I see it quite differently. The inner system is more or less like we have today. There's government, laws, a political process. In the PC, it might be hypercorp-controlled in the end(sort of like the US with the lobby system on steroids), while Morningstar is more like Switzerland, but either way we easily understand what is going on. Extropia is anarcho-capitalist and that sounds more like what you're describing. You subscribe to insurance, arbitration services (which define what laws apply to you!), security providers. And there is individual property rights. In case of conflict between people with different arbitration providers, there is either a developed consensus, or an agreement on finding a third party to settle the dispute is reached. Anarcho-capitalism rests heavily on the development of a common law - think of it how you'd settle a dispute with strangers when you don't want to involve the authorities. It mostly rests on the idea of damages - if your actions damage someone else or their property (including by failing to honor a contractual agreement), you must restitute and compensate them - which is typically easy to resolve. Much harder is stuff like risk and pollution, where you need a common law developed to handle that. If someone comes speeding down your street at insane speeds, you need your security provider to serve him, and your arbitration provider need to back that. Without common law, things go nuts as his arbitration provider refuses to acknowledge it and his security provider defends against your guys coming to collect the claim. The idea is that no one wants a small war over speeding tickets, and a common law will develop to handle such things. Mutualists are much like anarcho-capitalists, but they're not free to enter business contracts that for example allow for profits - each is paid for his work and service, and must charge that. A company would never make a profit - it would sell its products at exactly the cost of producing it (including wages). Anarcho-communists are very different. Property and the means of production are owned collectively, and they live by "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Decisions are made through direct democracy at the appropriate level (a factory decision, the workers there vote - a habitat-wide rule or decisions, everyone votes). Collectivist anarchists are like anarcho-communists in many ways, but they retain an economy, with wages democractically decided and like mutualism, profit is eliminated. Anarchism is typically NOT a free-for-all. It is not lawlessness. The rules just aren't decided by a government. In some habs, you'll need to get an arbitration provider and listen carefully to their advice on common law and precedence. In other habs, each section could have small collectives that democratically decide on a case-by-case basis what goes. Some places will have individual property rights and money, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're free to make lots of money on a good idea or selling a rare product. Some places you can't own anything and they don't have money and the only way to get hold of something is to convince someone they should give it to you because you need it (perhaps they'll trade with outsiders, but that's likely to be bad for the rep of the parties involved).