Nomos without narrative

Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 2008, Pages

  Fisher, Talia ^a  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

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EID: 46749087076     PISSN: None     EISSN: 15653404     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2202/1565-3404.1194     Document Type: Review

References (132)

1. This discussion will be devoted to the utilitarian strand of the privatization, of law tradition. In contrast to the utilitarian approach stands the libertarian natural law theory, identified above all with the writings of the late Murray Rothbard. See MURRAY N. ROTHBARD, POWER AND MARKET (1977). This latter approach stresses the normative criterion of liberty and concentrates on the moral superiority, as opposed to efficiency, of the privatized market for law.
2. ADAM SMITH, AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS (R.H. Campbell et al. eds., Oxford Univ. Press 1976) (1776).
3. See id. at 456.
4. Gustave de Molinari, De la production de la sécurité , 21 JOURNAL DES ECONOMISTES 277 (1849),
5. translated in THE PRODUCTION OF SECURITY, OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES No. 2, at 14 (J. Huston McCulloch trans., 1977).
6. Stephen J. Ware, Arbitration and Assimilation, 77 WASH. U. L.Q. 1053, 1054 (1999).
7. David Friedman, Anarchy and Efficient Law, in JAN NARVESON & JOHN T. SANDERS, FOR AND AGAINST THE STATE 235, 235 n.5 (1996).
8. Tom. W. Bell, The Jurisprudence of Polycentric Law (1992) (unpublished manuscript, on file with author).
9. Id.
10. John Hasnas, The Myth of the Rule of Law, 1995 WIS. L. REV. 199, 229.
11. Id.
12. BRUCE L. BENSON, THE ENTERPRISE OF LAW: JUSTICE WITHOUT THE STATE 351 (1990).
13. MURRAY N. ROTHBARD, THE ETHICS OF LIBERTY 85 (1982).
14. Despite the fact that compensation would almost certainly be the central remedy in a polycentric legal structure, there is no reason, in principle, to preclude other remedies. Thus, a survey conducted by Bruce Benson of customary law orders, such as the one operating in ancient Iceland, revealed that in particularly severe cases, the death penalty was imposed on offenders. For an expanded discussion, see BENSON, supra note 11, at 356.
15. See id. at 351.
16. CHRISTOPHER W MORRIS, AN ESSAY ON THE MODERN STATE 63 (1998).
17. See ROTHBARD, supra note 1, for discussion of the superiority of the privatization of law model in light of a different normative criterion - that of liberty.
18. David Osterfeld, Anarchism and the Public Goods Issue: Law, Courts, and the Police, 9 J. LIBERTARIAN STUD. 47, 57 (1989).
19. DAVID FRIEDMAN, THE MACHINERY OF FREEDOM 175 (1973).
20. Talia Fisher, The Privatization of Law, 30 TEL AVIV U. L. REV. (forthcoming 2008) (Hebrew).
21. Terry L. Anderson, An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West, 3 J. LIBERTARIAN STUD. 9 (1979);
22. Tom W. Bell, Polycentric Law, 7 HUMANE STUD. REV. 1 (1991);
23. Bruce L. Benson, The Lost Victim and Other Failures of the Public Law Experiment, 9 HARV. J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 399 (1986);
24. Bruce L. Benson, Legal Evolution in Primitive Societies, 144 J. INSTITUTIONAL & THEORETICAL ECON. 772 (1989);
25. David Friedman, The Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case, 8 J. LEGAL STUD. 399 (1979);
26. Hasnas, supra note 9;
27. Andrew P. Morriss, Miners, Vigilantes & Cattlemen: Overcoming Free Rider Problems in the Private Provision of Law, 33 LAND & WATER L. REV. 581 (1998);
28. Osterfeld, supra note 16;
29. George H. Smith, Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Market, 3 J. LIBERTARIAN STUD. 405;
30. John D. Sneed, Order Without Law: Where Will the Anarchists Keep the Madman?, 1 J. LIBERTARIAN STUD. 117 (1977).
31. William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, Adjudication as a Private Good, 8 J. LEGAL STUD. 235 (1979).
