Liberal Criticism of Legal Intrumentalism

Abstract

The article presents criticism of instrumental use of law in order to achieve the assumed social goal, such as redistribution of revenue, social justice or “improvement” of market economy. The use of law for such purpose poses a threat to freedom of an individual. Instead of providing a guarantee of freedom, law becomes its greatest enemy. The reason for such problems lies, among others, in wrongly understood sovereignty of people and democratic rule of majority. Hayek points to the fact that there are numerous tensions holding between democracy and liberalism, and that democracy can quite easily turn into dictatorship of the majority without appropriate protection.