
Legal Systems Very Different from Ours - Tomte
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_systems_very_different_12/LegalSystemsDraft.html
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ABCLAW
People seem to be getting into a tizzy about what 'ours' refers to here.

It refers to common and civil law, the two dominant legal traditions in the
world. See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#/media/File:Map_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#/media/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_\(en\).png)

Both arose in Europe, and have been promulgated throughout the world.

These other legal traditions are often highlighted and discussed to show what
assumptions the current dominant systems rely upon and what their biases tend
to be.

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a1369209993
link is broken

file page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_%28en%29.png)

direct link:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Map_of_t...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_%28en%29.png)

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dmckeon
People in the USA tend to think that the country has only one set of laws, but
in addition to 49 states with generally similar civil and criminal law, we
also have Louisiana, with a system of law which descends from the Napoleonic
Code, and arbitration agreements found in many contracts and ToSes.

In addition, many religious organizations tend to view their systems of canon
law as having primacy before state or federal law, and educational entities
which take the same view toward their codes of conduct, preferring to act _in
loco parentis_ rather than deferring to state authorities.

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Sniffnoy
This is an old draft. A more recent draft is here:
[http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Legal%20Systems/LegalSystemsCo...](http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Legal%20Systems/LegalSystemsContents.htm)

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egypturnash
Oh good. Someone told him that “gypsy” is considered a slur by a lot of
Romani.

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dadalus
David Friedman is Milton Friedman's son. He teaches law but has never taken a
formal law class. He also likes to study the economic systems of MMORPGs. His
son Patri came up with the idea of Seasteading. Interesting character.

~~~
bradleyjg
Among many other things he has written a cookbook with medieval recipes.

[http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/To_Milk_an_Almond.pdf](http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/To_Milk_an_Almond.pdf)

~~~
Tomte
And an economics book that actually made sense to me: Hidden Order.

I liked his way of defending free trade. „In America there are two ways to
make cars. We build them and we grow them. The people in Detroit use steel and
build them. And the people in Iowa put corn and wheat on big ships, sail them
eastward, and sone time later they come back with cars.“

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walrus01
This is not intended to start a political comment on current use of the term
"sharia law". But if you research Hanafi Sunni sharia law in its cultural
context, the important thing to grok from a western perspective is that the
concept of "sin" and "crime" are essentially the same thing. The two concepts
used to be generally the same thing, in western european-derived legal systems
250+ years ago, but are now separated in western legal/justice systems.

Peoples' cultural expectation that something which is a sin _must_ therefore
also be a crime helps with the understanding of how it's been implemented up
until now.

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jchanimal
I’m Greek sin mean error. So sinning is not recommended but it’s not a crime.

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true_tuna
How about a chapter on interesting fictional legal systems? My favorite
example is Goachin law where the greatest crime is ignorance of the
repercussions of your actions. If you’re found innocent you’re judged unworthy
of the responsibilities of sentientience and killed. To be found guilty you
must prove that truly and deeply understand the ramifications of your actions.
The guilty go free. The innocent die.

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pavel_lishin
I recently read China Mieville's "The City and The City", which features two
countries - each the size of a large city - that cohabitate the same physical
space, but are otherwise entirely different legal entities, with national
borders.

I don't want to say too much about it, because slowly learning more about this
system and society is one of the fun parts of the book, but you can Google for
a brief synopsis of how it works.

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bane
Interesting, there's a great video on the governing system of the Iroquois
Confederacy, which is surprisingly intricate.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4gU2Tsv6hY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4gU2Tsv6hY)

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DiffEq
Found an error, but in case he doesn't fix it, from:

[http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_sy...](http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_systems_very_different_12/Book_Draft/Systems/JewishLawChapter.html)

He says:

"The biblical rules, which set twelve and a half as the age of female
adulthood"

The Bible is very clear that a male or female become adults at age 20.

See Exodus 12, 38; Numbers 11,14; 1 Chronicles 31:17, Ezra 3:8 and there are
probably some more scriptures that show it.

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bribroder
As with most bible passages, earlier texts may or may not line up... The
twelve-and-a-half rule is from the Babylonian Talmud:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZU-
nBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA53#v=one...](https://books.google.com/books?id=ZU-
nBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
DiffEq
So the Talmud is not the Bible though.

The Bible, the Old Testament and what the Jews consider Holy Text is the
Torah. The Talmud is a body of works of various rabbis; the Talmud mostly the
two books of Gemarah and the Mishnah and should not carry the same weight as
the Torah. So if one were to consider the Bible (Torah) only, the legal age of
an adult appears to be 20. What the Jews did or made up on their own
afterwards would be of their own tradition and in some cases in contradiction
to the Bible.

The Bible - and Jewish tradition many times do not line up. Even in New
Testament times there were issues with this - as Jesus had a beef with the
Pharisees because they had all these other laws and rules one had to obey that
were not part of the Torah.

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danielam
Some may find Feliks Koneczny's categorization and analysis[0] of
civilizations based on legal system and its relation to ethics, the
distinction between private and public law, the distinction between religious
and secular law, and so on.

[0] [https://www.scribd.com/doc/4464979/ON-THE-PLURALITY-OF-
CIVIL...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/4464979/ON-THE-PLURALITY-OF-
CIVILIZATIONS-Feliks-Koneczny-Entire-Book)

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fimdomeio
Ours, whos?

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stronglikedan
From the homepage:

> I teach at Santa Clara University in the Law School. This spring I am
> teaching Economic Analysis of Law, and a seminar on Legal Systems Very
> Different From Ours.

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ur-whale
Doesn't answer the question

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vpribish
Is willfully obtuse

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ur-whale
Nope. Is trying - unsuccessfully, apparently - to point out how arrogant and
offending the use of "ours" is in a supposedly scholarly work: I am the
byproduct of a so-called "western" culture, yet don't recognize the law system
under which my country of origin operates are being covered by this "ours"
used in the title.

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great_kraken
Arrogant and offending, how? Who is it offending? How is it arrogant?

Arrogant maybe if it said "the best." But it didn't, it said "ours."

Offending maybe if it said "Shit legal systems." But it didn't, it said "Legal
systems."

It isn't really reaching to make a few assumptions. On an English speaking
website, owned by an American accelerator in California, with a majority of
American users, is it hard to assume that "ours" means "American?"

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yardie
The list doesn't include Western laws.

\- Common law

\- Case law (popular in Anglo countries)

\- Civil law (popular in Western European countries)

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pjscott
That's because it's meant to look at _other_ legal systems -- ones very
different from the ones its audience are familiar with, i.e. those.

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HarryHirsch
But Anglo-American case law is very different from French or German law. The
stated purpose of the _Code civil_ was to do away with traditional French law,
and it was indeed a great improvement over the previous state of affairs. This
could at least be discussed.

