Toward a Praxeogenic Jurisprudence: Merging Law and Economics for Governance

Dr. Byron Gillory
7 days ago
6 min read

I. Introduction: The Fragmentation of Modern Knowledge

The modern age, though it boasts of progress, hath suffered a grave disunity of learning. Law is taught in one faculty, economics in another, politics in a third; each jealously guards its own domain, seldom conversing with the others. The lawyer, trained to argue precedent, knoweth little of economic order; the economist, versed in markets, knoweth little of jurisprudence; the statesman, schooled in power, knoweth little of either.

This fragmentation hath borne bitter fruit. Laws are drafted with no regard for their economic consequence; policies are proposed with no understanding of their constitutional limits; judges pronounce upon matters of commerce and property without grasping the market processes they imperil.

Yet law and economics are not enemies, nor strangers, but natural allies. Law provides the framework of order within which economic action occurs; economics explains the processes by which human action, under law, generates prosperity or ruin. To sever the two is folly; to unite them is wisdom.

It is therefore the vocation of our age to pursue a new synthesis: a Praxeogenic Jurisprudence—a discipline which merges the insights of law and economics, and which frames governance not by will, but by reasoned order grounded in the reality of human action.

II. Blackstone’s Jurisprudence: Law as Reason

Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, declared law to be “a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state.” Yet he did not reduce law to mere will; he saw it as reason, applied to society, in harmony with the higher law of nature. For him, statutes were not arbitrary decrees, but enactments that must accord with principle and justice.

Blackstone, though writing before the age of modern economics, perceived that law must harmonize with human behavior as it truly is, not as rulers imagine it to be. His insistence upon clarity, generality, and certainty in statutes laid the groundwork for an order in which citizens could plan their affairs with confidence.

If Blackstone provided the jurisprudential foundation, the economists of the Austrian school later provided the economic complement.

III. Austrian Economics: Human Action as First Principle

Ludwig von Mises, in his magnum opus Human Action, taught that economics is not a collection of statistics, but the science of purposeful human behavior. Men act to remove felt uneasiness, to pursue ends by chosen means. From this axiom flow the laws of supply and demand, of time preference, of capital formation, and of the market process itself.

Friedrich Hayek expanded this vision, showing how knowledge in society is dispersed, and how the price system serves as a communication network enabling individuals to coordinate without central command. Murray Rothbard, following in their train, emphasized the inseparability of economics and moral philosophy, showing that economic truths rest upon the broader foundation of natural law.

Together these thinkers revealed that prosperity and liberty emerge not from compulsion, but from voluntary exchange within a framework of secure rights.

IV. The Common Ground of Law and Economics

When we place Blackstone beside Mises, or Hayek beside Coke, we perceive a common thread: law and economics are both sciences of order.

Law is the science of civil order: it prescribes rules that channel behavior into predictable patterns.
Economics is the science of market order: it explains how countless actions, guided by prices and institutions, yield social cooperation.

Both disciplines assume the reality of human action. Both abhor confusion and uncertainty. Both insist that rules must be general, clear, and stable, if society is to flourish.

Thus, far from being separate, law and economics are complementary halves of a single inquiry: how human action is to be governed in a free and prosperous society.

V. The Failure of Separation

The neglect of this unity hath produced grave mischiefs.

Legislative Overreach — Statutes are often drafted without regard to economic consequence. Minimum wage laws, rent controls, or agricultural quotas ignore the signals of supply and demand, producing unemployment, shortages, or waste.
Judicial Blindness — Courts, construing statutes, sometimes disregard their economic impact, upholding vague regulations that stifle enterprise or impose arbitrary costs upon industry.
Economic Reductionism — Economists, neglecting jurisprudence, propose policies that trample constitutional limits, as though prosperity could be engineered by decree, regardless of law’s form.

Thus, the divorce of law and economics is not harmless; it is destructive. It leads to legislative failure, judicial usurpation, and economic distortion.

VI. Toward a Praxeogenic Jurisprudence

What then is meant by Praxeogenic Jurisprudence?

The term is derived from praxeology, the science of human action, and jurisprudence, the science of law. To merge them is to create a discipline that:

Recognizes law as the framework of human action, not as the instrument of arbitrary will.
Insists that statutes be drafted with regard to their economic consequences, particularly how they affect incentives, prices, and capital formation.
Understands governance as the art of harmonizing law and economics, preserving liberty while enabling prosperity.

In a Praxeogenic Jurisprudence, law is not isolated from markets, nor markets from law. Rather, each is seen as interdependent, forming a single order of society.

VII. Principles of Praxeogenic Jurisprudence

This new discipline may be summarized in several guiding principles:

Human Action as Foundation — Both law and economics begin with the reality of human choice. Statutes must respect this reality, not attempt to abolish it.
Clarity and Predictability — Just as markets require stable expectations, so statutes must be clear and durable, allowing men to plan their affairs across time.
General Rules, Not Particular Privileges — Law must set general rules applicable to all, not privileges for the few. Economic order collapses when law serves faction.
Intertemporal Responsibility — Law must account for time preference, restraining the prodigality of present generations that burdens the future with debt and malinvestment.
Constitutional Fidelity — Governance must respect higher law, for statutes that contradict justice, however popular, destroy both liberty and prosperity.

VIII. The Role of Legislative Law

It is within the vocation of Legislative Law that Praxeogenic Jurisprudence finds its natural home. For the Legislative Counselor is charged not merely with drafting words, but with crafting statutes that endure, that harmonize with constitutional limits, and that anticipate economic effects.

Such a counselor must therefore be both jurist and economist, a guardian of clarity and a steward of markets. He must know that every ambiguous phrase is a potential malinvestment of capital, every contradictory clause an incentive to litigation rather than enterprise. His art is not merely political, but scientific: the science of framing statutes that serve law and economics alike.

IX. Historical Illustrations

Consider the difference between statutes framed in harmony with economics and those framed against it.

The English Statute of Frauds (1677), requiring certain contracts to be in writing, promoted clarity and stability in commerce, enabling capital formation. Here law and economics worked in harmony.
By contrast, Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices (A.D. 301), ignoring the signals of supply and demand, produced scarcity and black markets. Here law, divorced from economics, produced ruin.
In the modern age, statutes that secure property rights and enforce contracts—such as uniform commercial codes—have undergirded prosperity; while vague regulatory statutes, delegating power without limit, have produced uncertainty and malinvestment.

The lesson is plain: statutes that ignore economic law are legislative failures; statutes that respect it become pillars of prosperity.

X. Gillory & Associates and the Blackwell Vision

At Gillory & Associates, we have taken upon ourselves the noble task of pioneering this synthesis. We declare that law cannot be understood apart from economics, nor economics apart from law. Through the Blackwell Institute for Legal Studies and the Blackwell School of Economic Science, we labor to train a new generation of Legislative Counselors who embody this union.

Our mission is to professionalize the craft of legislative authorship, to restore clarity to statutes, and to align them with the natural laws of economics. We seek to found a profession of Praxeogenic Jurists, whose work shall prevent the failures of the past and secure liberty for the future.

XI. The Promise of Praxeogenic Jurisprudence

What shall be the fruit of this endeavor?

For Law — a restoration of clarity, generality, and constitutional fidelity.
For Economics — a legal order that respects prices, property, and contracts, allowing capital to be formed and markets to flourish.
For Governance — a new professionalism, whereby statutes are crafted not as political expedients, but as instruments of enduring justice and prosperity.

Thus Praxeogenic Jurisprudence is not a mere academic curiosity. It is a practical necessity, the very key to restoring order to a society weary of legislative confusion and economic instability.