32. For further discussion of network industries and their unique characteristics, see Stanley J. Liebowitz & Stephen E. Margolis, Network Externalities (Effects), in 2 NEW PALGRAVE DICTIONARY OF ECONOMICS AND THE LAW 671 (1998);
33. William J. Kolasky, Network Effects: A Contrarian View, 7 GEO. MASON L. REV. 577 (1999);
34. Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro, Systems Competition and Network Effects, 8 J. ECON. PERSP. 93 (1994);
35. Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro, Network Externalities, Competition and Compatibility, 75 AM. ECON. REV. 424 (1985).
36. Tyler Cowen, Law as a Public Good - The Economics of Anarchy, 8 ECON. & PHIL. 249 (1992).
37. See id.
38. Fisher, supra note 18.
39. There are numerous versions and definitions of multiculturalism. The definition adopted for purposes of this Article refers to the aspiration for the peaceful coexistence of a plurality of cultural, religious, or ethnic groups and normative systems within a single geo-political unit. See also Isaak Dore & Michael T. Carper, Multiculturalism, Pluralism, and Pragmatism: Political Gridlock or Philosophical Impasse?, 10 WILLAMETTE J. INT'L L. DISP. 71 (2002).
40. The term, "law" does not necessarily refer to formal state law, but rather to all forms of rules governing social behavior. The definition of law which will be adopted throughout the Article refers to Fuller's definition of law as "the enterprise of subjecting human behavior to the governance of rules." LON L. FULLER, THE MORALITY OF LAW 124 (Yale Univ. Press 1969) (1964).
41. The sort of contract envisioned by the privatization of law model refers to the discrete transaction contract, as opposed to the relational, contract. See generally Ian R. Macneil, Contracts: Adjustment of Long-Term Economic Relations Under Classical, Neoclassical and Relational Contract Law, 72 NW. U. L. REV. 854 (1978).
42. Menachem Mautner, Contract, Culture, Compulsion, or: What Is So Problematic in the Application of Objective Standards in Contract Law?, 3 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 545, 546 (2002).
43. CHARLES TAYLOR, PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS: PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES 187 (1985).
44. For further discussion of the link between contractual formation and social, atomism, see CHARLES TAYLOR, THE ETHICS OF AUTHENTICITY 118 (1991).
45. Lisa Bernstein, Opting Out of the Legal. System: Extralegal. Contractual. Relations in the Diamond Industry, 21 J. LEGAL STUD. 115, 156 (1992).
46. Id. at 116;
47. Barak Richman, How Community Institutions Create Economic Advantage: Jewish Diamond Merchants in New York, 31 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 383 (2006).
48. Bernstein, supra note 31, at 156.
49. See Abner S. Greene, Kiryas Joel and the Two Mistakes About Equality, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 1, 2 (1996).
50. For further discussion on the subject of these private courts, see Shlomo Daichovsky, A Critique of Rabbinical Court Decisions, 13-14 DINE ISRAEL [ANNUAL OF JEWISH LAW] 17 (1986) (Hebrew);
51. Shlomo Daichovsky, The Rabbinical Court as Arbitrator, 16-17 SHNATON HAMISHPAT HAIVRI [YEARBOOK OF JEWISH LAW] 527 (1991).
52. See, for instance, with regard to the Satmar community, ISRAEL RUBIN, SATMAR: AN ISLAND IN THE CITY 40 (1972).
53. See Bernstein, supra note 31, at 116.
54. For a discussion of such classification in the corporate context, see Paul N. Cox, The Public, the Private and the Corporation, 80 MARQ. L. REV. 391, 401 (1997).
55. For a similar discussion with regard to the nation-state, see Richard T. Ford, Law's Territory (A History of Jurisdiction), 97 MICH. L. REV. 843, 860 (1999).
56. Robert Cover, The Supreme Court 1982 Term - Foreword: Nomos and Narrative, 97 HARV. L. REV. 4, 14 (1983).
57. Id. at 16.
58. Ford, supra note 39, at 860.
59. For a similar distinction, see also Hanoch Dagan & Michael Heller, The Liberal Commons, 110 YALE L.J. 549, 558 (2001).
60. See Hanoch Dagan & Michael Heller, Conflicts in Property, 6 THEORETICAL INQUIRIES L. 37, 58 (2005).
61. Stephen A. Gardbaum, Law, Politics and the Claims of Community, 90 MICH. L. REV. 685, 701 (1991).
62. This prototype of communal association corresponds, to a large degree, to the sociological category of Gemeinschaft introduced by Ferdinand Tönnies. See FERDINAND TÖNNIES, COMMUNITY AND CIVIL SOCIETY (Jose Harris ed., 2001).
