The Structure of Liberty is a book by legal theorist Randy Barnett

Randy Barnett

Randy E. Barnett is a lawyer, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches constitutional law and contracts, and a legal theorist in the United States...

 which offers a libertarian

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

 theory of law and politics. Barnett calls his theory the liberal conception of justice, emphasizing the relationship between legal libertarianism

Libertarian theories of law

Libertarian theories of law build upon classical liberal and individualist anarchist doctrines.The defining characteristics of libertarian legal theory are its insistence that the amount of government intervention should be kept to a minimum and the primary functions of law should be enforcement of...

 and classical liberalism

Classical liberalism

Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....

.

Barnett argues that private adjudication and enforcement of law, with market forces eliminating inefficiencies and inequities, is the only legal system that can provide adequate solutions to the problems of interest, power, and knowledge. Barnett uses the term "polycentric constitutional order

Polycentric law

Polycentric law is a legal structure in which providers of legal systems compete or overlap in a given jurisdiction, as opposed to monopolistic statutory law according to which there is a sole provider of law for each jurisdiction. Devolution of this monopoly occurs by the principle of...

" for anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...

 in his argument in favor of this philososphy.

Problems in Human Interaction

Barnett's argument for the liberal conception focuses on three problems of human interaction:

• the problem of knowledge—each individual has unique knowledge about his or her own interests and situation and about how resources can best be used.
• the problem of interest—each individual has self-interests which can be coordinated through the creation of decentralized property rights.
• the problem of power—given that those with the power to impose punishments will be partial to their own interests, the power to punish or to use force to compel restitution is likely to be abused.

Barnett argues that each of these problems must be solved in order for individuals to be able to pursue their happiness under conditions of social peace.

Liberal Conception of Justice

Barnett argues that these the problems of knowledge, interest, and power can best be solved by a form of social organization that respects the liberal conception of justice. The liberal conception has five elements:

1. Property rights, defined as rights to acquire, possess, use, and dispose of scarce physical resources.
2. The right to acquire property through first possession.
3. The right of freedom of contract, which specifies that a rightholder’s consent is both necessary (freedom from contract) and sufficient (freedom to contract) to transfer alienable property rights.
4. The right of restitution, which requires that one who violates the rights of others must compensate the victim.
5. The right of self-defense.

Barnett argues that the liberal conception of justice can best be realized by a polycentric constitutional order, which substitutes private police and dispute resolution mechanisms instead the state ones.

External links

• Official website of The Structure of Liberty
• The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law, review in Google Books