I have never needed police, lawyers, or judges to
impose their rationality or morality upon individual differences that arise from time
to time between my family members and friends. We are all capable of expressing
our principles and boundaries, and behaving reasonably toward one another.
Within your family, if you have children, then they are dependent on you, so you have a natural control mechanism.
With your friends, you are all within the bounds of a legal system, whether you use it or not, so you can't use that example. If one of them admired and wanted a vase in your house, you both know that if they just took it, they would be punished. But on the island, if there were no law, there is not that restraint. You may trust that they wouldn't just walk out with it. But you don't know that one of them wouldn't occasionally do that if theyu could be certain that there would be no repercussions.
If there were repercussions, that would be because they were seen as violating some code, and therefore you have law. End of experiment.
And if others shun them because they proved dishonest, that, too, is a form of punishment and coercion, and the others are acting in the role of law enforcement.
Which is exactly how police started in the first place. The first man didn't have police. There was no sudden "ah-ha" where a full blown police force paid for by the state arose overnight.
Rather, people gradually realized that rules had to be developed, and the group had to have some way to enforce them.
The same would happen on your island. |
