David Hume’s theory of law and justice is a central element of his moral philosophy. Hume’s theory of the mind leads to a theory of undesigned social order based on fundamental laws of justice that arise insensibly through experience. The need to secure private property and its free exchange...

The paper discusses four conditions required for the maintenance of constitutional government, identifying them as the dominance of a particular conception of constitutional government, its official recognition and implementation by a written or traditional constitution, the existence of an...

This paper examines the idea of moral capital in relation to commerce. Moral capital is found in the form of justice, beneficence and temperance. These concepts are explained and distinguished from related ideas of social capital and human capital. Following Hume, Smith and Hayek, the author...

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith set out his influential theory that societies achieve prosperity by securing the freedom of individuals to pursue their own end by the means they choose within a framework of rules of justice. In his earlier work The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith...

Markets work best when the rules of the game are stable, property rights are secure and contracts are observed. These conditions are promoted by the rule of law in the classical liberal sense of the supremacy of general laws over public and private authority. Devices such as mixed government and...

The New Zealand Resource Management Act imposes a system for micro-managing the environment. The Act is typical of current state approaches to environmental protection that places heavy reliance on command and control systems in preference to market based systems. Such laws impact heavily on...