Law's Regulatory Relevance? : Property, Power and Market Economies

Focusing on the information economy, free trade exploitation, and confronting terrorist violence, Mark Findlay critiques law's regulatory commodification. Conventional legal regulatory modes such as theft and intellectual property are being challenged by waves of property access and use, which demand the rethinking of property 'rights' and their relationships with the law. Law's Regulatory Relevance? theorises how the law should reposition itself in order to help rather than hinder new pathways of market power, by confronting the dominant neo-liberal economic model that values property through scarcity. With in-depth analysis of empirical case studies, the author explores how law is returning to its communal utility in strengthening social ties, which will in turn restore property as social relations rather than market commodities. In a world of contested narratives about property valuing, law needs to ground its inherent regulatory relevance in the ordering of social change. This book is an essential read for students of law and regulation wanting to explore the contemporary dissent against neo-liberal market economies and the issues of communitarian governance and social resistance. It will also appeal to policy makers interested in law's failing regulatory capacity, particularly through criminalising attacks on conventional property rights, by offering insights into why law's regulatory relevance is at a cross-roads.