The importance to economics of the study of institutions is no longer a controversial proposition, thanks in part to the scholarly literature generat… - Richard Posner

I wish in closing to emphasize how little corporate philanthrophy (the practical meaning of “creative capitalism,” a terrible expression that implies nonaltruistic capitalism is uncreative) is actually philanthropic, in the sense of being driven by altruism rather than by profit maximization.

Central to this book is the further assumption that man is a rational utility maximizer in all areas of life, not just in his “economic” affairs, that is, not only when engaged in buying and selling in explicit markets. This idea goes back to Jeremy Bentahm in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, but received little attention from economists until the work of Gary Becker in th 1950s and 1960s.
The concept of man as a rational maximizer implies that people respond to incentives.(...) From this proposition derive the three fundamental principles of economics.

This book is written in the conviction that economics is a powerful tool for analyzing a vast range of legal questions but that most lawyers and law students-even very bright ones-have difficulty connecting economic principles to concrete legal problems.