The theory that law may best be understood as an autopoietic system has gained considerable ground since Luhmann advanced it in 1981. Nevertheless, there have been few endeavours to apply the theory in any practical way or to employ it to analyze particular areas of law. In a recent paper,...

We cannot have an income tax without a concept of income. For a number of reasons, our concept of income must be artificial. A principal reason is that income tax law generally taxes the results of legal transactions rather than their underlying economic substance, which causes a dislocation...