TY - CHAP
T1 - A Marxian Understanding of the nature and Form of Dominant Capitalist Legal Institutions
AU - Talbot, Lorraine
PY - 2025/12/22
Y1 - 2025/12/22
N2 - This chapter demonstrates how legal institutions reflect and enable particular stages of capitalist development. It begins with the employment contract and ends with the modern joint stock company. Utilizing Marx’s analysis of credit and falling profit rates and focusing on historic developments in the United Kingdom (UK), it shows why the company form emerged as the dominant legal institution of capitalism from the late nineteenth century onwards. It provides an explanation for the behavior of modern corporations and shows why they are increasingly driven to destructive short-termism rather than productive development and innovation. The chapter then examines moments in the current crisis, the ‘Great Recession,’ that are explicable through this Marxian lens. It concludes by arguing that meaningful reform of the company from a socially progressive perspective begins with the removal of shareholder control rights.
AB - This chapter demonstrates how legal institutions reflect and enable particular stages of capitalist development. It begins with the employment contract and ends with the modern joint stock company. Utilizing Marx’s analysis of credit and falling profit rates and focusing on historic developments in the United Kingdom (UK), it shows why the company form emerged as the dominant legal institution of capitalism from the late nineteenth century onwards. It provides an explanation for the behavior of modern corporations and shows why they are increasingly driven to destructive short-termism rather than productive development and innovation. The chapter then examines moments in the current crisis, the ‘Great Recession,’ that are explicable through this Marxian lens. It concludes by arguing that meaningful reform of the company from a socially progressive perspective begins with the removal of shareholder control rights.
UR - https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Heterodox-Economics-Volume-1-Foundations-Theoretical-Cores-and-the-Anatomy-of-Capitalism/Jo-Chester-DIppoliti/p/book/9781041169338
U2 - 10.4324/9781003687078-29
DO - 10.4324/9781003687078-29
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 9781041169338
VL - 1
T3 - Routledge International Handbooks
SP - 368
EP - 379
BT - The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics
A2 - Jo, Tae-Hee
A2 - Chester, Lynne
A2 - D'Ippoliti, Carlo
PB - Routledge
ER -