# Race to the bottom

`kaal:entity:race-to-the-bottom`

**Status.** derived

This node is assembled mechanically from the 3 claims that carry the concept tag `race-to-the-bottom`. It is a roster of what the corpus says under this term. It is **not** an adjudicated definition: no single statement here has been ruled canonical, and no first-appearance call has been made. Read the claims and judge for yourself.

## Every claim under this term

3 claims across 2 works, 2012 to 2021.

**2012**

- [2029983-014](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2029983-014) [mechanism/argued] -- Government enforcement acts as a backstop that makes the case for choice of law freedom stronger: allowing parties to choose their legal regime is more defensible when bad choices, such as moving transactions to regimes with little regulation, do not thwart government enforcement.
  > The ar- gument for allowing choice of law freedom for transacting par- ties is more persuasive when bad choices by contracting par- ties—such as moving securities transactions offshore to regimes with little or no regulation—do not thwart enforcement action by government authorities.
  Wulf A. Kaal, Richard W. Painter, Forum Competition and Choice of Law Competition in Securities Law after Morrison v. National Austral (2012). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2029983
- [2029983-034](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2029983-034) [mechanism/argued] -- The race to the bottom objection to a contract based approach is weaker than assumed because a race to the bottom requires the consent of both buyers and sellers, and the objection assumes that buyers will simply accept whatever securities law sellers choose.
  > Such a race to the bottom, however, requires at least the consent of both parties (buyers as well as sellers); the race to the bottom argument assumes that buyers will simply accept whatever securities laws sellers choose.
  Wulf A. Kaal, Richard W. Painter, Forum Competition and Choice of Law Competition in Securities Law after Morrison v. National Austral (2012). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2029983

**2021**

- [3782220-012](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782220-012) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- Automating insurance away with smart contracts risks a race to the bottom, because foregoing insurance is more efficient in the short term for an individual, yet the resulting rare unprotected tragedies can chill the entire system.
  > we must avoid a race to the bottom. It's more efficient in the short term for an individual to forego any insurance, so some will outcompete others if they are lucky enough to avoid rare tragedies. But the rare unprotected tragedies can chill the entire system.
  Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, The Importance of Transcendental Unifying Values for Decentralization (2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3782220

## Verify

Every claim above resolves to a record carrying a verbatim source quote, the sha256 of the source PDF, and a preformatted citation. Nothing here asks to be taken on trust.

    curl -s https://wulfkaal.github.io/entities/race-to-the-bottom.md | sha256sum

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of this entity node. Its sha256 is the content hash.