It is likely that you already know what I will add now, Tarran, based on your description of yourself on this website, but others may not have thought sufficiently about the fundamental reasons for why and the natural self-ordering mechanisms by which a society can exist without rulers. Such a society *can* come to exist precisely because the nature of human beings does *not* automatically lead to the conclusion that individuals must be ruled by others in order that there be orderly interactions between them. Society, just like any other natural system, can be naturally (according to basic human nature) self-regulating by means of interactions between its members, if only humans seek to discover and are allowed to implement the methods by which such self-regulation can be effective, rather than continuing to embrace social systems that need to be constantly held in an unnatural (and very unoptimal) state of balance by the operations of their rulers and other influencers. Individual self-order without rule by others is the social system whose members are fully adult (particularly meaning self-responsible) humans. Just as people can become physical adults, so can they become psychological and social adults – if only they are allowed (and even required in the sense that they will not attain their desires unless they do) to socially mature sufficiently.

I included a list with some similarities to yours in an article I wrote last April in regard to the insufficiency of public protests/complaints, “Tax/Regulation Protests are Not Enough: Relationship of Self-Responsibility and Social Order”.

1. Do *not* make use of “government services” that can be obtained privately;
2. Initiate/support cooperative efforts that replace “government services”;
3. Do *not* work for or do business with governments of any form in any capacity;
4. Preferentially associate with those who do *not* work for governments – positive social preferencing;
5. Do *not* voluntarily associate with those who continue to work for government despite being encouraged not to do so – negative social preferencing;

6. Last but not least – and actually primary to the preceding, Practice self-responsibility and encourage the same by all others, especially children and young people.

————–For the whole article see http://selfsip.org/focus/protestsnotenough.html

The whole purpose of the Self-Sovereign Individual Project (selfsip.org) is to first derive a consistent and complete foundation and practical implementation of a stateless stable self-ordered society, and then, by consistently taking the above actions (and more), to eventually (and without violence) cause the State to wither and die because of non-use and non-sanction.

I was pleased to see you cover a fundamental subject and look forward to seeing other articles in which you do so – I’ll check the archives too but I see that comments are no longer available for most – in fact none of yours prior to the one on December 19 2009. (I do not find any explanation for such a cutoff in the website’s comment policy. Some sites which did this have since stopped – eg. OpEdNews.com).
Lastly Tarran, if you have the ability to correct several typos in your article, I think it would a good idea to do so; a spell-checker will find most if not all.

Local self-government will naturally emerge from viable local economies.