Recently I wrote about statism and security, remarking on two incidents of horrific police abuse over in Europe that have gone viral online recently.
Some people remarked that my complaints smacked of utopianism. Sure, policing needs reform, but to eliminate the state itself and its monopoly on violence? Surely that would lead to “Mad Max” style chaos. Who wants that?
(sigh)
We’ve lived in statist society, educated by statist schools, for so long that we can’t even imagine ourselves free. So today, folks, I’m going to do just that: imagine what being free would look like.
Let me paint you a picture of an ordinary guy named Alex navigating a typical day in a vibrant, decentralized society. There exists no overarching state anywhere near where he lives.
There’s no single cop shop or law monopoly. Just property owners, contracts, insurance networks, and people figuring out the complexities of life through voluntary cooperation.
If you want further details afterwards, read up on Murray Rothbard’s vision of natural order, Stephan Kinsella’s emphasis on strict property rights and restitution-based common law, Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s covenant communities keeping the peace through free association, and Bob Murphy’s Austrian (meaning, rational) economics showing how and why markets deliver what governments promise but botch.
Here goes:
Alex wakes up in his modest home on a privately developed plot in a loose network of neighborhoods. The land isn’t under some uniform zoning code.
The developer who sold it to him included clear covenants in the deed — basic rules on setbacks, noise, and shared roads, etc, enforced by an HOA (which is really just a contractual service provider, easy to exit if it goes rogue).
The rules, responsibilities, and conflict remedies are well spelled out, and the amendment process for making future alterations to the contract if necessary are also very clearly stated. It’s nice having stable, rational rules in place.
He brews coffee from beans traded through a reputation-based online marketplace. No FDA stamp, but his insurer gives discounts for verified suppliers with strong track records. Markets punish fraud and poor quality faster than regulators ever could.
Breakfast is quick. His kids are already logged into a micro-school co-op down the block — parents pooled resources for tutors strong in math, history, and practical skills. Alex also supplements this with philosophy and economics modules. His kids are bright and he has high hopes for them.
There is no compulsory curriculum from on high. Competition creates excellent standards because word spreads via reviews and arbitration ratings.
Alex glances at the news feed: a neighborhood drone delivery firm just undercut the big logistics players again, making Alex smile. Innovation thrives when barriers are low.
He heads out for work. Alex does freelance systems consulting — helping small firms integrate secure, decentralized tech. He often works from home but sometimes needs to visit his clients in the field.
Today’s commute? After consulting a handy app, Alex chooses a mix of his personal EV on private toll roads followed by a rideshare into a dense urban environment, where his personal car would be a hindrance.
Different roads and networks have different rules based on the owners’ contracts. Speed limits exist — sort of. It’s more like risk-based pricing from insurers. Drive recklessly and your premiums skyrocket or you get blacklisted from routes where risky behavior isn’t tolerated.
There are no tickets from uniformed tax collectors — just restitution if you damage someone else’s property or breach a usage agreement. Kinsella would nod at how tort law and private adjudication handle the details without any monopoly on force.
Later, Alex has a meeting at a client’s office in a different covenant community. This one’s tighter — religious folks who value certain social norms and screen entrants carefully, à la Hoppe’s “physical removal” for those who won’t play by the agreed rules.
Alex isn’t a member, but his insurance network has a reciprocity deal with theirs — and he’s also been specifically invited in. He signs in at the gate, his digital reputation score (built on past contracts and dispute resolutions) granting smooth access.
Inside, the place hums: clean streets, thriving small businesses, kids playing without hovering busybodies. Disputes? Handled by competing webs of arbitration firms chosen in advance. Loser pays, incentives align toward quick, fair settlements. No endless court backlogs.
Lunch is at a bustling open-air market. Vendors from all over. A rich assortment of cultures and cuisine offerings. All transactions are covered by a standard commerce protocol — the basic one chosen by most people in one-off transactions.
Payment? A wide variety of options exist, all in the sound money space. Gold backs most transactions (exchanged digitally for convenience) plus trade credits and other pre-paid volume discount programs some vendors offer to certain preferred customers.
It’s nice not having to worry about some nefarious inflation tax from a central bank eroding his savings and the purchasing power of his money.
Alex spies a friend and neighbor and they chat about upcoming defense drills. Their mutual insurance pool covers security; they subscribe to a few overlapping protection agencies that compete on response time, training, effectiveness, efficiency, and proportionality.
It’s an important area of the market, and its taken very seriously. No single police/defense force with qualified immunity exists here. Bad actors get dropped by insurers fast — reputation is currency here.
Malcontents who refuse all contracts and thus remain unbonded and uninsured? They stick to unclaimed or high-risk wildlands.
“Mad Max” exists — but only for those who prefer it.
Most folks avoid dealing with these literal outlaws. Private property means you control access, and networks of insurers indemnify members against unbonded risks.
