Human cooperation and coordination

Abstract

This chapter explores contract law as the foundation of human cooperation and coordination. Contracts enable strangers to trust, trade, and build complex systems of exchange, supported by the coercive power of the state. Using the UK Post Office scandal as a case study, it illustrates how contract law mediates between freedom and fairness, preventing the powerful from exploiting the weak. The chapter identifies five animating values—freedom, fairness, community, efficiency, and administrability—which continually pull against one another to shape doctrines on three irreducible minimums of a contract: voluntariness, reciprocity, and redress. The discussion situates English contract law within the common law tradition, contrasting it with civil law reasoning, and explores contemporary challenges such as standard form contracting and digital contracts. Ultimately, contract law emerges as a dynamic system balancing human aspirations with practical governance.