Topic: Rule of Law

Posts

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  The Feudal Origins of the Western Legal Tradition

  This paper draws a distinction between ‘communitarian’ and ‘rationalist’ legal orders on the basis of the implied political strategy. We argue that the West’s solution to the paradox of governance – that a government strong enough to protect rights cannot itself be restrained from violating those rights – originates in . . .

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  Evonomics - How About Evopolitics Too?

  David S Wilson says we need to ditch Hayek’s politics in order to save his evolutionary insights. On the contrary, the argument in The Road to Serfdom follows straightforwardly from Wilson’s own premises if you take an evolutionary perspective on politics as well as the economy. The basic problem is . . .

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  The Curious Contours of Contractual Freedom: A Cynical Spin on Civil Society

  Freedom of contract is not sacrosanct in American legal culture. What is sacrosanct is non-discrimination along several definite lines – most importantly, religion, race, and gender. Sometimes these norms conflict, as in the multitude of laws governing employment and labor. But sometimes they overlap – particularly on the question of freedom of . . .

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  The Apparatus Cost of Net Neutrality

  Net neutrality is a winning issue. Not only that, but people are likely to ignore libertarian arguments on the issue because it sounds a lot like what they love about the rule of law. General rules, non-discrimination, etc. The best argument against it is that the enforcement of net neutrality comes . . .

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  Apparatus Cost

  “The art of Economics,” says Henry Hazlitt, “consists in looking not merely at the immediate, but at the longer effects of any act or policy.” This is true not only for the economic effects of policy, but also for the political effects of policy. These longer effects in the political . . .

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  A Theory of Bargaining Power

  Between equality of wealth and equality before the law, there lies a third sense of the word, important but overlooked: equality of bargaining power. The left would do well to stop confusing wealth-inequality with it, and the right would do well to stop ignoring it. . . .

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  Confidence in the Pyramid: Speculation, Calculation, and Stabilization in Hayek’s Monetary Dilemma

  Winner of the Mont Pelerin Society’s 2012 Hayek Essay Contest. The essay first discusses the weaknesses of national central banking, and how those flaws are corrected in both free banking and an international central bank. Second, it draws from Hayek’s wider economic and political work to evaluate both alternatives according . . .