general rules of law

This is liberalism's concession to democracy: 'Equality of the general rules of law and conduct.is the only kind of quality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty'.

(2) Provided that the legal estate or interest in any land.which belongs to the partnership shall devolve according to the nature and tenure thereof, and the general rules of law thereto applicable, but in trust, so far as necessary, for the persons beneficially interested in the land under this section.

Contradicting most of these arguments, classical liberals such as Friedrich Hayek have maintained that because individuals are diverse and different, state intervention to redistribute income is inevitably arbitrary and incompatible with the concept of general rules of law, and that "what is called 'social' or distributive' justice is indeed meaningless within a spontaneous order".