₦airaland Forum

I have often pondered over this and most times, I'll just resolve that, it's just one of life paradoxes.

If every society has laws and punishment for offenders, why not also have a reward system where a person is rewarded if after a period of years, he/she doesn't break any law - maybe after 10years.

In the novel 'Gulliver's travel' by Jonathan Swift, in the society called Lilliput, if an accused person is found innocent, the accuser is executed, and the innocent party is compensated generously for the inconvenience and hardship of the accusation. And, anyone who can prove they have adhered strictly to the laws of the country for 73 months (just over 6 years) receives a special title—"snilpall" (meaning "legal"—and a financial reward from the emperor.

He goes on to contrasts the English legal system with the Lilliputians. Gulliver points out that the Lilliputians find the English legal system primitive because it only punishes bad behavior but fails to reward good behavior.

Who else makes sense of this narrative?