Legislation: Robbers' Rules

The Object of Legislation, Part 2 to blupete's Essay
"Legislation: Robbers' Rules"

A person or group of persons, surprisingly easily, can make another or others do what is wanted. One way is by negotiation and accommodation, that is to say by contract, to trade with them. Another way is to command that which is desired to be done and back it up with the threat of brute physical force: that is to use coercion: that is what we call legislative law: that is the dark side of the law.
Let me turn to Leslie Stevenson, "a reader in logic and Metaphysics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland" who states, fairly, the object of legislation:
"The object of our legislation is not the welfare of any particular class, but of the whole community. It uses persuasion or force to unite all citizens and make them share together the benefits which each individually can confer on the community; and its purpose in fostering the attitude is not to enable everyone to please himself, but to make each man a link in the unity of the whole."2
The definition of legislation and the nature of its object, will be best understood by going back to its historical origins.

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2011 (2019)