Talk:Polycentric law

RTR
"Restitution Transfer and Recoupment" sounds a lot like revival of weregild though I don't know how to mention that seamlessly into the article. Nagelfar (talk) 02:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Weregild means treating murder as a tort; it is an instance of the general idea of preferring restitution (which benefits the plaintiff) to punishment (which is costly to almost everyone). RTR is a business model built on that background.  It could function with respect to other compensable crimes even if murder were excluded.  —Tamfang (talk) 22:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Statism with regard to Polycentric law.
Corporative federalism seems very much like a statist interpretation of Polycentric law, or a circumvolutory kind of federalism with similar common points at least in the framework of a state system (neither completely centralized or completely devolved federalism but with aspects of both extremes).

It makes me wonder, if theoretically there could be a condition in which polycentric law were the norm, wherein the rights of many groups had their own separate laws - wouldn't there ultimately be a state codifying such as its "federal" constitution? This is something that has always confused me with non-anomie forms of anarchism with regard to denial of the state (but with a legal system); Is it just that they conceive of a purely positive state with regard to 'natural law'? I don't even necessarily see how federalizing any jurisdiction by process of devolution would make that law any more 'natural' anyhow, just positive on a more direct scale.

It's interesting that the Corporativism espoused by Fascist Italy (and therefore it's ultimate "statolatry" & "totalitarianism") was similar in theory in many ways to Polycentric law but thought of as centralized, by the fact that there would be a guild system where individual interests of particular private groups were "officialized", accommodated specifically, and especially considered public branches and extensions of the national whole but interacted with in different ways by the central government based on their own interests (i.e. an ever growing legal bureaucracy based on whatever new special interests continually form, and made, at least in their own theory, with the consideration of those interests). It brings new interpretation to Fascism having it's philosophic origins with anarchist thinkers like Georges Sorel. If such "Fascist - Totalitarian" theories and visions were a conception of a "natural" state (if one views Giovanni Gentile's "Actual Idealism" with regard to government in such a way) I wonder if anarchism of this kind and Fascism of the corporative system are just two of the same thing but view the state differently. I just don't know whether "natural state" (as in the natural law terminology) is an oxymoron to anarchists or not, depends all on how you define "state" I suppose. I have thought it over quite a bit though and I don't necessarily see statism and anarchism as mutually exclusive anyway (maybe an extreme synthesis where they aren't, but definitely not fully incompatible) Nagelfar (talk) 07:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Off the top of my head —
 * Suppose three law-providers agree that disputes between any two shall be resolved by the third; and each is forbidden to acquire ownership in the others. Is this a "federal constitution", and is this system a "state"?  Some would say yes, but if so, we need another word for that which I would prefer to abolish. ;)
 * No, devolved law is not inherently more natural than imperial law; but, where the individual has a choice of law-providers, an economic argument suggests that the system has a stronger tendency to converge toward natural law (by which I mean that system which maximizes overall wellbeing).
 * Statists (not only Fascists) like to reify "community" and tell the citizens which interest group they belong to, rather than letting communities of interest emerge from individual choices.
 * —Tamfang (talk) 23:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd like to think of the governmental word "state" much like the word "condition" (and therefore the definition of the word "state" 'as government' much as the other definition for the same word; meaning 'state of being').


 * So I suppose the positive legal structure at any given time might be "the state", by which the interests of any group make agreements by word of mouth, unspoken agreement and normal living activities (even with the complete abolition of codified laws) naturally form, in my mind, some kind of state. I agree even this meaning represents a "restriction", the negative connotation of the word 'state', a societal limitation. As every definition or norm of activity is a limitation; theoretically by positive law attempting to approximate natural law as it is felt and understood by the particular system of governance.


 * However polycentric law and similar ideas almost pull against this limitation, and try to diversify it (thus opening it up and making it more free), but not against the nature of being a state; it is as if here the state is working against linear answers to natural law via the method of creating such multifarious positive law (and the more positive law, the greater the scope of the state) that natural law itself is perturbed in how it is to be expressed.


 * By this I mean I see natural law only temporally; I do not believe natural law is always a single absolute measure, it is peculiar to it's environs. Consider that as much as positive law is formed by natural law, the condition where archetypes necessitate natural law are changed by the current positive laws? Maybe, it seems, increasing the width & breadth of extant positive legal structure (making it many layered and more complex through something like polycentric law) might influence what natural law is; which in turn puts the requirements for future positive laws on to something even more complex? Maybe I'm getting too dialectical & Hegelian and I am certainly not adding much to immediately bettering the article as these pages are meant, but I hope you understand what I mean. Nagelfar (talk) 09:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Furthermore I can see how Polycentric law could have compulsory registration to make a voluntary choice for whatever free association to which one chose, like an effective political party made directly into a polity. Which could only work as long as it had a sufficient constituency to form it's own system (enough members to account for their values). Each of these may variously function as economically capitalist or economically socialist under the same territory (each legal corporate body being separate but federated to the whole, taxes etc work different depending on adherence) and therefore differently coercive within their individual structure, according to the beliefs of it's own constituents. There would have to be some normalizing measure by which an individual is accountable to break from or freely associate with each constituent polity and legal contract to & from another; this level of internal self-imposed governing would be a compulsory and coercive element (therefore statist, and not just statelike). There would also have to be a level of external, federal upholding of the separate integrity of each separate trans-territorial (corporate) legal manifold so one cannot simply jump ship from another and change their allegeance (which would be unsystematized anomie, not orderly like anarchism) which is also statist and limiting to it's own sphere, albeit of a contractual nature chosen by the member initially. The interaction between the external structure and the internal one would have to be one of diplomacy, as now we have diplomacy between nations, however this would be an internal state diplomacy between polycameral legalities of one state. Nagelfar (talk) 07:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The church
Carol Moore disappoints me by deleting an entire discussion on the grounds that her opponent has been banned.

