The State: Its Origin and Nature

David Gordon ()
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David Gordon: Ludwig von Mises Institute

A chapter in The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Volume II, 2023, pp 95-101 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The view of the state held by Nock and Oppenheimer, according to which the state originated as a predatory body, is contrasted with that of Mises, for whom the state is needed to maintain a framework of law and order within which the free market can operate. Huerta de Soto, it is argued, bypasses the question of which view is correct, instead concentrating on a different but related question, the evolution of a legal system. In writing about this, de Soto has been greatly influenced by the work of Hayek and Bruno Leoni. So long as a legal system, not interrupted by arbitrary interventions, is in place, it does not much matter whether the state is an actor within that system. Like Leoni, Huerta de Soto contends that the notion of the evolution of a legal system can be applied to Roman law as well as common law.

Keywords: State; Predation; Free market; Legal system; Evolution; Common law; Roman law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-17418-6_9

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-17418-6_9

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