A new sandpit for long side discussions, idees fixes and so on. Unless directly responding to the OP, all discussions of nuclear power, MMT and conspiracy theories should be directed to sandpits (or, if none is open, message boards).
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
John Quiggin 
@jungney
yes – when and how – did it happen that men ceased to be an integral part of raising children for the future of the tribe? Hunter-gatherer men seem to be have been very involved in this process and they devised effective ways of dealing with the problem of growing up the young men and directing their natural tendencies.
@jungney
Hmmm, I think that rumors of Rawls’ demise are greatly exaggerated. I say this because Rawls’ views continue to be discussed by philosophers and others in the literature and elsewhere (including this blog from time to time), even if they only serve as a springboard for criticism. [As an aside, I recently bought and started to read Freeman’s “Rawls,” alongside Rawls’ own work “Political Liberalism,” which reflects Rawls’ final thoughts about “justice as fairness.” “Rawls” is a volume in the Routledge Philosophers series, which places Rawls in distinguished company.]
Back to my response: The physical (or natural) sciences, on one hand, and philosophy on the other progress via different methodologies. Science moves ahead by observation and experiment, which can be replicated by (qualified) people. That way, competing hypotheses are winnowed, false hypotheses discarded, and knowledge is thereby increased. On the other hand, philosophers seek “moral truth” through weight of argument and logic, which may be accepted or rejected by others. One particular gambit deployed by philosophers such as Rawls, is the thought experiment — an exercise both of intuition and logic. Of course, thought experiments do not correspond to reality, but their results nevertheless might prove informative.
Rawls thought experiment involves an “initial condition” – his original position, and “boundary conditions” – the veil of ignorance, under which people, having been shorn of their life biases and prejudices, work together as equals to derive principles under which a truly just, pluralistic society might operate with stability. People under these hypothetical conditions (says Rawls) will reach an agreement to forge a well-ordered society based on two principles of justice. The first (and primary) principle provides equal basic rights and liberties for all. The second, in two parts, addresses social and economic (in)equalities; firstly that there should be fair equality of opportunity for individuals to thrive in society, and secondly that social and economic inequalities be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society.
Jungney voices a criticism of Rawls, not so much about his derived principles, but on the artificial construct he used to arrive at them. This criticism has been often raised by communitarians who maintain that peoples’ worldviews (religion, morality, kinship, etc.) are intrinsic to human nature, so it is legitimate to allow such often competing worldviews to shape political discourse. It is correct to say that there are no actual, real people who can be described as having “unclassed, ungendered, unsexed etc perspective”s. Rawls acknowledges this, and yet I think it is beside the point. Rawls presents us with a hypothetical situation in order to discover principles that would lead to a just, well-ordered society. Idealized people who have shed the baggage of real lives are the agents of discovery in Rawls’ thought experiment. Is what they found invalid because of this? I don’t think so. Besides, is it totally impossible for reasonable, real people to cast aside the shackles of their particular worldviews and see the value of Rawls’ work?
@Julie Thomas
It was in the period of transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism that men moved into a new space, segregated from women and children at work once the Factory Acts were brought in. Prior to that work on a small farm or within most family units was not gendered; men and women all undertook all types of work because it was seasonal and all hands on deck period. The cottage industry workers, of whom there were very many, mixed activities like farming with knitting hosiery and other clothing; the work was done by men and women.
The separation of men, over time, created a gendered industrial proletariat where men had control over the only source of income and the rest, as they say, is history.
@JKUU
Rawls has gone on to an honourable path as a philosopher, for sure, but his central idea, mirroring the asociality of Hobbes, what he called the ‘veil of ignorance’ we should imagine we all live behind when considering issues of justice, coughed up a profoundly deformed type of justice – one ignorant of the particularities of difference between people by history, ethnicity, gender and so on – has since been subject to substantial revision by him.
