Now consider the making of general legal norms. In England there is a Value Added Tax of 20 per cent. That is the case because the U.K. Parliament enacted (in language that you may well consider rather peremptory) that ‘VAT shall be charged at the rate of 20 per cent’ (Value Added Tax Act 1994 s 2(1), as amended by the Finance (No 2) Act 2010, s 3(1)), and English law treats Parliament as having law-making authority. We can imagine a system in which the contribution of that legislative act to th