In the book Molon Labe by Boston T. Party he writes,
"So how would a libertarian society solve the dilemma of having a public morality without it being coercively enforced by a central government? Through the proliferation of voluntary communities owning private property, each with their own type of covenant restricting or prohibiting what they see as harmful behaviors.
If a particular covenant is disagreeable to you, then you don’t have to live there or visit there. In time we would see drug free communities -religious and secular- bisexual pot-smoker communities, etc.
Every individual would have a choice of many different communities which reflected one’s personal morals. Each lifestyle community would compete for members. Folks would judge the tree by the fruit, and I suspect that communities embracing harmful behaviors would putrefy and fizzle out. Even if they didn’t, their pathology would remain contained, which is the next best thing."
This is my current understanding within Anarcho-capitalism. But Boston isn’t Hoppe or Block etc. so I’m wondering if there is anything wrong with it. Thanks.
This would happen to an extent, yes, but to a greater extent people flock to where their job skills are needed, or simply stay where they grew up. There is always some clustering of like minds, but it is not likely that much of the society would consist of homogeneous communities.
It’s possible we would see lot’s of housing covenants like these, and certain we would see some, but I doubt it would emerge to the extent this guy is talking about. there would still be cities and it takes a lot of time and effort to set up a housing covenant (buying the land for example). I imagine there would mostly be fringe minorities like racial separatists, religious fundamentalists ect.
I just don’t think this will be the case. Somewhat homogenous communities exist in a lot of places already, they just don’t have the legal ability to enforce and create their own laws beyond what paint colors are acceptable for fences. Look at Florida with its entire towns made up of old people: these places don’t even need to rely on exclusion because they have little to no appeal for the non-elderly.
Cities are probably the greatest examples of like people settling into separate neighborhoods. In any given city you’ve got a chinatown, a gayborhood, an affluent white area, a tough black ghetto, a lower class white neighborhood, a hipster-arts district, a latino quarter, a business corridor, etc. Its not just ethnicity.
There will probably be some communities like that, Hell there are some that exist/have existed even wtihout anarcho-capatalism: Amish and Menonnite farming communities, Hippie communes, monastaries, I’m sure there are more examples, but those are just off the top of my head.
However, I suspect most people probably wont feel the need to gate themselves off like that. More likely most cities and towns will be as large and diverse as they are now, and the only ‘laws’ that will be directly enforced will be those related to property and contract.