If I’d said the credibility of Rawls’s ‘veil’ notion was destroyed rather than the man himself, that would have been accurate and fair. Rawls and a host of communitarians in the US have made very significant contributions to politics.
But I disagree that anybody, let alone philosophers, does any decent work while they are suspended in a framework of fictions. Alasdair MacIntyre reconsidered virtue by using historical scholarship as well has his dissatisfaction with his own contemporary culture, in which was deeply grounded and by which he was profoundly troubled:
Pardon me for this snippet from wp:
He concludes that the virtues aren’t ideas but practices and the being seen as virtuous resulted from the very public appraisal of how you conducted yourself in public and private affairs. He also concluded, somberly, that the lunatics had captured control and that a sensible person ought to dig in somewhere with a community of interest. He thought medieval monasteries were a reasonable model of what was going to be needed in the future.
But the point of all this is that I know of no philosopher who engages in ideal type thought experiments in order to do business; they all are actively, intellectually engaged with vast swathes of the humanities and routinely draw on that knowledge to inform their ideation and explain their ideas.
“Idealized people who have shed the baggage of real lives are the agents of discovery in Rawls’ thought experiment. Is what they found invalid because of this? I don’t think so. Besides, is it totally impossible for reasonable, real people to cast aside the shackles of their particular worldviews and see the value of Rawls’ work?”
But idealised people who have shed the baggage of real lives; are there real living people who have done this – or only stories of people like Buddah?
I wouldn’t say this sort of philosophising are invalid, okay as an artistic pursuit, but how useful are these insights when applied to policy that deals with ‘normal’ people?
So perhaps we could put these philosophies in some sort of gallery where we display the patriarchal white man efforts to understand the world and we could leave them there to be appreciated by those who like that sort of thing and then we could begin to create policies that are based on real people and the way real people – as opposed to this idealised fantasy of a certain type of men as gods – interact and support societies to thrive and be productive?
My own thought experiment in this arena goes like this. The first principle is the most basic principle. Each numbered principle thereafter modifies the previous principle(s).
1. I want to be able to do whatever I like.
Commentary – I commence from the position of primitive or infantile solipsism. This position is completely self-centred which is not precisely the same thing as selfish. The ability to satisfy my basic needs of life must commence from being able to do whatever I like. Therefore eating and drinking when I feel the need must be part of my legitimate autonomous capacity (for example). This is valid, legitimate and indeed life promoting and affirming.
2. Whatever I like to do runs up against real external material constraints. I cannot eat food if I cannot obtain food. I cannot drink water if I cannot find water.
3. Whatever I like to do runs up against internal constraints. I would like to jog 10 km in 60 minutes but at my age and current weight I can’t.
4. Whatever I like to do (at some level) runs up against my higher judgement of self-interest. I would like to eat a big slice of cake but that will add to my excess weight with bad effects.
5. Whatever I like to do runs against what others like to do (and need to do).
Thus the first principle must be individual liberty. Sans specific medical advice, the desire or lack of desire of a small child who is generally very healthy but who has recently been sick, to eat or not eat some food must be respected. We must respect the generally healthy child’s “internal knowledge” and his/her proper and necessary liberty to decide. The child knows better than anyone else, indeed is uniquely positioned to know, how he/she feels at a bodily level.
Then the principle of individual liberty (what I need and want) is modified by the “collision” with the real material world, with other humans, with society in general and indeed one’s own developing higher judgement of enlightened self-interest plus development of sympathy and empathy. Certain forms of libertarianism seem to fail at developing upwards from the solipsistic base the understanding of how “what I need and want” is modified and very properly and necessarily modified by “what others need and want”. There is a another dimension in that living in community, especially in dense settlements, necessitates communal, cooperative or coordinated solutions which feed back and further affect “what I can have” and what “others can have”.
@Ikonoclast
Kant’s your man then. He argued that the right to pursue one’s own ends in ‘the state of nature’ was constantly threatened by others pursuing theirs. There was no uninhibited personal freedom because in the state of nature everyone’s freedom is constantly threatened by all others.
