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Full-Text Articles in Law and Economics

The Un-Easy Case For Technological Optimism, James E. Krier, Clayton P. Gillette Jan 1985

The Un-Easy Case For Technological Optimism, James E. Krier, Clayton P. Gillette

Articles

"Technological optimism" is a term of art, an article of faith, and a theory of politics. It is a view that pervades modem attitudes, yet gets little explicit attention. For a brief period the situation was otherwise. In the early 1970s, the optimistic outlook figured prominently in an important debate about nothing less than the future of the world. Technological optimism won. The outcome was unsurprising, given the nature of the argument. On one side of the debate was a group of self-proclaimed Malthusians who foresaw an impending period of stark scarcity unless relatively drastic remedial steps were quickly taken; …


Authority, Autonomy, And Choice: The Role Of Consent In The Moral And Political Visions Of Franz Kafka And Richard Posner, Robin West Jan 1985

Authority, Autonomy, And Choice: The Role Of Consent In The Moral And Political Visions Of Franz Kafka And Richard Posner, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In "The Ethical and Political Basis of Wealth Maximization" and two related articles, Professor (now Judge) Richard Posner argues that widely shared pro-autonomy moral values are furthered by wealth-maximizing market transfers, judicial decisions, and legal institutions advocated by members of the "law and economics" school of legal theory. Such transactions, decisions, and institutions are morally attractive, Posner argues, because they support autonomy; wealth-maximizing transfers are those to which all affected parties have given their consent. This Article argues that Posner's attempt to defend wealth-maximization on principles of consent rests on a simplistic and false psychological theory of human motivation. Posner's …


The Competition Of Technologies In Markets For Ideas: Copyright And Fair Use In Evolutionary Perspective (With Steven Peretz), Richard Adelstein Dec 1984

The Competition Of Technologies In Markets For Ideas: Copyright And Fair Use In Evolutionary Perspective (With Steven Peretz), Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

A theory of intellectual goods as distinct from public or private goods, and the rationale for copyright that flows from it.