Rules can be enforceable without a state—without a monopolist enforcer. That’s why we’re able to communicate using English, in spite of there being no state-mandated and enforced rules regarding the grammar or semantics of English.
The state is an artifact of the willingness to peacefully engage in joint action, not a cause.
It is not peace, cooperation, collaboration, rights, property, business, rules of behavior, and rules of interpersonal interaction and engagement that cannot exist without the state, but rather it is monopoly power that cannot.
It is impossible that peace, cooperation, collaboration, rights, property, business, rules of behavior, and rules of interpersonal interaction and engagement only exist or operate effectively because a state makes it so. Those concepts must have existed, must have been known to have utility and validity before any state existed. It is impossible to form a state without them!
Civil society functions as it does in spite of the state, not because of it. It is our collective agreement to work together, to cooperate, to collaborate, to respect rights, to engage in business, to abide by commonly-accepted rules of behavior, and to follow commonly-accepted rules of interpersonal interaction and engagement that enable any organization or group (involving two or more people) to operate effectively—especially including the state itself!
Yes, we have conflicts with each other. But we rarely appeal to the state to resolve them. Certainly, edge cases happen where some external, neutral agency is needed to resolve disputes. But the free market can provide that function more effectively and at less cost than any monopoly can match—and can do so with less risk of corruption, precisely because there is no monopoly.
“Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.” ~ Thomas Paine
The alternative to a state is a society where “laws” (rules of engagement,) law enforcement and judicial services are provided by competing private businesses that have no monopoly: Only in that way can each individual personally consent to the ‘rules of engagement’ that will be used to govern and judge his actions.
“If an agency is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then it is also judge in all conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision making will also cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of the state, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding.” ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe
“Anarchy is the order of the day among hunter-gatherers. Indeed, critics will ask why a small face-to-face group needs a government anyway. [...] If this is so we can go further and say that since the egalitarian hunting-gathering society is the oldest type of human society and prevailed for the longest period of time – over thousands of decades – then anarchy must be the oldest and one of the most enduring kinds of polity. Ten thousand years ago everyone was an anarchist.” ~ Harold Barclay, American anthropologist (Barclay, Harold (1996). People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy. Kahn & Averill. ISBN 1-871082-16-1)
This is the situation that we live under now.
“If an agency is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then it is also judge in all conflicts involving itself. Consequently, instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision making will also cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of the state, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding.” ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Our nation uses English because the majority of original settlers used that language and needed a common language to make commerce possible—also the reason that it is now used internationally. As an aside, there is no mandated language because we are not French. ;)
As long as men exist, mankind will be evil. We are not angelic children waiting for the opportunity to be perfected; we are a horde of voracious egos waiting for the opportunity to satisfy our carnal appetites. The whole anarchist movement is no more than the same old reprieve: I will be like God. No matter how many times you say it, it will not be true. This is not to promote a theological argument at all, but to recognize a fact of human nature.
Anarchy is not the order of the day among hunter-gatherers—tribalism is and tribalism is also the limiting factor. Africa is a prime example: they are still relegated to poverty, not because of a lack of anarchy, but because the relationship between tribalism and anarchy cannot be ignored. Tribalism ends in anarchy, and anarchy leads to tribalism. Unfortunately, between each transition lie a lot of dead bodies. The only redeeming quality of tribalism is that its excess is limited to its own small sphere of influence.
It is impossible for your utopian claims to survive the real world. Our founders understood the depravity of mankind and established limits on government with that express understanding. Some men are capable of restraint, but mankind is not. Individual capability notwithstanding, human nature is not consistent with reality, much less logic, and true altruism exceeds every individual.
That same lack of logic and perspective exists in every human organization, but that doesn’t mean that every organization is evil; it just means that those tendencies have to be controlled externally. Unfortunately, the larger the group, the more impossible it becomes to maintain that control. This problem is exacerbated when it comes to government, because every government tends to grow without limit or logic. We can see the result all around us.
This problem is why the majority founders were federalists. Federalism maintains a self-interested, but limited government because power resides in discrete local entities with inherently limited expression. Power resides at the local level, but no locality can gain or maintain a monopoly at the federal level. It is only because our local governments are now Federal lackeys that we have devolved to the current condition of complete dysfunction.
Federalism acknowledges both individual freedom and the reality of human evil. The struggle between federal and local governments establishes that same tension that regulates the free market. As long as the states and local governments retain the bulk of power, the leviathan is caged. When states and local governments relinquish that power, totalitarianism is inevitable.
The triumph of modern liberalism is not the establishment of our current socialist state, but the creation of the one centralized government with the consent and willing participation of an ignorant population.
The only way to fix this country is to reestablish the true system of checks and balances through federalism. Under federalism, our country once achieved the height of human liberty while guarding against both totalitarianism and anarchy.