There are only two basic engines for making law. One is top down: it is law by edict and national commission. The other is bottom up: law built by adjudication in common-law courts. One kind of law occupies thousands of pages in the U.S. Code and the Federal Register. The other evolves in the courts, as a pure product of common law, or under short, general mandates like the Bill of Rights or the Sherman Act. The first century or so of law in the telecosm was given to the top-down managers. Herbert Hoover gave it to them. As a...