Someone Rename This Thread, was Re: . . .lawyers

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Apr 8 18:28:29 PDT 2002


It seems to me that the need (or lack of need) of lawyers in some future society was not the best point to start the argument. (Let's assume Justin's market socialism, so we can keep the parameters constant.) The first question is not, will we need lawyers but will we need adjudiction of conflict?

I suppose that such a need will arise in almost any set of social relations, and where conflict arises _some_ sort of adjudication will be necessary. But what kind?

In Justin's socialism, there will eventually be conflicts (we hope non-antagonistic in Mao's sense) between different production units. Would such conflicts require adjudication?

I don't think so. They would either be resolved administratively (through some sort of bureaucracy) or _politically_. Market or no market, economic decisions in a socialist social order must eventually be resolved politically, not "economically" or "legalistically." That is, if market socialism works at all, then it will work well enough so the losing party in such administratively or politically resolved disputes will not have his/her way of life or fundamental living conditions threatened.

So the kind of "lawyers" that would be needed for this sort of dispute would more resemble those of ancient Athens or Rome than of modern u.s. -- i.e. they would be sophists who taught citizens how to speak their own case before political or administrative bodies.

But I dunno.

Carrol

Final sentence above quoted from following epic:

To Be or Not To Be

by Anon

I sometimes think I'd rather crow And be a rooster than to roost And be a crow. But I dunno.

A rooster he can roost also, Which don't seem fair when crows can't crow. Which may help, some. Still I dunno.

Crows should be glad of one thing, though; Nobody thinks of eating crow, While roosters they are good enough For anyone unless they're tough.

There are lots of tough old roosters though, And anyway a crow can't crow, So mebby roosters stand more show. It looks that way. But I dunno.



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