The paper discusses the relationship between the regulative "crisis" of the labour law and the institutional question. This interdependence is analysed through a methodological approach focusing on "individuals", "institutions" and public choices. The author points out three conclusions: a) first of all, it is impossible to show (as, instead, the historicist approach pretends to do) the necessary course of the future events, because only a formulation of hypothesis - which must be verified - can be proposed; b) secondly, these hypothesis can't be advanced on the base of the dogmatic hypostatization of an individual mechanicistic rationality (as instead the neoclassical approach-characteristic of the free traders-to the labour market asserts); c) whenever these assumptions involve choices of economical policy the analyse has to take into consideration the institutional contest of those choices.