Liberty, Property and the Law: A Collection of Essays
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Description
Where a well-run society should rest on the continuum between public and private control has been the most contentious and thorny issue of legal and social theory throughout the generations. This series sets out to provide answers to this ongoing dispute contained in the five volumes of material assembled. The collection draws from many disciplines, including economics, law, philosophy and political science. Yet they are all directed to a topic that is worthy of examination from multiple perspectives: Liberty, Property and the Law. The materials in this collection are drawn from many disciplines, including economics, law, philosophy and political science. Yet they are all directed to a topic that is worthy of examination from multiple perspectives: Liberty, Property and the Law. Stated in this general form, this topic is as broad as law itself. Lawyers must have recourse to the grand principles of economic and social thought, but tempered with an awareness of how the novel circumstances of an individual case can call into question some of the elements of the grandest of theories. . . . the emphasis is as much on the points that separate different forms of property as it is on the conceptual theme that links all forms of property rights together. The relationship of liberty and property to the law surfaces whenever and wherever people interact with each other under the command and control of the sovereign. Those who hold sovereign power may choose to protect liberty and property or to undermine it. But the regrettably high frequency of political abuse throughout the world does not justify the exercise of arbitrary legal power; nor does it limit human aspirations for a sound legal and social order to block political excesses. . . . Volume II . . . concerns the extent to which the state should enforce or override private contracts made by individuals to dispose of their labor or capital. These issues did not disappear by the onset of the twentieth century, where Volume II picks up. Generally speaking, however, the tools of analysis shifted as the advances in economic theory helped to flesh out the justifications offered for individual liberty and private property on the one hand, and their social control on the other. Although the nature of the discourse changed to some degree, the division of opinion on the proper role of liberty and property remained as sharply contested as it was in earlier times.
Publication Date
2000
Recommended Citation
Epstein, Richard A., "Liberty, Property and the Law: A Collection of Essays" (2000). Faculty Books & Edited Works. 819.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-books-edited-works/819
