Before I respond to some of the above, I'd like to be as clear as possible on a particular point, namely the geographic issue.
Laws are currently exerted on the behavior of individuals and organizations, and are enforced within specific geographic boundaries. I.e. if you are within the borders of Canada, then Canadian law applies. If you are in Kansas City, then the laws of Kansas City, the state of Kansas and the United States apply.
Are you recommending we replace that legal system, and the method of passing laws, with one that has contracts between individuals?
And to be clear, that would mean that you could have five people in a room, who have all signed different contracts, and are thus bound by five completely different sets of laws.
Similarly, a retailer who has 50 different vendors could be dealing with 5, 10, 20 or 50 different sets of contract-driven laws, as well as multiple currencies, multiple credit arrangements and multiple conflict resolution methods.
Is that what you're suggesting, or are you thinking about something different?
In theory you've pretty much got the hang of it. In practice these things (specifically vendors dealing with multiple sets of contract driven laws) simply couldn't happen, and we both know it.
One important thing you didn't specifically note, though I assume you have already understood: The five people in the room may have signed different social contracts, but none have the right to violate the three basic universal natural "laws/rights" which still haven't been challenged on an ethical basis by anyone in this thread so far (unlike representative democracy which has been criticized by pretty much everyone, even if inadvertently).
This means if one of them signed a contract saying that having marijuana in your blood stream is illegal, and another has signed a contract agreeing to smoke constantly, these two people will need to have a conversation and come to some kind of understanding (such as the smoker sits by the window) in order to be able to stay together. In reality it is far more likely that they would simply choose to be in separate rooms. After all, they voluntarily chose to be in the societies that either prohibited or encouraged use of marijuana. If they both want to be there but can't come to an agreement about how to do it without violating their own chosen set of rules, the owner of the room will simply have to choose who stays and who goes.
It's like if I had a shop that sold pork and a Muslim applied for a job. I'd give him the job, but if he has his own reasons for not being able to do it, that's up to him. I'm not just going to change my entire business to selling halal stuff for his sake, but I'm also not going to vote for laws that say he has to handle pork. I don't mind what his beliefs are, and I don't expect him to mind about mine. All that matters is that we don't claim to have the authority to dictate and enforce our beliefs upon each other, even if a narrow voting majority says that one of us can. And of course, we all know that the chances of a Muslim applying for a job in a pork shop are about the same as a communist applying to work for Donald Trump. It's an interesting hypothetical scenario, but if it's the biggest of the problems that you have with my proposal, then I'd say I'm doing pretty well
In the case of currencies, you seem to be assuming that people would just start making currencies out of thin air and expecting them to have value. No one is dumb enough to think that would or could happen. There would probably be a few currencies, with various (relatively stable) exchange rates between them. Logically, there are a few forms of currency that would likely be dominant:
- Precious metals, due to their finite nature and potential practical value (though technology could conceivably make certain metals less valuable or even obsolete, as has already happened to a certain extent).
- Labor notes, which I consider to be the purest and least corruptible form of currency, though I accept that they are only useful in certain situations. They would be more useful if mini societies issued labor notes that could be redeemed through multiple people within their society. For example a blacksmith from the communists may have given you an hour of labor for a pizza, but you could redeem it for an hour of labor from a mechanic from the same group instead. There is nothing I love more than the idea of this type of payment, though I do realize it has practical limitations.
Labor notes (currency) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Paper currencies backed by physical goods from reputable societies. Not necessarily precious metals, but all sorts of consumable items that vendors may be able to use or trade. If a certain society is known as being good at hunting and they give you a note for 1 deer, and they've paid up on the deer for others who have been paid in the same way, then you have every reason to trust them (more reason than to trust your government on fiat currency).
- There would probably be "banks", but not as we know them now. For a bank to be really useful in this society, you need to be able to deposit eight hours of communist labor and withdraw four hours of capitalist financial advice. Or deposit 10kg of trout and withdraw 5 loaves of bread. The challenges, risks, and potential losses and rewards of such a business boggle the mind, but I believe it is more than viable and that the potential for profit if it could serve a mass market would be big enough to encourage plenty of businesses to try it.
Where I live, there are two main accepted currencies in the big cities: Riel and USD. Shops, petrol stations, restaurants, banks, and anyone you can think of happily accepts payment in either currency, and can do conversions between the two almost instantly (took me a while, but then I realized they were just rounding it to 4000:1 and working it out like that). As a general rule, people pay in their own currency (Riel) unless the cost makes it impractical (like having to carry around a wheelbarrow full of local currency to do your shopping), then they use dollars. In provinces to the East and West, they also commonly accept Dong or Baht respectively. In the voluntary civilisation we are speaking of, I might use 10% silver coins from my reputable mini society (so you don't have to check every single coin) for small purchases, and eight hour labor notes for larger ones.
It is probable that the terms of payment would be dictated by the vendor rather than the customers for the sake of practicality, but it would also be in the interests of the vendor to accept whatever genuinely valuable currencies they were offered.
It also helps to isolate that tyrannical minority that kenc is so worried about. No one is going to feed their troops if they think the food will be used to steal the food making business. No one is going to give precious metals to a society that has a history of turning them into weapons and using them to break the natural rights of other societies. It wouldn't make any sense to do so, and there would be no need in a competitive free market environment. It would also make people less likely to trust any payment in future labor or potentially worthless metal coins if the society that provided them had attracted a bad reputation.
The entire thing encourages self ownership and individual responsibility, as well as freedom of choice.
So, you still have yet to describe a real situation where a majority has oppressed a minority via democracy. The Nazis are out. What's next, South Africa? Forget it, it's just another example of minority rule over a majority of people.
Wait, what? How are the Nazis out? They won twice as many votes as any other party, thereby having a majority over any other individual party. There was no choice but to put Hitler in a position to take over the country, and that was a result of democratic process.
Next, again, you seem to be completely ignoring the actual example I keep giving, which leads to all the other examples: Your elected representatives make decisions to curtail the freedoms of their own citizens in multiple ways. Whether it be the Patriot act for Americans, the British government hiring a US military company to process our entire nation's census information (even though that exposes it to...... the patriot act), or simple things like controlling what herbs you put in your bed time tea.
Anything they do that dictates the lives of others without ethical justification or consent IS tyranical by virtue of the fact that they dictated it. And anyone who voted for them is tyrannical for giving them that power in the first place. Do you really need me to create a list of victim less crimes, laws or actions that serve one group of people at the expense of another, or unethical decisions that have been made by governments that people voted for throughout modern history? I hardly know where to start, but I will give it a serious try if you insist.
Cambodia seems to be pretty undemocratic
It's as democratic as apple pie. They worked out the trick; the whole country is designed so that if you vote for anyone other than the guy in charge, it will all collapse. If the top man goes it will be all out war
BUT you're free to vote for whoever you want. That makes it democratic, no?
