Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Boiled down to its essence, “Rule of Law” means contract enforcement; when someone violates the terms of agreement of a contract, State Violence is there to crush the shirker, and both parties must be held accountable for their parts, with penalties attached for non-performance. In fact, all contracts are really about adjudicating force, so there must be clearly identified goals with measurable results that a jury can understand and judge. There is also the special case where one of the parties to the agreement has an overwhelming advantage, more than a jury would be willing to support; those contracts are void because they are unenforceable.

Besides contracts that you have to explicitly sign, there are more ephemeral implicit contracts; the so-called “social” contract being a prime example that has a huge impact on our lives. Unfortunately, without exactly spelled out expectations and duties of all parties, implicit contracts generate conflict due of their subjectivity; people interpret the actions of others based on their own ideology, and there is no court of law to adjudicate. For example, the liberty interpretation of the social contract considers people being responsible for themselves, but the Collectivist view is that good-fortune should be shared with everybody; clearly the antithesis of each other, but the world couldn't run without implicit contracts. For both types of contracts; explicit and implicit, people have to want to honor them for them to work.