Pandora's amphora : the eroticism of contract and gift -- Orpheus's desire : the end of the market -- Narcissus's death : the Calabresi-Melamed trichotomy -- The Midas touch : the lethal effect of wealth maximization -- The Eumenides' return : the founding of law through the repression of the feminine
The theory of law and economics that dominates American jurisprudence today views the market as rational and individuals as driven by the desire to increase their wealth. It is a view riddled with misconceptions, as Jeanne Lorraine Schroeder demonstrates in this challenging work, which looks at contemporary debates in legal theory through the lens of psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. Through metaphors drawn from classical mythology and interpreted via Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegelian philosophy, Schroeder exposes the hidden and repressed erotics of the market. Her work shows how the predominant economic analysis of markets and the standard romantic critique of markets are in fact mirror images, reflecting the misconception that reason and passion are inalterably opposed
