Law and the Courts

The Economics of Market-Provided Law

Anarchy and Efficient Law
by David Friedman
"The legal system I will be describing does not exist, so I cannot observe its rules. What I will be proposing is a theoretical analysis of why that legal system, if it existed, could be expected to generate efficient rules."

Answers: The Economic Analysis of Law
by David Friedman
What economic analysis tells us about designing laws, regardless of moral principles.

The Bill for Justice: Who Should Pay It?
by Benjamin R. Tucker
"One thing, however, is sure, - that in all cases the effort should be to impose all the cost of repairing the wrong upon the doer of the wrong."

The Economics of Non-State Legal Systems Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
by Bryan Caplan
A working paper in support of an anarcho-capitalist legal system. Part 3 includes a model of purely private law enforcement.

The Economics of Non-State Legal Systems
by Bryan Caplan

The Enterprise of Customary Law
by Bruce L. Benson
"This study will use economic theory to compare institutions and incentives that influence public and private performance in the provision of law and its enforcement. Some critics may contend that law is not an appropriate subject for "economic analysis," because it is not produced and allocated in exchange markets. To be certain, economics has a great deal to say about market institutions, but its relevance and scope are not so narrowly limited. Economic theory requires only that scarce resources be allocated among competing uses. Clearly, the enterprise of law — the use of police services, court time, and all other inputs in the process of making law and establishing order — requires scarce resources that must be allocated. Beyond that, economic theory explains human behavior by considering how individuals react to incentives and constraints."

Freedom Through the Common Law: Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law
by Robert M. Hurt

Hanged for a Sheep--The Economics of Marginal Deterrence
by David Friedman
An analysis of optimal punishment schedules for deterring crimes or other activities. It shows that optimal punishment can mean more severe punishment for less severe offences, which contradicts our intuitive sense of fairness.

Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Market
by George H. Smith

Law as a Private Good
by David Friedman
A response to a critic who argued that a private system of law would become a monopoly.

Law in Anarchy
by Charles B. Olson

Market Chosen Law
by Edward Stringham
"The market for legal services is not different intrinsically from any other. Businesses will continually create better and more efficient products, which without competition would have seemed inconceivable. Currently there are severe limits on incentives for private investment in this area, but this does not mean that the realm is inherently closed. If government ceased imposing its law on everyone, most likely the nature of law enforcement would be vastly different from today's nature."

Outline of a Critique of Tyler Cowen's Law as a Public Good
by Bryan Caplan
A defense of free-market anarchism against the charge that it would lead to collusion among companies in the law business.

Police, Courts, and Laws--On the Market
by David Friedman
David Friedman's answers to the questions: "How, without government, could we settle the disputes that are now settled in courts of law? How could we protect ourselves from criminals?"

Polycentric Law Versus the Minimal State: The Case of Air Pollution
by Adam Chacksfield

The Price of Private Law: A Critical Analysis of Murray Rothbard's Model for Common Law Juridical Systems in the Free Society
by Jonathan C. Bond

Privately Produced Law
by Tom W. Bell

The Production of Security
by Gustave de Molinari
The first economic argument for private industry to provide police and judicial services.

Juries

An Essay on Trial by Jury
by Lysander Spooner
"The principal objection, that will be made to the doctrine of this essay, is, that under it, a jury would paralyze the power of the majority, and veto all legislation that was not in accordance with the will of the whole, or nearly the whole, people.
The answer to this objection is, that the limitation, which would be thus imposed upon the legislative power, (whether that power be vested in the majority, or minority, of the people,) is the crowning merit of the trial by jury. It has other merits; but, though important in themselves, they are utterly insignificant and worthless in comparison with this."

Illegality of the Trial of John W. Webster
by Lysander Spooner
"Now it is clear, that if the government can exclude, on account either of their opinions or feelings, any persons thus drawn by lot, the trial is no longer a trial by “the country,” but only by a portion of the country. It is, in fact, a trial by the government, instead of “the country,” -because it is a trial by that portion only of the country, which has been selected by the government, on account of their having no opinions or feelings different from its own."

Jury Nullification
by stormy MON
A brief summary of jury nullification of laws in America. Part of an online book, Imagine Freedom, which attacks government and religion.

Jury Nullification: Cornerstone of Freedom
by Roger Koopman
"Once “informed juries” started cleansing the system of unpopular and repressive laws, two changes would begin to take place among the people themselves. First, people’s respect for law itself (something that has declined in recent years, largely because of the mischief caused by so much bad law) would be regenerated. Second, people’s moral senses would be sharpened by their increased individual responsibility to preserve our freedoms. We would become, once again, a vigilant people, more keenly aware of the abuse of government power, jealous of our liberties, sensitive to the moral and philosophical prerequisites of freedom."

