r/Polycentric_Law

951 archived posts · Mar 2014 – Sep 2026

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Polycentric Law and Decentralized Law Studies and Development

r/Polycentric_Law

Polycentric and Decentralized Law Studies and Development

Created Feb 17, 2014

2.8KMembers (last snapshot)

951Archived posts

What is Polycentric Law?

"To make legal systems better, we must make them compete against each other.

Do you like having options when you look for a new bank, dry cleaner, or veterinarian? Of course you do. You want to find the service that will best satisfy your particular demands, after all, and you know that when banks, cleaners, and vets have to compete they have a powerful incentive to make you happy. A monopoly, in contrast, can take its customers for granted.

Polycentric law simply extends that observation from commercial services to government ones. Just as competition makes life better for those who seek banking, cleaning, and pet care services, it can benefit those seeking fair and efficient legal systems. Competition helps consumers and citizens alike.

Polycentric law regards the legal services that governments provide—defining rules, policing their application, and settling disputes—as a ripe field for competition. When a government claims a monopoly in the law, it tends to neglect its subjects' needs.

In a polycentric system, however, providers of legal services care more about what consumers want. They have to, if they don't want to go out of business..." - Tom W. Bell

David D. Friedman: Police, Courts, and Laws---On the Market

Rothbard quote on the Private Law Society

A concise summation of the COLA concept, how it works, and why it will put an end to the kind of crony corruption we suffer under today

How do Communities of Legal Agreement (COLA) work?

What happens when you are born into a COLA?

How do COLAs differ from the society we have now?

'Is the major difference between what happens in a COLA and a currently existing state is the assumption of consent vs explicitly required consent?'

The Use of Contractual Trigger Provisions To Apply Social Pressure / A Replacement for Regulation of Things We Don't Like

The Osmotic Strategy for Mass Change

Further resources:

Order Without the State: Theory, Evidence, and the Possible Future Of - David D. Friedman

The End of Politics—Part One