Gallatinist legislature!

[vanguardist]

For those who have read and enjoyed L. Neil Smith's "Probability Broach", I am asking what your view would be for NH to have a "government" modeled after PB's Gallatinist-style legislature. In the novel, there is no state (state defined as the (geographical) monopoly of force), but rather, there are only voluntary associations ("governments") to handle mainly large projects and the inclusion of other groups into their society. (Other such arrangements occur in the novel The Stone Canal).

I am proposing such a debate here because at first I was thinking that the problem with the state, and its executor, the forcible government, is that history shows that it is impossible to keep small. Thus, I initially though that for NH, a minarchy with an extremely tight constitution could "work." Again, the problem is that sooner or later, the revolutionaries die and people get complacent. Once democracy sets it and so-called limited republics decay into social demoracies, all bets are off. I concluded that the NH government should not have a democracy at all. That instead, public officials (of whom there would be very few), would be held to incredible high standards and should be subject to very harsh penalties. The details are inconsequential for our purposes here, but suffice it to say that any politician found trying to pass bad laws would find himself in well, life threatening situations 

After the above thinking, I decided that it would be interesting as well to talk about abandoning forcible government (state) and instead have voluntary government, the scale and reach of which would be determined by people/towns/communities in spontaneous arrangements. For example, a group of 1000 houses would agree and sign a covenant to set rules of behavior for themselves (things as how to handle law, police, resources, etc).

OK, I admit that this sounds like anarchocapitalism, and yes, I am biased. But look at it this way: it also provides a stable foundation for minarchy-style common and voluntary government instead of trying to fall back to a default (and thus debatable) state of nature for individuals.

Already, from what I see of NH, towns and the like are somewhat independent-minded. Freedom happens when no one is allowed to impose laws on you that you do not consent to, and all that coupled with private property rights. Thus, I favor a system of maximum descentralization where year after year, the central state government goes away.

Also, if secession happens, then most of the people will be liberty oriented. Therefore, what need is there for the central state? Common law and property right laws would exist; the rest repealed or not enforced. Roads are already built, let the towns and companies maintain and operate them. Parks and public places can fall back to be managed by the towns they are in, or be supported by commercial sponsors. Police and military? Same deal. Decentralize it all.

I would also argue, finally, that this system might even catch on in other neighboring counties (from other states) and lacking a central NH state to authorize these things, they could just simply join the adjoing town and become part of the territory previously handled by the state of New Hampshire.

So that's my proposal, inspired by libertarian science fiction