Answers:
The Economic Analysis of Law
by David Friedman
What economic analysis tells us about designing laws, regardless
of moral principles.
Basic Questions About Law
by Richard O. Hammer
Within one order of magnitude, how many words are needed to describe
the law in a free nation? What drives government to supplant voluntary
legal systems? How would we dismantle a system of government laws?
Customary Law
by Bruce Benson
Pages 12 to 15 from The Enterprise of Law, explaining the
difference between customary law and authoritarian law.
Customary
Law with Private Means of Resolving Disputes and Dispensing Justice:
A Description of a Modern System of Law and Order without State Coercion
by Bruce L. Benson
This is a PDF file. You need Adobe Acrobat(TM) or an equivalent
program to handle PDF files.
Dialog: On a System
Which Gives Unlimited Power to Randomly Selected Arbiters
by Richard Hammer and Jack Coxe
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.
Economic
Freedom and the Evolution of Law
by Bruce Benson
Economic Government
by Robert Klassen
"The purpose of economic government is to provide absolute security and justice to individuals without the use of coercion."
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.
Everybody should
be a market anarchist
by Paul Charnetzki IV
"If you want law and order, don't look to the State. Instead,
look to the natural order of market anarchism." (02/27/02)
Everyone at Risk
by Dennis Rines
Advocates 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
Lawyers of America
by Shelly Waxman & Associates
This organization started in Chicago as The Libertarian Lawyers
Alliance of Illinois (LLAI) in 1978, and became the Freedom
Lawyers of America (FLoA) in 1994. The idea behind FLoA is to
develop of pool of "freedom lawyers" who know how to fight
government in the courts against unreasonable governmental
intrusions.
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.
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.
How to Limit Power
and Protect Rights
by Jack W. Coxe
A proposal for a system of law by arbitrators who are selected at
random case by case.
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.
The Independent
Jury's Secret Power
by Don Doig
Explains the history of the American jury's right to judge the law itself.
Insuring Chaos
Theory
by Bob Murphy
Arguments in defense of Murphy's theory of private law.
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.
Justice
Entrepreneurship in a Free Market
by George H. Smith
This is a PDF file. You need Adobe Acrobat(TM) or an equivalent
program to handle PDF files.
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 and Violence
by Roy Halliday
A description of several mutually exclusive libertarian philosophies
about legitimate violence and an argument for the self-defense paradigm.
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 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.
Legal Systems
Under Anarcho-Capitalism
by Gary Greenberg
A defense of private civil law.
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.
Market
Chosen Law
by Edward Stringham
This is a PDF file. You need Adobe Acrobat(TM) or an equivalent
program to handle PDF files.
Natural Government
versus Artificial Government
by Jack W. Coxe
"We could remove control from positions of power by selecting
arbiters completely at random, for each individual case or offense.
And we could remove all manipulability of coercive procedures by
refraining from imposing any kind of man-made limits on the
decision-making authority of arbiters."
The Nature of Law
Part I: Law and Order Without Government
The Nature of Law
Part II: The Three Functions of Law
The Nature of Law
Part III: Law vs. Legislation
The Nature of Law
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.
Notes on the History
of Legal Systems
by Bobby Yates Emory
A summary of legal history to guide those who would develop a legal
system for a free country.
Order without Law
by Robert C. Ellickson Reviewed
by Bryan Caplan
"Not only is legislation unnecessary for law, but law is unnecessary
for order."
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.
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.
Police,
Courts, and Laws--On the Market
by David Friedman
A chapter from The Machinery of Freedom that explains how the
free market could provide police protection, courts, and a system of laws.
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.
Private
lives, private property, private courts
by John Lopez
"To establish libertarian justice, the Non-Aggression
Principle must be followed. This means that force may not be
initiated even against a convicted criminal -- he must receive
no punishment that he does not consent to." (09/24/02)
Pursuing Justice in
a Free Society: Part I. The Power Principle
Pursuing Justice in
a Free Society: 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.
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.
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.
The
Role of Personal Justice in Anarcho-Capitalism
by Karl T. Fielding
This is a PDF file. You need Adobe Acrobat(TM) or an equivalent
program to handle PDF files.
Settling
Disputes Without the State
by Adam Starchild
A description of private arbitration as it works today.
The State as Penalizer
by Roy Halliday
Examines the argument that only the state can administer a uniform
schedule of punishments for crimes.
Stateless, Not Lawless:
Voluntaryism and Arbitration
by Carl Watner
"Arbitration is a universal, human institution which preceded the
monopoly system of law embraced by contemporary nation-states."
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.
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This page was last updated on March 7, 2004.