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Kean Birch, Contract, Contract Law, and their Implications for Neoliberalism as a Concept

by Gareth Bryant on February 5, 2017

Kean Birch, Contract, Contract Law, and their Implications for Neoliberalism as a Concept

Gareth Bryant | February 5, 2017

Tags: law neoliberalism
law, neoliberalism
| 2 654

Kean Birch (York University, Canada)

Title: Contract, Contract Law, and their Implications for Neoliberalism as a Concept

Abstract: Contractual relations underpin markets, although different analytical perspectives define contracts in very different ways: e.g. economists define contract as ‘reciprocal arrangements’ while lawyers define contract as ‘legally enforced promises’. This difference highlights a contradiction underlying neoliberalism as a concept, namely the emphasis on neoliberalism as a market-based order in which markets are installed as the main – or only – institution for organizing and coordinating society. In contrast, the history and evolution of contract law (in common law regimes like the UK and USA) illustrates the extent to which economic relations are configured by ‘contracts’ (in the legal sense) as opposed to ‘markets’. Contract law has moved through several different approaches, leading to the current prevailing system which has dominated since the 1990s. As part of this so-called ‘anti-antiformalism’ perspective, the legal system has ended up both making and unmaking markets and market actors through the institution of contractual arrangements (e.g. standard contracts) and contractual assumptions (e.g. sophistication of market actors). As a result, for example, only certain social actors (e.g. business entities, professional groups) are deemed to be, legally speaking, also market actors. This has implications for how we understand neoliberalism as a concept and its political-economic implications more broadly.

When: Thursday 9 February, 4:00-5.30pm

Where: Darlington Centre Boardroom

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Author: Gareth Bryant

Gareth Bryant is a political economist at the University of Sydney. He works as a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy and as economist-in-residence with the Sydney Policy Lab.

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Comments

  • nauman baig | Feb 17 1717

    Do you have a video recording of the event?

    1
    • Adam David Morton | Feb 17 1717

      Sadly, not this time!

      0

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  • Home
  • About
  • Manchester University Press Book Series
  • Past & Present Reading Group
  • A Political Economy of Australian Capitalism
  • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
    • JAPE Issues
    • JAPE Submission Guidelines
    • JAPE Young Scholar Award
  • Australian IPE Network (AIPEN)
  • Forums
    • Forums
    • Debating Anatomies of Revolution
    • Debating Debtfare States
    • Debating Economic Ideas in Political Time
    • Debating Mass Strikes and Social Movements in Brazil and India
    • Debating Social Movements in Latin America
    • Debating The Making of Modern Finance
    • Debating War and Social Change in Modern Europe
    • Feminist Global “Secureconomy”
    • Gendered Circuits of Labour and Violence in Global Crises
    • Scandalous Economics
    • The Military Roots of Neoliberal Governance
    • Politicising artistic pedagogies
  • Literary Geographies of Political Economy
  • Pedagogy
    • Five Minute Honours Theses
    • Piketty Forum
    • Radical Economics Pedagogy
    • Unconventional Wisdom
    • Journal Club
    • Marxism Reading Group
  • Wheelwright Lecture
  • Events
  • Contributors
  • Links
    • Political Economy At Sydney
    • PHD in Political Economy
    • Master of Political Economy
    • Centre for Future Work
    • Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ)
    • Climate Justice Research Centre (UTS)
 

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