Alan Watson argues that law fails to keep step with social change, even when that change is massive. To illustrate ways in which law is dysfunctional, he draws on the two most innovative Western systems, of Rome and England, to show that harmful rules continue for centuries. To make his case, he uses examples where, in the main, ""the law benefits no recognisable group or class within society (except possibly lawyers who benefit from confusion) and is generally inconvienient or positivly harmful to society as a whole or to large powerful groups within the society"".;The author considers the development of law in global terms and across the centuries. His arguments centre on how societies borrow from other legal systems and the continuity of legal systems.
