Ep. 7: Tom W. Bell on Law as the Software of Society, Open Source Legal Kernels and Competitive Governance

Niklas talks with Tom W. Bell. Tom is a professor of law at Chapman University, and the author of books such as “Your Next Government - From Nation States to Stateless Nations” and “Intellectual Privilege: Copyright, Common Law, and the Common Good”.

For anyone interested in startup cities, network states and competitive governance, Tom is someone you must know. Tom is the engineer of the legal architecture of the startup city of Prospera in Honduras and the Catawba Digital Zone.

He's like the Satoshi Nakamoto of Startup Cities.

The guiding premise of this episode is that law can be seen as a technology, like software. It’s a key part of the software that society runs on.

Tom lays out the pillars of his legal philosophy. The law is not a way to engineer human affairs in some direction. Human behavior is too complicated. Instead, the law should be seen more like a band-aid that is there when things go wrong.

Tom explains the difference between civil law and common law. Civil is what most people think of as law, whereas common law is lesser known. However, Tom views common law as a better way to create laws that adapt to a changing environment.

Based on his insights into common law, Tom developed Ulex an open source legal "kernel" inspired by the Linux philosophy. It is available on GitHub for use by new jurisdictions, and it is the basis for the legal code in Prospera and Catawba.

Equipped with this lens, Niklas and Tom are thinking of the enormous possibilities that we can unleash by using better rules, found through experimentation.

We invite you to join us to build the industries of the future together on Roatan, Honduras, a beautiful Caribbean island.

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