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Weekly Roundup: Sept. 18
Weekly Roundup: Sept. 18

Weekly Roundup: Sept. 18

Yochai Benkler on the dynamics of capitalism and law’s role within it, Matthew Dimick on capital and law as social forms, and Matthew Lawrence on administrative law after transsubstantivity. Plus, new books by Nikolas Bowie, Daphna Renan, and Allison Tait, a symposium on the global political economy of artificial intelligence, an upcoming event on public pharma, and new pieces on the right to housing, the rise and fall of tech workers, and the transition from dollars hegemony to dollar dominance.

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A Social Theory of Law in Capitalism

Understanding law’s role in producing the imperatives of capitalism and the relative power of those who occupy different roles in production allows us to identify reforms capable of transforming the structure of those relations.

American Kafala

When seen through the prism of the kafala system, it appears that the Trump administration seeks to consolidate and formalize the most extractive features of the U.S. migration regime.

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Doing Applied Administrative Law

Administrative law is often described as “transsubstantive”: in understanding, evaluating, and articulating the rules governing federal agency action across public health, environmental regulation, national security, and sundry other domains, law schools and legal scholarship treat administration as a single enterprise. What would it take to move beyond. . .

Weekly Roundup: Sept. 11

Sameer Ashar on the potential transformation of the U.S. immigration system, Luke Herrine on the history of multilevel marketing and right-wing movement building, and a CFP for the second annual ALPE conference. Plus, a collaborative research project for law students interested in the transition from capitalism to socialism, a new book by Sabeel Rahman, two. . .

Off with the Lotus Eaters

Before the Blog goes on its annual August hiatus, we count down the ten most read posts of 2026 so far, say a fond farewell to our departing student editors, and welcome three new additions to the team.

What Rolls Downhill

Recent calls for mandatory retirement in academia are a reminder that class and other social hierarchies are something like mountains with increasingly dense fog toward their peaks: the higher up one is, the less one understands that upon which and above which one stands.

Cradle to the Grave

As Sam Moyn has recently argued, “class reductionism” fails to explain differentiation along the generational gradient — a pattern clearly visible in economics, politics, and ideology. Yet a clear picture of how age mediates class would reveal not gerontocracy, but capitalism and the fractionated class system it produces.

Weekly Roundup: July 24

Madison Condon and Luke Herrine on the economics that Law & Economics ignores, Jeremy Bearer-Friend and Sarah Polcz on why we should tax AI equity, Matt Bodie on the persistence of shareholder primacy, and Diana Reddy on theorizing discrimination for the bad jobs economy. Plus, two PhD scholarships available at UNSW Law, a set of new papers from the. . .