Trust law, originally devised as a way to protect the assets of vulnerable parties, has undergone a wholesale transformation in the past half-century. It now primarily serves the rich by providing them with a new form of super-property, insulated from taxation, reporting requirements, and creditor claims. How did this perversion of trust law come about? And why did it confront so little democratic resistance?

From Afro-Diasporic laborers building the Panama Canal to contemporary Micronesians trafficked to work in Iowa’s pork industry, the labors of “territorial peoples” have been central to America's economic rise. This often overlooked history is both an indictment of our constitutional tradition and a harbinger of the tactics of legal disempowerment deployed against labor writ large.

There is an urgent need to develop a genuine critical left internationalism to help think through issues related to China. Yet engaging this subject from an LPE perspective confronts two broad challenges. First, it requires bringing LPE concepts into conversation with debates regarding the diverse legal underpinnings of the global economic order. Second, it requires developing a left internationalism that embraces a non-U.S.-centric anti-imperialist position, moving beyond limited Cold War imaginaries.