Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-r5zm4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T00:37:47.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - The Laws of Lawlessness*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

Peter T. Leeson
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
Get access

Summary

Cooperation under anarchy when persons are from different social groups is one thing. When those groups are avowed enemies, it's quite another. The idea that self-governance could promote cooperation between socially distant hostiles seems absurd.

Yet it can, and it has. In the words of John Stuart Mill (1848: 882), “Insecurity paralyzes only when it is such in nature and in degree that no energy of which mankind in general are capable affords any tolerable means of self-protection.” That energy, you will see, is substantial.

This essay examines a significant and long-lasting era of intergroup anarchy among English and Scottish citizens on the Anglo-Scottish border in the sixteenth century. The border people pillaged, plundered, and raided one another as a way of life they called “reiving.” To regulate this system of intergroup banditry and prevent it from degenerating into chaos, border inhabitants developed a self-governing system of cross-border criminal law called the Leges Marchiarum. These “laws of lawlessness” governed all aspects of cross-border interaction and spawned novel institutions of their enforcement, including “days of truce,” bonds, “bawling,” and “trod.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Anarchy Unbound
Why Self-Governance Works Better Than You Think
, pp. 32 - 54
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×