Never Vote for a Lawyer: An Economic Argument Based on the Historical Evolution of Society

Throughout history, the prosperity of nations has depended not just on resources or geography, but critically on the adaptive quality of their institutions. In the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal and Spain stand as cautionary examples: despite commanding vast early empires, both countries have struggled to sustain economic dynamism comparable to that of Northern Europe. A significant part of this underperformance can be traced to the inefficiency and rigidity of their legal and court systems—a legacy that continues to exert a drag on growth and innovation well into the present day.

The court systems in Portugal and Spain are infamous for delays, bureaucratic tangles, and a tendency toward procedural deadlock. Legal disputes frequently stretch for years, draining resources and discouraging investment from both domestic and international sources. This is more than a mere technical flaw; it reflects a deeper institutional inertia, with the legal profession—lawyers, judges, and an expansive judicial bureaucracy—acting as a self-perpetuating gatekeeper. The system’s natural tendency is to preserve existing procedures rather than to encourage innovation, efficiency, or economic vitality.

By contrast, those societies that have prospered—judged by indicators such as GDP per capita—are often those in which institutional frameworks are both robust and flexible. The United States, United Kingdom, and many Northern European nations have a track record of reforming their legal and economic systems to reduce friction, nurture entrepreneurship, and resolve disputes efficiently. Importantly, these reforms have not only accelerated growth but fostered a wider culture in which creative problem-solving and adaptive thinking are valued above procedural mastery for its own sake. China provides a very different, modern illustration: in recent decades, its accelerated economic progress has been driven in part by a willingness to pursue institutional experimentation and rapid, sometimes breakneck, engineering of its development model^[4].

Against this backdrop, an economic argument emerges against electing lawyers to positions of political leadership. While legal expertise is essential to a functioning society, an overrepresentation of lawyers in government tends to entrench an orientation toward defending and extending existing structures—even when those very structures constitute economic bottlenecks. Such a bias risks prioritizing the maintenance of the status quo over the pursuit of bold reforms or creative adaptation. In societies where the legal system is, itself, a source of stagnation, this risk is deeply problematic.

The evolution of prosperous societies can thus be seen through the lens of institutional Darwinism: like species, institutions must adapt or risk extinction. History teaches that those states and economies quickest to foster innovation, efficiency, and adaptability outpace those encumbered by legalistic inertia. For voters, this implies the need to value diversity of background and perspective in political leadership—and to be wary of entrusting the future solely to those whose careers have been built on preserving the legal order, rather than continually improving it.