This book applies the insights of Marxist social theory and politics to law. After presenting a clear and unified discussion of Marxism, Collins examines the special characteristics of legal institutions, rules, and ideals. He focuses particularly on the Marxist critique of the ideal of the Rule of Law, discussing law and class oppression, ideology and law, base and superstructure, the future of law, and class struggle and the rule of law.

Using an interdisciplinary approach involving economics, sociology, and law, this book examines the purposes, efficiency, and efficacy of legal regulation of contracts and suggests how legal regulation fails and how it might be improved. The conclusions suggest that the law plays an insignificant role in the construction of markets, and that it could provide better assistance by using indeterminate regulation that permits the recontextualization of legal reasoning.

Hugh Collins examines whether the harmonisation of private law in the European Union would be a desirable development.