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Magical Capitalism pp 45–63Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Magical Contracts, Numinous Capitalism

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Abstract

One suspects that anthropology’s long preoccupation with magic has much to do with the widespread sense, famously articulated by Weber, that becoming modern involves disenchantment, literally losing the sense that life is magical. This chapter takes issue with that suspicion and suggests that magic itself is a shifting thing, strangely hard to lose, perhaps more durable than often feared. Very mundane and seemingly secular things, legal doctrines and jurisprudence concerning contracts, require rather breathtaking faith in the efficacy of words to shape reality. (“Contracts” here means nothing more exotic than the economic transactions that inhabitants of contemporary society engage in daily.) Functioning at all in our very commercial society requires something akin to enchantment, or perhaps enchantment without the wonder.

Louis A. Del Cotto Professor, University at Buffalo School of Law, State University of New York, and author of Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters (Chicago 2007). An earlier version of these ideas appeared under the same title in Anthropology Today, v. 32 n. 6, special issue “Capitalism and Magic Part I,” December 2016, pp 13–17. Thanks to Douglas Holmes, Gustaaf Houtman, Fred Konefsky, George Marcus, Jack Schlegel and Amy Westbrook for their comments, and to Jonathon Ling for research assistance. Infelicities are mine.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    II Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology 641-900 (Guenther Roth & Claus Wittich eds., 1978) (1921–1922). See also, Duncan Kennedy, the Disenchantment of Logically Formal Legal Rationality, or Max Weber’s Sociology in the Genealogy of the Contemporary Mode of Western Legal Thought, 55 Hastings Law Journal 1031, 1044–1047 (2004).

  2. 2.

    Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science, and Religion and Other Essays (1948); Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality (1990).

  3. 3.

    Marcel Mauss, The Gift (expanded edition) 2916 (1921).

  4. 4.

    Georges Gurvitch, Magic and law, 9(1) Social research 104, 110 (1942).

  5. 5.

    I thank Gustaaf Houtman for this point.

  6. 6.

    Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (James Strachey ed., W.W. Norton & Co. 1989) (1930). See also Roberto Unger, Knowledge and Politics 200 (1975).

  7. 7.

    Albert Venn Dicey, Introduction To The Study Of The Law of the Constitution 60 (Reprint. 8th ed. 1915).

  8. 8.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Collected Works of Justice Holmes, Complete Public Writings and Selected Judicial Opinions of Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Holmes Devise Memorial Edition, Vol. 3. (1995).

  9. 9.

    David A. Westbrook, A Shallow Harbor and A Cold Horizon: The Deceptive Promise of Modern Agency Law for the Theory of the Firm, 35 Seattle U. L. Rev. 1369, 1373 (2012).

  10. 10.

    Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (1983).

  11. 11.

    The word “bilateral” raises the specter of a party being contractually bound by her unilateral actions. Let us whistle as we hasten on.

  12. 12.

    The binding character of legal language is ““at the very foundation of order and reliability in human relations.” … Malinowski’s exposition anticipates notions of performative speech - that “saying is doing” when done by the properly accredited persons according to the proper convention under the right conditions.” Tambiah, supra note 3, at 80.

  13. 13.

    Franz Kafka, The Trial (1998).

  14. 14.

    Raffles v. Wichelhaus, 2 H. & C. 906, 159 Eng. Rep. 375 (Ex. 1864).

  15. 15.

    Restatement (Second) of the Law – Contracts, § 90 Promise Reasonably Inducing Action of Forbearance (1981).

  16. 16.

    Restatement (Second) of the Law – Contracts, § 71. Requirement of Exchange; Types of Exchange (1981).

  17. 17.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Collected Works of Justice Holmes, Complete Public Writings and Selected Judicial Opinions of Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Holmes Devise Memorial Edition, Vol. 3. (1995) 273.

  18. 18.

    Frigaliment Importing Co. v. B.N.S. Int’l Sales Corp., 190 F. Supp. 116, 117 (S.D.N.Y. 1960). Plaintiff said “chicken” meant a young chicken, suitable for broiling and frying. Defendant said “chicken” meant any bird of that genus that meets contract specifications on weight and quality, including what it called “stewing chicken” and plaintiff pejoratively termed “fowl.”

  19. 19.

    A longer and perhaps painfully lawyerly version of this essay would discuss the “battle of the forms” and the Uniform Commercial Code §2-207, Additional Terms in Acceptance or Confirmation, at this juncture.

  20. 20.

    Sir Henry James Sumner Maine, Ancient Law (1861).

  21. 21.

    Kidd v. Thomas A. Edison, Inc., 239 F. 405, 406 (2d Cir. 1917).

  22. 22.

    In ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that shrink-wrap and click-wrap contracts were enforceable. The Court reasoned that “pay now, terms later” contracts were an accepted method of forming a contract. ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996).

  23. 23.

    Ronald Coase, The Nature of the Firm, 4 Economica 386 (1937).

  24. 24.

    David A. Westbrook, Ronald Coase (1910–2013), World Economics Association Newsletter (2014), available at http://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/files/newsletters/Issue3-5.pdf.

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Acknowledgment

Louis A. Del Cotto Professor, University at Buffalo School of Law, State University of New York, and author of Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters (Chicago 2007). An earlier version of these ideas appeared under the same title in Anthropology Today, v. 32 n. 6, special issue “Capitalism and Magic Part I,” December 2016, pp 13–17. Thanks to Douglas Holmes, Gustaaf Houtman, Fred Konefsky, George Marcus, Jack Schlegel and Amy Westbrook for their comments, and to Jonathon Ling for research assistance. Infelicities are mine.

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  1. University at Buffalo School of Law, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA

    David A. Westbrook

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  1. University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

    Brian Moeran

  2. Gabelli School of Business Fordham University, New York, NY, USA

    Timothy de Waal Malefyt

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Westbrook, D.A. (2018). Magical Contracts, Numinous Capitalism. In: Moeran, B., de Waal Malefyt, T. (eds) Magical Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74397-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74397-4_2

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