Bruno Leoni was surely the most important Italian free market thinker of the second half of the 20th century. Here we have an outstanding analysis of the relationship between law and freedom, one that follows up on Bastiat and, many argue, exceeds Hayek in rigor and consistency. Leoni explains the features of law under freedom and show how the
[Bruno Leoni (1913–1967), an Italian classical-liberal political philosopher and attorney, was a professor at the University of Pavia, president of the Mont Pèlerin Society, and author of Freedom and the Law, expanded 3d ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991 [1961]). This paper was originally published in English, under the same title in Il
[Chapter 5, Freedom and the Law ] The rule of law, in the classical sense of the expression, cannot be maintained without actually securing the certainty of the law, conceived as the possibility of long-run planning on the part of individuals in regard to their behavior in private life and business. Moreover, we cannot base the rule of law on
May I start by summarizing professor Hart’s essay in a few words. On one hand the author analyses the concept of law by resorting first to the classical concept of “obligation.” On the other, he tries a “fresh start” by resorting, later on in his analysis, to the concept of “secondary rules” and puts an emphasis on the concept of “legal order”
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The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
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