The Legal Organization of Capitalism (Part I): Economic Constitution and Social Rule of Law

Abstract

It is certain that the Law, beyond the legal norm, is inserted in the social system and is understood in relation to society, its history and its contradictions. Basically, the study of the nature and function of Law cannot be carried out in the abstract, but by attending to concrete social organizations, in order to place at the center of the inquiry the analysis of the institutional links existing in the State-society relationship, and through it the determination of legal institutions.
Those who deal with private law, as a law regulating economic processes, easily perceive that the techniques and content of legal institutions are transformed by changes in economic systems and forms of organization of production. In reality, society cannot be reduced to isolated economic and legal terms, but the anatomy of society has to be seen in the complex articulation of the economy and the law that forms and shapes economic and social relations. An attempt has been made to establish an analysis of the “juridical society” of capitalism, carried out from an interdisciplinary point of view (Law cannot be understood if the form of the economy is not taken into account), and with the explicit aim of studying the capitalist regime in its institutions and rules. The aim is to show the constitutive bases and the legal functioning of the economy and, in general, of capitalist society.