63. For further discussion of the role of community with regard to the supply of public goods, see Gideon Parchomovsky & Peter Siegelman, Selling Mayberry: Communities and Individuals in Law and Economics, 92 CAL. L. REV. 75, 81 n.16 (2004).
64. Gregory S. Alexander, Dilemmas of Group Autonomy: Residential Associations and Community, 75 CORNELL L. REV. 1, 26 (1989).
65. Kenneth L. Grasso, Theological Perspective: The Rights of Monads or of Intrinsically Social Beings? Social Ontology and Rights Talk, 3 AVE MARIA L. REV. 233, 234 (2005).
66. This prototype of social association can be analogized to the sociological category of Gesellschaft introduced by Tönnies. See TÖNNIES, supra note 46.
67. Leslie Green, Rights of Exit, 4 LEGAL THEORY 165, 168 (1998).
68. Will Kymlicka termed this a "societal culture": a society that "provides its members with meaningful ways of life across the full range of human activities, including social, educational, religious, recreational and economic life . . . ." WILL KYMLICKA, MULTICULTURAL CITIZENSHIP: A LIBERAL THEORY 76 (1995).
69. Gardbaum, supra note 45, at 741.
70. Eduardo M. Penalver, Property as Entrance, 91 VA. L. REV. 1889, 1946 (2005).
71. Of course, there are other sorts of cultural communities, such as the Francophone community in Quebec, whose normative systems are narrower in scope. However, even in such communities, normative precepts are typically bundled together.
72. For a similar discussion with regard, to territorial, jurisdiction, see Ford, supra note 39, at 844.
73. Dagan & Heller, supra note 43, at 571.
74. Gardbaum, supra note 45, at 741.
75. For further discussion of the singularity ethos, see Margaret Davies, The Ethos of Pluralism, 27 SYDNEY L. REV. 87, 88 (2005).
76. Under the privatization model, the barriers to cross-cutting affiliations are solely economical, emanating from the transaction costs involved.
77. FOLDVARY FRED, PUBLIC GOODS AND PRIVATE COMMUNITIES 97 (1994) (distinguishing between explicit contractual consent and "simply living in a sovereign community").
78. Alexander, supra note 48, at 3.
79. Penalver, supra note 54, at 1894.
80. Green, supra note 51, at 172.
81. BRIAN BARRY, CULTURE AND EQUALITY: AN EGALITARIAN CRITIQUE OF MULTICULTURALISM 148 (2001).
82. "The nuances of common cultures are costly and time-consuming to learn, and the lack of familiarity in them is easy to detect." Amitai Aviram, A Paradox of Spontanoeus Formation: The Evolution of Private Legal Systems, 22 YALE L. & POL'Y REV. 1, 1 (2004).
83. See Note, Lessons in Transcendence: Forced Associations and the Military, 117 HARV. L. REV. 1981 (2004).
84. Locke expressed a contrary view. He perceived the Church as a "voluntary society of men" since, in his eyes, "nobody is born a member of any church." JOHN LOCKE, A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION 163 (John Horton & Susan Mendus eds., Routledge 1991) (1689). I beg to differ. With the exception of adult converts, people most certainly do inherit their religious faith, for they internalize religious sentiments from the day they are born.
85. Alexander, supra note 48, at 27.
86. For further discussion of the centrality of the notion of exit and open boundaries in the liberal model, see Dagan & Heller, supra note 43, at 568.
87. See ALBERT HIRSCHMAN, EXIT, VOICE AND LOYALTY (1970).
88. See Dagan & Heller, supra note 43, at 558.
89. Penalver, supra note 54, at 1911. For a critique of this view, see Dagan & Heller, supra note 44, at 56.
90. For a similar argument made with regard to the typology between social and economic property institutions, see Dagan & Heller, supra note 44, at 48 ("The closer a property institution is to the social pole, the greater the emphasis is on voice . . . .").
