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The Politics of Private Law in Historical and Comparative Perspective

Class 11: Thursday 3/6 - Unconscionability and the Economic Analysis of Contractual Regulation

Reading(s): Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co. Knapp et al., Notes & Questions on Unconscionability, Knapp et al., Comment: Consumer Protection Legislation Charles Fried, Contract as Promise (Hard Bargains) Duncan Kennedy, Cost-Benefit Analysis of Debtor Protection Rules in Sup-prime Market Default Situations, in Eric Belsky and Nicholas Retsinas, Building Assets, Building Credit (Brookings 2005) [OPTIONAL] Singer, Arguments and Counter-arguments on compulsory terms [OPTIONAL] Allen Kamp, Downtown Code: A History of the Uniform Commercial Code 1949-1954 [OPTIONAL] Paul Samuelson, Economics (5th ed. 1960) (Supply and demand and the incidence of a tax) [OPTIONAL] Duncan Kennedy, Outline on the analogy between a compulsory term and a tax