Really excellent work. My only nitpick is that I cringed a little when you say that judges “produce laws”, they don’t produce laws, they produce agreements or settlements. “Law” is simply a useful fiction, it’s a reification of something that actually does not exist at all, it is just the expected consequences of a particular course of action. Another way to say it is that, in a society without a monopolist of law, there is law but there are no laws. If most thieves have to settle for 3x payment if they get caught, then prospective thieves will anticipate that this is the consequences if they are brought to suit for their theft. It doesn’t mean that 3x payment will necessarily be the consequences… it could be more or it could be less depending on what the victim is willing to agree to. I think of the customary terms of settlement of torts in the same sense as going prices. No one would ever pay $1,000 for an orange, not because the price of oranges has been “set” at some lower value but simply because you could go to any grocery store and buy an orange for much less than $1,000. Similarly, in a society without a law monopolist, no one will ever agree to having their hand cut off in punishment for stealing an orange because you could go to any arbitrator and get the same opinion: “that’s excessive.” If a particular victim insists on having the thief’s hand cut off as punishment for stealing, the matter will simply have to be handled through direct conflict, that is, by the respective security providers which each party has retained.
Anyway, I just want to congratulate you, this was obviously a lot of work and you’re right on the mark.
Clayton -