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Freedom of contract is the principle according to which individuals and groups may form contracts without government restrictions. This is opposed to government regulations such as minimum-wage laws , competition laws , economic sanctions , restrictions on price fixing , or restrictions on contracting with undocumented workers .
The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract (1979) is a legal-historical text on the changes in the concept of freedom of contract by English Professor Patrick Atiyah. It was published by the Oxford University Press, and a paperback edition was released in 1985.
Contract theory in economics began with 1991 Nobel Laureate Ronald H. Coase's 1937 article "The Nature of the Firm". Coase notes that "the longer the duration of a contract regarding the supply of goods or services due to the difficulty of forecasting, then the less likely and less appropriate it is for the buyer to specify what the other party should do."
The doctrine of freedom of contract received one of its strongest expressions in the US Supreme Court case of Lochner v. New York which struck down legal restrictions on the working hours of bakers. [20] Critics of the classical view of freedom of contract argue that this freedom is illusory when the bargaining power of the parties is highly ...
Philip Pettit (b. 1945) has argued, in Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (1997), that the theory of social contract, classically based on the consent of the governed, should be modified. Instead of arguing for explicit consent, which can always be manufactured, Pettit argues that the absence of an effective rebellion against it ...
Rawls belongs to the social contract tradition, although he takes a different view from that of previous thinkers. Specifically, Rawls develops what he claims are principles of justice through the use of an artificial device or thought experiment he calls the Original position; in which, everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance.
Historian Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote "The principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number was as inimical to the idea of liberty as to the idea of rights." [92] Bentham's "hedonistic" theory (a term from J. J. C. Smart) is often criticised for lacking a principle of fairness embodied in a conception of justice.
F Kessler, 'Contracts of Adhesion – Some Thoughts About Freedom of Contract' (1943) 43(5) Columbia Law Review 629; R Pound, 'Liberty of Contract' (1909) 18 Yale LJ 454; Contract theory. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, on forum selection clauses; The Bremen v. Zapata Off-Shore Company, forum selection clauses; Charles River Bridge v.