Law's Order

What Hacker News says

1. Jeff_BrownOct 2019
   Merely thinking about hiring a hitman is bad, yes, and should be punished, yes.

   But I would not equate it with hiring one. That's because the expected damage from planning to hire a hitman is smaller than that from actually hiring one. A year of punishment hurts the criminal the same regardless of which of those two scenarios holds, but the social benefit of punishing them is less. Therefore we should punish them less. (Unless we don't care about the welfare of someone who's been convicted at all. I think that's a sick position to hold -- even setting aside the possibility of false positives -- but it has its adherents.)

   A real eye-opener for me regarding these questions of weighing the costs and benefits (i.e. the economics) of punishment was Thomas Friedman's book Law's Order. Until I read that, I thought the whole question was just a political fight. And while it certainly is a political fight, there's a much more objective kind of analysis available -- in fact, it's the norm in economics.

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2. mhartlSep 2013
   The headline is horrible—it's kind of like saying "Scientist's Theories Led to Atomic Bomb" for an Einstein obit—but Ronald Coase was one of the most creative economists of the 20th century and deserves to be widely known. For a great introduction to Coase's Theorem and its implications, I recommend Law's Order by David Friedman (available in a nearly illegible online edition at http://www.daviddfriedman.com/laws_order/, but I recommend the print version). It will challenge many of the things you think you know about externalities.
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3. byrneseyeviewSep 2008
   I think a good law will create wealth if it enables a mutually beneficial transaction that would not otherwise be possible.

   For example, a law against breach of contract makes you more likely to hire someone you don't know well. That person gets a job, you get an employee, so you're both better off. As long as this benefit is greater than the cost of enforcing the law, that law has created wealth.

   I recommend Law's Order by David Friedman for a whole lot more on this subject. It's a fascinating introduction to the application of economics to law.

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