It has approximately nothing to do with reputational harm. The plausible end result of violating the law is either that you have to accept the result of arbitration or you end up getting shot - essentially the same as today, except you have a lot more flexibility in picking arbitration rules.

The Machinery of Freedom's system doesn't rely on firms' and individuals' strong wish to avoid reputational harm? Because that exact mechanism is mentioned repeatedly as the enforcement mechanism of arbitration, absent government. It may not be the only factor cited, but it's a lot of it.

No, the chief proposed enforcement mechanism for violating arbitration agreements is that if you do, no one is going to stop people from shooting you and taking your stuff. I.e. you become an outlaw.

Well, the book's text is available online. I suppose anyone can go figure out for themselves whether reputation (beyond just the extreme form of "people kill you because you're so unpopular") is a significant part of what it supposes would keep people and businesses in line, absent government.

It has nothing to do with people killing you because you’re unpopular; it’s to do with the fact that if you seriously violate arbitration agreements it becomes too expensive to buy protection.

> no one is going to stop people from shooting you and taking your stuff. I.e. you become an outlaw.

[edit, also:]

> The plausible end result of violating the law is either that you have to accept the result of arbitration or you end up getting shot

That seems like the monopoly on violence with... more actual violence.

It may have seemed more reasonable in 1973 than it would in, say, 2019.