The Progressive Assault on Laissez Faire: Robert Hale and the First Law and Economics Movement

This book examines the first great law and economics movement in the early part of the twentieth century through the work of one of its most original thinkers, Robert Hale. Today, Hale is best known among contemporary legal academics and philosophers for his groundbreaking writings on coercion and consent in market relations. The bulk of his writing, however, consisted of a critique of natural property rights. Taken together, these writings on coercion and property rights offer one of the most profound and elaborated critiques of libertarianism. This first, full-length study of Hale's work will be of interest to legal, economic, and intellectual historians. "[Fried] is exceedingly well versed in legal history, the history of economic theory, and intellectual history. She has made splendid use of Hale's papers ... Any reader will find in Hale an exceptionally deep thinker on what the legal and economic systems are, at bottom, all about. In all respects, this is a very substantial and successful book." --Journal of American History "By far the best work on the legal realist movement's attack on 'laissez-faire,' and one of the best demolitions, in law or political theory, of that contested concept." --Cass R. Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School