Chapter 7 explores how the legal cultures in East Asia relate to criminal cartel sanctions. For context, the chapter retraces the incorporation of Confucian ethics in the criminal codes of ancient China. This exercise indicates the possibility of stigmatizing cartels on the moral ground that they constitute improper profit-making contrary to the principle of righteousness. The chapter submits that debates concerning the morality of and prohibition of cartels in East Asia are properly informed by an understanding of Confucian norms—including not only those that allow an actor to achieve virtue internally but also those associated with one’s status and the maintenance of harmonious social order externally. It is submitted that condemning cartel conduct and characterizing it as morally wrongful requires a conception that goes beyond individualist assumptions and calculations. In East Asia, the likely effectiveness of criminal sanctions targeting cartel behaviour can be enhanced if the moral wrongfulness of such behaviour is properly defined, and if its immoral character becomes widely recognized and internalized.

Chapter 9 includes some insights and observations from the Hon. Prof. Calabresi on the major elements of the Maimonidean theory, especially those that are similar – more or less – to contemporary tort law and economics. Calabresi discusses law, economics, and justice in our era and in Maimonides’ theory of torts, and empirical differences in the different times and their implications. Calabresi also considers the question of whether there are differences between the differential liability model presented by Maimonides, and contemporary theories of the economic analysis of tort law, expanding on deontological as opposed to utilitarian considerations according to law and economics. Calabresi deals specifically with the issue of punitive damages and discusses the innovative analysis of Maimonides compared to the multiplier approach, distributive justice as presented by Maimonides, and his optimal deterrence model. There is a great deal in Maimonides that presaged both his work in particular and sophisticated modern law and economics generally. Calabresi notes that not only can we now understand Maimonides, and the breadth of his thinking better, but we also have a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of modern scholarship.