Economia política constitucional: programa de pesquisa James Buchanan e as tecnologias civis

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify the costs and benefits designed by the legal technologies of the Civil Code, applying the research program of Constitutional Political Economy as defined by James Buchanan (1975) which is a fundamental heuristic tool in this study to understand the institutional dynamics of Law from the rational man’s utilitarian-maximizing logic. This research program presents an ontology, a methodology, an axiology, a theory, a praxis, and a social context of ideas. With these categories, it is performed the instrumental reinterpretation of the Civil Code which points as a result to the existence of four contractual technologies (trading, centralization, decentralization, and coalition) and their respective costs and institutional benefits. Also, in order to maximize the Buchanan-esque research program, it was introduced the research program of the collective action as defined by Mancur Olson, equally structured into several categories, in order to see the interference of the free rider individual in legal technologies’ performance. As a contribution, this article shows that there is a political microeconomics in the Brazilian Civil Code.