Hence Terje’s gun totin’ dystopia but at least in those days you knew where you stood.
In (modern) ciil society the right to pursue one’s own ends is circumscribed by the necessity to curtail those ends in the interests of sustaining the very civil societies whose existence allows us to pursue such ends free from brute interdiction by others pursuing theirs. Hence the criminal and other law, the separation of powers, independent judiciary, the police and so on are all institutions of civil society.
The curtailment of the right to pursue one’s own ends is not a violation of personal freedom because without such curtailment there would be no civil society and therefore no enforceable or effective way to pursue one’s own ends in civil society.
@jungney
Then I think Kant is right insofar as he agrees with me. 😉
I did show however that it is right and necessary to begin with personal liberties and that curtailments arise insofar as multiple personal liberties in community must be reconciled via negotiation and consensus. Then of course they get codified and institutionalised as you laid out.
@Ikonoclast
Negotiation and consensus forming being the essence of politics, according to Aristotle. Not his exact words but politics is defined as ‘that which we must do in order to exist with others’. One of the most impressive of the post Marxists is Chantal Mouffe who argues for a left politics that accepts what she describes as the agonistic nature of politics, in her own words:
So, prepare for conflict and create democracies that allow for the conflict resolution by democratic means. Somewhere in her works though she accepts to primacy of civil society in sanctioning illegal forms of conflict like violence in its many forms.
Sorry but I can’t do credit to all the questions / comments directed towards me. Hopefully the following helps. I think humans achieve the most when they cooperate. I want a society based on as much on voluntary cooperation as possible. If you are forced to do what some central power says you must do under threat of violence, as socialism does, then this is not cooperation. It is in fact the exact opposite. Cooperation is by definition something that people do freely. If we are all forced to contribute to public heath care or some such thing this is the exact opposite of a society based on cooperation. It entails a society built on compliance. Compliance due to threats of force is not cooperation. The only threat people should make against others is the threat to not associate with them and not deal with them.
Never mind for that.. you just keep turning up.
@TerjeP
I don’t understand how you use the term “force” and “violence” and I don’t understand your ‘fear and loathing of a ‘central power’ or why you seem obsessed with ‘socialism’ as an inherently ‘violent’ organisation. There is something very ‘wrong’ about your insistence that the way you choose to understand these terms is the only way to understand them.
Consider how cooperation develops in children if you want to understand what it is; how do we socialise our children to understand that there are other different people in the world and that it can be a very good thing if they try and get along with these other people and play with them rather than insist that everyone must play the game their way.
Your attempt to conceptualise and define cooperation is based on your mistaken assumption that the default human is a hierarchical individualist man.
I think co-operation happens when people choose to give up some bits of their freedom so that others in their community can flourish and be as equal as possible.
Have you ever considered that it would be a good thing for your own personal growth and happiness to give up some of your ‘freedom’ or ‘rights’ for the benefit of the group as a whole?
Julie Thomas, so perceptive.
TerjeP :
Therefore you oppose capitalism.
Therefore you oppose law.
People acting “freely” may never cooperate as they will all go their separate ways. When they cooperate they generally create laws, codes and cultures that regulate individuals freedom.
Criminals and the greedy and the fraudsters must always be forced to comply. Cooperatioin is completely irrelvant in this context.
You are completely confused and mixed up.
@TerjeP
There are any number of minimal or failed states where you can live under the rule of unforced social co-operation, where no-one pays any taxes and there are liberal gun laws too! Somalia comes to mind as do Eritrea and Burundi, Ethiopia and Niger. No public health except tha twhich is run by missions and aid projects, little public education to drain your wealth and food and water only available to those with the capacity to pay. No freeloaders there, no siree!
You wouldn’t last half an hour.
