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The article focuses on U.S. Judge Guido Calabresi's article "Some Thoughts on Risk Distribution and the Law of Torts." Topics include neoclassical law and economics, free market economics, and the development of tort law in the U.S. Information is provided on property rights in the U.S., tort liability, and resource allocation theory.

This article examines the ideological continuity underlying recent changes in U.S. policy, arguing that both the "liberal" policies of the 1960's and the "free market" conservatism of the 1980's were based upon the presuppositions of neoclassical economic theory. The author first considers the intellectual assumptions of postwar liberalism, emphasizing the degree to which the dominant paradigm of the period accepted the neoclassical framework. Next the author examines the conservative neoclassical critique of liberal ideas that developed in the 1970's. The economic upheavals of that decade demonstrated the limits of a postwar liberalism that was only ambiguously committed to state intervention. The result was the reassertion of a more consistent market model in economic policy discourse. The author concludes by considering the ideological effects of the dominant neoclassical paradigm today in directing attention away from crucial social problems, particularly those that result from market forces themselves in a rapidly changing global economy.