Liberating the Jury
by Nathan Lapp
"The jury, by virtue of its commission and verdict, is the law. It is to the jury that we turn for help when human vices and weaknesses prevent us from resolving disputes privately. We implore the jury for justice, for mercy, for circumspection. We put lives and freedom in the hands of jurors."

A Reconsideration of Trial by Jury
by Wendy McElroy
Juries can defend individual rights in statist countries by nullifying laws, but in a free nation it is not likely that private arbitration businesses would resort to such an arbitrary and unprofessional system.

Trial by Jury vs. Trial by Judge
by Bertel M. Sparks
"If you would preserve freedom, preserve the institution which administers freedom. If it is the people's liberty with which you are concerned, keep that liberty in the hands of the people."

The Morality of Market-Provided Law

But Who Would Make Law?
by Jacob Halbrooks
"The problem, aside from lack of imagination, is that people are so accustomed to the government providing certain functions that they end up believing that only the government is capable of these functions. In some cases, this view is correct, such as in the case of total warfare and genocide. In cases of any non-coercive good or service that people want though, it is incorrect."

The Case For The Free Market Provision of Legal Services
by David Berens

Could libertarian courts compel witnesses to appear?
by Mary Ruwart
"In a libertarian society, you wouldn't be able to compel testimony. However, libertarian courts would operate differently than the ones of today, making witnesses much more likely to cooperate voluntarily."

Courts, Judges, And The Law In The Free City
by Stefan Blankertz
"Considering all the items I've mentioned before, we see that in a free society the judges and their courts are in contrast to what they are today:
o Judges are experts in making peace, in settling disputes, in fixing restitution.
o Also in contrast to what they are today, judges are responsible for the consequences of their decisions. No one has the right to harass someone only because he calls himself a judge.
In such a situation law will evolve naturally from reason and common sense as it had been before the state occupied the field of law."

Criminal Justice
by Dr. Mary Ruwart
The good doctor answers tough questions about criminal justice in a free society.

Economic Government
by Robert Klassen
"The purpose of economic government is to provide absolute security and justice to individuals without the use of coercion."

Government Laws Are Not Contracts
March 8, 2007
by Jim Fedako
"The best way to compare the current systems of unbounded authority with that of contract-based systems is to attend meetings of a homeowners association and meetings at a local township hall. Both entities have documents that define the span and purpose of their respective assemblies, yet only the contract-based system shows any real restraint. Certainly, both dream of utopia, but only the homeowners association must accept the inherent realities of signed agreements."

The Idea of a Private Law Society
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
". . . as a result of the continual cooperation of various insurers and arbitrators, a tendency toward the unification of property and contract law and the harmonization of the rules of procedure, evidence, and conflict resolution would be set in motion."

The Jurisprudence of Polycentric Law
by Tom W. Bell
"What has jurisprudence got to do with statism? Most people scarcely separate the two. When attempting to justify the State they routinely cite the need for an independent and objective means of resolving disputes.[1] And when they think of jurisprudence, most people think of what judges do as State officials and what academics say about State courts. But nothing in the formal definition of jurisprudence necessarily binds it to statism. "Jurisprudence in its widest sense is the science of law." This description leaves ample room for the jurisprudence of non-statist, or "polycentric," law."

The Law
by Frédéric Bastiat
"If every person has the right to defend even by force—his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right—its reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force—for the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups."

Law and Authority
by Peter Kropotkin
"The millions of laws which exist for the regulation of humanity appear upon investigation to be divided into three principal categories: protection of property, protection of persons, protection of government. And by analyzing each of these three categories, we arrive at the same logical and necessary conclusion: the uselessness and hurtfulness of law."

A Legal System for a Free Society
by Bertel M. Sparks
"The legal system appropriate for a free society would appear to be a system where the only laws are those designed to provide an organized self-defense for all citizens within its jurisdiction. Since the only purpose for which the individual had a right to use force against his fellow creatures was in the defense of his rights to life, liberty, and property, his government could not receive from him any right to use force for any wider purpose."

