The Law: An Engine for Trade
The lecture traces the process of commercialisation in English law from its early stages to the present day. Until the mid-eighteenth century the law was in a process of integration, overcoming a judicial preoccupation with technicalities and procedures to form a body of rules which merchants could trust. From that point on the law has assumed a proactive role as an engine for trade. The nineteenth century is marked by legal facilitation, where new institutions were fashioned as a robust commercial framework for the Industrial Revolution. From the end of that century to the present day business law has served to regulate, building a sensitive framework for commercial development that balances the needs of commerce with the needs of society as a whole.