Jacques Rueff Between Economics and Law: Multidimensional Vision, Property Rights, and Social Order

Rueff's work spans more than half a century, which makes his thought particularly dense and rich. Non-conformist in his methodology, as a moderate heterodox in his theory and a reformer in his actions, Rueff brought an original contribution to the twentieth-century economic thought. However, as an engineer, economist, judge, writer, professor, and sometimes even a philosopher, Rueff cannot be reduced to his economic theory alone. The diversity of his thought is the result of a scientific, almost physical vision of the economy and an institutional framework in which the liberal tradition dominates. Incidentally, it is not a surprise that Rueff's ideas attracted so much attention among legal scholars. Rueff was an instinct jurist and law was crucial to him. He supported that the jurist was the architect of system, the person who establishes the rules of the game, and the economist was the mason who builds the structure of the system. At the heart of this construction, we find for Rueff the property rights that he revisited in its roots and in all its components and consequences. Not only the property right is seen by Rueff as a condition of economic development, but it also penetrates theory in economics, both as an object of exchange and as a condition of economic equilibrium (when it is "true") or as a threat (when it is "false"). Rueff also played a major role in the applicability of the competition law to economic realities, especially in the foundation of the European law. He brought thus an economic perspective to purely legal matters but also a certain economic intelligence to unprecedented law cases.