Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“One of the things that has struck me, looking at a wide variety of legal systems past and present, is the important role of feud as a form of law enforcement. The logic of feud law is simple: If you wrong me I threaten to hurt you unless you compensate me for the wrong. In order for it to work, it requires some mechanism that makes my threat of hurting you more believable when you actually have wronged me than when you have not, in order to prevent the enforcement mechanism from being used for extortion. To put it differently, you need some mechanism such that right makes might. … Feud systems are not only a matter of historical interest; they still exist, de facto if not de jure. One current example is patent litigation among modern companies such as Apple and Samsung, two of the largest producers of cell phones.” (04/16/26)