Seems to me that all private transactions are contracts. Contracts are meaningless unless they can be enforced. I’m not aware of any practical mechanism to enforce contracts other than the threat of state violence. Ostracising people who break contracts might work in a small community but wouldn’t scale to a large one.

My understanding is that HN has no shortage of libertarians. Maybe one of them could tell us if there’s an alternate way to enforce contracts.

AFAIK the libertarian view on this topic is pretty clear. Violating a contract is violating the “Non aggression principle” and the landlord is considered as acting in self-defense.

And the landlord does what to the tenant who won’t pay? Threaten the tenant with a gun?

Or does she rely on the coercive power of the State? The State that maintains a monopoly on violence.

Obviously, there's as many variants of libertarianism as there's libertarians, but AFAIK most of them agree that there should be no state.

I think threatening the tenant with a gun to get the money then kick him out of the flat is the way it should go for most libertarians. You'd appreciate the irony of this not being an aggression.

(there's a reason why libertarianism is almost only found in the US: it lays on the Far West myth a lot)

You're claiming most libertarians are anarchists. Do you have a source for that? As far as I know, it's far from true.

Thanks for the response. This is fascinating.