Introduction: Law for a New Economy: Enterprise, Sharing, Regulation

The main title of this special issue is deliberately purposive and open-ended at one and the same time. Our invocation of the 'new economy' says little about the content of the novelty, risking perhaps the hollow ring of much contemporary genuflection to innovation. Yet our exploration of this terrain of the new is not aimless: the notion of law for a new economy implies a direction of travel, perhaps even an adventure. In this volume, that sense of direction is focused on a sense of the 'new economy' as an emergent movement: clusters of initiatives that link systemic economic change to democratic empowerment, grass-roots struggle, and the pursuit of environmental and social justice.