The research aims at evidencing the inconsistencies found in contemporary theoretical trend, which favors the establishment of increasing conditions for the suppression of protections and weakening of dogmas in the conception of Penal Law, whether by primarily criminalizing conducts of minor offensive potential or those concerning maximum offensive potential. The methodological approach was to compare two categories modern theory establishes as distinct: on one hand, the classical Penal Law, based on the protection of legal interests of a solely anthropocentric nature; and, on the other hand, economic Penal Law, which casts its protection against the vicissitudes of the risk society: supra-individual legal interests and widespread and collective interests. The dissertation is divided in four chapters. In the first one, it focuses on the constitutional basis of the economic order. Then, it analyzes the classical Penal Law, including in relation to its tenets. In the third chapter, the emergence of the economic Penal Law is discussed; its conceptual limits are indicated and differentiating criteria are established. It is concluded that the dichotomy suggested by the theory produces a political-criminal effect of an extremely rhetorical bias, resulting, in actuality, in a surreptitious increase of the punitive power of the State. In cases involving the so-called criminality of the powerful, it functions as a control over non-certified assets; whereas regarding conventional criminality, it legitimates the exclusion of the disenfranchised population.