In a rather obscure area of the Louvre, Paris’ remarkable collection of art and history, sits the Code of Hammurabi.
Etched into a 10-foot tall stone in 1764 B.C., the sixth Mesopotamian king, Hammurabi, sets forth a series of laws regulating everything from trade to worker’s rights to food preparation standards.
It is considered the first of its kind in human history and began what we might call today public policy along with the bureaucracy and rules to regulate private behavior.
I visited the Louvre while on vacation in June and found myself stunned at just how raw the regulations are but how important they must have been at the time. It’s easy to see their relevance even today.
One section seemed to be the first ever building code.
It states that a home buyer has the right to kill the builder (or his son) should he construct a shoddy mud hut that injures the buyer or the buyer’s family for up to two generations.
More than likely that stopped shoddy mud hut building in its tracks.
A car dealer today might be interested in knowing that under the Code of Hammurabi if you sold a horse or ox to a man and it failed to perform to what the seller claimed it could do, the buyer was entitled to 10 times the cost back as penalty.
Real estate developers today may complain about too many regulations at times. Often bureaucracy can creep in and grip government, inviting that criticism.
But today we enjoy an environment where nearly every structure built in America can be considered reliable up to and including even moderate or mild earthquakes.
As science evolves around clean water standards, carbon impacts, mold, safety, etc., our codes eventually adjust.
Construction sites today are far different places than they were just 30 years ago.
Regulation works if balanced against the need to provide shelter at a reasonable cost to the consumer.
Hammurabi definitely was onto something.
Fortunately, the law has evolved enough over time where lopping off heads if a roof goes bad doesn’t happen anymore.
Social media, a lawyer and small claims court take care of that today.
Tom Hoban is CEO of The Coast Group of Companies. Contact him at 425-339-3638 or tomhoban@coastmgt.com or visit www.coastmgt.com. Twitter: @Tom_P_Hoban.
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