ABSTRACT
In the last chapter we visited classical contract theory and considered the various challenges to it posed during the welfarist era. On the whole, the response of members of the judiciary and academia has been to try to adjust the classical model so that it better suits the goals of social policy and the marketplace of today. What has emerged is a mixture of approaches in which market-individualism still competes for attention with the more modern notion of consumer-welfarism. Later chapters in this book such as those on implied terms, consideration and unfair terms will sketch out some of the detail of how some sense of balance has been achieved during the ‘neo-classical’ period. What this new label makes clear is that the classical model, albeit in a modified form, continues to have much influence over how we approach contracts. In the minds of many contemporary academics in the field, this is an unsatisfactory development. To some, all that has happened is that the classical model has been tinkered with when what is needed is a rethinking of the principles which should underpin doctrine and a reformulation of the techniques used to recognise the nature of the obligations contained in contracts. A growing number of scholars have argued that the very relevance and legitimacy of the assumptions underpinning the classical model are in crisis.
