I think this discussion about no governments is actually silly. I mean, I am not a person that takes a view and keeps holding on to it because I am too proud to admit I am wrong. I am constantly changing my mind.
Concerning governments I have been open for both a society with a government, as for one without. And I gave it a good thought. My conclusion is that what libertarians are asking for is foolish. You can't have a society where everybody does what he wants.
Imagine you are a big construction company building a big building in New York city. You have 1000s of people working together. How the hell are you going to do that if everyone just does what he wants ? You need some kind of structure and organization. And this doesn't come by itself. There is needed some kind of governance. A governance to steer the project into the right direction.
The problem things are being messed up by governments is that most of them are corrupt. They serve the elite. Sometimes because they are corrupt, sometimes because they have no other choice because the elite controls the money. That's what is really the problem.
In a free world without governments, you will still have the same problems because there will still be people that will try to abuse the freedom they have in favour of themselves and against the rest of the people.
As I always say, governments are not the problem. Bad governments are. If a government consists of good people that are there to help society and not steal from them in their own advantage, than governments are a blessing.
The problem is not whether your system is socialism, capitalism, communism, dictatorship, ... The true problem is the people. No matter what system you are in, the selfishness of certain people that want to abuse the system in their favour ... thats the real problem.
Did you read my post? ;) One of the major themes was "What do you mean when you say government?" When I say we don't need governments, I define exactly what I mean so that it's very clear. Your response uses the word "government" to mean something else, and claims that I said we don't need that. That's a strawman fallacy. We need organization; just not slavery.
When I say we don't need government, I mean we don't need slaves and masters. You can build a building without slaves, Pharaoh. :)
Other than that, I would say you're falling victim to Binswanger's first great fallacy: separating force from economics. Economic law is immutable, and it restricts all human action. If you cannot get the resources to do X, you cannot do X. This is not up for debate, and it is not subject to change. If you have no copper, you can't make copper wire.
A classic human bias is to undervalue information you do not yet understand. Learn economics (real economics like Austrian economics, not fantasy-land Keynesian economics which depend on fraud-based currency), and you'll understand why markets work.
So imagine we are in a completely free market. And I manage to be so smart that I am so rich that I can buy all the copper in the world. How are you gonna make copper wire if I refuse to sell it to you ?
Absurd hypothetical is absurd. But if you want a serious answer, I'm not. I'll just upgrade to fiber.
I couldn't reply on your last post so I reply here. Well, if you are no seeing that in the current world things like oil, food, finances, electricity ... are controlled by a small group of people, you are clearly living in fantasy land. Small banks, electricity companies have been destroyed, which has led to giant too big too fail banks and electricity companies. They do whatever they want. They destroy any form of competition. Saudi Arabia is doing the same with oil. So the US invented fracking ? No problem, they use their influence to lower oil prices temporarily and all the fracking industry is destroyed. So now they have a monopoly and everyone else is going to think twice before trying to enter.
I read part of your post. I stopped when I got the feeling that once again it was going to be some libertarian talk about how bad governments are. I think most libertarians don't even have a clue why they don't want a government. But maybe you are different. So I will read the remainder ;-)
I was willing to grant you all the copper, as absurd as that is (something which could never be accomplished in reality unless everyone had already deemed copper worthless), but you definitely can't do that with water. There's too much; you would not be able to maintain control of it. If you cannot maintain it, you cannot own it (homesteading principle).
It is not absurd hypothetical. A group of 5 people could team up and own all the copper in the world. They could agree to not compete but cooperate in their advantage. This is called an oligopolie. You should know because you are the economic genius.
So if I manage to control the water supply than you are gonna drink coca cola ?
Oh, I'm very aware of those problems in this world. I also understand, at a fundamental level, how we got here, and what the solution is to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again. I wrote a post about it, maybe you've read it? ;)