[crusso]

And without the state I couldn't just have a few of my employees or friends burn your house down?

This whole argument of whether property rights or lack of property rights is due to a State is fundamentally misguided. The State is just force, and whether that force creates property rights or destroys common understanding of property rights depends upon how that force is applied.

[jahaja]

Of course. I agree with you, hence the "Today" in the last sentence. Tomorrow it might be other kinds of states or similar entities. The first sentence was however badly formulated.

So it's true that a stateless society would need to defend against groups of thugs or similar just as we do today. This would probably be done in a decentralized manner rather than a paid centralized institution like today. The idea is to build a society that people would want to defend.

So hopefully people would organise against thugs that claim private property rights, or also risk being exposed to them themselves.