Why Hoppean Covenants Don’t Work

Covenants are not practical or likely to stand the test of time in the rare case that one arises. My claim is that, in a society already populated by relatively libertarian-minded citizens, a covenant will serve no benefit other than for small segregatory communities to keep out people with skin colors or beliefs they don’t like (imagine those small cult-ish towns in the US). Diversity breeds innovation: diversity in thought, in belief, in background, in culture. I’m not talking forced WOKE diversity, but put 20 random people in a room and then 20 people who have been exposed to similar ideas, similar thoughts, and similar problems, etc. It is far more likely that the 20 random people will be able to respond far better and more adaptively to a given problem because they have a far wider range of knowledge and skills compared to the more homogeneous group. A covenant will only be as innovative and robust as pure anarcho-capitalism if the constraints are so lenient and unrestrictive that there is such little a difference between it and pure anarcho-capitalism that there is not much point in its maintenance and enforcement, defeating the purpose of the covenant. I also think the idea of natural aristocrats is without merit. Of course there will inevitably be people who are more competent, useful, or valuable, but the labeling of them as aristocrats is useless unless they possess some power over others. If they don’t possess more power to force others, they are just regular citizens of the world who are more intelligent or wealthy, for example, but if they do have more power to force others, then they are no better than government officials who force others to bend to their will.

Diversity = Robust Survival
– https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/preserving-genetic-diversity-gives-wild-populations-their-best-chance-long-term
– https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter
– https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9064374/