Collective Law-Breaking: A Threat to Civil Liberty

The idea of this book is to call attention to the phenomenon of collective law-breaking, to its implications and dangers. We will be looking at law-breaking as committed by many people in the community all at the same time. This book evaluates the phenomenon, its motives, and its effects from different perspectives, summarizes these observations, and analyzes their relative contexts. I am delighted that I have been able to call upon so many thinkers from different disciplines to exchange ideas on this topic, to make connections between their ideas, and to form the individual elements into one overall picture. This holistic way of looking at issues is a new approach, and the only right method for dealing with today’s problems. Only in this way can we face up to the complexity of our world. 

Collective law-breaking is highly topical and touches our society at its very core. It encroaches upon many areas of law and life, without being consciously noticed by society. We can see that the sense of right and wrong within our society is changing. It is in the process of disintegrating. The individual’s readiness to observe the rules is diminishing. 

Our theme looks at law-breaking as social practice, as a cultural construct, and as a legally sanctionable activity. We will look at the question of whether collective law-breaking determines social change, or whether it is itself the result of changes going on in society.