Law's real reason for being

[Pharaoh Cat]

I contend that law exists in actuality so as to enable economic activity.  If it didn't serve this purpose, those in power would dispense with it as tedious, inconvenient, and burdensome.  In fact, if you and I didn't serve that same purpose, enabling economic activity, those in power might as readily dispense with us, as tedious, inconvenient, and burdensome.  If a thing can be terminated at will by some entity, then that entity's reason for not doing so is the reason the thing in question knows existence today rather than oblivion, regardless of the chain of causality that originally brought the thing into the world.  A mosquito on my forearm continues to exist because I choose not to swat it, perhaps out of curiosity, and if so, then my curiosity is the reason the mosquito still moves and drinks blood.  This is an aspect of natural selection that often goes unremarked.  The patch of grass the lion sleeps on will not be eaten by the deer.  The deer's fear of the lion selects for the grassy pillow beneath the lion's head.

[yepimonfire]

im confused

[Pharaoh Cat]

im confused

Imagine a Star Wars movie that was never made.  The Empire won.  Sidious and Vader are discussing the present and the future.

Vader: "Our nanotechnology has improved, Emperor, as has our cloning technology."

Sidious: "Excellent.  But I sense in you an intention beyond merely apprising me of progress."

Vader: "Indeed, Emperor, you are perceptive as ever.  There are ramifications to consider."

Sidious: "I am all ears, Apprentice."

Vader: "We have the ability, using nanotechnology, to turn the elements of any barren asteroid into whatever elements are required to build our cities and Death Stars, and furnish their populations with air, water, and food."

Sidious: "If that is the case, O Faithful One, then what need have we of trade between worlds?  Or manufacturing on those worlds?"

Vader: "We have no need whatsoever, Emperor."

Sidious: "Then why bother governing them?"

Vader: "Excellent question, Emperor.  Furthermore, we have the ability, using our cloning technology, to populate all the Death Stars and all the cities we could ever aspire to build."

Sidious: "Then what need have we, my Apprentice, for any living things at all, but those we choose to clone?"

Vader: "No need whatsoever, Emperor."

Sidious: "Then why tolerate the existence of potentially rebellious populations?"

Vader: "Excellent question, Emperor."

Sidious: "You were right, O Faithful One.  There are ramifications to consider."
   

[The Magic Pudding]

It's often the case that a government acts in a certain way to avoid an uprising of the population.
I've heard more than one commentator claim China's government needs to maintain an improving lifestyle to avoid revolt.
The Russians became tired of oppression and got rid of the Tsars and communism, Putin isn't as popular as he was.
England made concessions to people to stop them revolting, gradually moving from William the C to democracy, they had motivation examples of France and the American colonies were stark warnings.

We get rid of our rulers, they don't have it all their own way, we have used anti trust, negligence and trade practices laws to control companies, though they do put up a lot of resistance, somehow convincing people they have shared interests.

Leaders are often quite vain, I imagine ruling a robot population wouldn't be as satisfying as ruling people.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

In theory, law exists more as a survival strategy.  Without the basic social contract between the government and the governed, life would be, as Thomas Hobbes wrote, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."  Of course, economics is part of this, but the main issue is just surviving in a hostile world.  Government naturally evolved from the family/tribal structure, which is also a survival mechanism.

[Stevil]

Governments need to be a representative of society, not a ruler over society.
We need a minimum set of laws to be a functional society, but these laws need to be accepted by society as being necessary.
In a global world, governments also put things into place to create a thriving society. If our economics are bad then we will be left behind.
We do not have laws to ensure each individual provides a positive economic effect. People can choose to subtract or be neutral in terms of economics, it is their choice.

[Pharaoh Cat]

If power upholds law and power acts for its own purposes then law serves the purposes of power.

Does power uphold law?

Does power act for its own purposes?

What in this context are power's most likely purposes?

I say yes, yes, and the expansion and protection of power's assets.

[Stevil]

Does power act for its own purposes?

What in this context are power's most likely purposes?

Power's purpose is to likely to be survival and prosperity.

If governing power opposes and represses then survival of the power will be difficult. Prosperity will also be difficult as much resources will be required to maintain oppression, opressed people do not generate prosperity, it is hard to prosper off the poor.

[penfold]

I contend that law exists in actuality so as to enable economic activity.  If it didn't serve this purpose, those in power would dispense with it as tedious, inconvenient, and burdensome.  In fact, if you and I didn't serve that same purpose, enabling economic activity, those in power might as readily dispense with us, as tedious, inconvenient, and burdensome.  If a thing can be terminated at will by some entity, then that entity's reason for not doing so is the reason the thing in question knows existence today rather than oblivion, regardless of the chain of causality that originally brought the thing into the world.

I have several problems with this.

First law significantly predates the development of modern economic behavior. Early European law mostly dealt with the limiting of revenge and attempts to codify duties and rights in hierarchical frameworks. We have historical evidence laws dealing with issues like murder dating back in England to king Cnut and almost certainly they existed before that (in fact we know law was established and complex in the ancient world). We know that during the reign of Edward the Confessor there were two distinct legal systems in place, the king's law in the South and the Dane law in the North; this mismatch prima facie makes a hypothesis that the law existed for economic purposes implausible (as economic laws require a degree of unity across a kingdom that local criminal law does not).

Moreover the first 'economic' laws such as those governing land transactions and contract develop much later (if memory serves not till after the first statute of Westminster in 1285).

So law certainly was not created for the sole purpose of economics but rather to regulate justice and in particular place limits on how much revenge could be taken (and by whom - German law right up till the C15th allowed for family members to kill in revenge for a murder).

As for the second part of your hypothesis, that the law would be dispensed with if it did not serve a useful purpose, I am not convinced of that either.

Firstly in liberal democracies there is a real doubt that a legislature could repeal the law in toto. Obiter comments by Lord Steyn in R v Jackson gives the abolition of the courts as an example of something the legislature could not legally accomplish. In this sense the law is protected from your Darwinian abolition by the power of the independent judiciary.

Secondly the law is an important structure keeping those in power in power! The law is part of the social framework that allows the powerful to exercise their power. This is aside from economic frameworks. In general the powerful like things to stay as they are; keeping the status quo is a good survival strategy for those at the top.

[Incidentally, the grass under the lion's head may survive but it cannot pass on the trait of being under a lion's head so this is not something that can be selected for in a Darwinian sense - being under a lion's head is not an evolutionary factor...]