In considering the development of a system of letters of marque and reprisal based on a common law grand jury, my intention was, similarly, to identify a path forward, building in the shell of the old systems. Using terms like letters of marque and reprisal and grand jury (referenced in the constitution for the united States of America and the Magna Carta, respectively), I am referring to ideas that have gone before without embracing the statist systems that promoted, for a time, and then ignored them.

In terms of organic growth, I would encourage you to read _The Law of the Somalis_ by Michael van Notten, which gives a good overview of the clan-based legal structures, most of which the Somalis kept for hundreds of years using their oral tradition. Their written language was only developed in 1971. Some of their institutions, such as council of elders, are much like old English institutions like the grand jury, and old Viking traditions like the “thing.” I think that there is some evidence that Celtic and Norse and Goth and African and even many Asian cultures prior to the rise of the Greek empire under Alexander held to fairly similar values and methods. These ideas are also described in the books of judges in the Hebrew bible, indicating that the ideas were common in that part of the world. Something about the tradition of kings has always been very creepy.

Speaking of creepy, the arbitration industry also faces certain obstacles due to the perceived caprice and arbitrariness of some of the rulings. For example, a friend of mine tells me of a ruling that he felt amounted to, in a sense, the arbitrator telling the plaintiff to run down the street naked. Personally, I have less difficulty with that idea than some of the rulings coming out of criminal courts - such as that judge who wanted to chemically castrate alleged sex offenders, including those who purchase pornography off the internet. But, some people are more gymnophobic than me.

The jury theorem itself says that with a smaller size jury, you get worse results. An actual jury is an example of the jury theorem, but you have to be careful of reasoning from a small sample set. So, if you are thinking of a few squirrely jury rulings, like the hot coffee at McDonald’s lady getting millions for spilling coffee on her lap, or half a dozen others you would name, that is anecdotal evidence, and a small sample set.

The jury theorem does depend on each juror having a greater than 50% chance of choosing correctly. Given that many juries only face the choice of guilty or not guilty, then random chance suggests that they would have 50/50 odds simply by guessing. And, keep in mind Condorcet dealt with the same general species of human beings (with slightly less nutrition and generally shorter lives). So, he was probably thinking about 50% plus a tenth of a percent or so.

If the market wants something, it very often is not able to express itself. If it does not want something, it never buys that thing. What you get as a consumer is what entrepreneurs and businesses generate as products. Just because I want to be able to travel at 90% of the speed of light, avoid all traffic, be invincible, invisible, and invulnerable, does not mean that any products meeting any of my desired criteria have been made available. To my knowledge, no market survey has ever posed questions in a way that I would be able to indicate my desires for these things. And these are really a small sample of my unfilled desires.

Talking about a mature system of stateless law, such as the observed behavior of the Somali clans, might be fun. But, yes, of course, I wasn’t talking about a mature system of market anarchy, either. And I was using examples from history to voice my agreement in general with your ideology, not to advocate anything as idiotic as a mere constitution to protect individual liberty and private property from government excess.

Our job, as I see it, is to take such steps as we are able, now, including to discuss and describe stateless institutions. I have no obligation to ignore generations of prior experience as I grasp it from the dim writings of history.

Bryan Caplan did an excellent job of demolishing the myth of the informed voter. But, elections are not really about voters, anyway. The vote counting is what matters. And, as we know, those who seek to control power don’t generally mind counting votes that weren’t cast. Nor do they seem to mind discarding votes that were cast.

Juries and grand juries are somewhat more direct, where the participants often vote after discussing the facts of the case. So, they may know, or suppose they know, who is voting which way. (I have difficulties with the whole concept of secret ballots, by the way. I dislike the shirking of responsibility that comes with anonymity in voting for brutal thugs to run the government or voting to punish some criminal in a jury box.)

I’m not confident of your assumption that educated and trained professionals in the market for arbitration services would provide a more effective jury than twenty or thirty randomly selected individual property owners. But, I am satisfied that the way to find out is by letting the people in the marketplace choose for themselves how they want to be judged.