The Limits of Freedom of Contract

New
Paperback
1997
$59.61

Our legal system is committed to the idea that private markets and the law of contracts that supports them are the primary institutions for allocating goods and services in a modern economy. Yet the market paradigm, this book argues, leaves substantial room for challenge. For example, should people be permitted to buy and sell blood, bodily organs, surrogate babies, or sexual favors? Is it fair to allow people with limited knowledge about a transaction and its consequences to enter into it without guidance from experts?

Synopsis

Our legal system is committed to the idea that private markets and the law of contracts that supports them are the primary institutions for allocating goods and services in a modern economy. Yet the market paradigm, this book argues, leaves substantial room for challenge. For example, should people be permitted to buy and sell blood, bodily organs, surrogate babies, or sexual favors? Is it fair to allow people with limited knowledge about a transaction and its consequences to enter into it without guidance from experts?

$59.61

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20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 06 Mar 1997
ISBN 10: 0674534301
ISBN 13: 9780674534308
Book Overview: Trebilcock is unique among the adherents of the economic paradigm for the way he does justice to the complexities of views about the appropriate scope of the market domain. Even while defending the virtues of the market he takes seriously the arguments of feminists and communitarians who emphasize its vices. Above all, he takes seriously the overarching humanitarian agenda of ending deprivation and oppression. -- Margaret Jane Radin, Stanford Law School

Media Reviews

This illuminating book explores under what conditions legal enforcement of contracts will promote both individual autonomy and social welfare...Trebilcock provides here the most nuanced and sustained analysis of what it means for private agreements to be sufficiently voluntary and informed to further either Paretian or Kaldor-Hicks notions of social welfare...Readers will respect the compassion and care Trebilcock brings to this subject matter...This is law and economics with a human face. -- Ian Ayres Journal of Economic Literature

Author Bio

Michael J. Trebilcock is Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Economics Program at the University of Toronto.