Social Customs and Laws

In the United States, we have such a thing as a judicial system. A convoluted mess of laws dictating what is legal, what is illegal, and the punishment for breaking the law for certain offenses. It is such a confusing system that we have jobs to simply understand the written word, and to memorize its tenants in order to defend others.

In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the moon has none of these problems. It has no written law, no lawyers, nothing. In a world of rational anarchy, there are only social customs. To break these customs, is in essence, to break laws. Rather than placing responsibility into the hands of lawyers, judges, and government, it brings that responsibility to individuals. Every man, woman, and child is responsible for their own actions, and how it affects others. Thus, nearly every offense can be considered capital. Here's a example:

In the book, a tourist meets a women in a bar. Since he doesn't know the local culture (and how immensely respected women are treated), he presses himself up on a woman and kisses her. Since this is next to unheard of in loonie culture, she screams. He is dragged through the tunnels by a group of young adults calling for "elimination". They encounter Manuel, and ask him to judge the proceedings. Everyone pays Manuel for accepting the responsibility of deciding a mans life, and tell how the events proceeded. Considering he is a tourist, and made no serious foul, he lets him off, and fines the boys for not knowing better. And everyone walks away happy.

Its a incredibly interesting system to go along with a interesting culture. On the moon, a man can be tossed out a airlock for something so trivial as insulting another man. On one hand, its barbaric! Men eliminating each other over calling their woman a slut? But on the other, it ensures a polite respectful society. No human would risk saying bigoted ideals, or try to proclaim insults to one another, because you'll be killed, and popular opinion would back up the one who tossed you out the airlock! And men don't go around murdering one another because then popular opinion would be against them, and then THEY would die!

In modern earth, the system might not work so well. We have an established culture, bound by centuries of tradition and imbedded culture. Murder is commonplace, and can be escaped by legal bureaucracy. But on the moon, a new environment where only the wardens guards held the guns, and were not needed for any reason by the common populace? Where society is put into tunnels, which all hold a purpose and have little to no "alleys"? Its a incredibly logical, and efficient system. It just goes to show how much work Heinlein put into thinking of the moon in the year 2075.