To Yaron Brook: If the Non-Aggression Principle Is the Centerpiece of Libertarianism-Is This An Adequate Foundation?
One thing Yaron does not discuss is a proper understanding of property rights. Without such, how does one determine who is initiating force? Think of a fight between a nomad and an orchard owner. Short listen
As for the farmer and the nomad, turn it around. Can the farmer forever expand the size of the farm until the next farm or city? What makes land "owned"? Is it possible to have a society of non-contiguous farms? (Think of the Masons or Catholic Church, both of which are highly evolved societies of non-contiguous properties.) If so, then topologically,they are no different from nomads. It is like the sight-gag where the cartoon characters is invited to "a piece of pie", slices one-eighth and lifts out the other 7/8 for himself.
You attempt to answer the question by framing the question. It is a nice rhetorical device, but only that.
The fundamental philosophical issues are independent of which union card you carry, hunter, pastoralist, farmer, craftsman, or trader.
Government serves the purpose of instantiating law. How that is effected depends on the mechanisms available in a society.
In our transnational global capitalist society, non-state actors provide security in many parts of the world. I do not mean just warlords and abandoned armies now turned looter. This is well-known to criminologists and sociologists and the lefties are wringing their hands over it because they want government, not private enterprise.
What keeps a private security force from becoming a gang of looters? Basically, the common culture, the same one that empowers the government to provide rule of law. But note that General Motors and Ford Motor company had their own private armies facing each other for 100 years without firing a shot at each other. The culture of GM and Ford was capitalist, individualist, rationalist, and realist. In other words, they knew their self-interest, and therefore respected the rights of others. With the Mafia of old, and drug cartels today, it is different: apparently no amount of government can be too much to stop them, because none ever has.
What happens when they (or anyone) strays from that? Then we come back to the law.
Note that the law requires coercion. You can be forced to appear in court as a defendant. You can be forced to appear as a witness. You can be forced to appear as a juror.
That is why NIOF cannot be a fundamental principle. It rests on deeper truths, as an application of them. Similarly, we all seek profit. We do not always find it in every enterprise. Risk is reality. Profit is a general outcome from rational effort, but never a guarantee against the unpredicted.
You say that the law requires coercion, I don't agree with the use of the word. If the operating agreement is freely accepted by both parties, then the holding of one to account doesn't require coercion, but may potentially require the use of force in order to uphold the agreement. Interestingly Ayn Rand held that "If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.
This is the task of a government—of a proper government—its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.
A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control—i.e., under objectively defined laws."