Australians have voluntarily cooperated over time to have a constitution, a democratic parliament and the rule of law and regulation. They have voluntarily cooperated over time to have a mixed economy with private enterprise and government with a public sphere of action. They have done this with no civil war, limited deaths in civil strife (there have been some) and significant strike action and boss retaliation since 1901 and Federation. All this indicates that the current status quo is largely, though some way from completely, voluntary and that most parties have also made comprimises. I wonder why this does not meet your test of voluntary association?
Anyone who possesses enough money and flexibility to emigrate somewhere (like I do and I assume you might), yet chooses to remain domiciled in Australia is voluntarily continuing to associate with the polity of Australia. Again, why does this not meet your test of voluntary association? It seems that your test of voluntary association implies a requirement that no coordinated measure ever occur that you do not personally agree with. But in practice, any voluntary association you make with groups of other people will entail the possibility of coordinated decisions, measure or undertakings which you do not personally agree with. Then you are faced with the decision; do you pay your membership dues and take the rough with the smooth or do you resign your membership?
Take this advice from an old, misanthropic, and relatively isolated curmudgeon (me) with some experience in these matters, if you resign from every association with others where they do not do everything you want, you will end very isolated indeed.
@TerjeP
If we are all forced to contribute to public heath care or some such thing this is the exact opposite of a society based on cooperation.
Made a right mess of the tags didn’t I?
Oops, my post above zoot’s was meant as a reply to Terje’s last post.
Das Automod has my number, or so it seems, and I’m sinbinned for no ostensible reason.
Terje: you want to live in a laissez faire paradise? Why don’t you try Nigeria, the Sudan or any other number of states in Africa which are ‘minarchist’ states? There, you could experience the sort of life that you advocate.
Ikonoclast and Terje
An important distinction between non-cooperative and cooperative game theoretic models (not necessarily dynamic models) is that the former assumes there are ‘no binding agreements’. That is, in a non-cooperative game each member of a society (each ‘player’) cannot rely on each of the other players adherring to agreements. As a consequence of this (implicit institutional arrangement), each player is forced to consider only his own interests, even if the player understands that a cooperative solution would be in his own best interest. Terje seems to be unaware of this.
Consider road traffic in an area densely populated by people whose basic belief structure is ‘western’ (I want to exclude New Dehli, where, as far as I can tell everything works differently) in the sense that each road user wants to get in his or her car to his or her desired location as fast as possible and wants to survive and preserve ‘capital’ (the vehicle). There are many motorists. This situation can be modelled as a non-cooperative game.
A ‘mechanism’ to solve the problem is known to all of us. Traffic rules, including traffic lights (with fines for non-compliance; ie binding agreement to get a licence). These traffic rules were not invented at the time the first motor vehicle was invented. They evolved (a hint at the subject matter of dynamic game theory). It seems to me Ikonoclast’s arguments go along these lines.
In the ‘western’ societies, the details of traffic rules vary (eg driving on the left vs right side of the road, behaviour of pedestrians when crossing the road – France vs Denmark). There is, in other words, a common structure in these societies, namely acceptance of rules (binding agreements) but there are cultural or habitual or historical overlays which are reflected in the details.
Another ‘mechanism’, which is talked about a lot but not in a manner which convinces me the speakers know what they are talking about. This mechanism is ‘the price mechanism’. The idea is that ‘relative prices’ [1] coordinate the allocation of scarce resources (physical) among people who differ in what they like (preferences). The conditions under which this idea makes sense (at least in the logic of mathematics) are investigated in theoretical models known as general equilibrium models with complete markets. Under specified conditions, relative prices coordinate individuals’s decision perfectly (Pareto Efficiency). Obviously, if there are missing prices (incomplete markets) then there is a coordination failure.
[1] I’d appreciate getting evidence that the notion of relative prices is understood in policy talks by those who want to set the rules of the game since and including the last audit report. I have none. On the other hand, I understand very well why certain rules of the game, proposed by these people, are judged to be ‘unfair’ (the relative prices don’t makes sense).
