[vlovich123]

> how they’d address them rather than waving it all away under the guidance of a benevolent individual at the center.

Believe it or not, there’s no power structure that is immune to not having a benevolent individual at the center. That’s because most things are norms and practices developed culturally, not codified in power structures or laws.

[chilmers]

For what it's worth, pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer bands, i.e. the kind of structure humans actually evolved to live in, do seem to be relatively immune. They consist of a group of nuclear families who act together for mutual benefit. Everyone knows everyone else personally, and important decisions are made via consensus. Leaders exist, but they earn their position by demonstrating themselves the wisest, fairest, most capable, etc individual. and can lose it if they keep making bad decisions. And if one person attempts to become too dominant, the others will join together to kill or expel them, or leave to join another band.

Of course, it's not a perfect system, but it tends to avoid the excesses of control, violence and oppression that other power structures can enable. I try to avoid employers, clubs and other organisations whose internal dynamics don't resemble it (aside from the killing). As a result, I've mostly avoided the kind of stress and politics that other people seem to find themselves mired in.

[mastax]

Pre-agricultural Hunter-gatherer bands aren’t a monolith. Many were radically egalitarian, yes, many others were strictly hierarchical including slavery and human sacrifice. A surprisingly large proportion of them were hierarchical for one part of the year and egalitarian for the rest (often coinciding with religious festivals and/or different means of sustenance depending on the season).

[thrownthatway]

Agreed.

The most valuable resource is trust. Follow closely by the trust-structures to deal with the ramifications of the primary trust-relationship being broken.

That is to say, the most fundamental rule is contract law.

[vlovich123]

I think you missed when I said that contract law is for when things have gone completely off the rails or for very expensive decisions. Most day to day operations are managed through societal norms and pressures. Contract law would be a poor fit. And by the way, honoring and enforcing contract law between third parties to yourself itself is a societal norm.

[thrownthatway]

You’re wrong. Sorry about it.

In most jurisdictions anyone would want to live in, a handshake deal is as good as a contract.

Additionally, and again in any jurisdiction anyone would want to live in, when you purchase a durable good you’re entering into a contract with the seller and / or the manufacturer with regard to the advertised claims of the product and any warranted considerations.

Also, consumer items usually come with some guarantees, for example that your baby spinach didn’t kill you or result in harm to a gestating foetus, and so on and so forth.