Conservative Friend Conversation

[Goaticus]

"So what's your glorious new ideal that would somehow manage to get people to honor deals and contracts and whatnot without threat of punishment or force?"

That's easy, reputation and repeated dealing. In the Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins talks about reciprocal altruism and how it evolved. Add to that that humans also communicate when someone is either honest or dishonest in his dealings. The only way this would not work is if someone somehow managed to dishonestly put together a deal big enough to retire without having a reputation and then somehow took it all while not delivering on their end of the bargain.

Any body that's been involved in any sort of private sector negotiating knows that is never going to happen. If there is one thing business people guard in the real world it is their reputations.

[Goaticus]

Yeah, in the market an untrustworthy person would either not have enough history to make a big deal or have a bad history and not be able to make a deal. Otherwise, even without force, the damage they could do is minimal.

[tnu]

with a prodigious amount of help and advising from Lord T Hawkeye

You too huh? Hawkeye's helped me thorugh more hten one of these scenarios. I owe him a great deal in fact. Good man.