Law and Market Economy: Reinterpreting the Values of Law and Economics

by Robin Paul Malloy

Book Overview

This integrated study of law, economics and Peircian semiotics re-examines the relationship between law and market theory, and introduces the idea of law and market economy. Overcoming the traditional dichotomy between efficiency and justice, Malloy focuses on the relationship between creativity and sustainable wealth formation. He shows how creativity and sustainable wealth formation have more to do with an ethic of social responsibility than with...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521787319
• ISBN13: 9780521787314
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Solving modern legal issues must include morals and ethics

Malloy's "Law and Market Economy: Reinterpreting the Values of Law and Economics," brings law and economic legal scholarship further into postmodernism. Rejecting the pragmatic empiricism characteristic of Posner and post-Chicago law and economic theorists, Malloy imports a moral and ethical approach based on the philosophical insights of semiotics. Referencing C.S. Peirce, Malloy sees the market and the law as processes of semiotic signification that function as interpretive frames of reference for determining meaning and value. This interpretive process offers a normative and ethical point of reference to guide market choices. By focusing on the social/market exchange process instead of the predicted outcome of transactions, law and market theory strives for a decentralized and inclusive process of exchange. Malloy's book is a recommended read for all uncomfortable with the static assumptions that currently define law and economic scholarship.