Imaginary of the imperium of prosperity and economic constitutionalism in the EU: A socio-legal perspective of spontaneity of the common market and its limits

Priban, Jiri ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4760-6734 2023. Imaginary of the imperium of prosperity and economic constitutionalism in the EU: A socio-legal perspective of spontaneity of the common market and its limits. Skordas, Achilles, Halmai, Gábor and Mardikian, Lisa, eds. Economic Constitutionalism in a Turbulent World, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 38-63.

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Abstract

In this chapter, I therefore analyse the market as part of social and constitutional imaginaries and economic rationality and communication based on the code of profit. I argue that the EU’s economic constitution is imagined as the spontaneously self-evolving imperium of prosperity and peace promoted bymarket collaborations and competition. In the specific context of European integration, I use the general sociological definition of imperium as the potential to constitute power through both factual recognition and normative enforcement of duties and obligations. I argue that the constitution of the European common market was to generate common wealth for all parties and its instrumental mode of consociation was to institutionalise common political interests and bonds beyond national economies and states. I subsequently revisit theoretical contributions and conceptualisations of the German school of ordoliberalism and philosophy of Friedrich A. Hayek to further contextualise recent debates of the European economic constitution. The common market and wealth were to inspire the constitution of a supranational polity legitimised by the economic value of prosperity as much as shared political values of democracy, freedom, rights and peaceful coexistence of the multitude of European peoples and citizens. I conclude by arguing that the imaginary of the spontaneously self-constituting imperium of prosperity, which evolves as structural coupling between European economy, politics and law, operates as background power of EU economic constitutionalism in both its microeconomic and macroeconomic regimes.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	Published
Schools:	Law Cardiff Law & Politics
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General)
Publisher:	Edward Elgar
ISBN:	9781789907568
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2024 09:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166640

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