The Unfree Market and the Law: On the Immorality of Making Capitalism Unbridled Again

Description

This book examines how legal systems and mechanisms give shape to the capitalist economic system. In this regard, it focuses on the most important of these systems, such as monetary and financial law, company law, fiscality, contract and labour law. Further, the book provides a thorough analysis of the underlying ethical values of said legal systems and mechanisms. It also gives an overview of several potentially devastating related effects, such as poverty, the increasing polarisation between rich and poor, climate change, and mounting debts at both the public and private level. The book concludes by presenting proposals for change. Given its critical analysis of legal systems and mechanisms in connection with the value choices dictated by economic ideologies, the book will be of particular interest to legal and economic academics, researchers and students, but also to policymakers, and, more generally, to anyone with a genuine concern for how the socio-economic order will evolve. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiv General Background (Koen Byttebier)....Pages 1-7 On Some Obvious Capitalist Mechanisms and How They Evolved Under the Doctrines of Economic Liberalism and Economic Neo-liberalism (Koen Byttebier)....Pages 9-47 On Certain Less Obvious (Neo-)liberal Principles Shaping Capitalism (Koen Byttebier)....Pages 49-132 Some Further Themes on the Outlook of the Capitalist World (Koen Byttebier)....Pages 133-212 Looking for Inspiration to Escape the Chains of the Free Market (Koen Byttebier)....Pages 213-278 Final Conclusions (Koen Byttebier)....Pages 279-284