Read Part 1
The Task of Law is Social Engineering -
Pound’s main thesis is that the task of law is ‘social engineering’, He says -
“For the purpose of understanding the law of today, I am content with a picture
of satisfying as much of the whole body of human wants as we may with the least
sacrifice. I am content to think of law as a social institution to satisfy
social wants, the claims and demands involved in the existence of civilized
society - by giving effect to as much as we may with least sacrifice, so far as
such wants may be satisfied or such claims given effect to by an ordering of
human conduct through politically organized Society.
By ‘social engineering’ Pound means a balance
between the competing interests in society. He entrusts the jurist with a
commission. He lays down a method which a jurist should follow for ‘social
engineering’. He should ‘study the actual social effects of legal institution
and legal doctrines, study the means of making legal rules effective,
sociological study in preparation of law-making, study of judicial method, a
sociological legal history and the importance of reasonable and just solutions
of individual cases.’ He himself enumerates the various interests which are to
be protected by the law. He classifies them under three heads - Private
interests, Public interest and Social interests. Pound linked the task of the
lawyer to engineering, an analogy which he used repeatedly. The aim of social
engineering is to build as efficient a structure of society as possible, which
requires the satisfaction of the maximum of wants with the minimum of friction
and waste. It involves the balancing of competing interests.
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