The state traditionally arises in the form of a social contract. The center of Enlightenment thought orbits it. As a libertarian, and a practical citizen, I'm enthralled by the social contract. It's the notion that states, and social agreements within them, form by the people coming together, as it were, to unite under a set of law and order beside or in addition to the fundamental law of nature. There's no debate that the law of nature, to do no harm, exists. But the notion of the social contract in its traditional form has been somewhat challenged today by modern libertarian thinkers, who are the modern embodiment of classical liberalism.

Nozick, for one, in his pivotal Anarchy, State, and Utopia argues for an invisible hand formation of the state. He argues this resembles modern figures of social agreements, like deciding where to form a market. In a state of nature, people fear persecution from others, so they form protection agencies. People want to have the most protection in their area, so the agencies either gradually unite among each other or become the most active one in an area, eventually so there is one real protection agency in a land. Without any formal agreement, Nozick argues this is no different in practical terms from a real state. He lays out some exceptions, as I recall, that this minimal state may not fulfill that is different from a true one, but makes the point that a large at least somewhat state-like body can form in a continuously evolving manner, without any single definitive moment of uniform social contract by all members of society casting a unanimous and lucid vote to create the large agency.

This does not necessarily contradict the nature of social contract theory. Locke, who embodied the classical version of it, understood that a social agreement can arise either explicitly, as perhaps embodied in the American formation of the state in its Constitutional Conventions, or implicitly, as when all members of society tacitly, through their actions, usage and approval of state facilities or bodies, agree the state is legitimate. This is why sovereign citizen arguments fail: the person will drive a car, pay taxes, benefit from institutions, vote, use the economy and do other things, but at one law that inconveniences him denounce the whole system. At the same time Locke makes it clear that people have a right to rebellion for a government that detests them, and that mere presence in a state does not equate to approval: there's a clear delineation.