Samuels vs. Buchanan: Grasping the Purpose of the Law

Abstract

Like language, the law is an instrument – a tool – for the accomplishment of certain purposes. The idealized understanding insisted that the law is, if not divinely inspired, the empirical manifestation of received wisdom and truth. On this view the law is crafted to produce ideal outcomes. Richard Posner once insisted that the law was purposefully crafted to achieve economic efficiency (1973).¹ Warren Samuels reminded us that the law is an instrument to get one's way. The interesting question, therefore, concerns who is able to control this valuable instrument? Sometimes good and noble people wield the tool. At other times nefarious forces prevail. Samuels presented his vision of the law by means of a Virginia statute concerning an obscure pest known as Cedar Rust (Samuels, 1971). As it happens, Virginia apple growers were able to wield the tool – saws and axes – against red cedar trees which serve as an intermediate host for a fungus detrimental to apple trees. Small spores make for large debates.

Citation

Bromley, D.W. (2012), "Samuels vs. Buchanan: Grasping the Purpose of the Law", Biddle, J.E. and Emmett, R.B. (Ed.) Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: A Research Annual (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 30 Part 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 137-149. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-4154(2012)000030A011