Anthropologists tend to say, that it is only possible with groups of fifty or so, which is about the size of a natural human clan of hunter gatherers, or a small village. After that, the theory goes, you start to need a political structure.

But the big problem is not really whether you can work together for a gaol, but how you stop a political structure from firstly forming, and secondly, prevent that political structure from being stolen by societies most self interested criminal elements, who see it as an opportunity to redirect society, and its gaols, to their own advantage and in their narcissistic image. Both of those things seem to be built into the laws of human nature, by forces much bigger than us. That is why I can only see hope in the compromise of democracy. When that can be made and kept there is some hope, but it is hard and difficult.