ABSTRACT
Karl Renner published his landmark volume in the sociology of law, The Institutions of Private Law and Their Social Functions. This chapter describes that aspect of Renner's life that occupied most of this time and energy: his involvement in Austrian social democratic politics. It then discusses this volume's more salient themes and their relevance for today. Renner contends that legal institutions perform social and economic functions. Renner's main tenet in Institutions is very simply that economic systems have a significant, but limited, influence on the functions of property and contract. Their influence is significant to the extent that property and contract law is transformed, through the legislative process as well as through judicial reinterpretation, in the transition from one economic system to another. The chapter concludes with one final criticism: that Renner overstates the classic, but now out-dated distinction between private and public law.
