Historical school of law

As economic ideas began to move into the field of law, legal ideas began to move into the area of economics. At the onset of the nineteenth century, a new, so-called historical school of law was formed, which opened the way to a different understanding of law. According to this school, law is a product of life, which reflects only those relations that are formed in reality.

The law changes whenever culture, national consciousness and a way of life move forward. Through this point of view it is possible to explain the meaning and essence of known problems, in order to be aware of the real needs of active life, which must be regulated by them (it is not clear what must be regulated and how). The dependence of law on the economy is particularly manifested in the realm of civil law. Like law, which regulates relations between parties as regards the ownership of property, it is particularly intertwined with various factual peculiarities, which characterise economic life of this people in this day and age.

For example, the more industry and trade are developed, the more immovable property rights come into line with movable property rights, and freedom of circulation, which characterises movable property, gradually applies to immovable property as well. In the developed industrial and commercial way of life, various constraints are more and more commonly/frequently revoked.

For a clear understanding of the legal system of society, apart from studying resolutions of positive law, attention must be paid to actual economic relations, which result in legal standards. Therefore, in order to understand economic relations in a certain country, one must familiarise oneself with the basic institution of law. Legal standards in relation to property and contracts are particularly important here. The level of freedom of individuals, the boundaries and content of property rights, conditions of concluding contracts — such are the main categories of legal standards on which the system of the commercial economy depends.

The inadequate economic competence of many leading Russian legal experts and legislators, both in matters of fundamental political economic theory and in the use of terms, has caused, first and foremost, a woolliness of economic definitions in existing legal field in Russia and a lack of economic expert examination of laws.