To full bibliography

Rubric

The role of law in economic development has been discussed from the time of the classical social scientists and political economists of the late eighteenth century until the present day. This course examines how far English law was functional, instrumental, or perhaps dysfunctional in promoting economic growth, rationalization of institutions, and fair distributions in modern Britain.

Course sessions will cover the following topics:

Course objectives

Historical analysis of the role of law in economic modernization typically draws on the case of Britain as the 'first industrial nation'. Weber noted that the rationalizing economy of industrializing Britain used a 'non-rational' legal system — the uncodified common law. His explanatory thesis was that the pre-eminence of the common law was guaranteed by the close association of lawyers with the English economic and social elite. The law was thus pro-business, anti-labour, and therefore functional for capitalist development, despite its irrational conceptual forms and pre-modern professional consciousness. This course will examine the manifold debates over these Weberian hypotheses, drawing on legal, economic and historical literatures. American and European analogies will be drawn upon, as well as sociological, anthropological and especially economic theories of law. The course draws upon Dr. Getzler's research on this field, which focuses on property rights and trusts within the common law and Romanist systems.

Course requirements

In 2007 there will be weekly two-hour seminars in Hilary Term at St. Hugh's College, Room 1/1, 82 Woodstock Road, at a time convenient for all participants. There will be some lecturing especially on the more technical legal topics. Students with no legal background will be guided to help them achieve some facility with primary legal materials. Essay topics will be prescribed for each seminar. Short essays on a majority of topics will be required from each student, and a ten minute presentation will be given in seminar, typically every two or three weeks for each student. There will be access to materials at the Bodleian Law Library; most college law libraries will stock many materials also.

Key texts

• Atiyah, P. S., The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract (1979)
• Baker, J.H., An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed., 2002)
• Coase, R.H. , 'The Problem of Social Cost' (1960) 3 Journal of Law and Economics 1
• Cornish, W.R. and Clark, G.de N., Law and Society in England 1750–1950 (1989)
• Harris, R., Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720–1844 (2000)
• Horwitz, M.J., The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860 (1977); The Transformation of American Law, 1870–1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy (1992)
• Offer, A., Property and Politics, 1870-1914 : Landownership, Law, Ideology, and Urban Development in England (1981)
• Simpson, A.W.B., A History of the Land Law (2nd ed., Oxford, 1986)
• Sugarman, D. and Rubin, G.R. eds., Law, Economy and Society, 1750–1914: Essays in the History of English Law (1984)
• Sugarman, D., ed., Law in History (International library of essays in law and legal theory, 1996)
  

top of page

back to advanced papers