What about the police force, Terje? Is that an option in your world?
@BilB
Yes it is. Terje’s world is informed by Nozick who argued for a minimal state to protect property. All over the world such police forces exist. They do nothing about violence among the underclasses, violence directed against minorities of all sorts by state forces, violence against women by men. They see all this as ‘natural’ but violence against property as the end of civilisation. Which of course it isn’t. It is merely the birth spasms of a new order, born of the old, but capable of remembering the role of the ribbon gangs and all sorts of dissidents against slavery and subordination.
According to Nozick:
Arises ‘naturally from anarchy’ or the un-therapised figments of your own Euro-psyche, with all its attendant horrors. The madness of the last days of liberalism are evident in Terje’s maunderings.
@Ernestine Gross
Any recommended book I should read on game theory? One that an intelligent layperson could understand? I can’t read or understand lines of PhD level maths formulae. However, I can take the formulae on trust if they are accompanied by an English language precis which states what they prove and what that means for the argument of the book.
I think the complex and iterated evolution of governing institutional arrangements to solve competing interests is something that is easy to underestimate or even overlook. Minarchist libertians seem especially prone to such oversights.
> Minarchist libertians seem especially prone to such oversights.
Or, rather, it’s only if you do have these oversights — and are prone to those oversights — that you’ll remain/become a minarchist libertarian in the first place.
@Ikonoclast
I don’t have any books of the type you are looking for. I know of two types and have only one type on my shelfs. There are textbooks for higher level students in economic theory. There are books used in some management courses. I would not recommend these. Sorry can’t help.
No I don’t oppose the rule of law. I think the rule of law is essential to a civil society. It’s the fundamental starting point. But enforcing a particular law against somebody who disagrees with that particular law is not an example of cooperation. It is an act of coercion designed to enforce compliance. A given law may be wise and necessary but when enforcing that law against people who disagree with that law we should not muddy the language by calling it a case of “cooperation”. And my statement was that I want a society built on cooperation as much as is humanely possible. Which means that we should have a minimalist approach to law. In essence our laws should ban and mandate as little as possible.
EG is right that a means of enforcing agreements is pretty central to a society built on cooperation so we should keep the basic laws of contract. And we should keep laws pertaining to physical property and the right of owners to protect their property (including self defence) and to exclude others and to seek redress for any damage. But we shouldn’t use coercion for too much more. Most of the extension to additional worthwhile institutions and service providers that we would want in a decent society, be they farms, restaurants, banks, schools or hospitals, can be achieved using cooperation instead of further additional laws. And cooperation is for the most part how we ought to organise ourselves.
I accept that this is a simplification and that exceptions to such a principle will be many. But we ought to be guided by such a principle as and when additional laws are suggested or existing laws reviewed. We ought to seek a society built on cooperation more so than on compliance. IMHO.
To this end I think it would be ideal if existing laws were quick and easy to repeal and new laws were hard to enact and the activity subject to extensive and protracted scrutiny.
Except for property rights, where:
[note also that there’s no explanation given for this discrepency or even understanding evinced that it is a discrepency, that “property rights” are inherently/inescapably exclusionary and anti-cooperative and if they’re a part of a system nominally rooted on cooperative principles they need to be specially argued/justified.]
@Ernestine Gross
Thank you, I understand your reply and the reasons for it. I concur, I wouldn’t touch a management book with a barge pole.
Collin – I agree that the nature of laws governing property are contestable. However I don’t think the existance of property is. So long as somebody has the legal right to control an object then that thing is property. In the Soviet system most property, with few exceptions, was owned by the state. Which is to say how most objects got used was decided by the state. In a capitalist system it is different. You could have no laws against theft (transfer of ownership by force or stealth) but I’m not aware of any society that has ever tried that. I imagine that most people would regard such a place as “lawless” even if it had other laws.
I said earlier that I had no inclination to personally carry a firearm. Given the events in Denmark I suspect that if I was living in Europe and Jewish then I might feel differently.
