Private Law Society: Preface

This is the Preface to the broader construct of a Private Law Society.  It may be helpful to click on that link to grasp a broader view of the overall project.

Preface at a glance:

• P.1: The scope of this work
• P.2: How to approach this material
• P.3: Notes on the Style of this Work
• P.4: The objective of writing this work

The world as we know it stands in a precarious state at the time of this writing.  We stand on the brink of a possible economic, social, and political collapse.  While many have turned a blind eye to this possibility for a long time, it has now at least occurred to most people that the possibility of catastrophe exists.  In times like this, a hard look is warranted at the causes of this situation -- why are we here?  How did we get here?


One thing is clear -- the ideas that inform our system of social order are failing, or have at least to some extent failed.  Some people blame the Government, others blame the Markets, and others blame Human Nature itself.  A complete critique of the possible causes of our current situation, or further a universal critique of Political, Social, or Economic Philosophy lie outside the scope of this work.  I will leave those topics to another work or to another author, but before I just dive into my primary proposition, I must make some simple case for it from the outset so as not to utterly turn off readers that don't readily accept it, so here it is:


The world is in dire need of some new ideas.  While most thinking persons imagine that their own construction of civil, economic, or social order would work if only implemented correctly, I would suggest that everyone owes it to themselves to consider something different.  In fact, what is proposed in this essay represents a truly novel concept in the history of thought -- it is not my own concept, but it remains novel in the fact that it has only recently been articulated fully.


The concept of a Private Law Society has first been fully-formulated by Hans Herman Hoppe, who has taken the propositions of Austrian Economics and libertarian Philosophy to their logical consequence.  The Private Law Society is an attempt at the maximal conception of liberty, justice, and economic prosperity.  It is not a Utopian concept -- the world can never be wholly rid of the malice and evil in the hearts of man -- but it purports to be better, on the whole, than other concepts in Political, Social, and Economic Philosophy.


While elements of the concept have been around probably since the beginning of modern man, and strains of this thinking have manifested throughout history in fits and starts, the Private Law Society is truly unique in that it takes those concepts all the way as it were.  That said, as this is still a relatively new concept, the body of work on the matter is highly incomplete.  Contributions to the body of work on this subject matter can be found daily on the most important Austrian Economics and libertarian websites on the web: Lewrockwell.com and The Mises Institute.  However, and at least to my knowledge, the body of work is missing a thoroughgoing and purely positive account of the theory.


The intent of this work is to provide just that -- a purely positive account of the Private Law Society that examines the question, "How could it work?"