Rothbard on the Irish tuath system
Posted on July 19th, 2007 by Brad Spangler
Lila Rajiva recently posted a recommended excerpt from Rothbard’s book For a New Liberty in which he discusses the stateless polycentric legal system of medieval Celtic Ireland.
Keep in mind that Rothbard was not proposing literal recreation of the tuath system down to an honorary ceremonial priest-king and “freeman” status only for landowners, professionals and craftsmen. Rather, he was using the thousand year more-or-less stateless epoch in Ireland in an attempt to illustrate the principles that could also make a stateless legal system work in the future.
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For more on Irish anarchy, see this, this, and this.
I’ve seen some evidence to suggest that the Harrapan (Indus Valley) civilization had a market anarchist character. If so, that would make it an even longer-lived example.