[In Law School] it always stuck me as odd that efficiency arguments could somehow trump legislation passed by elected state legislators. Somehow, an efficiency was insinuated into legal cases. Not efficiency of Judicial resources mind you, but economic efficiency. Blame Gary Becker and the Chicago school of economics for wedging this extra-constitutional economics arguments into jurisprudence via a back door. It always sounded not only false to me, but a treasonous violation of the US Constitution that Judges are sworn to uphold. An economic theory, not part of the constitution, and not passed by any elected body, somehow was superior to democratically passed laws. Some jurists who were proponents of this economic efficiency school of thought, such as Richard Posner, appear to be backing away from those views. (See Posner’s 2009 book, A Failure of Capitalism).
---Ritholtz
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