Abstract

The fall of the Berlin-Wall has been interpreted as the end of history, i.e. above all the identification of neoliberalism as the definitive way of conceiving the economic order worldwide. To that aim, the political order has to be conceived as a mere instrument for developing the market order based on free competition, so that no social conflict is able to question it. The result is a depoliticized economic order, where legal scholars simply have to implement economic theories and practices, giving up the traditional expectation to organize society through their own professional knowledge. The European Union is the most representative context to identify these tendencies, which end up in a dramatic alteration of the balance between the two cornerstones of the Western legal tradition: democracy and capitalism.