Anarchist Law - Consensus-based Social Contracts

Consensus-based Social Contracts

Since the principle of non-coercion makes hierarchical State structures unfeasible, anarchist communities must find an alternative basis for setting the rules of engagement within a collectivity. Accordingly, virtually all anarchist legal models begin with the assumption that whatever rules are set in place must be freely agreed to by the entirety of the community that is to be governed by them in a setting free from coercion or intimidation. Such freely given consent constitutes a social contract, though the exact nature of such contracts is a matter of heated debate.

Some anarchist legal theorists hold that an ideal anarchist society should be based strictly on natural law and mutual aid, which require no social contract.

However, many anarchist theorists completely reject natural law as capitalistic and man made. Natural law in this view is disguising authoritarianism but blaming it on an abstract entity so that the "anarchist" does not have to take credit for it. Social anarchists, mutualists and many individualist anarchists reject private property, which is the core basis of most natural law theories.

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