The “free association” society sounds intriguing, the worry though is that it would create a low trust society that is difficult to scale.
How would property rights be enforced? If I left my property for a days or weeks and come back to it with people claiming the property as abandoned and now they own it, what would be my recourse? If the answer is higher private security to monitor the property, then what happens if people bring their own security forces and overtake my private security?
How would a FA society enforce immigration laws?
If I take my child to a park and that child decides to leave with a different family because that’s my child’s right to associate with another family, what recourse would I have as a parent?
If I put my money in a bank and for some reason that bank collapses and takes everybody’s money, is there anything I could do to get my money back?
Outside of an unstable banking/investment environment, currency itself would be unstable.
The way I see it, there is a scale of authority with the equity crowd promoting the biggest government (or centralized authority), the equality of opportunity crowd promoting a moderate government, and the free association crowd with minimal or no formal government. On a small scale (say a community of 5000 people), with likeminded people that trust each other at a high level, I can see where both the equity people and the free association people could respectively operate an effective civilization. Every society will have a percentage that mentally ill, drug addicted, or just plain criminal and if everybody knows each other, then a society could manage.
But I can’t see either model scaling to 320 million people like we have in this country. For a free association society, it would be constant fear and vigilance whenever one would deal with out an outside (or unknown) person or organization.
Therefore I award the equality of opportunity people the winner of the day, and award the free association people no points.
So lets say you live in a society with much smaller units, and lets say this place is called Ukrainia. And lets say your neighbor, Russiatonia, decides to get frisky and invade Ukrainia and all the smaller units. Ukrainia, with no formal army or government to back up the smaller units, would cease to exist.
Doesn't there have to be some protection (government backing) to ensure that invaders don't conquer the smaller units? I suppose one could look at the fate of Native Americans on this land in a similar light.
The “free association” society sounds intriguing, the worry though is that it would create a low trust society that is difficult to scale.
How would property rights be enforced? If I left my property for a days or weeks and come back to it with people claiming the property as abandoned and now they own it, what would be my recourse? If the answer is higher private security to monitor the property, then what happens if people bring their own security forces and overtake my private security?
How would a FA society enforce immigration laws?
If I take my child to a park and that child decides to leave with a different family because that’s my child’s right to associate with another family, what recourse would I have as a parent?
If I put my money in a bank and for some reason that bank collapses and takes everybody’s money, is there anything I could do to get my money back?
Outside of an unstable banking/investment environment, currency itself would be unstable.
The way I see it, there is a scale of authority with the equity crowd promoting the biggest government (or centralized authority), the equality of opportunity crowd promoting a moderate government, and the free association crowd with minimal or no formal government. On a small scale (say a community of 5000 people), with likeminded people that trust each other at a high level, I can see where both the equity people and the free association people could respectively operate an effective civilization. Every society will have a percentage that mentally ill, drug addicted, or just plain criminal and if everybody knows each other, then a society could manage.
But I can’t see either model scaling to 320 million people like we have in this country. For a free association society, it would be constant fear and vigilance whenever one would deal with out an outside (or unknown) person or organization.
Therefore I award the equality of opportunity people the winner of the day, and award the free association people no points.
The point is, you can't scale such a society to 320 million people. That is why the society is crumbling.
The top-down dictator model (whether one person or the Hydra at the top of the U.S. power structure) doesn't work with such a big population.
You need smaller units.
So lets say you live in a society with much smaller units, and lets say this place is called Ukrainia. And lets say your neighbor, Russiatonia, decides to get frisky and invade Ukrainia and all the smaller units. Ukrainia, with no formal army or government to back up the smaller units, would cease to exist.
Doesn't there have to be some protection (government backing) to ensure that invaders don't conquer the smaller units? I suppose one could look at the fate of Native Americans on this land in a similar light.
No