Legal Systems Under Anarcho-Capitalism
by Gary Greenberg

Legislation and Law in a Free Society
by N. Stephan Kinsella

Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to Ten Objections
by Roderick T. Long
"I think that the person who makes this argument is already assuming that the government has some legitimate jurisdiction over this territory. And then they say, well, now, anyone who is in the territory is therefore agreeing to the prevailing rules. But they’re assuming the very thing they’re trying to prove – namely that this jurisdiction over the territory is legitimate. If it’s not, then the government is just one more group of people living in this broad general geographical territory. But I’ve got my property, and exactly what their arrangements are I don’t know, but here I am in my property and they don’t own it – at least they haven’t given me any argument that they do – and so, the fact that I am living in "this country" means I am living in a certain geographical region that they have certain pretensions over – but the question is whether those pretensions are legitimate. You can’t assume it as a means to proving it."

Lon L. Fuller and the Enterprise of Law
by Barry Macleod-Cullinane

Natural Law: or The Science of Justice
by Lysander Spooner
"The science of mine and thine --- the science of justice --- is the science of all human rights; of all a man's rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The Nature of Law Part I: Law and Order Without Government, Part II: The Three Functions of Law, Part III: Law vs. Legislation, Part IV: The Basis of Natural Law
by Roderick Long
Part I describes the varieties of law and contrasts public goods problems and public choice problems. Part II describes adjudication, legislation, and execution as the functions of law and addresses the question "Should law be monopolized?" Part III defends Natural Law against positivism, which is a modern anomaly. Then it explains Thomas Aquinas' distinction between Natural Law and human law and relates these to customary law. Part IV explains the philosophical basis of Natural Law and answers the most common objections to Natural Law raised by libertarians.

The Non-Absurdity of Natural Law
by Wendy McElroy
"The main casualty of accusing an honorable opponent of being not only wrong, but also a fool is the unrealized fruits of the debates that will never occur thereafter."

On Personal Law
by Edward Gibbon
"These are the famous passages where Edward Gibbon refers, with a sort of admiration, to the practice of the Germans of allowing people to choose the legal system under which they wanted to live and be judged. This, according to Gibbon, contributed to the preservation of peace and to the improvement of society. And he goes on to say that, to follow the proposal of Agobard of introducing a uniform law as well as a uniform religious faith, would have been a very foolish act." - John Zube

Polycentric Law in the New Millennium
by Tom W. Bell
"States accumulated sufficient power to claim a monopoly in law only relatively recently--and only after a long struggle to crush competing legal systems. Polycentric law survived that onslaught, however, and has now taken root in the interstices of State power. This essay will describe why, as we enter a new millennium, conditions favor the growth and flourishing of polycentric law."

Private Lives, Private Property, Private Courts: Libertarian Justice, Part 2
by John Lopez
"Given such a stark choice, between life or death, freedom or slavery, Equifax or Federal District Court, I know which I choose."

Privately Produced Law
by Tom W. Bell

Pursuing Justice in a Free Society: Part I. The Power Principle, Part II. The Liberty Approach
by Randy Barnett
Part I is a critique of the power principle (giving some people a monopoly on the use of force). Part II describes how a non-monopolistic legal order might work.

The Role of Personal Justice in Anarcho-Capitalism
by Karl T. Fielding

Should Christians Take Part in Courts of Law?
by Matthew Truitt
"A Christian should not bring his enemies before the magistrate, in order to be judged, punished, and have his coat returned to him. Paul said that it is an "utter failure" if we do this. Instead, "Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?" This, according to Paul, would be better than to have the matter settled by "the unrighteous," the courts of law."

Stateless Prisons: Containing Danger without Enslaving Citizens
by Stefan Molyneux
Explains how a modern, stateless society would deal with criminals through Dispute Resolution Organizations.

Toward a Reformation of the Law of Contracts
by Williamson M. Evans

Toward a Theory of Legal Naturalism
by Randy E. Barnett

Toward Voluntary Courts and Enforcement
by Richard O. Hammer
The prospect of a society with private courts and private law enforcement is frightening to us, but it follows from libertarian principles, and, according to economic theory, entrepreneurial zeal and competition should produce better law enforcement.

Waller on Anarchism and Justice
by Bryan Caplan
The rich have less of an advantage over the poor in a free-market court system than in a government court system.

Whatever Happened to Justice? by Richard J. Maybury
reviewed by Chris Spruyt
This book is recommended for its explanation of scientific law and common law versus political law.

Restitution and Punishment

Anarchism and Capital Punishment
by Benjamin R. Tucker
"I insist that there is nothing sacred in the life of an invader, and there is no valid principle of human society that forbids the invaded to protect themselves in whatever way they can."

