Can anarchy be efficient? This paper argues that for reasons of efficiency, rational, wealth-maximizing agents may actually choose statelessness over government in some cases. Where markets are sufficiently thin, or where government is prohibitively costly, anarchy is the efficient mode of...

How far can we stretch the scope of spontaneous order? Gordon Tullock's important work on the economics of non-human societies shows how these societies are able to coordinate without command despite features economists typically see as limiting the scope of spontaneous order. Using Tullock's...

Article II of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits the extension of territorial sovereignty to celestial bodies and prevents sovereigns from supporting private citizens’ property rights in such bodies, resulting in celestial anarchy. This paper argues that such anarchy poses no problem for...

The 'folk theorem' suggests that the shadow of the future coupled with the threat of lost business can create cooperation without government. Although institutions rooted in this theorem can support self-enforcing exchange in a wide variety of contexts, their potential to create cooperation is...