The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law

by
Randy E. Barnett
an excerpt from...

Chapter Fourteen
Imagining a Polycentric Constitutional Order: A Short Fable

Assuming the Nonconfiscation and Competition principles were adopted, it is no easier to predict the formal organization and division of labor of the polycentric constitutional order that will result than it is to predict the formal organization of the personal computer market twenty years from now. (Of course, twenty years ago the challenge would have been to predict the very existence of a personal computer market.) Difficulties of prediction notwithstanding, some speculation is needed, for without some image of a polycentric constitutional order in mind, few will be inspired to move to adopt these principles. Rather than attempt the impossible task of comprehensively assessing the limitless alternatives that such freedom would make possible, let us instead imagine that somewhere there exists the constitutional order that I shall now describe.





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