Yes it was sort of done in Somalia. That's how xeer law works -- there is a great book by Dutch lawyer Michael van Notten[0] that explains how polycentric law works in Somalia. It was found by most objective measures to be more stable and prosperous than democracy there [1] -- the researchers called it 'anarchy' but actually the period of 'anarchy' in somalia wasn't so much anarchy but decentralized legal system.
This allowed Somalia to be one of the few regions in sub-Saharan Africa that had a fairly smooth negotiation between interacting with various tribes while preventing any majority tribe from crushing the minority tribes. Tribes could still live in the same regions and practice their own laws while allowing feuds to be appealed up intertribal 'courts.' Thus even if it was just a guy and a camel and another guy and a camel, you still had law and you could even dish out the consequences yourself but still be held accountable up the chain.
I do agree the 50 states was an interesting and helpful idea. Under the constitutional form of the federal government, which narrowly restrains the federal government via the 10th amendment, there was a lot more room for states to 'compete' yet free travel and trade between the states.
You could probably get a lot closer to a hybrid of ideals by pulling the powers of the federal government way back into what the constitution authorizes. It wouldn't be polycentric law but it would make the monopoly far less onerous, as the cost of moving between jurisdictions is pretty cheap. There were a lot of challenges with racism and sexism in early USA but overall the restraints on the federal government were very good at giving the states a close approximation of polycentric law. Most of this started to get crushed in the very early 1900s and completely crushed by the 30s, although the civil war's elimination of any notion of a right to secession pretty much sealed the deal that the feds could gain an iron grip and the states couldn't check those powers by seceding so they had no real teeth to stop it.
>o me the purest form of your ideal seems unstable
Yes this is the story of the history of man. Hardly any theoretically pure form of governance has been able to exist in the history of man, let alone be stable in that form.
This allowed Somalia to be one of the few regions in sub-Saharan Africa that had a fairly smooth negotiation between interacting with various tribes while preventing any majority tribe from crushing the minority tribes. Tribes could still live in the same regions and practice their own laws while allowing feuds to be appealed up intertribal 'courts.' Thus even if it was just a guy and a camel and another guy and a camel, you still had law and you could even dish out the consequences yourself but still be held accountable up the chain.
I do agree the 50 states was an interesting and helpful idea. Under the constitutional form of the federal government, which narrowly restrains the federal government via the 10th amendment, there was a lot more room for states to 'compete' yet free travel and trade between the states.
You could probably get a lot closer to a hybrid of ideals by pulling the powers of the federal government way back into what the constitution authorizes. It wouldn't be polycentric law but it would make the monopoly far less onerous, as the cost of moving between jurisdictions is pretty cheap. There were a lot of challenges with racism and sexism in early USA but overall the restraints on the federal government were very good at giving the states a close approximation of polycentric law. Most of this started to get crushed in the very early 1900s and completely crushed by the 30s, although the civil war's elimination of any notion of a right to secession pretty much sealed the deal that the feds could gain an iron grip and the states couldn't check those powers by seceding so they had no real teeth to stop it.
>o me the purest form of your ideal seems unstable
Yes this is the story of the history of man. Hardly any theoretically pure form of governance has been able to exist in the history of man, let alone be stable in that form.
[0] https://search.worldcat.org/title/67872711
[1] https://www.peterleeson.com/better_off_stateless.pdf