Reviewing a lot of leftism, one begins to wonder if there are indeed a lot of “spandrels” in their thinking. A spandel refers to that little bit of wall in between arches where one often puts art.

Gould and Lewontin discussed this metaphor in the context of evolution. The spandrel example is as follows: if one sees something held up by arches and one looks at the spandrels and sees art, they might assume that the arch structure was chosen to accomodate the art. This is not true–the arch structure is the optimal structure and incidentally room for art was made. So in evolution, sometimes we see some phenotype which is useful and we assume that because of that there must have been some evolutionary pressure towards it. When in reality, it’s possible that this phenotype is something incidental to another development and only later found a use.

One might extend this analogy to the rather diabolical critiques that Marxists put forth: sometimes some social or political apparatus will serve the purposes of the elite or in a sense ensure the market runs smoothly. But that doesn’t mean that those apparati are “about” ensuring markets run properly. It could be that this is the incidental affect. Prisons just lock up mostly dissident poor people not because of diabolical scheming on the parts of elites, but because the most intuitive laws incidentally end up hurting some of those that they were intended to protect.

There is a difference between this criticism of Marxist thought and merely saying that Marxists look for a story where there is none. One needn’t deny that there is a story there — it could be and very likely is that some social apparatus furthers market considerations. What one denies though is the path of this story. Is this story really a spin-off from another tale? Perhaps one that the authors did not see coming, or is it actually the only story there is?

The reason its important to say this is because, and I’m not accusing you of anything, but in general, when people get the idea that some social apparatus is “about” something diabolical they often blame those they assume made it diabolical without considering that it’s sheer chance or that said apparatus only became diabolical because of some other unforeseen but powerful social forces. And so people will attack those that they blame assuming that there was something deliberate and insidious going on. This accomplishes nothing as what they should be doing is trying to dissect the real story behind the apparatus.

That is to say, I cannot learn why arches are such a common building support structure by looking at the art on the spandrels.

By the way, I won’t go so far as to say Marxists aren’t aware of this in general. I might just say that the tendency of American students (myself included!) to interpret Marxist works this way has to do with the general conspiratorial way of thinking that we adopt. Suggested (although I’m sure you’ve read it): The Paranoid Style in American Politics.

Also referenced (and on my reading list; although I know the gist via Jimmy): The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme

To rephrase specific to law, what’s the minimal amount of (explicit) laws required to output a society of our complexity? Said that way, there must be a lot of compression to be had. I doubt anyone would argue there’s none.

I’m guessing that if we re-embraced a lot of how hunter-gather societies were setup, a lot of things that seem like they must be explicit law, can be left implicit.

I like how the Batek tribe runs (PAPER): http://www.paleo-life.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=436

Re your second point: in a nutshell, once you have agriculture and settled dense populations, you start getting markets. And markets don’t work very well unless you preserve property rights, which ensure that each agent is compensated for their small contribution to a larger productive chain (as when I make the wrenches that you use to make cars). Without property rights compensation “leaks” out of the system, i.e., the money doesn’t make its way up to early links in the chain. At which point the market falls apart, because agents have no incentive to create value for everyone else.

See this paper by Eric Baum: http://jsomers.net/hayek.pdf.

And the largest chunk of human law is about protecting property rights and enforcing contracts (keeping those chain-links strong).

In some sense the disciplinary stuff, like punishments for murder etc., are also about keeping the market working smoothly. Marx can tell you all about that.

Recently I’ve been thinking, could society today be setup to run without lots of explicit law? Humans have existed most of existence without it. Why not again?