Carol argues that if a source such as those cited by the banned user (The Rise and Decline of the State; The Enterprise of Law; The Market for Liberty; ) does not use the exact words polycentric law then it cannot be cited in support of a contribution to polycentric law, under the rules WP:No original research and WP:Avoid neologisms. I wrote, "if NOR forbids otherwise relevant material that doesn't use the exact keywords, quite a lot of articles could need pruning." If an otherwise reliable source on hypercubes does not use the word tesseract, must it be excluded from Tesseract?

Some Wikipedia articles concern concepts for which no label is universally accepted; this appears to be one. Does The Market for Liberty (it's probably ten years since I read it) even give a name to the system it describes?

Carol wrote: "If Tamfang wants to come back and make all those arguments from scratch, he may feel free to do so." (I also feel free to simply undo Carol's deletion, but that seems futile.) Alas that I have not read more of the relevant literature.

I've just read WP:Avoid neologisms which is a stronger argument for deleting this article as it now stands (WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary) than for keeping related material out of it. —Tamfang (talk) 20:59, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I strongly oppose the deletion of this article. This is a relatively new term that describes a long-established concept. It's not so difficult to discern whether a source is discussing polycentric law that we need precise terminological matches; if a source is talking about competing or overlapping legal systems/providers, then it is relevant to this article. the skomorokh  21:10, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * First, I invited people to reinitialize this if it was something really relevant. When you've seen a persistent sockpuppet keep putting up dubious things, one just stops paying attention to what whether what they have has merit unless others opine at length it does. Neologism clearly states that it's ok to have an article on neologisms as long as there are reliable secondary sources, which this article has. Carol Moore 03:30, 21 November 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

The Finnish Research Project
"[The University of Helsinki (Finland) funded a "Polycentric Law" research project from 1992 to 1995, led by professor Lars D. Eriksson. Its goal was to demonstrate "the inadequacy of current legal paradigms by mapping the indeterminacies of both the modern law and the modern legal theory. It also addressed the possibility of legal and ethical alternativies to the modern legal theories" and "provided openings to polycentric legal theories both by deconstructing the idea of unity in law and re-constructing legal and ethical differences." The project hosted two international conferences. In 1998 the book Polycentricity: The Multiple Scenes of Law, edited by Ari Hirvonen, collected essays written by scholars involved with the project.]"

I find the reference to the Finnish project problematic. The project is related to the Nordic concept of "legal polycentricity" developed by the Danish professor of law Henrik Zahle years before Mr. Bell even started at law school and not to the concept of "polycentric law" as described in this article.

It is stated very clearly in the foreword of "Polycentricity: The Multiple Scenes of Law", and reading it also lead to the conclusion that the overall theme of the book is "legal polycentricity" and not "polycentric law". On the projects "website" (reference no. 4 in the wiki-article) is also stated that "The key issues covered by the project were the ways in which legal interpretation should be understood..." - that's also the primary point of intereste in the concept of legal polycentricity.

Reading the wiki-article including the very selective and cut quoting from the Finnish project gives the impression that the project was related to or based on the ideas of libertarianism incorporated in the concept of "polycentric law", which is all wrong simply because that's not an issue in "legal polycentricity" and was not in the Finnish project.

The only English online sourch of Professor Zahle and legal polycentricity I could find was this from the University of Copenhagen upon Zahles death: http://www.ku.dk/Satsning/religion/indhold/Nyheder/henrik_zahle_tribute.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.243.126.136 (talk) 13:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be good to rewrite that as a last, shorter, paragraph pointing out what the Finnish project DOES do so those who may end up here will know the difference, if they actually are looking for Finnish project, or for future ref. or general encyclopedic knowledge. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

state of nature

 * He outlines traditional customary law (also known as consuetudinary law) before the creation of states, ....

"before the creation of" is linked to State of nature, and "states" to Social rights. But surely the point here is to deny the identification of the social contract with the state, and thus the dichotomy implied by those links! —Tamfang (talk) 21:30, 11 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I deleted another questionable link other day and now this one. Article probably could be updated with new material since most written before Books.google research done. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

dead/wrong link
http://gonzagalawreview.org/2003/03/01/no-state-required-a-critical-review-of-the-polycentric-legal-order/ domain is "parked" by hover, not in use by Gonzaga. This link probably never was correct, it does not show up in the internet archive. Currently google shows a link to a PDF at one of the authors' blog, I will edit the page to link there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.171.156.23 (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

NPOV
The majority of this page cites arguments in favor, lending proponents undue weight. Further, this is a marginal theory with little mainstream support and the most appropriate balance is to use opponents for a majority of citations. The current situation gives a false equivalence by portraying this theory as having something like 80% support, when in reality reliable sources would dispute or criticize it around 80% of the time. 173.2.236.247 (talk) 01:53, 3 September 2015 (UTC)