What is your position on littering, Terje?
Moving right along – why don’t we demand to see the qualifications of media/politicians who argue on macroeconomics? I can’t think of too many in Aust who would make the grade.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/02/have_an_opinion.html
@rog
Would it help? Even economists can’t agree on macroeconomics and microeconomics and… anything else to do with economics.
Sorry, that’s a flippant response but given the current state of economics it’s probably a correct statement.
My own belief now is that (most) modern economists have not properly grappled with these issues;
(1) economics still properly involves political economy (in the sense that it is politics, especially class and power politics as well as economics).
(2) economics needs to be viewed as a systems discipline where a set of formal systems interact with a set of real systems. Note: real systems means not just the real economy but the natural environment.
PS to my above comment.
The other problem is that taxi drivers and autodidacts think they know more about economics than economists. Just the other day I said all the pollies on the news were idiots and then had this conversation;
Iko: “They haven’t got a clue. Give me 10 years and I could fix everything about our economy.”
Wife: (laughs scornfully) “You can’t even fix the backyard.”
@Ikonoclast
“You can’t even fix the backyard.”
The problem is that lots of us lack the motivation to fix the back yard but fixing the world, we all can do that, so easy. 🙂
I do it every week at the craft group and the ladeez who come – ranging in age from 27 to 77 – all think that preventing children from growing up into people who enjoy being uncooperative is the way to go to fix our society.
There is a diagnosis for children, ODD – Oppositional Defiance Disorder – and it seems to be increasing. Perhaps there is some sort of relationship between the individualism that has been idealised by parts of our society and the increasing problem of children with ‘attitude’ who don’t like to cooperate and don’t understand the benefits.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy says
“just what that cooperation means remains the subject of lively debate. Humans do more things together on a far greater scale than any species of ape or monkey. But is this owing to greater cooperative inclination or greater cognitive, communicative, and organizing ability?
We read one another’s beliefs and intentions much better than any other primate does, but does this make us more cooperative or only more skilled at subterfuge and deception? Our cooperation seemingly knows no bounds, but it is at its best within one group arrayed, for defensive or destructive purposes, against another.. ”
She thinks that ‘the strong human tendency to help mothers care for children’ – that has been the reason we as a species have been so successful – is the way to produce the species-wide level of cooperation that she says, we now need to survive.
“EG is right that a means of enforcing agreements is pretty central to a society built on cooperation so we should keep the basic laws of contract. ”
Who is EG? The EG I know said nothing of the kind asserted by TerjeP (TP)!
If TerjeP had in mind the EG I know, then he violates my property rights.
John Keyne reviews Fukayama’s latest book in smh spectrum, saturday, and makes some salient points along the ay on what are the initial conditions necessary for the development of democracy. Reflecting Fukayama he writes:
These observations are not made subsequent to adolescent ‘first principle’ imaginings. They are drawn from recent (ie modern) and contemporary history.
The idea that freedom can ever come about in the absence of a regulatory state that is the guarantor of civil society is delusional.
@TerjeP
Excellent:
Law, which you now support is an example of
Law is obviously:
There is also the coercion inherent in capitalism.
So if you support law and capitalism – you must support this form of coercion and enforced compliance. No one would disagree that this should be based on:
But there is an additional requirement – the laws must be based on a democratically elected Parliament.
Capitalists have a very different view as to what laws are as “little as possible” compared to socialists who see these legal structures eventually “withering away” once capitalism has been abolished.
Under capitalism, coercion and compliance overwhelms any potential for cooperation because, under cooperation, capitalists could not accumulate their wealth, throw people out of their homes, or otherwise increase the gap between the rich and the poor.
Real capitalism and true cooperation cannot coexist.
From a former libertarian who has written his story in a blog called the limits of libertarianism.
“Libertarians want a world without a state. Beyond that, the philosophy says little about the shape of human culture. All they say is that it should be based on property rights and non-aggression.
