Rule of Law in a Market Economy

Abstract

The lawyer knows what private law is. The economist knows what the market economy is. But what is the private law society? The term is not commonly used in academic circles. Neither jurisprudence nor economics nor sociology use it. Yet one of the great objectives of the French Revolution was to transform the pre-revolutionary society into a private law society. Oddly enough, however, this objective was never positively defined: rather people spoke in terms of the elimination of class rights and class distinctions. They mentioned by name that society which they wanted to abolish but did not comment on the society which was to be established in place of the old society.