[EGreg]

Property rights are agreements. If it is a net gain for all parties to follow an agreement, they will follow it, even in the absence of coercive enforcement.

The same can be said about the social contract. Is the only thing preventing you from running red lights the fear of enforcement?

For many people, yes. That's the only thing. And we violate property rights in many ways, like peeing in a forest that may be "owned" by someone. Or by using an idea that may be "owned" by someone.

Property rights become "States" if the organization is large enough.

Property rights are basically monopoly rights to exclude others, by force if necessary, from the use of a resource.

Sometimes this exclusion actively harms wealth creation. Especially if the resource is a public good.

[pdonis]

> Is the only thing preventing you from running red lights the fear of enforcement?

This is a very telling question. Of course the answer is yes--if you qualify "running red lights" to mean "running red lights when it is clear that it is not going to cause any harm or violate anyone's property rights". For example, it's very late at night, it's an intersection with clear visibility in all directions, well lighted, and there is obviously no one else in sight. In such a case, yes, the only thing preventing me (and probably any reasonable person) from running the red light is fear of enforcement.

But of course that's because any reasonable person has the common sense to know that running a red light under circumstances where it will clearly violate no one's property rights and cause no one harm is not a crime; it's just a violation of an administrative rule, which in practice is used as a revenue source by localities, not to improve traffic safety.

And of course any reasonable person will not run a red light if it would risk causing harm or violating someone's property rights. But in that case, it is not because of fear of enforcement; it's because reasonable people understand that harming others or violating their property rights is a net loss for everybody, including them, so they have a good, rational reason not to do it and would behave the same even if it there were no enforcement.

> we violate property rights in many ways, like peeing in a forest that may be "owned" by someone

If this does no harm, how is it a violation of property rights?

> Or by using an idea that may be "owned" by someone.

Ideas are different because there is no such thing as exclusive "ownership" of ideas. Governments create "ownership" of ideas by making laws, but that doesn't make ideas the same as physical objects. If I take your car, I deprive you of it; we can't both have it. If I take your idea, you still have it; I can't deprive you of it. That is a key difference.