Capital Punishment
by Dr. Mary Ruwart
The good doctor answers tough questions on capital punishment.

Crime and Punishment
by Errico Malatesta
"We must reckon with a residue of delinquency which we hope will be eliminated more or less rapidly, but which in the meantime will oblige the mass of workers to take defensive action. Discarding every concept of punishment and revenge, which still dominate penal law, and guided only by the need for self-defence and the desire to rehabilitate, we must seek the means to achieve our goal, without falling into the dangers of authoritarianism and consequently finding ourselves in contradiction with the system of liberty and free-will on which we seek to build the new society."

Criminals Owe Debt to Victims, Not Society
by Wendy McElroy
"For years, I’ve argued against the idea that categories of people commit crime—e.g. “men” are rapists, “men” commit domestic violence, “whites” oppress minorities. Equally, I reject the idea that a category such as “society” can be a victim in any legally meaningful sense. Categories do not swing fists, rape, and murder: individuals do. Categories are not battered, violated, and killed: individuals are. The real victims deserve to be the focus of law."

The Death Penalty
by Walter Block
"Let the message go out, loud and clear: if you murder, you give up the right to your own life. (I am assuming arguendo that innocent people are not executed for murder; given the congenital inefficiency of government operation, this is the only legitimate reason to oppose the death penalty.)"

Death to Capital Punishment
August 18, 2003
by Ivan Eland
"When looking back on recorded history, it becomes apparent that government oppression has been the norm and experiments with freedom—such as ours—have been rare and fragile. It is shameful that America should still have an anachronistic, unfair, costly, and oppressive form of punishment that is making “the land of the free and the brave” a pariah in the civilized world."

Defending Against Rights Violations
by Randy E. Barnett

Dialogue: Restitutive Justice and the Costs of Restraint
by Richard O. Hammer and Roderick Long
A discussion of points raised by "Punishment vs Restitution: A Formulation," in which Roderick Long argues for restitution and against punishment.

A Fatal Instability in Anarcho-Capitalism?: The Problem of What Happens to the Restitution Ratio
by Paul Birch

The Mathematical Restitution Formula and Its Application
by Carlton Hobbs
"By this method, if the victim has requested restitution equal to the arbitrated decision, then he will pay for none of the costs of arbitration. Likewise the perpetrator could avoid paying arbitration costs if he had chosen what the arbiter decides. In the event that the judgment falls in between, then they each will have to pay part of the cost in direct proportion to how much they desired more than the arbitrated decision of an equitable amount."

Non-Coercive Justice and Simple Punishment
by Jacob Halbrooks
"The only alternative [to coercive punishment] is to recognize that no one has the right to deprive criminals of their rights, and that any punishment must be accomplished by voluntary means. Aside from being the libertarian solution for justice, such a system would promote community and prevent any court from quietly becoming a government and landing us back in the situation we have today."

Of Crimes and Punishments
1764
by Cesare Bonesana, Marchese Beccaria
"Set out rights of the accused in criminal proceedings. Argues for crime prevention over punishment, and against the death penalty and torture."

On Reparations to Blacks for Slavery
by Walter Block

The Other Piece of the Puzzle
by Mary J. Ruwart
"Justice does not consist of punishing the aggressor, but of making the victim whole."

Prison Ethics
1860
by Herbert Spencer
"First, we find authority for demanding restitution or compensation. Conformity to the laws of life being the substance of absolute morality; and the social regulations which absolute morality dictates, being those which make this conformity possible; it is a manifest corollary that whoever breaks these regulations, may be justly required to undo, as far as possible, the wrong he has done. The object being to maintain the conditions essential to complete life, it follows that, when one of these conditions has been transgressed, the first thing to be required of the transgressor is, that he shall put matters as nearly as may be in the state they previously were. The property stolen shall be restored, or an equivalent for it given. Any one injured by an assault shall have his surgeon's bill paid, compensation for lost time, and also for the suffering he has borne. And similarly in all cases of infringed rights.
Second, we are warranted by this highest authority in restricting the actions of the offender as much as is needful to prevent further aggressions. Any citizen who will not allow others to fulfil the conditions to complete life—who takes away the produce of his neighbour's labour, or deducts from that bodily health and comfort which his neighbour has earned by good conduct, must be forced to desist. And society is warranted in using such force as may be found requisite. Equity justifies the fellow-citizens of such a man in limiting the free exercise of his faculties to the extent necessary for preserving the free exercise of their own faculties.
But now mark that absolute morality countenances no restraint beyond this—no gratuitous inflictions of pain, no revengeful penalties. The conditions it insists on being such as make possible complete life, we cannot rightly abrogate these conditions, even in the person of a criminal, further than is needful to prevent greater abrogations of them. Freedom to fulfil the laws of life being the thing insisted on, to the end that the sum of life may be the greatest possible, it follows that the life of the offender must be taken into account as an item in this sum. We must permit him to live as completely as consists with social safety. It is commonly said that the criminal loses all his rights. This may be so according to law, but it is not so according to justice. Such portion of them only is justly taken away, as cannot be left to him without danger to the community. Those exercises of faculty, and consequent benefits, which are possible under the necessary restraint, cannot be equitably denied."

