[Paradigm]

Contracts have been enforced for centuries by merchant courts under the Lex mercatoria system without any state enforcement mechanism.

There are many other examples, but this is one of the best known.

But this has nothing to do with the case I mentioned. We're talking about deals with no means of enforcement whatsoever other than public opinion. There is no ruling on the handshake to force you to pay up. It's just a matter of whether other people will trust you enough to do business with you in the future. And if the deal was unfair to begin with, then they'd likely be forgiving about you having fallen through on the deal. So like I said: no contracts, no courts. Unless you take literally the highly metaphorical term "the court of public opinion."

I did notice, btw, that left-anarchists tend to worry a lot about semantics. Why do you think that is?

I don't know. I can't say I've noticed that trend myself, other than the fact that most anarchists I know are highly literate bookworms.

[Eran]

But this has nothing to do with the case I mentioned.

No, it has to do with your protest over the meaning of "Contract" and "Court", and whether those are necessarily linked to state enforcement (as you claimed) or not.

As for public opinion, it is entirely inappropriate in resolving potentially-technical disputes over interpretation of specific deals. That is precisely why merchants set up such courts hundreds of years ago. A modern economy is much more complex, with even greater need for a neutral specialist to help resolve good-faith differences.

[mikema63]

i doubt people have that much trust in each other anymore, people would also have tended to know each other very well since you didn't move around as much.

mediation is a nice quiet solution to problems but i dont think it will work for every problem that arises, people just aren't always so nice as to always accept the results.

i noticed the same thing as eran btw.

[Rich]

we'd fight back.

Who ever the "we" is. It reminds me of Lenin's "state and revolution". Every-thing's about the armed workers this. The armed workers that. But the reality proves a very different kettle of fish. There is always endless disagreement about who is the we and who is the they. Its hardly possible to get 10 anarchist intellectuals to really agree on a common framework for decision making. The idea that local communities across the world are just going to naturally agree on dispute resolution seems far fetched to me.