Summary
Bankruptcy Law in England and Germany is treated as an example of the interdependence of legal and social structure. The hypothesis put forward is that under the highly developed conditions of industrial societies like England and West-Germany, only the legal structure can offer the functional prerequisites for both the regulation of distribution conflicts (the distribution function) and the guidance of economic behaviour for the avoidance of insolvency situations (the preventive function). Extra-legal alternatives specialize in only one of these functions, thereby sometimes reaching a higher level of effectiveness than the legal structure, but always at the expense of particularistic solutions.
Through the historical and synchronic comparison of the forms of Bankruptcy Law in England and West-Germany it is shown that Bankruptcy Law has adapted in different ways — according to the stage of economic development — to the needs of the economic system to stabilize and protect interest.
Nevertheless in both countries short-term (distribution function) and long-term aims (preventive function) are covered by the bankruptcy procedure. Even if contemporary bankruptcy procedures, especially as in West-Germany, show serious defects as to their ability to be technically adequate for dealing with the complex situations of insolvency in a mixed economy, there is no alternative to legal procedure in sight which offers the same double-functional effect as legal structure.
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Ziegert, K.A. (1980). Formen und Funktionen alternativer Insolvenzverfahren: Das Konkursrecht im Wandel gesellschaftlicher Bedingungen. In: Blankenburg, E., Klausa, E., Rottleuthner, H. (eds) Alternative Rechtsformen und Alternativen zum Recht. Jahrbuch für Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie, vol 6. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-96990-3_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-96990-3_21
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