At 06:43 PM 8/17/96 -0400, you wrote:

I thought that classical libertarians agree that the enforcement of contracts is a proper function of the government.

The minarchists generally do, the anarchists generally don't, at least if you're talking about last-resort contract enforcement. The primary mechanisms always have been to use the market, whether through reputations, insurance companies, bonding agencies, boycotts, or (often the most powerful) the sheer value of repeat business. Much of the development of commercial law from the Romans through the Middle Ages been to find peaceful and efficient ways to do business without the King helping. There are historical alternatives to having government do it; the Irish, Icelandic, Somali, and American Arbitration Association non-state-based justice systems had/have various sets of social pressure to do the job. (For instance, Somali dispute resolutions usually end up with some number of cows or other money getting paid to a winning plaintiff, and if you don't pay, your extended family has to. Rarely, the family also refuses and bringing in a higher-reputation judge fails, and a brief feud ensues...) On the "should the government or the free market do this" scale, most people put last-resort contract enforcement at the "we don't mind too much if the government does it" end rather than the "overthrow the government if they even think about touching it" end, which is for issues like sex, drugs, rock&roll, freedom to travel, etc. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Reassign Authority!