91. See Green, supra note 51, at 170.
92. See Alexander, supra note 48, at 29.
93. Green, supra note 51, at 173.
94. These costs may also include costs to the community itself. According to Albert Hirschman, "In deciding whether the time has come to leave an organization, members, especially the more influential ones, will sometimes be held back not so much by the moral and material sufferings they would themselves have to go through as a result of exit, but by the anticipation that the organization to which they belong would go from bad. to worse if they left . . . ." HIRSCHMAN, supra note 71, at 98.
95. According to Hirschman, the social sanction may be directly imposed, but in most cases it is internalized. The individual feels that leaving the cultural community carries a high price, even though no specific sanction is imposed by the group. Id, at 98.
96. Green, supra note 51, at 172.
97. Another acute example is the Amish community. Since the 16th century, members of the Amish community have remained consistent in their opposition to all forms of mass media - television, radio, and external newspapers, as well as to automobiles and other forms of transportation. This allows for the seclusion of followers from outside influences and for their isolation from information concerning competing ways of life. See JOHN A. HOSTETLER, AMISH SOCIETY (3d ed. 1980);
98. ONALD B. KRAYBILL, THE RIDDLE OF AMISH CULTURE (1989);
99. Rebecca Redwood French, From Yoder to Yoda: Models of Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern Religion in U.S. Constitutional Law, 41 ARIZ. L. REV. 49, 60 (1999).
100. Often, it is the weakest subgroups within the cultural community, such as the women, who face the strongest barriers to exit. For further discussion, see Susan Moller Okin, Mistresses of Their Own Destiny: Group Rights, Gender, and Realistic Rights of Exit, 112 ETHICS 205 (2002).
101. See FULLER, supra note 26.
102. Edward Stringham, Market Chosen Law, 14 J. LIBERTARIAN STUD. 53 (1999).
103. For a similar description with regard to liberalism, see Mark V. Tushnet, Following the Rules Laid Down, 96 HARV. L. REV. 781, 783 (1983).
104. ROBERT NOZICK, THE EXAMINED LIFE: PHILOSOPHICAL MEDITATIONS 286 (1989).
105. Ronald Dworkin, Liberal Community, 77 CAL. L. REV. 479, 492 (1989).
106. Gardbaum, supra note 45, at 743.
107. Id. at 743.
108. For a similar claim, see Cover, supra note 40, at 10.
109. Robert Justin Lipkin, Can Liberalism Justify Multiculturalism?, 45 BUFF. L. REV. 1, 23 (1997).
110. Anna-Maria Marshall, Communities and Culture: Enriching Legal Consciousness and Legal Culture, 31 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 229, 237 (2006).
111. Thus enabling those subject to it both to communicate with others and to distinguish themselves from others (law as identity).
112. Marshall, supra note 92.
113. Lipkin, supra note, 91, at 6.
114. See Andrew J. Cohen, Does Communitarianism Require Individual Independence?, 4 J. ETHICS 283, 297 (2000) (citing ALASDAIR MACINTYRE, AFTER VIRTUE 213 (2d ed. 1984)).
115. See id. at 285.
116. Cox, supra note 38, at 405.
117. Gardbaum, supra note 45, at 745.
118. Dworkin, supra note 87, at 488.
119. Cohen, supra note 96, at 287.
120. MICHAEL J. S ANDEL, DEMOCRACY' S DISCONTENT: AMERICA IN SEARCH OF A PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY 152 (1996).
121. See id. at 12.
122. Lipkin, supra note 91, at 34.
123. Alexander, supra note 48, at 42.
124. For further discussion of the "organic solidarity" versus "mechanical solidarity" dichotomy, see EMILE DURKHEIM, THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IN SOCIETY 37 (1893).
125. Parchomovsky & Siegelman, supra note 47, at 80.
126. For a similar distinction, see Dworkin, supra note 87, at 484.
127. RONALD DWORKIN, LAW'S EMPIRE 199 (1986).
128. See NOZICK, supra note 86, at 287.
129. The value of cooperation is synergistic rather than aggregative. See Dagan & Heller, supra note 43, at 572 n.99.
130. Penalver, supra note 54, at 1900.
131. Mautner, supra note 28, at 546 (quoting MICHAEL LUNTLEY, REASON, TRUTH AND SELF 151, 152, 173 (1995)).
132. See also Louis L. Jaffe, Law Making by Private Groups, 51 HARV. L. REV. 201, 220 (1937).