Yeah I'm undecided. I grew up in South Africa. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world and over 80% go unsolved. I won't go into the gruesome detail of how those statistics play out when they affect some of your closest family and friends as well as many other life changing crimes such as gang rape etc.
So I actually prefer myself as well as my friends and loved ones living in the UK that has some kind of law enforcement even though it's possible I could be unfairly on the receiving end of it. Of course the system is flawed & does degenerate into an abuse of power. There is also one law for some and another for others.
Also you'll find if you ever have the unfortunate experience of living in a lawless world that basic human psychology seems to result in street/mob justice with little due process and the punishment of death for crimes as trivial as being accused of stealing a mobile phone.
Decent documentary on community justice - http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MKVBrR5YMJ0
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tyBzwEIj5QM
If there are blockchain solutions to some of these issues I welcome them.
I suggest that the problem in South Africa is not lack of prisons. Take that same population and impose US laws on them and nothing will change. If you think people obey laws simply because some politicians wrote them down on paper I have a bridge to sell you.
Good people don't need laws, bad people don't follow laws. A free market system for coordinating non-violent solutions to crime can make a world of difference in places like South Africa.
I have learned a lot here about libertarianism and it resonates very well with many of my values! I'd like to learn more about the potential of a state free society.
There are two things I struggle with / do not know how a society without a central authority which can make people do things can solve:
1) How are environmental problems handled if not by prohibitions enforced by some authority?
2) The idea of a state (as a state of law) is to guarantee certain rights to everybody and enforce those. The poorest man would have his rights (property rights, body integrity etc.) guaranteed as well as a rich man. Now this does not work well in many states and the individuals that are given that authority abuse their power often but it can work well enough to give everyone about the same basic guarantee to protect his/her life and property (in germany it works relatively well). In a society without a central authority wouldn't your most crucial rights (incl. property rights, the right to live / physical integrity) be depended on whether one can "afford" the necessary protection?
Practically: If I can't afford protection someone could just kill me take my kidney and there would be no effort made to prosecute the killer?
EDIT: Here is an additional thought related to point 2): Property rights in the sense that EVERYONE's property is secured can only exist if there is an authority that can enforce it (for property rights to be property rights in the sense that they are guaranteed to EVERYONE it is a necessary that the authority enforces the law as a neutral third party (=no corruption ; here is where the weak link is)). Otherwise what are property rights than the ability to protect your property? I'd say that such an ability is not a "right". This is unproblematic with products (definition below) because products can be traced back to the rightful maker of the product. It gets problematic with land:
There are two kinds of property: Ownership of land (incl. its resources) on the one side and ownership of materialized human work (products). The two are different because someone that has produced a product has every right to call it his and can therefore sell it. With EVERY land owned today someone has simply said that it is "his" at some point in time (except if a state sells land). One example is the american land-rush where so called "sooners" just claimed land IF they could enforce that no one violates it - but by what measure is it their "property"? Over time the forced claim of land was excepted and then enforced by the state. Another example would be mining resources on mars or on asteroids. Land and its resources do not belong to ANYONE by definition IF there is no common agreement about what land belongs to who. So land ownership is either maintained by the owner's own ability to defend it against other's using it or it is maintained by a common agreement that is necessarily enforced by some kind of state (land rush example: the state allowing colonialists to to claim land of a certain size) because what is a "common agreement" (=facts and rules excepted by EVERYONE) but a state that can enforce that common agreement.
END EDIT
Are there any solutions / mechanisms which could solve those problems?
I like the attitude to keep on searching for solutions and make the world better than it is today! ...that is why such discussions are valuable.
What I could NOT AGREE MORE WITH is that the laws and the organizational framework alone change NOTHING. Western societies (especially the US today and Europe during the colonialization) are trying to bring "order" and "democrarcy" and "constitutions" to it's "colonies" for ages which is the most devastating process which leads to endless amounts of violence long term.