Abstract

Neoclassical economic theory has often failed to reflect adequately the particular features of labour. The assumption that there are no political relationships between capital and labour has led to the development of incomplete—and sometimes false—economic models. An institutional approach, one which takes intoaccount the historical social dynamics underlying the relationship between capital and labour, shows more clearly how the asymmetry of power in the labour contract affects freedom in a wider—and political—sense. Through consideration of the different forms of household government in Locke and Aristotle we can reach a better understanding of how the ancient contract of servitude, which Roman law defined as locatio conductio operarum, became today’s ‘labour contract’. This paper aims to show that the supposed contractual freedom is structurally limited by social asymmetries, in other words, by the fact that one of the parties to the contract is not completely autonomous as he/she is not a property owner. Good economic theory should seek to incorporate not only the economic dimension of social asymmetries but also their unyielding political dimension.