How can we combat racism? Property rights and non-aggression.
How should humans approach sexuality and gender? Property rights and non-aggression.
What is the place of hierarchies in society, whether it’s families or work places or financial classes? Property rights and non-aggression.
What role – if any – should religion and superstition play in society? Property rights and non-aggression.”
And then there is the simplistic way that ‘choice’ is conceptualised by libertarians, and the almost total ignorance of how humans actually do go about making choices.
Simon Wren-Lewis has had a shot at calculating how much austerity has cost
The endless blatherings on fiscal debt by our own crop of self appointed experts (Barnaby Joyce – “I’m an accountant!”) need to be publically challenged.
Climate deniers are to science what Conrad Murray is to medicine. The difference is that when Whacko Jacko ignored ethical and sound medical advice and went doctor-shopping until he found a practitioner who would tell him what he wanted to hear and do what he wanted done to him, at least it was only his own health that he was destroying. The right-wing politicians, bloviators and corporate interests that champion the Conrad Murrays of climate science are destroying the health of other people and the planet.
So you don’t agree with common law?
@rog
I completely agree, rog, with both posts, hence my shot at Chris Uhlmann in the recent Liberal leadership thread. Uhlmann was terribly concerned that as a result of his unpopularity, Abbott was going to give up on the “reforms” necessary to reduce government debt.
Uhlmann, like all Very Serious People, knows that cutting debt must always be the most important economic policy issue, irrespective of its amount and the marcoeconomic context, since the point of policy-making is to show strength of character by making tough decisions, not actually improve the lives of people—that would be plain silly.
In that comments thread, you bemoaned the lack of policy analysis and a focus on personalities, but the reality is that few reporters know enough to offer any analysis that is worthwhile.
Amongst journalists, Peter Martin is the most qualified to offer analysis and opinion about economic policy, and it shows.
@TerjeP
When common law conflicts with Parliamentary Law, common law is null and void.
You cannot have common law without courts established by an elected Parliament.
Common law without courts and without the threat of violence against law breakers, fraudsters and criminals, produces a moral and ethical wasteland.
Is this what you want?
@Ivor
Indeed. I note that as far back as Glanvill’s treatise on law, at the end of the twelfth century, distinguishes between customary law and sovereign law:
And thus was formed the idea of the general, common law of England as ‘custom’ – it was ‘custom’ because of its form, not because of its source – and of the common illusion that it is indeed ‘custom’ because it has its source in the English people. There was a non sequitur: the common law is ‘custom’, because it is unwritten; custom is created through the tacit consent of the people; therefore the common law has been created through the tacit consent of the people.
But it was in fact made by the royal judges, with an emphasis on procedure over substance. And, when Englishmen denounced the Norman Yoke and yearned for the Good Old Law of Edward the Confessor, appealing to an idealised image of old custom, of which the judges should be the ‘oracles’, they were actually harking back to the spirit of legal norms that had once been codified.
I bollocksed the block quotes so the following might be more conpremensible.
Indeed. I note that as far back as Glanvill’s treatise on law, at the end of the twelfth century, distinguishes between customary law and sovereign law:
The idea that the common law reflected customary law is historically wrong:
Besides, the only authority of customary law derives from contemporary adherence to custom which remains a requirement for Aboriginal land rights claims. No unbroken and continuous adherence to the custom, no claim allowed.
BTW my opinion on Libertarianism is that it’s essentially a WOFTAM.
So, is the bottom line of this tortuous thread, nothing but:
Ivor – I agree that laws should be established via some democratic means. Traditionally that entails elected parliaments. Although the exact structure varies considerably from place to place. I’m not interested in overturning parliament although I do wish for some reforms to the way it works and significant changes to the laws it produces. My method for trying to achieve that change is via the democratic process. I’m not into changing things via revolution. At least not in this country where the established order is a heck of a lot better than what can be found in many other nations.