Common Law & Natural Rights

Hence, the doctrine of precedent is the threefold doctrine of security, liberty, and equality - Security, in that it leads to the expectation that disputes will be decided in the future as they have been decided in the past; Liberty, in that subordinate individuals will not be subject to the capricious will of superiors; Equality, in that all indiv

leading market actors to treat these securities as investment-grade, thus capable of being used as the basis of further lending. (134) In this manner, the asset base upon <90>which the financial system rests was fatally undermined.

Why did its exponents take this approach? They were quite aware of the danger to liberty formed by unaccountable government. But their focus had been on the restraint of government wherein the executive and the legislative powers were joined, absolute monarchy being the most glaring example. Their views of legislative power as a separate branch of

If the common law establishes the lines of communication, it is money which functions as the circulating medium, the life-blood of the societal (as opposed to communal) (125) organism.

What this furthermore means is that the basic economic relation is not the transitory, ephemeral kind established through purchase and sale, but long-term

such "fairness" that, as we have seen, triggered the credit crisis of the late 2000s. The common law is under attack, the means of attack is legislation,

We are a far cry from Keynesian prescriptions of demand-side government stimulus. The role of the sovereign is not to act to override the mechanisms of valuation inherent in the legal order when the signals they send are unpleasant, but rather to uphold them in common-law fashion.

and the rationale is provided by economics.

society. Justice cannot be achieved until atonement is achieved: ancient societies perceived this, and made sacrifice - plant, animal, even human - an integral part of their public life. Modern man thinks he has escaped this necessity, relegating religion to the private sphere, secularizing the public square. This is pure self-deception.