Introduction
The modern order rests on a great dissonance: a rift between statistical progress and a widespread sense of injustice. The classic model of legitimizing power has been exhausted, and real decisions regarding the distribution of goods are made in technocratic centers, beyond democratic control. This article analyzes how law—as a tool for engineering mental categories—can become the foundation of a new, more just order.
The Great Dissonance: The Rift Between Law and Economics
Célestin Monga defines the great dissonance as a systemic gap between the objective truth of indicators (poverty, literacy) and claims to fairness in the political sphere. When citizens perceive the system as a "rigged casino," the moral raison d'être of institutions vanishes, giving way to anger and a loss of trust.
Hoff and Walsh: Three Fundamental Functions of Law
Law performs prescriptive (incentives) and expressive (moral signals) functions, but the schematizing function is crucial. It penetrates cognitive structures, reconfiguring cultural categories—for example, by mandating the experience of a woman as a leader, which permanently alters social prototypes of power and success.
Moral Legitimacy Validates Technocratic Choices
Decisions by unelected bodies, such as central banks, gain legitimacy only when they meet the condition of voice and responsiveness. Those affected by allocation outcomes must have a real opportunity to articulate their rights, and the decision-making process must be authentically sensitive to them.
A Sense of Justice Defines Acceptable Risk
Gaël Giraud argues that it is not psychology that dictates justice, but a fundamental sense of fairness that determines what risks we are willing to impose on ourselves and others. Economic parameters, such as interest rates, are essentially ethical judgments frozen in numbers within the dispute between the logic of Rawls and Harsanyi.
Law as an Instrument of Monetary Policy Implementation
Yair Listokin reminds us that the free flow of capital is a legal construct, not a law of nature. He proposes treating law as a macroeconomic tool—for instance, through legally mandated deflation (a one-time reset of wages and prices), which serves as a functional, though politically difficult, equivalent of devaluation.
The Digital Economy Paralyzes Classic Antitrust
In the world of digital platforms, traditional antitrust measures fail. Kaushik Basu suggests that instead of fighting the efficiency of giants, we should introduce a universal dividend from their profits. Law should define a monopoly as a common good, from which the entire society draws rent.
China: Arbitrary Regulation as a Source of Corruption
In China, corruption stems from the arbitrariness of officials controlling scarce resources. Entrepreneurs invest in guanxi (influence networks) because it is the only way to bypass bureaucratic barriers. Fighting corruption without deregulation only leads to stifling growth mechanisms.
The Rural Credit Market: The Limits of Legal Effectiveness
In India, attempts to regulate rural credit showed that law is powerless when it ignores social risk. Informal lenders dominate because they accept collateral (reputation, labor) that banks do not recognize, filling a gap in the institutional architecture.
Dignity-Based Pawnshops: Stabilizers of the Financial System
Pawnshops serve as lenders of last resort, offering liquidity without stigmatizing the debtor. Unlike banks, they do not destroy reputational capital, making them institutions that bridge credit with an experience of dignity for those excluded from the formal system.
The Exchange Configuration Model: Mechanism and Features
Every exchange is a relationship between an object, actors, and the environment. The justice of a system depends on the sum of transaction and production costs. If formal law offers a vacuum, actors instinctively flee to informal, often oppressive arrangements, seeking the path of least resistance.
Israel vs. France: Divergent Legitimation of Allocation
Israel bases legitimacy on innovation efficiency and risk, while France prioritizes statist stability and procedures. These are two different worlds of values: one rewards the freedom to experiment, the other the protection of formal equality and social rights.
Poland After 2015: Regression of Rule of Law Standards
Poland is experiencing a deep crisis of the rule of law, where mechanisms of checks and balances have been replaced by the logic of party dominance. The permanent "war over the courts" destroys trust in the idea of impartial law, turning institutions into tools of political contestation.
The War in Ukraine: Poland in a New Geopolitical Arrangement
Russia's aggression has turned Poland into a key logistics hub (the Jasionka hub). In the face of an existential threat, Polish institutions demonstrate extraordinary coordination efficiency, implementing the logic of safeguarding the most vulnerable and becoming a pillar of security for NATO's eastern flank.
The Polish Institutional System: A Lack of Axiological Coherence
Poland suffers from institutional schizophrenia: it is an efficient geopolitical actor, but internally it is torn by conflicts that destroy axiological coherence. The lack of debate on the ethical foundations of monetary or fiscal policy means the state only reacts to symptoms of social anger.
Global Business: Strategic Development Trends
Modern business must prioritize algorithmic transparency and profit-sharing (employee stock ownership). Companies are no longer judged solely through the lens of profit—they are becoming co-creators of cognitive schemas, defining contemporary concepts of success and justice.
Summary
Is an order that reduces infant mortality but does so while remaining deaf to the voices of parents fully legitimate? True justice requires redefining law as a tool for the ethically conscious distribution of resources. We must transform our institutions so that they not only manage indicators but also courageously listen to the collective voice of conscience, building a system where everyone has the right to a voice and a share in the fruits of progress.
📄 Full analysis available in PDF