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That's funny, I see people behave badly even with the authority all the time. In general though, most people behave mostly good. The ones that behave badly pr

That's funny, I see people behave badly even with the authority all the time. In general though, most people behave mostly good. The ones that behave badly probably would under any social construct. The people I know that got into trouble with the law were the same ones with antisocial tendencies in grade school. I don't believe that the threat of government enforcement really encourages a significant proportion of edge cases to behave better. Due to some unique circumstances, I actually have had the opportunity to see what a relatively anarchist society looks like in low-density areas. It honestly works about the same as it does under more supervision. When the occasional real problems develop, people band together and act as their own police force. What there isn't is a bunch of technicality type laws banning you from doing things that don't affect others.

PaulAJ 6y ago
This is all about Dunbar's Number; the number of people you can "know" in the sense of having stable social relations with. Its about 150 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number). A society smaller than this can be effectively self-policing because everyone keeps track of how everyone else behaves. No money, police, laws or prisons are required because everyone knows what everyone else thinks of their behaviour and wants to stay on the good side of the community that they depend on. So its not a problem. Once a society grows past Dunbar's number this system breaks down. You see people you don't know misbehaving, but they don't suffer any downside because nobody knows who they are. When you have to deal with people you don't know if you can trust them, but you do know that if they rip you off you won't have any comeback. So the communal trust breaks down and you start needing police, courts, laws and prisons. In short, anarchism and "primitive socialism" are nice, but they don't scale.

PaulAJ 6y ago

This is all about Dunbar's Number; the number of people you can "know" in the sense of having stable social relations with. Its about 150 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number). A society smaller than this can be effectively self-policing because everyone keeps track of how everyone else behaves. No money, police, laws or prisons are required because everyone knows what everyone else thinks of their behaviour and wants to stay on the good side of the community that they depend on. So its not a problem. Once a society grows past Dunbar's number this system breaks down. You see people you don't know misbehaving, but they don't suffer any downside because nobody knows who they are. When you have to deal with people you don't know if you can trust them, but you do know that if they rip you off you won't have any comeback. So the communal trust breaks down and you start needing police, courts, laws and prisons. In short, anarchism and "primitive socialism" are nice, but they don't scale.