The spontaneous provision of criminal law

For decades, non-state actors have supplied criminal law in Brazil’s favelas. This paper offers a humanomics account of the private provision of an impure public good. Our analysis reaches three conclusions. First, criminal law can be provided without either public intervention or reliance on the price system. Informal norms may be sufficient, indicating that Adam Smith’s invisible hand logic extends beyond legal markets grounded in private property rights and governed by well-defined prices. Second, a common sense of propriety, a key aspect of the humanomics approach, may not always be context-free. One’s environment may shape the precise objects of propriety. Third, spontaneous legal orders can be robust to agent type.