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LPE Blog
Essay

How Not to Regulate Digital Platforms

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In Paul Gowder’s recent blog post, as well as in his new book, he argues that we should democratize, rather than dismantle or restructure, Big Tech platforms. However, this familiar framing obscures more than it reveals, relying upon an impoverished account of the political economy of technology, of the co-evolution of politics and production, and of. . .
Symposium

The Role of Law in Capitalism

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Within the LPE movement, there is a broad consensus that “law is central to the creation and maintenance of structural inequalities in the state and the market” and that “class power is inextricably connected to the development of racial and gender hierarchies.” These claims, while often articulated in response to neoliberalism, go to the very. . .
Essay

Economic Coercion in a Multipolar World

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Once the near-exclusive prerogative of the United States, unilateral economic sanctions are increasingly a multipolar phenomenon. As Aslı Bâli has recently argued, this current conjuncture may offer a new window to resist forms of economic coercion that legitimate and enforce an unjust neocolonial global order. At the same time, however, there are new. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 27, 2023

By LPE Editors

Matthew Dimick defends the concept of capitalism, and the LPE Blog highlights the hottest forthcoming LPE and LPE-adjacent articles. Plus, the at-large student group rises from the ashes, a book talk on American debt relief at HLS, Sandeep Vaheesan and Brian Callaci on the labor movement as a resource for antitrust, Lenore Palladino shares her economic and. . .
Symposium

Is Capitalism “a Thing”?

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According to Sam Moyn, capitalism and the ills it is said to generate are nothing more than a contingent jumble of various legal rules and regulations. Indeed, “capitalism” is merely a term of abuse, to which nineteenth-century thinkers made a misguided attempt to attribute “general laws.” This critique, however, overlooks the extent to which Marx’s. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 20, 2023

By LPE Editors

Talha Syed on the poverty of theory in CLS, Douglas Kysar on climate change and the neoliberal imagination, and Bernard Harcourt on the relationship between legal theory and radical political practice. Plus, an open letter from legal scholars urging an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, an event next week with Stephen Vladeck about the shadow docket, and last. . .
Symposium

Critical Legal Theory & Radical Political Praxis

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In his recent post about the LPE Movement’s reticence toward legal theory, Sam Moyn speculates that this aversion may be born of a noble yet misguided deference towards grassroots social movements. Deference, however, does not capture the dynamic relationship between critical legal theory and radical political practice. One does not precede the other or. . .
Essay

Climate Change and the Neoliberal Imagination

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Neoliberal welfare economics has constrained our moral and political imagination and, in so doing, limited our ability to realistically advance climate justice. This can be seen by considering two policy proposals that appear to fit comfortably within the standard climate economic paradigm, but that offer a wider scope of possibility than conventionally allowed.. . .
Symposium

Did CLS Have (Much Of) Any Theory?

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Sam Moyn’s recent call for a renewed interest in a radical theory of law is timely and welcome. However, if LPE wants a social and legal theory adequate to its ambitions, we cannot turn to the insights of the earlier CLS movement to develop it. This is because CLS, in the relevant respects, did not have (much of) any theory at all.
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 13, 2023

By LPE Editors

Week in review: Amanda Parsons and Salomé Viljoen analyze the disconnect between social data and the law, while Luke Herrine offers law students a guided tour through the many meanings of efficiency. Plus, the first New Haven LPE Happy Hour, Rob Hunter responds to Sam Moyn, Sanjay Jolly discusses C. Edwin Baker, and Claire Kelloway and Maureen Tkacik debunk. . .
Essay

What Do You Mean by Efficiency? An Opinionated Guide

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To ask “but what do you mean by efficiency?” can make one appear unsophisticated or pedantic. But that’s precisely the question we should be asking. Because there are good reasons to reject the notions of “efficiency” usually taught in 1L classes, even if — in fact, precisely because — we have good reason to value other forms of efficiency.
Essay

Towards a Legal Understanding of Social Data

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There is, at present, a conceptual mismatch between the strategies of accumulation that are dominant in the digital economy and the basic assumptions that underlie the legal regimes tasked with regulating accumulation. To begin to address this discrepancy, legal actors in these regimes need a better understanding of how companies translate social data into. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 6, 2023

By LPE Editors

Sandeep Dhaliwal on the Eighth Amendment as a right to credit, Sanjukta Paul on the virtues of mid-level theorizing, and Sandeep Vaheesan and Andy Fitch on the treatise that has misled antitrust scholars for decades. Plus, two cool jobs, a CFP for ClassCrits, Amy Kapczynski, Reshma Ramachandran, and Christopher Morten on how not to do industrial policy, Kim. . .