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Rent Strikes as a Righteous Form of Resistance
Rent Strikes as a Righteous Form of Resistance

Rent Strikes as a Righteous Form of Resistance

Landlords wield significant power over tenants — including the power to set prices, surveil, neglect, harass, and evict — while legal processes offer little to tenants in terms of protection or means of redress when their rights are violated. Withholding rent in response to mistreatment is one righteous way of resisting such domination.

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The Political Economy of the Urban-Rural Divide

Though the urban-rural divide can sometimes appear like a primordial fault line in American political life, it is in fact a relatively recent development. The Democratic Party’s collapse in the countryside was the predictable consequence of decisions to prioritize certain constituencies to the neglect of others, as it championed the shift to the metropolitan knowledge economy.

The Rise of Neoliberal Public Finance

How did the American state come to be so extravagant in its recourse to public debt issuance, yet so selectively austere in its public spending choices? To answer this question, we need to understand how two rival schools of thought — Virginia school public choice and supply side economics — converged around the imperative to rein in the redistributive uses of public spending.

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What Does LPE Have to Say About Congress?

In recent years, the LPE movement has generated compelling positions on the limits of the courts and the promise of the administrative state. Yet it is striking how little it has had to say about about legislative procedure and politics. By focusing on how power can be durably built in Congress, LPE scholars could help envision democratic alternatives to. . .

Weekly Roundup: Dec. 6

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez on workplace surveillance, Luke Herrine on midcentury meatpacking competition, Eamonn Coburn on abusive labor practices as unfair competition, Alex Gourevitch and Christopher Muller on race, labor exploitation, and incarceration, and the Critical Legal Collective on DEI Statements. Plus, Harvard LPE is looking for a new director, a. . .

Did More Competition Make Meatpacking Fairer?

According to a common antimonopoly narrative, prior to the merger wave of the 1980s, antitrust enforcement kept the meatpacking industry competitive and relatively decentralized — a situation that enhanced farmers’ autonomy and bargaining power. Yet a closer look at the historical record reveals that this fierce midcentury competition also undermined. . .