The provision of justice and security has long been linked in most people’s minds to the exclusive province of government monopolies. However, in this path-breaking book, Benson shows that a system of market-based institutions, rooted in the legal principle of personal accountability under a rule of law in all aspects of criminal justice, have and can deliver those services on their own, without the aid of taxation and a coercive state monopoly on the establishment and enforcement of law.
In The Enterprise of Law, Benson offers a powerful rebuttal of the received view of the relationship between law and government. The book brilliantly shows that non-state institutions have and do fight crime, resolve disputes, and render justice more effectively than the state because they have stronger incentives to do so.
The book offers a host of landmark findings, and here is just a sampling:
- The rapid recent growth of private-sector security and conflict resolution continues the effective legacy of private crime control and the common law.
- Protections for individual rights and private property are not the exclusive purview of government-run legal systems.
- Privatizing security and dispute-resolution services and contracting out to the private sector, can offer tangible benefits—namely better and more just services at lower costs.