Markets are taken as the norm in economics and in much of political and media discourse. But if markets are superior why does the public sector remain so large? Avner Offer provides a distinctive new account of the effective temporal limits on private, public, and social activity. Understanding the Private–Public Divide accounts for the division of labour between business and the public sector, how it changes over time, where the boundaries ought to run, and the harm that follows if they are violated. He explains how finance forces markets to focus on short-term objectives and why business requires special privileges in return for long-term commitment. He shows how a private sector policy bias leads to inequality, insecurity, and corruption. Integrity used to be the norm and it can be achieved again. Only governments can manage uncertainty in the long-term interests of society, as shown by the challenge of climate change.

"Relying on markets alone would make for a poor, dishonest, and miserable society. Banks lend for the short term, and business has to make a profit in less time than that. It succeeds brilliantly when product life is shorter than credit maturities, in retail, consumer durables, services, and some capital goods. It is governments, not markets, that engage with uncertainty, underwrite society's long-term projects, or undertake them itself. This requires integrity, but private-public intermingling engenders corruption. The Victorian legacy of honest bureaucracy is currently undermined by democratic pretensions and commercial greed. Families bring children to maturity as workers. They need protection from uncertainty. Government underpins education, social insurance, healthcare, old age, mass housing, and infrastructure. In these activities, business falters or fails on its own. The market delusion draws a veil on things that last, that matter most, on economic security, equity, compassion, knowledge, art and science. As a response to climate change it has become a threat to our very existence"--

This text is a study of the public/private law divide in the common law tradition. Its starting point is that substantive duties of legality, fairness and rationality are imposed by the common law on bodies discharging public functions, but not always on bodies discharging 'private' functions.

Feminist scholars in disciplines ranging from law to geography challenge our traditional notion of a public/private divide in legal and public policy in Canada and internationally

A comparative study covering all continents, this book explores the role of health rights in advancing greater equality through access to health care.

This course addresses dispute resolution in international cases from the classical perspective of the private-public divide. The main focus relates to overlapping remedies available under private international and public international law. Nowadays, a multitude of courts and arbitral tribunals at different levels (domestic, international and transnational) is accessible to litigants in cross-border settings.

The separation between public and private spheres has structured much of our thinking about human organizations. This collection of essays explores how the public-private divide influences, challenges, and interacts with law and law reform.