Monday, March 1, 2010

Enforcing Contracts Without a Contract

After giving this post the title that I did, I realized it made it seem like the post would be more interesting than it probably is. So if you expected a fancy expose about how the laws of economics could make contract-like outcomes take place without any actual contracts... you won't find it here.

What I actually wanted to post on is the idea that one of the basic purposes of the government through the Constitution is to enforce contracts. The assumption is that without contract enforcement we would not have functioning markets and society would be worse off than with contract enforcement.

So here is my question: for all the talk of contracts being vital and the basis of society's cohesive glue, has anyone alive today signed the contract known as the U.S. Constitution?