Alex arrives back home to a minor hiccup: a delivery drone from a new firm clipped his fence. No cops called. Alex logs it through his insurer’s app. The drone company’s insurer immediately offers restitution options — repair, credit, or arbitration.
Within an hour, it’s sorted. Alex receives the funds for a repair. The offending firm’s ratings dip a bit, pressuring improvement. It’s amazing what dynamism exists without a monopolist state smothering the powerful incentives that naturally exist for people and companies to do the right thing.
Evening winds down at home. Alex reviews the family finances — savings growing steadily in diversified, voluntary investments. He has no looming tax deadlines. Contributions to shared infrastructure (roads, defense pools, dispute services) are explicit and opt-in.
They’re planning a family trip next month to a distant coastal enclave with its own rules — beach access via contract, not some “public” domain tragedy of the commons. The kids are excited and Alex is too. This new place is an unknown, but safety is high because communities self-select and insurers price risk transparently.
It’s nice to not have to guess about these things.
As night falls, Alex settles into his favorite chair with a glass of locally distilled spirits — reputation-verified, of course — and scrolls through family updates.
His mind drifts to his cousin Jake, a sobering reminder that even in prosperity, human flaws persist. Jake had always been trouble, the type who chafed at contracts and bonds.
Last year, in a fit of rage during a deal gone south, he assaulted a trader in a neutral market zone, leaving the man badly injured. It was a bad scene, but at least not made worse by some SWAT team shoot-out or “crime against society” spectacle he’d read about in statist societies of the past.
Jake’s victim was insured through a major protection network who paid to make him as whole as possible, then turned its attention on Jake and restitution. That firm immediately dispatched investigators and a response team — competing agencies with skin in the game, incentivized by reputation and loss avoidance.
They tracked Jake using shared data feeds, drone surveillance, and tips from bonded associates — all with an interest in finding and dealing with this violent new threat.
Such dangerous people (or outlaws who refuse all insurance and contracts) find themselves persona non grata almost everywhere. Private property owners simply bar them from entrance, and networks ostracize the unbonded as high-risk liabilities.
Jake’s flight didn’t last long. Once apprehended (non-lethally, as excessive force spikes your own insurer’s costs, harms its reputation, and runs the risk of being considered criminal itself), the case moved to arbitration.
The victim’s insurer and Jake’s provider (for now — the contract would be null and void following a conviction) had pre-existing reciprocity contracts spelling out procedures — choice of neutral adjudicators, evidence rules rooted in libertarian tort principles.
It escalated to an appellate panel when Jake contested some findings, but the contracts bound both sides to honor that final outcome. No endless state appeals; the losing agency pays, and incentives favor swift resolution.
The focus stayed laser-sharp on making the victim whole, per Rothbard’s emphasis: restitution first — medical costs, lost earnings, pain and suffering calibrated via proportionality.
Jake’s assets were liquidated toward that debt. For the balance, he entered a work-off arrangement. No taxpayer-funded cages with “rehabilitation” programs dictated by busybodies from above.
Instead, competing private facilities (that look a lot like contractual labor centers instead of prisons) bid for custody. They offer humane conditions because reputation matters: too harsh, and convicts (or their families) transfer elsewhere; too lax, and insurers stop sending clients.
Jake works skilled trades there. Earnings above his cost of residency are funneled directly to the victim’s insurance agency. He’s not a slave in bondage. He has some time to spend on self-improvement if he chooses.
He could theoretically walk if he somehow paid full restitution or found a daring sponsor, but ostracism awaits outside the system — few properties or networks admit those with unpaid violent debts.
Kinsella and others note how this voluntarist system turns punishment into targeted restitution, not societal revenge.
It’s not perfect, of course; perfection is impossible. But things work much better when incentives are aligned correctly and no monopolist can siphon resources unchallenged and order people around as if they were kings.
Communities self-select and defend norms through association, as Hoppe described in covenant setups, while markets handle the outliers. Crime happens, but the system treats it as a tort against real people, not an excuse for monopoly power.
Jake’s story circulated in reputation databases. Friends distanced themselves; opportunities dried up. Again, it wasn’t perfect — nothing erases the harm — but the victim recovered financially and emotionally faster than in any state system Alex had ever read about.
If Jake improves himself enough, he can pay his debt and find a high-cost (or charitable) insurer who will take the risk bonding him. He’s not hopeless or thrown out of society. But he needs to work to gain the trust that reintegration requires.
Alex thinks he’ll get there.
Alex sighs, glad his own network’s risk pool keeps premiums low through good behavior incentives.
Not all people are peaceful of course, and it’s very nice to not be forced to associate with them. That policy, while harsh, also incentivizes people to be on their best behavior — which is nice.
People don’t obsess over ideology here in Alex’s society. They just live freer, richer lives.
Good for them. Good for Alex. Maybe one fine day, we all can join them.
Naturally,
Adam
