"ONE TRUTH IS CLEAR, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT”: The History, Indeterminacy, and Ideological Significance of the Doctrine of Economic Duress

The doctrine of economic duress in modern American contract law is usually treated as evidence of the legal system’s willingness to police the marketplace and prevent the exploitation of unequal bargaining power. But courts nearly always rule against the alleged victims of duress. The doctrine's ideological significance lies in the gulf between the legal system’s claim to promote both freedom and fairness and its actual protection of a marketplace filled with sharp disparities of wealth and bargaining power. The existence of economic duress as a legal theory allows people to believe that they can have both individual freedom to exercise economic power and fair results from the exercise of that power. The doctrine thus helps to reinforce the illusion of necessity and legitimacy for the current hierarchy of wealth and power – which makes it that much harder for people to perceive, let alone to object to, the actual extent of inequality, injustice, and lack of freedom. Read more