Calabresi complains that we are "choking on statutes" and proposes a restoration of the courts and their common law function. From a series of lectures given by Calabresi as part of The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures delivered at Harvard Law School in March 1977.

A general theoretical account of how societies cope with decisions which they regard as tragic.

In a concise, compelling argument, one of the founders and most influential advocates of the law and economics movement divides the subject into two separate areas, which he identifies with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The first, Benthamite, strain, "economic analysis of law," examines the legal system in the light of economic theory and shows how economics might render law more effective. The second strain, law and economics, gives equal status to law, and explores how the more realistic, less theoretical discipline of law can lead to improvements in economic theory. It is the latter approach that Judge Calabresi advocates, in a series of eloquent, thoughtful essays that will appeal to students and scholars alike.

The dominance of legislatures and statutory law has put an impossible burden on the courts. Guido Calabresi thinks it is time for this country seriously to consider returning to a traditional American judicial-legislative balance in which courts would enlarge the common law and would also decide when a rule of law has seen its day and should be revised.