To the extent that social control is mediated by law and guaranteed by remote power-holders, interaction systems can be freed from concretely binding, and thus much more rigid, forms of social control on a face-to-face basis. Thus law makes relatively unconsidered action possible in highly specified functional contexts. Interaction systems may then be assigned more or less to exclusively specific subsystems of society. In the market, things are only bought and sold; there is no longer any place for gossiping, for looking for a love-partner or preparing for the next political election.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 775