KOL129 | Speech to Montessori Students: “The Story of Law: What Is Law, and Where Does it Come From?
Channel: N. Stephan Kinsella
Date: 30/01/2018

Original podcast and additional notes available at http://www.stephankinsella.com/kinsella-on-liberty-podcast

This is a lesson/lecture I presented to a group of “Upper Elementary” Montessori students today at my son’s school, The Post Oak School (Upper El includes 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students, and there were also a few third graders visiting from lower el, who are moving up next year). The students (25 or 30 or so) sat in a group at my feet, and were polite and interested the whole time. They asked many very intelligent and fun questions. I tried not to get too complicated, but did speak in fairly frank and sophisticated terms, tried not to talk down to them or dumb the talk down too much, and almost all of them hung in there till the end. The original plan was to speak for 40 or so minutes then take questions for another 15 or so, but we ended up going about an hour and 7 minutes, and then during lunch I had throng of students throwing more questions at me for another half hour. What amazing students; what an amazing school and educational approach. (This is one reason I love the Montessori approach; see my Montessori, Peace, and Libertarianism.) I included here only the main talk and Q&A, not the lunch banter. (An article prepared by 6th graders in the class, describing the lecture, appears in the first couple of pages of this issue of the class newsletter.)

I think this talk is suitable for kids from ages 9 to 16 or so.

The notes I used and handed out are reproduced below, with a few links added.

For more background on these topics, see the links below, as well as my short article Legislation and Law in a Free Society, adapted from my 1995 JLS article Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society, which contains detailed references; and my more detailed speech The (State’s) Corruption of (Private) Law, from the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society.

Update: Some people have asked me for further recommended readings, in legal history, etc. Unfortunately my library is packed away in boxes now for a renovation so I cannot peruse my legal theory/history titles, but from memory and some other notes I have, here are some suggested readings related to the talk. Some of my own personal favorites first:

Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law
Watson, Alan, The Importance of “Nutshells”
Herman, Shael, The Louisiana Civil Code: A European Legacy for the United States
Giovanni Sartori, Liberty and Law
Alan Watson, Roman Law and Comparative Law
The Story of Law, by John M. Zane (I haven’t finished it yet but liked what read so far) (also online)
Arthur Hogue, The Origins of the Common Law
See also my post Book Recommendations: Private, International, and Common Law; Legal Theory, and also: The Greatest Libertarian Books and  Other Top Ten Lists of Libertarian Books.
For some others:

A History of American Law, 2d. ed., 1985, Lawrence M. Friedman
Trakman, Leon E., The Law Merchant: The Evolution of Commercial Law
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law
Buckland, W.W. & Arnold D. McNair, Roman Law and Common Law: A Comparison in Outline
The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study, by Karl N. Llewellyn
Jhering, Dr. Rudolph von, The Struggle for Law
Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. “The latter is one of the greatest books (not just of law, but of any subject) I’ve ever read; and the former is full of interesting argument and facts. Berman also has a sequel, published a few years ago, that carries the story through the Protestant Reformation, but I haven’t read it yet. I venture to recommend it, sight unseen, on the strength of my admiration of its predecessor.” (Thanks to Robert Higgs.)
Alan Watson, The Making of the Civil Law
Rosalyn Higgins: Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It
Giovanni Sartori, Democratic Theory
Merryman, John Henry, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America, 2d. ed. 1985 (book reviews by: Mary Ann Glendon, Robert O. Homes, Jr., Homer, A. M. Honore, and A.T. von Mehren; also Robert A. Pascal (diff book))
See also the sources listed in Tom W. Bell’s discussion of “polycentric law”
Update 2:

I have no doubt I mangled a few historical and other details in my somewhat extemporaneous exposition. For example, here is one constructive criticism I received:

I am a satisfied subscriber to your KOL podcast, which I enjoy very much.  I just listened to episode 129 wherein you address a group of elementary-school students.  It really made me realize how intellectually void was the time I served in my local government school.

Anyway, around the 46 minute mark you got your definitions of robbery and burglary reversed.  Hopefully the kids weren’t taking notes.

Yep. He’s right. I got robbery and burglary backwards. Mea culpa!