Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd
That's probably true of "modern" societies (and come to think of it is perhaps closely related to the reason many people don't trust the law much and assume lawyers and politicians are scum even though most of them are at least trying to be decent people), but it's an artifact of that particular kind of government/legal system, not an inevitable or I think even particularly common feature of all possible ones.
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Some of the problem is that the world has gotten very complicated and very populous. Large parts of the law govern things the average person will never deal with directly unless they are employed in, or do business in, a specific field -- which parts those are depend on what you do. If you work for a railroad, you need to know the minutia of law governing shipping by rail, signage, signals, etc. -- if you don't and aren't a model railroader, then its mostly irrelevant to you.
The parts that are "public-facing" codify what perhaps once were social custom and unspoken expectation so that I can purchase a good from a company half-the country away via the internet, never speaking to another human being, and have confidence that the good will arrive in a reasonable time, as described, and be not unexpectedly dangerous and the seller can sell/ship a good half-the-country away and have confidence in being paid, and that the good will get there. It really is an amazing system.
Are there weird bits, hold-overs from past eras, pieces that don't fit together , kludges, duct-tape over those kludges, -- yup. But remember that if the problem goes to court it gets adjudicated by people who, for the most part, genuinely want to get a right and fair result. Again, how often they succeed is a matter of debate, but the bulk of the system's actors do want to live up to its aspirations.