A HISTORY OF LAW AND ECONOMICS, 1870 - 1970:
PROPERTY, STATE AND THE MARKET
Dina I. Waked
Short Abstract
The purpose of this work is to to construct an alternative history of law and economics (L&E).
One, that is rid from the mainstream’s allegation that L&E was born in the 1960s to Chicago
scholars who revived the interaction between law and economics, which they argue, lay
dormant since Bentham writing in 1789. It provides a journey through one hundred years of
economic and legal thought, between 1870 and 1970. It highlights how law and economics
have continued to interact, to be entangled and to produce a common language. Both legal and
economic thought have gone through immense transformations that have shaped their
discourses over the years. I have chosen to focus on only three of these transformations, that I
refer to as paradigm shifts, that I consider significant to the story I narrate.
