Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses a most unusual conference that took place at McGill University in March 1999. It explains why Canada’s Supreme Court turned around completely in its interpretation of the role of the judiciary within a ten-year period. The book focuses on the defenders of rational choice theory and the critics are equally familiar with the arguments of their opponents and quite prepared to consider them seriously and thoroughly. It shows that the classic Prisoners’ Dilemma game is inappropriate for modelling the kind of trust between employers and employees that according to the industrial relations literature has many beneficial consequences. The book emphasizes that people are, always and everywhere, totally consumed by their immediate material interests. Modern economies and polities–markets and states, materialism and power–have corrupted the ancient virtues.