The Fault of (European) Law in (Political and Social) Economic Crisis

Abstract

It is a commonplace that the discipline of economics has contributed to the current crisis, above all, because economic methodologies are charged with fatally inflating debt risk, such that collapse was the inevitable result. But what might be said of the role of law within this constellation? Much ink has been consumed detailing legal shortcomings within regulatory regimes for the financial services. However, a full accounting has yet to be made of the broader fault which may also be attributed to the premises of modern and increasingly post-national law, especially as they coalesce with a broader abdication of political responsibility for crisis. This contribution begins this accounting, investigating the processes by which law has transformed itself into an economic technology within post-national regimes in its contemporary quest for material legitimacy. Above all, in its idolatry of the factual, law has itself become a power locus—especially within the European Union—that similarly pre-empts the politics within which social and economic stability might be defined and achieved.