We live in a complex world and the law is just as complex. Things that are celebrated in one society can be illegal in another. For example, in the United States, it is legal to own a gun. In Japan, not so much. Beef is the food in the US. In India, beef is not only illegal but also taboo. LGBTQ relationships are mostly legal in America but illegal in many other countries. The law is not always just. The law is not always fair. The law is not always logical. But the law is the law. People create, interpret and enforce it to maintain social order.
Our ancestors started in a world free of rules. They had the freedom to be nude, violent, sexually undisciplined, abusive, unfair, and more. They gave up nudity for clothing. The right to kill was outlawed for the privilege of not being killed. Society became “majorly” monogamous which helped humans evolve into the big-brained world conquerors. These big-brained creatures then added more and more laws for issues like minimum wages, intellectual property, contractual obligations, defamation, and everything else they could think of.
In the process, society created space for the survival of the fittest and almost everyone else (which is a good thing). In evolutionary biology, characteristics may aid or hinder survival in a particular environment. Similarly, the legal system as a whole has played an important role in the development of a complex society that can and does support billions of people. The law is not static. It changes with the times. And today, the change is faster than ever.
The change is either led by a curious mind in comfort or a distressed one in trouble. At present, humans are at the epitome of both: prospering as a species and struggling as individuals. This calls for change, a big one. But there is a problem: we are out of the wise. The people who made the laws/norms over millenniums are dead. Neither did they leave behind any operating manual on the how-to of the law nor did they leave minutes of the board meeting where they discussed the need for the law. We can only make guesses about which laws form the foundation of society and which ones need to be done with for progress. This leads to our other problem: We have an abundance of the wise.
Everybody is an expert on what the laws should be. Especially in a democracy, every expert’s opinion matters. Opinions vary wildly on social welfare, abortions, freedom of speech, wealth distribution, punishments, and almost everything else. And opinions are also held strongly. Everybody wants a change, in one way or another.
So, what would a perfect legal system look like? To imagine it, we must travel to a hypothetical place: the Law Law Land.
Imagine a world with states that are not defined by geographical boundaries but by a community of people such that:
When such a place is established:
Every law (and a combination thereof) that survives over time, is fit. If a law is not fair, people will travel to other territories. If a law does not punish a crime enough, people will travel to places with laws that protect their interests. If a law is extremely strict, people will travel to places with liberal laws.
The places where people flourish have laws that are ‘right’. The righteousness of the law is not measured by any eternal or moral ideal but by the standards felt justified by the people living in the territory.