Today you will meet the box.

The box is an orientation basis

• Orientation because we can use the box to get our bearings amid all the variety, confusion, and complexity of the world around us.

• Basis because the box is a foundation to build on to understand business and the other principal institutions of the modern world.

BOLD CLAIMS !! you say

•

Give us a chance to make our case.

• Then you be the judge.• Please wait a while before you answer the

question:• Does the “box” approach to understanding the

institutions of the modern world really make sense?

• But wait!! Another question:• What exactly is “the box” ? • We might start to answer by asking where it

comes from.

Where does the box come from?

• It comes from the legal framework of modern western economy and society.

• DO YOU REFER TO THE ROOTS OF MODERN WESTERN INSTITUTIONS IN ANCIENT ROMAN LAW ?

• Is that what you mean by “the legal framework of modern western economy and society” ???????????

Yes, we do.

Yes, it is.

In the year 533 a.d. a group of scholars convened by Emperor Justinian I

• Published a summary of Roman Law called “the Institutes”. In its introduction it declares three basic principles:

• 1. Honeste vivere.

• 2. Alterum non laedere.

• 3. Suum cuique tribuere.

• In 1688 the German jurist Samuel Pufendorf working in the Roman Law tradition that governed Europe added a fourth basic principle: 4. Pacta sunt servanda.

Translated into English and phrased to bring out their meaning

for our times

• 1. Respect the individual juridical subject.

• 2. There is a duty to refrain from harming others, but no duty to help others.

• 3. Respect property rights.

• 4. Human relationships organized by contracts.

That is the box.

THE FREE INDIVIDUAL

PROPERTY CONTRACT

NO DUTY TO HELP

One more question

• What does the box have to do with unbounded organization?

Suggested answer:

Organizing inside the box

Organizing outside the box

Unbounded organization