Legislative change follows shifts in public opinion by decades, so opinion must come first

Evidence

The professor was an optimist and a tireless educator who believed that legislative and judicial action invariably reflect the public opinion of twenty to thirty years earlier. It was an insight that he and Hayek—the two have been described as “soul mates and adversaries”—had crafted and transformed into systematic strategies and tactics. As Hayek told Robert Bork in a 1978 interview, “I’m operating on public opinion. I don’t even believe that before public opinion has changed, a change in the law will do any good… the primary thing is to change opinion.…” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1646

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s scholarly interests in platform economy and how institutions reshape norms before law — parallels Milgrom’s institutions paper on how institutions form before legal enforcement. — connects to: Legislation re-educates masses after a minority gains enough attitudinal change; Legal prohibition causes attitudinal change rather than merely reflecting it — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 10919; Attitude changes from majority pressure are quick but temporary and shallow (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Explains the Hayek/Friedman strategy of changing public opinion as the prerequisite for legal change — the mechanism behind neoliberal ascendancy.

Broader Connections

• Legal prohibition causes attitudinal change rather than merely reflecting it #contradicts (0.90) — , The Rod and the Child, 10919
• Legislation re-educates masses after a minority gains enough attitudinal change #contradicts (0.85)
• Attitude changes from majority pressure are quick but temporary and shallow #qualifies (0.75)
• Anti-democratic legislators were within one shift of becoming a majority #qualifies (0.75)