Reciprocity in Transactions
Reciprocity |
Libertarian
|
Reciprocist
|
Comparison
Comment |
Voluntary |
Required | Required | Agreed |
Fully Informed |
Optional | Required |
Impractical. Most transactions are not. |
Warrantied |
Optional | Required |
Impractical. Most transactions are not. |
Productive |
Unnecessary (Judged by participants) |
Required (Judged by government) |
If voluntary, then both parties deem it productive. |
No imposed costs |
Required | Required | But differ on what costs are relevant. |
- Libertarianism allows more transactions among more people, but with a generally lower level of trust for some transactions.
- Libertarians are free to utilize measures of trust, but are not required to by legal systems, as they would be under nationalist reciprocism.
- One can predict that a libertarian society would have more trading among more traders than nationalist reciprocism, but have more disputed trades.
- All in all, one would predict that a libertarian society would have greater prosperity, due to its freer trade and resulting greater division of labor.
Also see this critique of Doolittle's Reciprocism.