When Niklas Luhmann set out to develop a grand theory of society in the 1960s, he was aware that his 30 years of work would leave gaps to be filled by researchers in the future. This study is a contribution to systems theory, especially in relation to the tendencies of the economic system towards expansivity in both an ecological and evolutionary sense. It is a study of the economisation of the legal system in the extreme form of its systemic alienation.