6.1.5 Law, norms, market forces and architecture all regulate behaviour

Law, norms, market forces and architecture together set the constraints on what we can or cannot do. These are four forms of regulation that determine how individuals, groups, organisations or states are regulated.

It is important to consider these four forms of regulation together because they interact and can compete. One can reinforce or undermine another. However, the regulators of behaviour we focus on in this course are architecture and law. Market forces also come into it implicitly, since The Future of Ideas argues that changes in architecture and laws are driven by commerce. Changes in internet architecture, backed up by changes in law, are the tools for the counter-revolution covered in Section 7.