ABSTRACT
Contract emerges as the core organizational idea by virtue of which the contemporary forms of global capitalism have put down their roots - within the law and through the law. This chapter concerns the contribution of the specific technologies of private international law, among which the libertarian understanding of 'party autonomy' has provided the legal infrastructure for the concentration and growth of economic power beyond, and above, the State. Contemporary critical theory in international law has traced the largely invisible role of private law in the constitution of informal empire back to the work of the Spanish scholastics. Arguably the most significant principle of contemporary private international law,20 'party autonomy', or contractual freedom of choice of the governing law - also fulfils a key function within the political economy of private ordering in today's global context. The chapter presents an overview of the political economy of private ordering from the perspective of private international law.
