Le désintéressement - article ; n°3 ; vol.44, pg 733-751

Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations - Année 1989 - Volume 44 - Numéro 3 - Pages 733-751
Professional Ethics: Selflessness.
Selflessness constituted the main strategy through which the legal profession, threatened by strengthening of the State and development of the capitalist market, managed to preserve its social being. This principle of action—whose course from its beginnings at the end of the 17th century until its waning in the 1950's is examined here—is expressed in writings, speeches, doctrines, mies, disciplinary practices, and more generally speaking, in the organization of a specific economic system. The similarities between this economy of moderation and primitive exchange show the generality of this practice: selflessness allows one to concretely establish balanced mutual exchange, thus transforming enemies and indifferent parties into allies, and to thereby maintain, in the face of adverse forces, the permanence ofthe collectivity's mode of existence.
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.