Law often codifies autonomous private practice into universal obligation rather than inventing new forms.

Evidence

What the 1935 Act did, in effect, was to take as a pattern an institution which had grown up autonomously in some plants and industries and to impose it by authority of law upon all employeremployee relations within the reach of federal power. This preexisting private practice was not only expressly made a measure of the employer’s obligations in the statute, but it furnished guidance to the Board and to the courts in settling hosts of questions arising in the Act’s administration. Without this pattern of an established custom, the Act would scarcely have been feasible at all. New forms of human relations can seldom be invented out of thin air. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 4316

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the polyad thread on institutions being built from preexisting custom, echoing how private trade customs shape official settlement (earlier chapters) and the law merchant example. — connects to: Private lawyers continuously create novel legal instruments that alter the economy’s structure — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 3298; The lawyer’s role was invention of private-law instruments under unclear doctrine — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 3626; Certain laws provide facilities for realizing wishes instead of imposing duties. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 175 (+2 more)
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Certain laws provide facilities for realizing wishes instead of imposing duties. #expands (0.80) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 175
• Legal systems rest on customary social rules rather than moral foundations #corroborates (0.75) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 56
• Legal right is distinct from the underlying appropriative tie between person and thing. #qualifies (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1365