For example, the Uniform Commercial Code sets legal standards for such things as trade credit, the rights of parties in shipping and storage, and the treatment of collateral in loans. The UCC codified and standardized business practices that had been evolving since the medieval Law Merchant grew up in the spaces around the laws of the Church and kings. Its standards are clear and widely complied with, and there is the sense that violators - writers of bad checks, overeager repo men - are genuine wrongdoers.

On the other hand, legislatures often try to create norms where none exist by taking sides in a moral debate. The former constitutional amendment criminalizing alcohol sale, possession and use remains the classic example. Others include laws addressing abortion, gay rights, school prayer and other social issues where there is no emergent consensus, no actual norm.

Emerging technology creates opportunities for such legislative gun-jumping. The prohibition on copying copyrighted works has criminalized a substantial minority of citizens who download music and movies. Legislative attempts to censor the internet, in the name of child protection in America or regime protection in China, are additional examples.

The challenge of a technological frontier is that it is, almost by definition, a place whose own customs and rules have yet to develop. The evolutionary production of norms in response to technological change, and their codification into law, is the engine of cultural development and growth. Every revolutionary technology produces social change in this way- unless crushed by pre-emptive action by the state.

John Carter McKnight SpaceDaily Jul 11, 2003