Why is this useful analytically?
Analytically this characterization is useful because historically it was relatively easy to determine the components of the vector for any given generation of lawyers, but rather difficult to determine the characteristics of the matrix. Law was learned was through observation and copying. Legal education consisted of copying verbatim what happened in court during the day into Year Books and then eating dinners in the inns at night in order to learn how to think and act like a lawyer. This sort of education would give a mastery over every little piece of what the law did. What it did not do was explain how things change or the broader sociopolitical implications on and by the law. The class of people who had a better understanding of the bigger picture were the Henry II's and Thomas Cromwell's of the realm. Cromwell in particular was special because he rose above being a simple lawyer into being a major adviser to King Henry VIII. As despots these individuals were concerned with projecting power into the future which required a understanding of how things change over time. Even then they did not have a perfect understanding of how everything changed because the nature of the transition matrix is that it is really big. They were not Hari Seldon. 21st and 22nd century despotism will not have this limitation.
This limitation on medieval despotism was and is important. It lead directly to the end of feudalism. When Quia Emptores was passed, nobody contemplated that in the long run this statute plus escheat would collapse the feudal hierarchy. But this was precisely what it did. The goal of power is to perpetuate itself, and no power system would wittingly adopt a change that reduces its own power. If despotism has the ability to perceive all possible hacks, then the system becomes unhackable and whatever the state of the society is will become rigid. Ostensibly one could determine the inverse of the transformation matrix and then just apply the necessary operations to get there. But maybe this is the other course. |