Law-making is much more a theoretical process than an act of will, and as a theoretical process it cannot be the result of decisions issued by power groups at the expense of dissenting minorities.#
While the processes conducive to lawyers’-law and judge-made-law appear as conditioned ways of producing law, the legislative process appears, or tends to appear, to be unconditioned and a pure matter of will.#
The Romans enacted many statutes during their history, but those statutes related mainly to the functioning of their own government, and extremely rarely to private relationships between individuals. We have records of only about 50 statutes enacted by the Roman legislative powers relating to private relationships among citizens throughout their history – embracing more than 1,000 years.#
Grammarians . . . may have a great influence on the language, and the rules they work out may well react on the linguistic use of their country; but grammarians cannot create a language – they are simply given it.#
In the market choice the individual is the choosing entity as well as the entity for which the choices are made; whereas in voting . . . while the individual is the acting or choosing entity, the collectivity of all the other individuals is the entity for which the choices are made.#
The voter under unanimity rule is in a position which may be closely related to that of a discriminating monopolist who can realize the whole benefit of the exchange of the commodities or of the services he is able to sell, and can therefore acquire the whole, or almost the whole, of the so-called consumer’s surplus.#
Only voters ranking in winning majorities . . . are comparable to people who operate on the market. Those people ranking in losing minorities are not comparable with even the weakest operators on the market, who at least under the divisibility of goods . . . can always find something to choose and get, provided that they pay its price.#
While in the market supply and demand are not only compatible but also complementary, in the political field – in which legislation belongs – the choice of winners on the one hand and losers on the other are neither complementary nor even compatible.#