The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project brings together a network of scholars, practitioners, and students working to develop innovative intellectual, pedagogical, and political interventions to advance the study of political economy and law. Our work is rooted in the insight that politics and the economy cannot be separated and that both are constructed in essential respects by law. We believe that developments over the last several decades in legal scholarship and policy helped to facilitate rising inequality and precarity, political alienation, the entrenchment of racial hierarchies and intersectional exploitation, and ecological and social catastrophe. We aim to help reverse these trends by supporting scholarly work that maps where we have gone wrong, and that develops ideas and proposals to democratize our political economy and build a more just, equal, and sustainable future.
About The LPE Project
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Learn
A variety of resources designed to help faculty and students learn more about LPE, including syllabi from LPE and LPE-related courses, primers on topics such as neoliberalism and legal realism, as well as videos from a number of events we have held over the last year.
Go To LearnEngage
A Speakers Bureau of LPE-affiliated professors and practitioners design to help faculty and students to bring LPE scholars to their campuses (even if virtually for now). Information about the amazing work being done by LPE student groups around the country, how to get in touch with them, as well as guidance on starting a student…
Go To EngageEvents
A compendium of upcoming (and past) events put on by the LPE Project, LPE student groups, and other organizations in the LPE ecosystem.
Go To Events
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Weekly Roundup: July 30, 2021
At the Blog We hosted the second and final part of our symposium on Courts and Capitalism, which is part of the Democracy Beyond Neoliberalism conference: Joey Fishkin wrote about the long history of the Supreme Court’s opposition to democracy, drawing on his forthcoming book The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution. Judge Lynn Adelman wrote about judges’ role…
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Labor Bargaining and the “Common Good”
In recent years, unions have experimented with a strategy of "bargaining for the common good". But, as we have seen with teachers unions and school opening in the pandemic, unions and the general public do not always agree on what the "public good" is. What follows?
On Judging Cases in the Context of Crisis
I thank the Law and Political Economy Project for inviting me to participate in this blog symposium on capitalism and the courts. I begin by stating the obvious: that we live in a capitalist economic system and a political system that aspires to being democratic. There is clearly considerable tension between these systems. Most capitalists…
Courts and Constitutional Political Economy
If history is any guide, the long-term solution when the courts are aligned against liberal and progressive causes is not to “reform” the politics out of the courts, but, rather, to confront the courts through politics itself.