A functioning society can be maintained along the Non-aggression principle.

I'll start by defending my position, then respond to Con's arguments. When discussing whether a moral principle could or should be integrated into society, there is an 'order of logic' I propose, in which I believe the order is important: 1. Define the principle - Is it coherent? Does it require contradictions in it's own logic to be practiced? 2. Decide if the principle is moral. There are differring standards for this: a utilitarian view might be that a moral system will bring maximum 'life' or happiness to maximum amount of people possible. Others argue from 'rights,' that a moral system respects each individual's rights. 3. (I'm including this even though I do not believe it is integral to the validity of a moral principle,) Decide how to put it into action. This is the step that most people who argue against the NAP focus on, but in my opinion it is the least important. I will argue this further below. Also, notice how rare arguments from the first two steps are, from people who argue against the NAP. First, I'll explain why I believe these steps are important, and why skipping one (of the first two) makes an argument unproductive: Imagine a principle which was defined as: "People should use violence toward others, but without hurting them, and only in ways that help them." Why should we reject this argument? Would it be productive to present statistics about how many people who've had violence used against them and then went on to lead happy lives, as an argument against this principle? This would be a valid argument, in a sense, but it's not productive, because it skips the first step. The most productive way to argue against this principle would be in terms of definitions: it is not coherent. A similar idea applies to a principle which skips the second step: "You should kill as many people as possible." This principle is coherent (it might not be, if it defined it's standard of morality, since it would probably contradict it,) and possible to put into action. However, it skips the second step, and therefore that is how it should be argued against. Now, let's look at the third step: is it as important as the others? Let's take a principle which ticks the first two boxes, but skips the third, something like: "It would be good if everyone had wings and could fly." Someone might argue against this by saying "Humans cannot grow wings." The defender of this principle responds: "Maybe we could build robotic wings," to which the person against it says, "But that technology doesn't exist!" This argument does not disprove the principle. If a principle is moral and valid, any move toward it would be an improvement, and any improvement would be a move toward it. Now apply this to the NAP; I believe that it ticks the first two boxes (and is the only political philosophy which does so.) This also means that, in a similar way to the principle about people having wings, as technology improves and humans' power expands, the possiblity increases for society to become more in line with the principle. For example, in pre-civilisation, it would have been almost impossible to integrate the NAP at all: in absense of 'society,' each person acts of their own volition, and uses force whenever they want to. As technology increased, this was a move toward the NAP. The improvement of society reduced the amount of initiation of force. This is not by coincidence, or because the NAP is a 'magic wand,' but because 'improving' implies 'becoming more in line with coherent moral principles.' Whatever the next stage of human improvement, it will bring us closer to being in line with the NAP. With the advent of the internet, regulation is becoming more difficult to enforce. Things like taxation could become increasingly difficult as digital currencies become more popular. Copyright laws become irrelevant as illegal downloading increases. As technology expands and civilisation progresses, as does adherence to moral principles. Therefore, if society becomes 'more civilised,' we will become more in line with the NAP. Is the NAP coherent and moral? The NAP is unique in that it is a political philosophy in which the same rule applies to everyone. It defines all initiation of force to be wrong, giving the same standard to every human. It is impossible for a principle which allows initiation of force to respect everybody's rights as equal: it assumes that some humans should have authority over others. How do they morally gain this authority? No coherent way has ever been proposed. The most common explanation is the social contract theory. This proposes that there is some sort of contract between the state and the people, where the people agree to the state's terms because they want the benefits that it gives. The problems with this theory are quite immediately apparent: For it to be a contract, there must be some way of not agreeing to it, and there must also be some sort of consequence for the state not upholding it's end of the agreement. ---- Responses I'll skip to the important part of Con's story, where it critisizes the NAP: "Temporarily, they all set their prices lower than the honest fishermen, driving one of them out of business." This ignores the free will of the 'honest fisherman,' to simply set the price a little lower again. "But the the second one is still able to sell his fish at a profit, and they cannot move forward with the plan if he is allowed to do so. So they pool their influence and frame him, tarnishing his name and causing him to go out of business as well." But will this work? Remember, the 'honest fisherman' is now selling his product at a lower price. The conspirators must convince the others of their totally invented story about the 'honest fishermen,' while they themselves must have quite a bad reputation by this point. Because of how valuable fish has become, other entities have probably also started learning to fish, and there is more competition. "Finally they own the entire fishing ground, and being the only producers of fish accessable to the tribe, sell it at a hugely inflated rate." How did they keep away new competition? Their only tactics are framing the other fishermen who do not agree to their price, which seems a quite flimsy tactic, or constantly lowering the price, which defeats the purpose of their conpiracy anyway. "The people are shocked. It's perfectly obvious that the fishermen aren't being fair, but what can they do?" So at this point, the people are totally aware of the conspiring fishermen's unfair tactics. It's 'perfectly obvious,' that their defamation of the honest fisherman's character is just a devious tactic, and that their claims are not true. The people are offended by the bad fishermen's activities, so they refuse to buy from them. There are also many more fishermen entering the market because of the increased demand for fish, so the conspirators must constantly lower their price. "The fishermen have not aggressed against them and everything that they have done is perfectly within the bounds of the NAP." This does not necessitate force as the only solution, nor does it disprove a society being able to follow it. The only unfair tactic they've used is framing the other fishermen. Just because this society is based on the NAP does not mean they believe any claim that is made, and put an end to any methods of avoiding or dealing with unfair actions such as this. "The fundamental flaw in the NAP is that it is unenforceable." This is not a 'fundamental flaw' so much as a description. If 'enforcable' implies initiation of force, then of course a moral principle stating initiation of force is wrong is 'unenforcable.'