{"id":126,"date":"2004-09-24T13:38:29","date_gmt":"2004-09-24T18:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/server97.snhdns.com\/~ravik\/wp\/?p=126"},"modified":"2004-09-24T13:38:29","modified_gmt":"2004-09-24T18:38:29","slug":"examined-life-rerun-the-death-of-a-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200409\/examined-life-rerun-the-death-of-a-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Examined Life Rerun: The death of a law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since we have been having a discussion on laws once again, I thought it was time to post a rerun of what I will modestly describe as one of my classics. The Death of a Law<\/a> was posted when I was blogging on Anarcaplib<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, this also explains why I am such a hardcore libertarian.
\n
\nThere was once a small law. So small that it consisted of only one small paragraph. When it spoke it had the clarity and simplicity of the young. Everyone understood what it meant, and they could interpret it.<\/p>\n

The law protected property rights. It said that no one could take away anyone’s property by force, not even the government.<\/p>\n

Because the principle was simple, disputes were easily resolved. There was little ambiguity. Houses were property. Shares were property. Money was property, and so was jewellery.<\/p>\n

The law’s innocence and naivete exasperated many. “Grow up little Law!” they said. “You are ignorant of reality! You protect the property of the rich. You cannot protect the poor, for they have nothing to lose but their chains.” <\/p>\n

Stung by the criticism and ashamed of its size, the law grew just a bit. It added a sentence to itself, which started off as:
\n“However, a Gazetted Officer not below the rank of… may in certain special circumstances in the public interest…”<\/p>\n

The law had grown, but it still wouldn’t stand on its feet. It needed more guardians, for now it required a new department full of Gazetted Officers to take the decisions and some more judges to rule on whether the circumstances were special enough to warrant action and whether the public interest was actually being served. There was now a clamour for a watchdog to oversee the department of Gazetted Officers, because some alleged that the special circumstances could be bought and sold.<\/p>\n

The law, having grown once, was excited enough to grow bigger. Many cheered it on further. “Why should shares be property? Shareholders are lazy and don’t work. Surely an exception is in order there?” “Houses! There is a housing shortage!” “Why shouldn’t land be taken over by the tillers?”<\/p>\n

The law was happy to oblige them all, especially as each of these views had loud and enthusiastic proponents. It added sections, sub-sections and clauses. Most of these seemed to start with “Nothing in the above section shall be construed to mean that…”, “Notwithstanding anything stated in section 3 subsection 5…” There were rules and exceptions and exceptions to those exceptions. There were clauses and there were modifiers to those clauses. <\/p>\n

The law grew larger, slothful and befuddled (and needless to say, it now needed even more guardians to make the law, to administer it and interpret it) It had lost its purpose and its earlier clarity. It frequently contradicted itself. Its pronouncements no longer had a timeless quality. There was a new interpretation for every situation. It frequently trod on the paths of other laws (who had similarly grown bloated) and the best legal brains had to tear their hair out trying to keep them apart.<\/p>\n

Sections and subsections could now be added for a price. Understanding the intricacies of the law was now a specialised task of expensive lawyers. Disputes now turned on arcane sub-sections of the law, and their resolution took decades. Only the rich could afford the wait. The poor could not. The rich could hire the lawyers. The poor could not. The rich could buy the bureaucrats to buy the law. The poor could not. <\/p>\n

Then it came to pass that the law grew so incoherent that no one could even use it as a tool for their needs, let alone to administer justice. Activists lamented that good laws existed on paper, and yet no one was following them or implementing them, and they immediately followed up this lament with a demand for new laws. They too were obliged.<\/p>\n

Our original law then went into a coma and died. Its guardians continued to exist, now to guard the grave, and its epitaph read:<\/p>\n

“There is nothing wrong with the System. If people do not follow the System, there is nothing that the System can do.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since we have been having a discussion on laws once again, I thought it was time to post a rerun of what I will modestly describe as one of my classics. The Death of a Law was posted when I was blogging on Anarcaplib. Incidentally, this also explains why I am such a hardcore libertarian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}