At 12:32 AM -0600 2/28/01, Aimee Farr wrote:
Jim said:
Also known as 'polycracy' or 'polyocracy'.
It's also worth knowing the only extant sample was the Third Reich. Makes it a hard sell for obvious reasons.
Polycentric law is older than the law itself. The Muslims and the Christians used to trade using the Maghribi traders. They ran a _private legal system_. Later, we saw the rise of the Law Merchant standards. If you broke the rules, you were out. It runs on reputation capital. Polycentric law is the order of the society. Most of the cypherpunk memes here are going to require the equivalent of the Maghribi traders.
Code and other laws of cyberspace (Lessig, et. al.) are pointing out that the Net has developed a society where one person can be subject to many legal systems. A legal system is not just a state-sanctioned court. Now, these two legal systems are competing. The static legal system is trying avidly to address and stamp out it's new competitor. But there will always be a place for the Maghribi (although the traditional role of a lawyer is now very much in question) where the law does not go, or where it is inefficient.
Coming from a traditionalist legal culture, I'm probably the worst person to talk about it. My understanding is that this is an old cypherpunk topic.
Yes, we used to talk about this kind of stuff a lot. We had a few people very interested in this kind of stuff in the early days. People like Hal Finney, Robin Hanson, Nick Szabo, myself. Alas, most are long since gone. Polycentric law is still with us, of course. One hundred or more nations, law of the seas, the UCC, etc. Anarchy is the norm in most parts of our lives. However, Aimee, your summary here is very good. I'm pleasantly surprised. Debating with Choate is not useful, however. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns