Private Law Society: Preface -- P.1: The scope of this work

A general treatise on the tenets of a Private Law Society is outside the scope of this work.  A proper Critique of Political Philosophy would at a minimum need to lay a groundwork of the moral, logical, and economic underpinnings of political philosophy, and while I don't think any single work has adequately provided a systematic critique of this sort, there is a wealth of material on these topics already published and continuing to be published all of the time.


Such a critique would be necessary to make a complete case for the adoption of the tenets of a Private Law Society.  The basic tenets of the theory have been outlined by Professor Hoppe over the course of a number of works including The Idea of a Private Law Society, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, and Democracy: The God That Failed.  Any of these works make excellent reading on the topic.


As it is not my intent here to provide a complete critique, neither is it my intent to provide a negative account of existing political philosophies.  This effort, while also not satisfactorily complete, is easily the most fertile ground for subject matter within the domain of essentially libertarian thinking.  There are literally thousand of articles, essays, books, lectures, podcasts, etc., tearing down the tenets of mainstream political philosophy.  Again, the best forums for this material are The Mises Institute and Lewrockwell.com.  In fact, it was this very wealth of material that drove me to compose this particular work -- it felt like something was missing from the collective body of work.


No matter how rigorously argued a treatise in political philosophy may be, or no matter how vigorously it is supported through tearing down opposing theories, it cannot gain acceptance without similarly rigorously illustrating in convincing fashion that such a theory could in fact work in the real world.  I've therefore limited the scope of this work to what I call a purely positive account of a Private Law Society -- the intent is not to say how the world should work, but rather to illustrate how the world could work.


While I will outline some of the basic tenets of this theory, it is not my intent to necessarily make a case for the theory on theoretical grounds.  Instead, I will attempt to tackle some of the toughest questions -- those kinds of considerations that usually cause most people to immediately dismiss the possibility of a State-free society.  These topics will cover a wide variety of topics, and will in each case illustrate how those problems could be addressed in a social and economic order sans State.