Law and Political Economy Blog - LPE Project - Page 11

Symposium

Popular Justice Reborn?

By Elizabeth Dale

The activists depicted in Radical Acts of Justice challenge the idea that criminal prosecutors represent “the People.” But where did that idea come from in the first place? By tracing the long shift in American history from informal, non-professional law enforcement to our current system of formal, bureaucratized law enforcement, we. . .

Essay

How Nonprofit Hospitals Deny Financial Assistance to Patients

By Luke Messac

Nonprofit hospitals frequently deploy administrative hurdles to prevent low-income patients from receiving legally-mandated financial assistance. As a result, patients who should have qualified for assistance instead have billions of dollars of debt placed on their credit reports or sold to aggressive collectors. The IRS could mitigate this cruel practice by. . .

Essay

The American Right to Sleep Under Bridges

By Mila Versteeg, Kevin Cope, Gaurav Mukherjee

Unlike most modern constitutions, the U.S. Constitution famously lacks any social welfare rights. At least, it did until 2018. Over the past five years, the Ninth Circuit has created a right unique in the American constitutional tradition: an effective license for homeless individuals to sleep on public lands.

Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: March 28

By Editors

Chris Essert on homelessness and property; Ganesh Sitaraman, Sanjay Jolly, Zephyr Teachout, Nikolas Guggenberger, Anupam Chander, and Elettra Bietti on the pending TikTok ban; and Meredith Whittaker on regulating social media in a time of rising illiberalism. Plus, upcoming events on Law and American Empire and Law and Marxism, as well as new pieces by. . .

Essay

Social Media, Authoritarianism, and the World As It Is

By Meredith Whittaker

Before we move to further concentrate global surveillance and propaganda power in the hands of the United States, we should be clear-eyed about the threats to speech and privacy that emanate from within.

Rapid Roundtable

Six Reactions to the Proposed TikTok Ban

By Ganesh Sitaraman, Sanjay Jolly, Zephyr Teachout, Nikolas Guggenberger, Anupam Chander, Elettra Bietti

Ganesh Sitaraman, Sanjay Jolly, Zephyr Teachout, Nikolas Guggenberger, Anupam Chander, and Elettra Bietti share their initial reactions to the pending TikTok ban.

Essay

What Is the Relationship Between Homelessness and the Law?

By Christopher Essert

To be homeless, Jeremy Waldron has famously argued, is not merely to suffer from unmet needs – to be cold or hungry or exposed – but also to be unfree. In what sense, however, does homelessness make one unfree? And what is the relationship between this unfreedom and the law?

Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: March 22

By Editors

Sara Rankin on the most consequential homeless rights case in decades, Marshall Steinbaum on the material basis for the culture war over higher education, and Marc-William Palen on recovering the left-wing free trade tradition. Plus, so many upcoming events this excerpt simply can’t do them justice: Empire and Constitutional Law, Historical Approaches to. . .

Essay

Recovering the Left-Wing Free Trade Tradition

By Marc-William Palen

Since the late 20th century, free trade has been defended primarily by neoliberals who cared little about social justice or democracy. However, a longer examination of free trade’s relationship to left-wing politics paints a very different picture. Recovering the history of those who defended free trade from the left may help us envision an alternative to. . .

Symposium

Should Higher Education Ratify Privilege or Public Service?

By Marshall Steinbaum

Campus culture wars over DEI programs, gender nonconformity, and student debt cancellation might seem like distractions from the real problems facing higher education. However, they all tell us something important about the purpose of higher ed, because they all concern the central questions of hierarchy and its reproduction.

Essay

The Unavoidable Consequences of Being Human

By Sara Rankin

Next month, the Supreme Court will decide whether it is constitutional for cities to punish unsheltered people for sleeping outside, even when the city fails to provide any safe alternative. Yet, no matter how the court rules, homeless people will still face significant threats from cities.

Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: March 15, 2024

By Editors

Julieta Lobato on Milei’s labor governance, Evan Bernick on the role of the Constitution in freedom struggles, and Jonathan Glater & Adriana Hardwicke on the fracturing of higher education. Plus, the next session in our Courts open course, a call for recently accepted LPE-relevant articles, pieces on the destruction of the Covid social safety net,. . .

Symposium

The Fracturing of American Higher Education

By Jonathan D. Glater, Adriana N. Hardwicke

Despite the outsized attention afforded to a handful of elite, private colleges, most students attend public institutions within 50 miles of their home. The recent curriculum wars in different states, as well as disparities in state-level funding, mean that where one lives will play an increasingly important role in both the accessibility and content of. . .

Symposium

Radical Constitutionalism and a Critique of Nonviolence

By Evan D. Bernick

The most important work of legal scholarship in some time, Jocelyn Simonson’s Radical Acts of Justice raises, but does not develop, two major sets of questions. The first concerns the role of the Constitution in freedom struggles; the second, the legitimate role (if any) of violence in transformative left politics in the United States.

Essay

The Necropolitics of Milei’s Labor Governance

By Julieta Lobato

Javier Milei’s labor policies in Argentina highlight two often overlooked features of contemporary capitalism: the emergence of new labor subjects and the role of violence in processes of labor precarization. This production of precarity serves as a mechanism for framing certain lives as disposable and bolsters illegal economies that are increasingly replacing. . .

LPE Blog