In one version or another I would lean your way. As far as an overarching doctrine applied to all without express consent I do not think it needs to or ought to exist. Social contracts can and should be voluntary and plainly written I believe. In general a statist form of the social contract is born out of an existential or external threat like invasion, plague, or the like. This might make sense for the generations effected by such threats, but once it is over the justification of a top-down authoritarianism ceases to exist. Likewise, further generations do not consent to it in the way the first generation did.
Practical Replacements: home owners societies and town chambers of commerce can take over such a role of deciding what and how the efforts and funds of constituents should be collectivized to provide for "common good" services such as roads, public transportation, dispute resolution, and security forces. This way the contract is plainly written and cannot be justified to force others to behave against their will or self interest.
Thanks for the comment btw
You're welcome, I'd like to dig in a little bit
If we can produce a market for un-consumable commons using a government we can just as well produce a market for consumable private goods.
But that law and commons are two different things. But there is no reason whatsoever, that knowing how to construct the common law, government should be capable of producing law. It cannot. Law is discovered, contracts and exchanges are made.
Why is it that libertarians tend to associate Contractualism with Anarchism, where there is extraordinary demand for the state, instead of associating Contractualism with Nationalism where there is almost no demand for the state?
Anarchism evolved in Eastern European borderlands, and in Western European ghettos.
Contractualism evolved with near kin relations in the North Sea.
(Frisia, England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and then Germany and East)
You can only have contractualism under nationalism. Othewise you must have statism
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but it seems like you are saying that in a nationalist framework, there is less justification of a state then there is in a Anarchist framework.
Taking the etymology of anarchy:
An: without
Archos: rulers
and philosophical thought on the topic from ancient Taoists, to enlightenment era European, to modern intellectuals like Lysander Spooner, the overwhelming though on anarchism is founded in the idea of private contracts between individuals and objective ethics and negative law derived from first principles. I cannot see how in any way a state is justified here.
in a nationalist framework there is indeed less justification of a state, we create a deflationary government. the problem with anarchy is the creation of a ghetto ethic state, IMO, if you want I can ellaborate
If you can direct me to any state, historical or current, which started small and stayed that way, I would love to see it.
Whether you believe in the slave/master morality dichotomy of Friedrich Nietzsche or not, there seems to be evidence for it. The superior minority embraces an ethic if free will and individuality, the inferior majority adopts a collectivist, illiberal ethical framework. Through the nature of a democracy, the majority can enforce their will through the vote, whereas the Nietszche's "ubermensch" who's ethic genuinely benefits all is artificially usurped by the the counter-ethic.
Can you elaborate on the idea of ghetto ethic states?
Every polity starts small and tends to start by kith and kinship, then they evolve and create a militia to exert authority over the territory they want to control and then they expand.
I do believe the Nietzschean dichotomy for it is the basis on which western civilization is founded upon.
When I write about ghetto ethics I meanthe ethics of the medieval urban ghetto.
Ghettos are a "state within a state" and as such, their residents can conduct exchange and transactions as if they are state actors by relying upon high trust exchange in-group, while using low trust exchange out-group.
However we cannot act as a "state"by applying low trust with some traders and high trust with others because the net result is a near universally low trust society for the vast majority.
In such an environment, demand for the state and its interventions act as a proxy.
For the mere fact that trust just remains high, since low trust is by definition the use of cunning and deception to obtain discounts and premiums that the opposite party would not tolerate willingly.
In other words, low trust ethics are parasitic, and impose high transaction costs on the population.
What I am trying to point out is the absurdity of using the model of a state within a state to advocate for a stateless society.
In that scope the entire Rothbardian project is absurdly illogical.
Aristocratic egalitarianism (the protestant ethic) suppresses all cheating such that demand for the state is low because transaction costs and conflicts are minimized, while the velocity of production and exchange is high.