Time Preference and Public Policy

I. The Universal Law of Time Preference

Among the principles which govern human action, none is more ancient, more certain, nor more universal than that which the modern economists of the Austrian school entitle time preference. By this term is signified that abiding disposition of mankind to value a satisfaction in the present more highly than the same satisfaction deferred into the future. He who hath bread today preferreth to eat it rather than to postpone his hunger to tomorrow. This inclination is not born of ignorance or folly, but of nature itself; for our lives are brief, our bodies frail, our opportunities uncertain.

Yet though natural, this preference requireth discipline, lest it degenerate into prodigality. For if the individual, or the commonwealth at large, consume without regard to the morrow, both shall find themselves impoverished, their posterity laden with burdens, their liberty bartered for present indulgence.

Thus time preference is both a reality of man’s condition and a summons to prudence.

II. Law’s Engagement with Human Impatience

What then is the office of law in respect to this principle? Law cannot extinguish time preference, for it is interwoven with our created nature. But law can either restrain its excess or indulge its appetite.

When statutes are framed to promise immediate pleasures without regard to long-term consequence—lavish expenditures without revenue, subsidies without limit, debts without repayment—the legislature doth but sanctify impatience. The statute, though clothed with civil authority, becomes a device of mortgaging the future for the present.

Conversely, when statutes are framed with foresight, requiring present sacrifice for future stability, they discipline time preference, channeling natural desires toward order, thrift, and enduring prosperity. Thus, the craft of legislative law must be a craft of intertemporal stewardship.

III. The Austrian Witness

The Austrian economists, whose wisdom illuminates the modern scene, have given full account of this principle. Ludwig von Mises declared that “time preference is a categorial requisite of human action,” without which no man would labor, nor save, nor plan. He taught that all interest is but the manifestation of man’s preference for present over future goods.

This truth, though economic in its dress, is deeply jurisprudential in its import. For if man by nature inclineth toward present enjoyment, then the lawgiver must frame statutes that guard against prodigality, that restrain reckless debt, that preserve property across generations. The legislator who disregards time preference will unwittingly encourage policies that exhaust the inheritance of posterity for the appetite of the hour.

IV. The Mischiefs of Legislative Impatience

History offers us grievous examples of what ensueth when lawmakers indulge the people’s natural impatience:

• The Roman Bread Dole, instituted to appease the masses, which sapped industry and hastened the decline of civic virtue.

• The Assignats of Revolutionary France, paper money issued in reckless abundance, which promised relief today but brought ruin tomorrow.

• Modern Deficit Spending, whereby governments, under the guise of benevolence, impose debts upon generations unborn, exchanging enduring stability for momentary applause.

In each instance, statutes indulged present desire at the expense of future security. The law, instead of disciplining time preference, became its instrument.

V. The Rule of Prudence in Lawmaking

Here the vocation of the Legislative Counselor is manifest. His task is not to sanctify the impatience of the hour, but to guide the legislator into foresight and prudence. He must ask, when framing a statute:

• What effect shall this enactment produce in twenty years, when the present clamor hath ceased?

• Shall it encourage thrift or prodigality, liberty or dependence?

• Will it secure the inheritance of posterity, or mortgage it upon the altar of present appetite?

The rule of prudence is thus essential to the inner morality of legislative law. For law is not merely the voice of the present people, but the guardian of generations yet unborn.

VI. Legislative Law as Intertemporal Architecture

Legislative Law is not satisfied with drafting rules for the moment. It seeketh to construct statutes as enduring structures, fit to serve not only the present age but those that shall succeed it. It is the science of intertemporal architecture.

The Legislative Counselor, therefore, must be a student of economics as well as of jurisprudence. He must know the nature of time preference, and frame statutes in such wise that natural human impatience is guided into channels of prudence, thrift, and enterprise. Only so can law secure both present order and future prosperity.

VII. Gillory & Associates: Guardians of Future Liberty

At this very juncture, when legislatures are tempted to purchase momentary applause at the cost of lasting debt, the vocation of the legislative jurist is most urgent.

Gillory & Associates, as the world’s first legislative firm, hath undertaken this duty: to craft statutes that respect the reality of time preference, while restraining its excess; to guide legislators in framing laws that preserve liberty for our children, rather than mortgaging it to the passions of the present hour.

Through the Blackwell Institute for Legal Studies and the School of Economic Science, we labor to wed the jurisprudence of law with the science of human action. For legislative law must be grounded not only in constitutional fidelity, but also in economic reality.

VIII. Conclusion: The Lawgiver and the Ages

The legislator is not merely a servant of the present moment; he is steward of the ages. His hand, guided by the Legislative Counselor, writes not for this year alone, but for generations unborn.

Therefore he must remember the great principle of time preference—that men, left to themselves, will ever prefer the present to the future—and must frame statutes that protect society from its own impatience. For the task of legislative law is not to indulge will, but to secure order; not to satisfy clamors of today, but to preserve liberty for tomorrow.

Thus we affirm: To legislate without regard to time is to betray posterity; to legislate with prudence is to guard the very inheritance of a people.

And in this high office, Legislative Law, rightly understood, is the faithful handmaid of justice and the steadfast guardian of liberty.