Law and Social Change

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Book Description
In this book professor Friedmann applies the general approach to the study of law and society, developed in his Legal Theory, to some vital problems of contemporary jurisprudence. It is a comparative study, with frequent references to other common law systems and to continental law. But legal and social developments in Great Britain have furnished the starting point and most of the material used. In the present work the author takes the great social revolution of our times and shows its effect on the law. He diagnoses the ills which affect the new-born. Welfare State and points the way to the remedies. He does not by vague generalizations, but by discussing the new statutes and the new cases which together made up the new law, and seeing what is the policy which prompts them and what social purposes they fulfil. By doing this he opens up a new approach to legal problems. In former days lawyers used to think that they were not concerned with the social changes which went on around them. No matter how society changed, the law never changed. The law for them was fixed and constant, never to be altered except by Parliament: and the meaning of Parliament was only to be gathered from the literal sense of the words used, not from the social purpose that lay behind the words. The great merit of this book is that is shows us the pattern of legal development against its social background, and thus enables us to know what we are about. A craftsman always works better if he not only knows how to do this or that, but also why he does it.
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Contents
1.    Introduction
Part One : The Common Law in Changing Society
2.    The Functions of Property in Modern English Law
3.    Changing Functions of Contract and the Common Law
4.    Social Insurance and the Principles of Trot Liability
5.    Public Welfare Offences and the Principles of Criminal Liability
6.    Freedom of Trade, Public Policy and the Courts
7.    Trusts, Corporate Bodies and the Welfare State
Part Two : The Place of Public Law in Contemporary English Jurisprudence
8.    Public Law Problems in recent English Decisions
9.    The Legal Status and Organisation of the Public Corporation
10.  Declaratory Judgment and Injunction as Public Law Remedies
Part Three : Statute Law and the Welfare State
11.  Statute Law and its Interpretation in the Modern State
12.  Statute Law and the Privileges of the Crown
Part Four : The Welfare State and the Rule of Law
13.  The Planned State and the Rule of Law
Suggested Readings
Index
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Author Details
W. Friedmann, LLD. (London), DR. IUR. (Berlin), LL.M (Melbourne) of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law; Professor of Law, University of Toronto
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