Review - Robin Paul Malloy, Law and Market Economy: Reinterpreting the Values of Law and Economics

Abstract:     
Robin Paul Malloy's Law and Market Economy presents a concept of the relation between the market and the law that departs from orthodoxy. The mainstream Chicago School approach posits that the function of the law is to promote the efficient allocation of societal resources to productive activities, whether by market action or by the action of public and private institutions, in order to maximize aggregate societal wealth. Malloy uses semiotic theory as a framework for developing a concept of law and market economy in which the function of the law is to enhance societal processes of creativity in order to serve sustainable wealth formation. Although this concept is developed at a substantial level of abstraction, the consequences of Malloy's prescriptions entail the development of societal institutions, especially including the law, that engage in the ongoing redistribution of wealth toward equality. This approach differs markedly from the consequence of the prescriptions of orthodox law and economics, which inevitably drive the distribution of wealth toward substantial and growing inequality.

Accepted Paper Series