Spontaneous Order

Robert Sugden

Chapter 1 in The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare, 2005, pp 1-9 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In Britain, drivers almost always keep to the left-hand side of the road. Why? It is tempting to answer: ‘Because that is the law in Britain.’ Certainly someone who drove on the right would be in danger of prosecution for dangerous driving. But British drivers don’t keep slavishly to all the laws governing the use of the roads. It is a criminal offence for a driver not to wear a seat belt, to drive a vehicle whose windscreen wipers are not in working order, or to sound a horn at night in a built-up area; but these laws are often broken. Even people who cheerfully break the law against drunken driving — a very serious offence, carrying heavy penalties — usually keep left.

Keywords: Public Good; Market Failure; Seat Belt; Private Individual; Moral Question (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Spontaneous Order (1989)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-53679-1_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230536791

DOI: 10.1057/9780230536791_1

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().