Freedom of Contract in the 19th Century
LEGAL CULTURE Review Essay – Freedom of Contract in the 19th Century: Mythology and the Silence of the Sources – Sibylle Hofer’s Freiheit ohne Grenzen? Privatrechtstheoretische Diskussionen im 19. Jahrhundert
Sibylle Hofer, Freiheit ohne Grenzen? privatrechtstheoretische Diskussionen im 19. Jahrhundert, Mohr (Siebeck): Tübingen 2001, 313 pp., Jus Publicum Vol. 53, ISBN 316-147576-3
By Andreas Abegg and Annemarie Thatcher*
“Qui dit contractuel, dit juste”.1 This oft-cited quote by Fouillée in 1880 tempts people today to understand the early economic liberalism of the 19th Century as a system of unlimited liberal freedom, which claimed that fairness would automatically result from a formal law of obligations based especially on formal equality.2 In her legal history postdoctoral Habilitation-study Freiheit ohne Grenzen? (Unlimited Freedom?), Sibylle Hofer is prompted to examine the private law theory discussions of the 19th Century by the currently widely held view3 that in the 19th Century a theory of private law premised on unlimited individual freedom dominated. After studying a broad range of sources she comes to the conclusion that despite a large absence of discourse on contractual freedom this perception of “unlimited freedom” cannot be confirmed, instead this is more of a myth. In the 19th Century, the concept of private law under a paradigm of unlimited contractual freedom was
*
Annemarie Thatcher, LL.M. (University of Frankfurt), LL.B. (University of Kent at Canterbury), e-mail: annemarie_thatcher@yahoo.co.uk. Andreas Abegg, LL.M. (University of Frankfurt), LL.B. (University of Freiburg/Switzerland). Mr. Abegg has written his doctoral thesis on “Die zwingenden Inhaltsnormen des Schuldvertragsrechts” (compulsory contract law) at the University of Freiburg/Switzerland (to be published in January 2004). E-mail: aabegg@dplanet.ch. Fouillée, La science sociale contemporaine (1880), p. 410.
1
2 Cf. the particularly concise discussion in English
Sibylle Hofer, Freiheit ohne Grenzen? privatrechtstheoretische Diskussionen im 19. Jahrhundert, Mohr (Siebeck): Tübingen 2001, 313 pp., Jus Publicum Vol. 53, ISBN 316-147576-3
By Andreas Abegg and Annemarie Thatcher*
“Qui dit contractuel, dit juste”.1 This oft-cited quote by Fouillée in 1880 tempts people today to understand the early economic liberalism of the 19th Century as a system of unlimited liberal freedom, which claimed that fairness would automatically result from a formal law of obligations based especially on formal equality.2 In her legal history postdoctoral Habilitation-study Freiheit ohne Grenzen? (Unlimited Freedom?), Sibylle Hofer is prompted to examine the private law theory discussions of the 19th Century by the currently widely held view3 that in the 19th Century a theory of private law premised on unlimited individual freedom dominated. After studying a broad range of sources she comes to the conclusion that despite a large absence of discourse on contractual freedom this perception of “unlimited freedom” cannot be confirmed, instead this is more of a myth. In the 19th Century, the concept of private law under a paradigm of unlimited contractual freedom was
*
Annemarie Thatcher, LL.M. (University of Frankfurt), LL.B. (University of Kent at Canterbury), e-mail: annemarie_thatcher@yahoo.co.uk. Andreas Abegg, LL.M. (University of Frankfurt), LL.B. (University of Freiburg/Switzerland). Mr. Abegg has written his doctoral thesis on “Die zwingenden Inhaltsnormen des Schuldvertragsrechts” (compulsory contract law) at the University of Freiburg/Switzerland (to be published in January 2004). E-mail: aabegg@dplanet.ch. Fouillée, La science sociale contemporaine (1880), p. 410.
1
2 Cf. the particularly concise discussion in English