AC -> Statism

[AndysDaddy]

I've read through a lot of the AC posts, but definitely not all of them, so I apologize if this is well covered ground.

I think I have a pretty good understanding of AC, and I can understand the allure of such a system. I might even think of it as the Utopian form of self governement, but like all utopia, would never work in practice.

I am reluctant to start an AC thread, but I have several questions as to how an ACist would respond. Hopefully this will be rational discussion (I promise to do my best to keep my end up).

It seems to me that any AC society would eventually become a statist one, given enough time. AC starts with individual rights and responsibilities. A couple of neighbors decide to work together for the betterment of them both and enter into an agreement.

Before long an entire neighborhood has formed a group. Using common legal arbiters, voluntarily choosing to enter into an agreement to pay a certain amount per year for common expenses, and agreeing to sell only to others that continue the agreement.

Groups of neighborhoods form towns for like reasons, then cities, states, and finally a nation. Each step is made in free will and in the belief that the next step up in grouping is beneficial.

At any point anyone that was unhappy with the decisions of those chosen to make decisions for the group were free to either do whatever was allowed by the agreement to change the decision makers, or leave the group and join another, or even go it alone somewhere.

At some point, however, all the available, habitable land comes to be under the control of some group or another, and a persons only out (other than 'voting the bums out') is to leave one group for another.

Isn't this the state we are in now? We are all affiliated with many levels of voluntary grouping. We can all choose to leave one group and join another. Sure - there are costs associated with this choice: moving from one town to another, one nation to another. But choices exists.

(Note that for the purposes of this debate I'm assuming that people can, in fact, freely move from one group to another. I am aware that large portions of the worlds populations do not have this choice, but most Western nations allow nearly free movement within a nation, and movement between nations is not terribly difficult).

So my question above is the question of the thread: are we not already voluntary members of groups that have chosen to live by commonly agreed upon rules?
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Scott