Machinery and Law

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that a well designed machine has as few parts as possible, is put together as simply as possible and performs it’s function very well. Law is no different. It should be simple, well written and perform it’s function well and with no unintended consequences.

During the Second World War the German army produced a tank that was considered to be, if not the best of the war, among the top two. It was the Panzer Kampf Wagon Mark 5… The Panther. It had a heavy gun from the start and was able to pierce the armor along the frontal arc of the Russian T32. (The tank for which it was designed to destroy). The tank was fast overland for it’s day and had wide tracks for better soft terrain maneuver. The Achilles heel of the PzKW Mark V was it was notoriously prone to breakdowns. Any unit equipped with the new tanks was sure to have at least a few down for maintenance at any time. Reducing the effectiveness of the unit. So despite it’s surface beauty and function it was flawed. That flaw made the tank that fought beautifully, destroyed in the motor pool, not on the battlefield. The machine was too complicated. The internal complexity undermined the outer function.

There are many examples of machines that don’t work because they were too complicated. Law that is too complicated only serves the interests of attorneys. Society is poorly served when the law that we are held to cannot be known to us. Especially when ignorance is no excuse under the law. When laws are so complicated a reasonably intelligent person with due diligence cannot perform functions that law requires of him… Law becomes tyranny. Tax law is only one example.

Regulation that is very complicated is also poorly thought out. Like a machine that is too complicated. Ask any engineer if it is harder to design a simply made machine that will work or a complicated machine to do the same job. They will answer the more simple a machine to do a function is, the harder it is to design, but the longer it will last, the easier it will be to work on, and the less it will break down. The simple machine is the function of a diligent engineer but a complicated machine is the work of a sloppy engineer. Complicated law and regulation is the work of sloppy legislators and is prone to unintended consequences, revision, running afoul of some other regulation or regulatory body and the more it will be despised.

Moreover complicated law increases the need for lawyers. Lawyers that make law that suits their needs, (not the needs of society). Law that sows more chaos than it quells. And law that makes the people fear their government.

But when you think about it isn’t that what complicated law is supposed to do. Make the people fear their government? When you never know when you are acting outside legality you are never safe from the law. If you don’t know the law pertaining to your every day business you don’t ever know if you are breaking the law. To know if you are breaking the law you must know what the law is. To assume that because you are acting morally is to be in utter ignorance of the purpose of law. That is, to protect the property of those in power and plunder the property of those not in power.

In the end, in machinery or law, you only get the product of the person who designs it. If engineering was a popularity contest instead of merit based I bet we would still be cutting with churt and lighting with flint.

Humanity has moved to a place where we have machines that do incredibly complex tasks and break down rarely. We have achieved the balance between function and complexity in our machines. Too bad our legislation hasn’t progressed a bit since Roman times.

Oh well… I hear Ballet With Baal has a new episode!