as well)
And lastly, due diligence happens before you do something, not after. You get the approval of everyone, but if you missed someone, or your project has greater or wider effects than you anticipated, then you'll end up paying damages. And if you run off to the Bahamas with a suitcase full of cash, there'll be someone behind you looking to bring you back to pay up.
Just to clarify by 'renting' I don't mean renting from another private owner, but rather renting from nature. I don't mean this in a legal sense, but rather just to show that land shouldn't be seen as a possession with which one can do whatever they want, IMO.
So you would be a proponent of
this, then?
