An Explanation of the Fundamental Link between Economics and the Property and Contract law with an Emphasis on the Concept of Resource Scarcity

Abstract

An attempt to realize the authority of the synthesis of law and economics and stepping into its epistemological realm require thinking of a remedy for and responding to barriers to the methodology of the realization of the economic analysis of law. many experts in the discourses of "economics" and "law” do not tolerate the entry of economics into the realm of other disciplines, such as law, and the analysis of law based on the theories and methods of another discipline, such as economics, as they believe that there is no homogeneity and relevance between the principles of a methodological domain; i.e. economics, and those of a subjective domain; i.e. law. In the present paper, authors on the one hand, adopt a moderate positivist approach by rejecting the pure positivism approach and simply rejecting "the law as it is" and emphasizing the concept of efficiency and the normative approach on the other hand and in response to this question that whether the incorporation of economic standards into the realm of property and contract law is as an acceptance of the heterogeneous theories and methods of economics? by explaining the role of one of the most fundamental concepts of economics; i.e. the concept of “resource scarcity”, in creating the concepts of "property" and "contract," the authors show that the entry of the necessary economic principles of this concept into the realm of property and contract does not mean the acceptance of the heterogeneous theories and methods of economics, but due to the unity of their cause with that of the two latter concepts, we can talk about the homogeneity of method and subject in the economic analysis of property and contract. Given aforementioned discussion, is it essential to apply economic rules in the realm of legal property and contract law? The answer is that if in the analysis of the above rules, the epistemic requirements of the fundamental link between economics and the law of ownership and contract are denied or forgotten, these rules will be alienated from their origin, and will more or less deviate from the path to achieve social interests. The epistemic requirements mean promoting the concept of efficacy; as a criterion for the validation of legal rules, and reducing the role of governments in limiting the principles of private property and contractual freedom.