I was doing some research on the
singularity, when I came across
The Ungoverned by
Vernor Vinge, in the same volumn
Across Realtime that includes
Marooned in Realtime, that
David Brin in
Earth credits as his source for the notion. (After
Earth was published there was, of course,
A Fire Upon the Deep.)
Vinge credits David Friedman specifically. The interesting about this vision of anarcho-capitalism is that there is no outside force, no all-encompassing authority to enforce the contracts. As referred to above, even justice is contracted to various companies, as is policing. Rational individuals freely enter into contracts with other rational individuals.
This system is contrasted (in the collection Across Realtime) with an almost democratic Republic of New Mexico, and a scientific dictatorship that grew out of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. But both these systems eventually disgovern, until the Congress of the republic of New Mexico becomes, absurdly, a tourist attraction that anyone can participate in, by paying "taxes."
The Ungoverned also contains the briefest apologia for the use of nuclear weapons in literature. This is to me an absurdity, but seems a natural consequence of this economic system.
I am uncertain of the ultimate rationality of a truly free market, should such actually exist. Given the free reign corporations have over our imperfect market, as some bemoan it, what would the world be like without any government.
It seems to me history demonstrates that the corporation, with all its attendant distortions is the natural consequence of market economics.
But the more interesting aspect of all this, IMHO, is the association of anarcho-capitalism with the notion of the singularity. Maybe in the realm of the transcend, which we can't talk about because it is so far from what we know now, but which everyone does, even writing stories and essays about it, maybe in this world of ultimate rationality we will all be honorable--if there will be an all; I think the talk is of One.
Who knows? Who can know? But writing about the unknowable is as easy for me as it is for the next.