Even more lawyers (was Re: Same old same old)

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Mon Jan 27 09:57:44 PST 2003



>
> >Second, as to my own privileges, I am quite
> confident that a
> >nonmarket socialism would require even more lawyers
> (my job)
>
> Why? The U.S. is the most marketized of the rich
> countries, and it
> also is the most infested with lawyers. It makes
> sense that the more
> individualist/adversarial/contract-oriented a system
> the more lawyers
> in needs. Why would a nonmarket socialism require
> more lawyers than a
> market one?
>
> Doug

The lawyers would likely be doing different things and for less money. but the short answer is that a nonmarket economy would require lots of rules and regulations, and those require people to interpret and argue them. In a nonmarket society, lawyers would have a big administrative law practice.

I have a draft paper on this, but it is too rough to see just yet. I outraged several rooms of Marxist philosophers with my suggestion that we lawyers would flourish come what may even under nonmarket socialism.

Besides, we are a litigious society, and you can't expect culture to change particularly rapidly. We're not Japanese. We like to assertr our rights before adjudicative bodies, and that isn't likely to be changed by a mere social revolution. jks

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