Pine - seems we agree most of the way. Like I said, I would settle for minarchism if that were the case, with some serious caveats for the parasite class. But I still hold to the belief that humans will cooperate instead of conflict when cooperation is more profitable than conflict (markets reward cooperation - i.e. continued expansion of the division of labor, economies of scale, etc.). Government creates conflict, especially under a moral-majority system of democracy. It divides society into groups and then pits those groups against each other for the resources it acquires.If there wasn't an oligopoly on who the Judges could be in the time of Samuel, that whole passage about what would happen if the Israelites were assigned a King would never have come to pass (it's eerie if you read that. 1 Samuel 12, I believe). Competition would have straightened out the corruption, and the entire private-law society would have carried on. If you are interested in studying private law and how it would function in a very minarchist or anarcho-capitalist society, I would recommend reading some of Hans Hoppe's papers and books. You can find them online for free in .pdf format.Good having this discussion. Hopefully many more to come :)