The Pursuit of Justice and Private Interests in the Law By
Edward Lopez • Friday June 25, 2010 9:52 AM PDT • 0 Comments
This is the third in a series of posts on my new book, The
Pursuit of Justice: Law and Economics of Legal Institutions. In
this post I will discuss how the law evolves instrumentally —
that is, to serve private interests rather than the public
interest. Law is often assumed to be a public good that can only
be (or is best) provided by governments. Yet despite traditional
beliefs and wishes, government-produced law is frequently driven
to serve particular narrow interests. Three of the chapters in
The Pursuit of Justice analyze legal history to exemplify this
point. Chapter 2 by economists Nicholas A. Curott and Edward P.
Stringham is titled, “The Rise of Government Law Enforcement in
England.” In this fresh look at the origins of Anglo-American
law, we see a new argument to explain the gradual shift from
non-centralized Anglo-Saxon law that was largely enforced by
social norms, to post-Norma