The Interbeing of Law and Economics: Building Bridges, Not Walls – Interdisciplinary Scholarship and Dialectic Pedagogy

Some fifty years ago, Pink Floyd topped the music charts irreverently vocalizing the idea that education is just “Another Brick in the Wall.” Should this popular enchantment of hearts and minds cause alarm to professional teachers and higher education scholars? How much relevance does the progressive rock band’s verse have to the spirit of contemporary academy?

A calmer, more composed reaction of educators would be one of constructive introspection over disciplinary and our own pedagogical practice. It is important to pause for a moment and ask what the enduring value, function and role of university education in the 21st century are. In the modern-day “knowledge society,” where the sources and means of learning abound, formal education is to be regarded as a tool of individual empowerment and “enlightenment” rather than some off-the-shelf commodity to be provided en masse. By this view, academic training is a building block in creating sustainable and inclusive societies and not merely a functional production machine of a future skilled workforce.

With this mission clear, could it be said that legal education today is up to task? Could the discipline of law expand, learn and be enriched by other disciplines? In an equally irreverent manner, this article claims that connecting Law with Economics may recast the image of scholarly education as a cross-disciplinary bridge, instead of a brick wall, in the quest for finer quality and resilience in the curriculum and beyond.