Academic

DOES AMERICA HAVE A LAWYER PROBLEM, OR A LAW PROBLEM? My Sunday Washington Examiner column is up. ?

By Glenn Reynolds

DOES AMERICA HAVE A LAWYER PROBLEM, OR A LAW PROBLEM? My Sunday Washington Examiner column is up.

UPDATE: Reader Karl Keller emails:

Your column today about the law being the problem, and not the lawyers, brought to mind one of the key points made in Federalist #62 — in my view, among the greatest of the papers. There Madison wrote:

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.

In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.

Alas, our Founders were wise, and Madison among the wisest. Too bad much of our political class fails to understand them.

Or maybe it understands them all too well.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on February 06, 2011 (boomark / email).