First, I just want to say that we should not let A Praxeological Account of Law slip by this thread. It is very relevant to this discussion, but law is a special category in my opinion, as it seems to contain both socially cooperative and socially adversarial behavior.
Second, I think Neodoxy is right in that we need a framework if we want to do this effectively. So, let’s make sure we all have the same starting point:
To me, it seems that there are two major categories of human social behavior, socially cooperative and socially adversarial behavior. The focus of economics is socially cooperative behavior, i.e. voluntary trade. I want to clarify this, however, that this can account for slavery and murder contracts. Even though there is aggression, the economist focuses on the voluntary exchange between the slave owner and the slave trader, and the exchange between the murderer and the person who is hiring him. So I think it makes sense to say that economics is entirely within the realm of socially cooperative behavior.
So, I think what we want to look at here is the science of socially adversarial behavior. Austrian Economics explains what happens when people cooperate, so what happens when people don’t want to cooperate? That seems to be our focus, and it seems to be a tricky subject. As I said above, I think that law is a subject that actually falls in both categories of social interaction. First you have the dispute/conflict. That is the socially adversarial behavior. But as Clayton demonstrated, law first arises when adversaries decide to resolve their dispute through cooperation. So law falls in both categories. So, I think more specifically, we want to look at what happens when adversaries don’t want to resolve their disputes through cooperation. What happens when they want to remain adversaries?
Also, there seem to be some subcategories of socially adversarial behavior. I’m going to name some off the top of my head: politics, war, and duels. Maybe there are more, but those seem to be the most obvious subcategories.
Duels: At least 2 parties decide that the only way to resolve their dispute is through violent conflict. Right now I am using the word duel somewhat loosely, as I’m not referring to only formal duels, but really any fight between 2 or more parties but is also small in nature. This will certainly have to be more specifically defined, and we may end up using a different word than duel.
War: At least 2 parties decide that the only way to resolve their dispute is through violent conflict. But what differentiates war from duels is the scope of the conflict. The 2 parties in a duel are individuals. The 2 parties in war are at the very least gangs, and they are often fullblown states. This should probably be more specifically defined as well.
Politics: Politics is the science of running governments, and governments/states are organizations that have a territorial monopoly on production of law and related services. I think Hoppe has a really good definition somewhere, but I’m too lazy to look for it right now. What differentiates politics from duels and wars is that there is not typically open conflict. The threat of violence is usually enough to citizens. I think this category is probably the most complex of the three listed so far. I might also end up rereading The Prince just to see if Machiavelli had some insights that will be relevant to our discussion. It’s been years since I read any of his work.
Okay, I think that is all I have to say for now. What do you guys think?