ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses approaches to legal phenomena which have their roots in two other disciplines, economics and sociology. It provides a basic introduction to the economic approach to law; and examines the work of two of the most important figures in the development of sociology as a discipline— Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The chapter describes the functionalist theories of Talcott Parsons, who tried to integrate the work of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. The economic analysis of law in the 1960s was concerned principally with economic effects of regulation on industry and with the application of economic theory to the analysis and reform of accident liability and tort law. The chapter describes the importance of economic approach, its assumptions and its central techniques, as well as different schools of law and economics. Weber, whose major work also spanned the turn of the century, was a supporter of Western capitalism, but pointed out some of its contradictions and self-destructive tendencies.
