I think 'anomy' is implying that we would trust social norms, or that people would behave as expected by force of society's norms. You would behave so others wo

I think 'anomy' is implying that we would trust social norms, or that people would behave as expected by force of society's norms. You would behave so others would continue to do business with you. I think we've seen a lot in recent years how this doesn't work when people are free to break away from social norms. Other point, I think this is missing that in large global economies, we have both very little recourse on our own without laws. If we trust purely market forces (if you sell me junk I just wont buy from you), then bad-actors can just move on to next mark, or change names. We have started making purchases in anonymously online from other anonymous sellers. There is no longer any social norms to prevent cheating. really good illustration of trust. which is needed for market pressures you describe, but don't scale well. hence needing laws to track down bad-actors. https://ncase.me/trust/ https://ncase.me/trust/ Argument for central Authority to enforce common laws : Skip to section 3. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/