The Task of Law is Social Engineering : 2

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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.