Can a society exist without economic organisation discuss?

Answer 1

There has never been a society without coercion, and without some form of social contract. The forms these take can vary wildly, and depend a lot on the local conditions that caused the development of that society, but there is still always coercion. Even in Malinowski's Crime and Custom in Savage Society1, the first anthropological book to properly recognise that law could exist outside the state, there was clear coercive force making people obey tribal "law." (Law in inverted comma's as it isn't the same as Western Law in form or nature).

Those studies that have found examples of "law" outside the state (I really hate terminonolgy of legal anthropologists if I seem to be using it awkwardly) within Western Civilisation, these groups are always based on some form of coercion. Moore's The Semi-Autonomous Social Field as an Appropriate Subject of Study2 identifies a system of "non state law" in the textile industry in New York. However, it is based firmly on coercion, both in the form of gift giving, and in the form of the Union Representative not enforcing his legal powers.

Nowhere in the study of legal systems that exist outside the state, has there been a situation without coercion. In the Malinowski study it was a case of "do as we say, or go and try and live by yourself. On an undeveloped Island. Oh and never see your friends again." Social exclusion, especially in tribal places such as Somalia, is a major punishment. (I refer you to the European Court of Human Rights Case Salah Sheekh v Netherlands3, concerning refugee status, where it was found that he could not be returned to a "safe" area of Somalia as this would leave him outside the protection of his tribe).

So that is my view on the social contract. It cannot not exist. There is always a form of coercion overriding whatever voluntary behavior exists. In a lot of places where violence was not used as the coercion, this took place because there where other options which are just as effective and just as compelling. In the west, without a tribal society, and in short of forming actual communes (and becoming communist) it is not really possible to see how the social contract can be constructed outside a state. Even in non-western states, such as the Northern parts of Somalia, we see people constructing states because it is necessary to protect them from the likes of Al-Shabab4.

Now for its form in the current western world. Our society is based on property rights. Property rights need coercion to be introduced. Coercion is either violent or in a social contract. (see above). The thing about property rights is that they are not like contracts. They are not voluntary. I, me, owner of property, can enforce that right against you, non owner of this property, without any form of agreement between us. That includes the ability to exclude you, and the ability to enforce your obligations (such as not accidently damaging or polluting) without you having to agree to the existence of these obligations. Property law, at its heart, is non consensual obligations on the rest of the world to you (with the exception of the one person who sold it to you). The only way this can be enforced is by coercion. In tribal societies, this is by the threat of expulsion. In state societies, this is by the threat that you can be stopped by force. Whatever the form, there has to be an existing social contract that binds all the residents of the area, whether they consent or not. Because property rights cannot be a matter of choice between just the two people involved, because they apply to third parties. I grant your house an easement right across my Garden. You sell that house to someone else, and I sell mine to someone else. Those two then have to be able t