The Political Economy of Private Law (original) (raw)

'To see the world in a grain of sand': Law and Capitalism revealed through the Corporation

London Review of International Law, 2020

This essay is a contribution to a symposium on Grietje Baars, The Corporation, Law and Capitalism: A Radical Perspective on the Role of Law in Global Political Economy (Brill, 2019). While it is difficult to do justice to the erudition, ambition and scope of the book in a short comment, I articulate what I see as Baar’s three most significant critical interventions in the fields of corporate law, corporate history and law and political economy. I conclude by suggesting a few areas for further inquiry that these critical interventions provoke.

Katharina Pistor’sThe Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality

Social & Legal Studies, 2020

There is something truly insightful about The Code of Capital. This is not only because throughout it the analysis is underpinned by the observation that the vast majority of accounts of the birth and development of capital(ism) have been oblivious-or at best superficially aware-of its legal fabric. Either the law has been reduced to an instrument for pursuing economic ends, as it happens in many instances within the Law & Economics movement, or it has been described as an epiphenomenon overdetermined by economic rationality according to many materialist explanations. Instead, Pistor's account illuminates how law literally makes capital. In order to prove this startling claim, Pistor's first move is to disentangle the concept of capital from those conceptions that represent it either as the dialectic (riddled by contradictions) between factors

On the Sociology of Law in Economic Relations

Social & Legal Studies, 2021

A focus on law’s role in economic activities was central to many of the classical sociologists, and it remains a key theme in the sociology of law, although no longer central. The view of capitalism as a market economy is reflected in formalist perspectives on economics, law and even sociology, and limits these understandings. Economic sociologists and institutional economists have examined the extensive institutionalisation of economic activity due to the shift to corporate capitalism since the last part of the 19th century, and have focused on law’s role in these processes. The neo-liberal phase of capitalism since the 1970s brought a renewed emphasis on property rights and market-based management, but accompanied by an enormous growth of new forms of regulation, often of a hybrid public-private character, leading to a new view of law as reflective or responsive, very different from traditional formalist perspectives. We argue that law’s role in the economy can be better understoo...

Legal Institutionalism: Capitalism and the Constitutive Role of Law

Journal of Comparative Economics, 2017

Social scientists have paid insufficient attention to the role of law in constituting the economic institutions of capitalism. Part of this neglect emanates from inadequate conceptions of the nature of law itself. Spontaneous conceptions of law and property rights that downplay the role of the state are criticized here, because they typically assume relatively small numbers of agents and underplay the complexity and uncertainty in developed capitalist systems. In developed capitalist economies, law is sustained through interaction between private agents, courts and the legislative apparatus. Law is also a key institution for overcoming contracting uncertainties. It is furthermore a part of the power structure of society, and a major means by which power is exercised. This argument is illustrated by considering institutions such as property and the firm. Complex systems of law have played a crucial role in capitalist development and are also vital for developing economies.

Corporate Law, Capitalist Law, and the Potential for Empowerment?

Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime

Baars, G. (2019). The corporation, law and capitalism. A radical perspective on the role of law in the global political economy. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill. Glasbeek, H. (2017). Class privilege. How law shelters shareholders and coddles capitalism (pp. 254). Toronto, Canada: Between the Lines. Glasbeek, H. (2018). Capitalism: A crime story (pp. 111). Toronto, Canada: Between the Lines.

On Public Versus Private Provision of Corporate Law

2006

Abstract Law in modern market societies serves both democratic and economic functions. In its economic function, law is a service, a means of enhancing the value of transactions and organizations. Yet modern market economies continue to rely on the state, rather than the market, to provide this service. This article investigates whether private provision of law may be superior to public provision.