Property, Causality, and Liability
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Punishment and Proportionality
by Murray N. Rothbard
"We have advanced the view that the criminal loses his rights to the extent that he deprives another of his rights: the theory of “proportionality.” We must now elaborate further on what such a theory of proportional punishment may imply."

Radical Libertarianism: Applying Libertarian Principles to Dealing with the Unjust Government
by Walter Block
Justice for the minions of the state.

Restitution in Theory and Practice
by Bruce L. Benson

Restitution: Justice in a Stateless Society
by Christian Michel

Retribution and Restitution: A Synthesis
by Peter J. Ferrara

Retribution versus Restitution
by Matthew O'Keeffe

Should Criminals Be Punished? Toward a Libertarian Justice Process
by Christian Michel
A critique of punishment and state-administered justice and a defense of private-enterprise courts afministering justice based on restitution to victims of crime.

The State as Penalizer
by Roy Halliday
Examines the argument that only the state can administer a uniform schedule of punishments for crimes.

Taking the Assets of Criminals to Compensate Victims of Violence: A Legal and Philosophical Approach
by Walter Block

Toward a Libertarian Theory of Guilt and Punishment for the Crime of Statism
by Walter Block

The Trouble with "Just Compensation"
December 5, 2006
by Anthony Gregory
"The state, unlike private criminals, has no assets of its own, has no capacity on its own to generate the income to pay off its victims. Rather, when the state distributes money, even to those who might deserve it for having fallen victim to government action, it obtains that money by confiscating it from other innocent individuals."

The Sociology of Market-Provided Law

A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu's 'Spirit of Laws': To Which Are Annexed, Observations on the Thirty-First Book, by the late M. Condorcet: and Two Letters of Helvetius, On the Merits of the Same Work
by Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy
"Some future writer, if my effort be fortunate, may profit by the discussion, in giving a more perfect treatise on the true principles of laws: it is by such a course, I think all the sciences ought to proceed; each work commencing with the soundest opinions already received, and progressively receiving the new lights shed upon them by experience and investigation."

Common Law: A Test of Natural Law Ethics
by Jacob Halbrooks
"The result of the government monopoly on courts is that advancement in the field of ethics is greatly hindered and the general public is greatly confused as to what correct ethics are. Theoreticians can advance their own theories, but as long as the courts only serve to enforce the government's rules, these will remain merely academic. It would be the same as if, in physics, experimentalists and engineers were to be banned. Few people would appreciate physics, just as few people appreciate ethics now. A free court system is needed, where every case is a test to discover and apply natural law, before true advancement and general recognition of natural law ethics will result."

Competition in Private Justice
by Per Bylund
"A property owner will make up rules only to protect the property and safety of people, while the state claims control of your income, consumer and social behavior, property, family structure, etc. The rules enforced on private property, as is the case today, are much less detailed and less comprehensive than the rules of a monopolistic state power."

Customary Law with Private Means of Resolving Disputes and Dispensing Justice
by Bruce L. Benson
A description of how a modern system of law and order could work without state coercion.

Economic Freedom and the Evolution of Law
by Bruce Benson

The Enterprise of Customary Law
6/29/2007
by Bruce L. Benson
"This study will use economic theory to compare institutions and incentives that influence public and private performance in the provision of law and its enforcement. Some critics may contend that law is not an appropriate subject for "economic analysis," because it is not produced and allocated in exchange markets. To be certain, economics has a great deal to say about market institutions, but its relevance and scope are not so narrowly limited. Economic theory requires only that scarce resources be allocated among competing uses. Clearly, the enterprise of law — the use of police services, court time, and all other inputs in the process of making law and establishing order — requires scarce resources that must be allocated. Beyond that, economic theory explains human behavior by considering how individuals react to incentives and constraints."

