the shape of things to have come

i'm busy reading h.g. wells - the shape of things to come, and a specific sentence caught my imagination:

the alternative to disaster, they saw even then, was not just a bleak and terrified security. that was the last thing possible. there was no alternative to disorder and wretchedness, but "such an abundance, such a prosperity and richness of opportunity", as man had never known before.

if we, as a collective, could escape the culture of fear that we have allowed to control us, and which has allowed those willing to manipulate us free reign, we could enjoy the fruits of our labours and struggles. in a capitalist age where the difference between the rich and the poor is vast enough to be disquieting, this same distance allows us to dream and lets us forget, in a strange way, that even our poor are better off than they would be amongst peers in another system.

wells is right, i believe, in suggesting that the problem with any system is its inflexibility... trial and error, and balance, are crucial devices in managing great numbers of half-crazed supermonkeys*. but in order to get to such a point, those supermonkeys need to relinquish their fears and turn an optimistic face to the possibilities of new paradigms.

* that's us

socialism isn't good, capitalism isn't good, but varying combinations of the two could work well.

i wonder if it's possible to maintain a civilization wherein anything is allowed as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others, and in which any violent acts (and only violent acts) are responded to with the utmost violence as a means of disincentive. would it be possible to protect such a civilization from the subversion of manipulative genius, from becoming a dictatorship or a police state?