Legal Review (Volume 4)

Author: Su Li, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date:
Features: In 1959, when Professor Coase was still relatively unknown, he wrote the article "The Federal Communications Commission," which later became renowned in academia. After reading it, the editor of the Journal of Law and Economics, De, believed that although the article was wrong, the mistake was interesting, and decided to publish it in its entirety without any changes. One of the conditions was that Coase, who was then teaching at the University of Virginia, had to visit the University of Chicago to explain the article (with travel expenses and accommodation paid by the University of Chicago). One night, at De's home, Coase debated with nine famous scholars from the University of Chicago until midnight. Everyone agreed that Coase was wrong, and even Coase himself began to doubt himself. At this moment, the leader of the Chicago School, the later Nobel laureate in Economics, Friedman, suddenly realized and stood up to take over Coase's argument. Under his "machine-gun assault," all opponents fell, leaving only Coase standing. Later, another opponent of Coase in this debate, the later Nobel laureate in Economics, Stigler, summarized the ideas Coase presented in the article as the famous "Coase Theorem" and expressed them in a highly concise manner—even though Coase may not have fully agreed with this expression.
To tell these two academic anecdotes, it is only to demonstrate that the development of academia requires scholars to engage in equal, sincere criticism and debate, mutual support and appreciation, including an aesthetic or intuitive appreciation of "right" and "wrong," and sometimes even new interpretations and expressions. Additionally, even minor issues can spark academic creativity and perhaps lead to more substantive discussions. And all of these are still relatively lacking in the field of Chinese law. Therefore, at the time of this journal's redesign, we once again express our pursuit: for the prosperity and healthy development of Chinese law, and for the inevitable and long-overdue revival of Chinese culture, we must persistently engage in serious academic criticism, especially by expanding more criticism of Chinese academia. Not all efforts yield results, but none are entirely without outcome. We simply want to reach a place called "the future."