Law and Economics: Realism or Democracy?Is law and economics anti‐democratic?

Abstract

Is law and economics anti‐democratic? One hears complaints from many quarters that law and economics is a form of technocracy that cuts off legitimate debate and suppresses other important values that people hold dear. On this view, law and economics privileges efficiency and focuses on quantifiable values to the exclusion of other, less measurable values that could have found expression through the political process. These concerns are central to debates in areas ranging from environmental protection to intellectual property. The irony in these complaints is that they are offered by commentators who are heirs of the legal realists, many of whom would in the same breath decry excessive formalism and applaud judicial sensitivity to policy. There may not be an inherent contradiction here, but there is a tension in practice.