Regulate the liquid Society

The Law is not currently seen as “guarantor of freedoms and rights, but rather as a limiter thereof”

Yuval Noah Harari argues that legal systems are based on shared legal myths. And in an interconnected society with the ability to create information and provide feedback like today’s it becomes very difficult to share a legal myth, a common place where the collective imaginary feels comfortable and predisposed to follow its canons. 

The Law is key to a plural and diverse society; the higher the number of people living in the same territory, the more relevant it is that the norm is accepted and internalised by all of them. 

And, yet, in a liquid society like today’s, the Law finds difficulties in establishing a common network, the shared legal myth. The liquid society began building its foundations when globalisation had not yet burst into the economy and it was envisaged as the birth of a large field for cultural exchange and major social movements that should favour diversity and plurality. From individual freedom and the creation of spaces for interconnectivity, the Law is not currently viewed as a guarantor of freedoms and rights, but rather as a limiter thereof. 

As Thomas L. Friedman explains, although humans and societies have gradually adapted to changes throughout history, the speed of technological change is accelerating so much that it has gone beyond the speed at which most people can assimilate all those changes. 

One of those that sacrificed the most in this inability to adapt is, without doubt, the Law: if we now need more or less between ten to fifteen years to understand a new technology and then write new laws and regulations to protect our society, how are we going to be regulate it if technology has arrived and disappeared in five to seven years? The stability that the Law has been able to provide society throughout history to facilitate its coexistence and that unites humans under one protective framework, guarantor of its rights and driver of their duties, is weakening. Law is stability. Law is security and predictability. The ultimate purpose of regulation is the security and certainty that it offers citizens living under its reign. True, it does not always enjoy the health we would like, and its interpretation and application is not as homogeneous or stable as would be desirable. But no one can doubt that economic and social progress needs an ally that only the Law can offer based on legal security: stability and certainty. 

Obsolete regulations

The discussion on how to standardise the new scenarios is crucial because on many occasions we will find that when a regulation passes it will already be obsolete. But the solution will be in the discussion held during the time it was being developed. The wealth of the debate, the depth of input, the need for nuances in the discussion of one or another regulatory solution will be crucial in order to tackle situations that regulations will fail to predict in the end. The legal solution will not be found in the text of a particular article of a recently approved law, but may be found in the regulatory context, in the context of debate encouraged during the development of new regulations. 

Technological innovation has enabled a new collaborative economy to grow. And with it, new businesses that disrupt the market and sometimes result in social crises leave little room for peaceful debate and reflection. The VTC crisis in Spain has, at least momentarily, let up, and today it should be possible to have a legal debate on what needs to be addressed with regard to regulatory law. Anyone can see that the taxi industry is one of the few public services that remain as such and that the opening or liberalisation of any sector has required a new regulation that would allow the arrival of new incoming ones. The legal discussion offers a melting pot of undertones, and we must be brave to treat them with the freedom and depth required: vertical disintegration or universal service are concepts of new legal frameworks, which have served in the last 25 years to legally consolidate the liberalisation of high-impact sectors such as energy, telecommunications or rail. Technological innovations have found the Law to be their great ally in facilitating transitions towards more open and competitive sectors, rather than more guarantees of the rights of citizens. 

Social trends New social trends are not always a result of technological innovation. The job market is finding in the third sector of non-profit organisations an area that fills the ambitions and expectations of many people. Compensation that is solely economic is not pursued; the emotional salary primarily focuses their ambitions. Work (or better, the lack of work) and the need to adapt wealth redistribution over other parameters is one of the main challenges in the future. In the face of third sector growth, it may be time to raise this discussion and, in particular, bring new bills to the table such as the regulation of volunteering, tax and employment bonuses in cases of patronage or participation in pro bono or corporate social responsibility projects. 

In times of uncertainty, stability should emerge from the discussion around regulatory proposals, particularly with input and reflections based on the legal aspect, to provide legal security and the stability needed for economic progress, social equality and institutional stability. Ultimately, to recover the “shared legal myth” that provides solidity and coherence to our legal system.