Freiheit durch Recht

The articles published in this book concern the topic of ‘safeguarding liberal civil society’ through a legal framework securing freedom for all. Private law has to prove itself as a guarantee for economic and social freedom by providing regulations for reconciling clashing interests in cases of market failure. In case of structural disparities, the economic process does not automatically provide equal opportunities with regard to contracts. Instead, equal opportunities must be gained through their institutionalisation in shape of regulations in the area of competition, labour and consumer protection law. Such regulations, however, need to be designed to avoid the exercise of freedom from becoming state administered. Self-organisation through contracts premises consensus. The increasing shift into private law, through supposedly implied contractual agreements and the expansion of strict liability, is criticised by the author as a dogmatically amorphous interference with liberal private law.