Abstract

The fact that a big, tacit social contract crumbles into a multitude of tiny explicit contracts, which govern a load of social duties, relationships and behaviours, is a striking and enigmatic phenomenon. A similar Zergliederung [dissection] undoubtedly occurs in many other areas of the Law, producing the overall effect of a “law-saturated society.” However, the most relevant feature in this process is not the astonishing shift from one legal paradigm to another, but the – mostly unnoticed – emergence of the trait of functionality.