Everyone at Risk
by Dennis Rines
Argues private enforcement of contracts through free market governments that administer force on a fee-for-service basis as the solution to social problems.

Free Accord Law: Ethical Communities
by Philip E. Jacobson
Describes law and ethics in light of political anthropology and game theory. It argues that statist law is a negative sum game as opposed to free accord law, which is a positive sum game.

Freedom and the Law
by Bruno Leoni
"When we consider law as legislation it can be clearly shown that the law and the market can in no way be considered similar from the point of view of the individual and his decisions.
In fact, the market process and the legislative process are inescapably at variance. While the market allows individuals to make free choices provided only that they are prepared to pay for them, legislation does not allow this."

Gateway to an Altered Landscape: Law in a Free Nation
by Richard O. Hammer
The differences between law in the USA and law in a free nation are explained by using a travel metaphor.

How would we have law, if not for the state?
by Gene Callahan
Actually, the state hampers the development of private law, such as highway speed limits.

Insuring Chaos Theory
by Bob Murphy
Arguments in defense of Murphy's theory of private law.

Justice Without Law
by Jerold S. Auerbach reviewed by Sean Haugh
The history of dispute resolution in America indicates that private methods such as mediation and arbitration flourish in unified communities where everyone shares a common religion or philosophy. Otherwise, people tend to sue each other in government courts.

Law as Property in a Free Nation
by Philip E. Jacobson
For law to be produced in the free market its properties need to be conceived of as private property rights that can be the subjects of contracts.

Law Can Be Private
by Richard O. Hammer
The title thesis is supported by reference to Bruce Benson's book The Enterprise of Law.

Law Merchant
Winter 1983
by Leon Trakman
"Building upon the work of the Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich A. Hayek, Trakman considers the Law Merchant to be one of the best historical examples of the way in which a legal system develops out of customary practices and is able to adapt smoothly to changing economic and social circumstances."

Legislation and Law in a Free Society
by N. Stephan Kinsella
"Both the Roman law and common law have been corrupted into today's inferior legislation-dominated systems. The primacy of legislation should be abandoned, and we should return to a system of judge-found law. Scholars who codify naturally-evolved law have a vital function to serve, but they should not ask for the governmental imprimatur on their scholarly efforts."

Liberty needs law
by Paul Birch and Gene Callahan
"Without law, how would anyone even know what was his property and what wasn’t? All titles would be in dispute. To clarify why law is necessary, we may approach it in terms of economics. Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, law does not tell you what you can and cannot do; it tells you the price you must pay for doing what you want. Law is the framework within which property rights can exist and in which the punishment or cost of breaching them is defined." (06/05/03)

A Limited-Government Framework for Courts
by Richard O. Hammer
Proposes a government whose role is to establish a system of courts, but not to legislate the law as enforced in those courts.

Order without Law by Robert C. Ellickson Reviewed
by Bryan Caplan
"Not only is legislation unnecessary for law, but law is unnecessary for order."

The Philosophy of Law and Justice Necessary to Sustain a Free Nation
by Gorgon Neal Diem
A free nation needs law based on principles rather than law based on legislation or law based on public opinion or law aimed at balancing competing interests.

Polycentric Law
by Tom W. Bell
This article traces how state law rose to domination in the competition among medieval European legal systems, and it reveals that privately produced law survived the state's onslaught and has recently enjoyed a resurgence.

Private Law I, Private Law II, Private Law III
by Bob Murphy
In Private Law, Bob Murphy gives an overview of the legal system he believes would evolve in the absence of government. In Private Law II, he elaborates on this system and answers some of its critics. In Private Law III he discusses how a private legal system would handle a few crucial functions, and contrast its performance with that of a monopolized government legal system.

Privately Produced Law
by Tom Bell
"Who is going to lay down the law? Statists or consumers? I am going to argue for the latter."

Reciprocal Exchange as the Basis for Recognition of Law
by Bruce Benson

Review: Serve and Protect by Bruce Benson
by Roy Halliday
This book is full of information of value to anyone interested in a libertarian legal system including private police, courts, and prisons.

Where Does Law Come From?
by Bruce L. Benson
"The lesson here is that law and governance are natural institutions that arise out of people’s interest in prospering through production, the division of labor, and trade. They do not depend on a central coercive authority for their genesis. States can arise when a powerful group, bent on institutionalized extortion, co-opt and alter existing customary law to serve its own particular interests."

Why Laws Backfire
by Marisa Manley