Common Law v Statute Law

 

"[A] legal system centred on legislation [i.e. statute law] resembles ... a centralised economy in which all the relevant decisions are made by a handful oI directors, whose knowledge of the whole situation is fatally limited and whose respect, if any, of the people's wishes is subject to that limitation. ...
    "It is ... paradoxical that the very economists who support the free market at the present time do not seem to care to consider whether a free market could really last within a legal system centred on legislation. ... [T]he strict relationship between the market economy and a legal system centred on judges and]or lawyers instead of on legislation is much less clearly realised than it should be, although the equally strict relationship between a planned economy and legislation is too obvious to be ignored in its turn by scholars and people at large.
"[T]here is more than an analogy between the market economy and a common or lawyers' law, just as there is much more than an analogy between a planned economy and statute law. If one considers that the market economy was most successful both in Rome and in the Anglo-Saxon countries within the framework of, respectively, a lawyers' and a common law, the conclusion seems to be reasonable that this was not a mere coincidence."

~ Bruno Leoni, from his book Freedom and the Law, pp 21-2. [Emphases in the original.] Hat tip Michael Munger & Russ Roberts from their 'Econtalk' podcast episode on 'The Underrated Bruno Leoni'

FURTHER READING: 

• 'When Friedrich Hayek Met Bruno Leoni' - Todd Zywicki, LAW & LIBERTY