I am considering, after a 3 hour conversation with a formalist sympathizer, that the formalist position can be restated into Marxist & Aretaevian language.
Feedback systems win. Monkeybrains adapt slowly.
Given: most of the world is living in a world in which force, graft, nepotism, poor property rights, low trust, and low marginal value to getting richer are the state of the world.
Therefore: most of the world has evolved norms in order to deal with this hideous state of affairs, and will act accordingly until they get re-normed.
Further: in order to re-norm a populace towards trading values, thus massively increasing human wealth and well-being, it is necessary to forcibly stop the prior restraints. Enforced, low transaction cost property rights, hardcore free trade, and anti-governmental corruption activity (hang misbehaving government officials) are things the government can do that will massively shift the norms over time
Therefore: given a horrible situation (most of the world), the proper response is to deploy government in order to remove the current governmental and non-governmental detriments to economic growth.
However: While the state may be necessary in order to build the apparatus in order for spontaneous order to occur, but over time, we would prefer (expect?) the state to wither away.
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I'm not sure that you'll ever actually reach zero government, but I think the goal is to asymptotically approach zero.
I like the analysis.
Property rights are an essential part of modern, scalable civilizations. And when you have property, you'll have alloidial property owners - ie states.
Maybe there will be a day with no state using David Friedman's definition of a state. But his definition is lousy.
Devin,
I'm not convinced by the property implies states. We have LOTS of evidence (de Soto, for instance) that property rights spring up with or without state recognition, because they're necessary for effective human functioning...in enough of an absence of violence.
Hence...I'm looking for the alloidal property owners = individuals.
Overlapping jurisdiction, cheap-transfer anarchocapitalism would seem to be that kind of system.
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