Contractual Freedom in Legal and Potestary Paradigms/Cultures

The principle of contractual freedom from the perspective of V. Chetvernin’s institutional theory has been studied in this research paper. The author believes thatthe term ‘freedom of contract’ can be interpreted in diverse ways, which depends on the types of legal understanding and culture.This is closely connected with non-identical definitions of the terms ‘right’ and ‘freedom’ in the opposite cultures. The purposes of this research are to define what ‘freedom of speech’ means in different cultural contexts, and to discover those functions of institutions that can be considered as restricting and even denying this freedom. To achieve this goal, the following tasks have been performed: 1) to define potestarian and right-type cultures, to explain their difference as well as to decide on the meanings of freedom of contract; 2) to show the fundamental difference of freedom of contract in the conditions of capitalism and social capitalism; 3) to trace the history of contractual freedom through the prism of institutional theory; 4) to reveal the contents and functions of those institutions of social-capitalism which restrict freedom of contract; 5) to figure out how the principle of contractual freedom is applied in today’s Russia. As a result of this study, there have been: 1) determined the definitions of the term ‘freedom of contract’ in accordance with potestarian and right-type cultures; 2) established the place and role of contractual freedom in the conditions of capitalism and social capitalism; 3) explained the contents and functions of ‘antitrust’ regulation, labour legislation and legislation on protection of ‘consumer rights’; 4) determined that there is no freedom of contract in the sense of prohibition of aggressive violence in Russia. The paper itself consists of the following parts: an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.