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LPE Blog

Weekly Roundup: March 27

Sam Moyn and Jamelle Bouie on legislative supremacy, Mariano Féliz on Argentina’s debt sustainability, Ntina Tzvouala on dollar hegemony (x2), Ivana Isailović on the LPE of Social Reproduction in the EU, Mohini Mookim and Veryl Pow on prefigurative lawyering, Adam Hanieh on the economic significance of the Strait of Hormuz, and JW Mason on his. . .

Of LPE and Legislative Supremacy

Beau Baumann’s case for legislative supremacy offers a compelling vision for the left. However, branding it as a form of “constitutional politics” risks obscuring its deeper claim: that nothing, not even the Constitution, should stand above democratic lawmaking. His vision will also face significant opposition from liberals and progressives, many. . .

Weekly Roundup: March 20

Beau Baumann on the lost art of constitutional politics, Hal Singer on the market definition trap, and Ben Gerstein on the political economy of settler retrenchment. Plus, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez and Paul Sonn explain how cities and states can help boost funding for labor organizations, Samuel Bagg and Shai Agmon discuss the critical role of friction in. . .

The Political Economy of Settler Backlash

When courts recognize Indigenous sovereignty or jurisdiction over contested lands, governments and corporations often respond with warnings of potential economic chaos. These claims of uncertainty are not neutral forecasts but a recurring strategy of settler retrenchment aimed at preserving existing property regimes.

The Market Definition Trap

Antitrust defendants increasingly prevail not by disproving competitive harm, but by dragging plaintiffs into costly battles over market definition. As courts have broadened the rule of reason and complicated the evidentiary standards for proving market power, these threshold fights have become a structural barrier to antitrust enforcement.

Weekly Roundup: March 13

Seven of our favorite labor scholars and lawyers on how to revive a pro-labor vision of the Constitution, Jeena Shah on how to make sense of Trump’s contradictory treatment of Hernández and Maduro, Noam Maggor on how “good” and “bad” capitalists are not born but made. Plus, a definitive ranking of the top 5,000 legal scholars, an upcoming conference. . .

The Politics of Capitalist Legitimacy

At the core of Jason Jackson’s Traders, Speculators, and Captains of Industry is a longstanding conversation among Indian modernizers about how to identify and nurture the ‘right’ kind of capitalists. Yet this is not just an Indian story. Struggles over “good” and “bad” businessmen have structured political life in all capitalist societies,. . .

Weekly Roundup: March 6

Veena Dubal and Aziza Ahmed on how feminists transformed the law and science of AIDS, Luke Herrine on market governance in Trumpworld, and Aditya Balasubramanian on the misnomer of modern Indian capital. Plus, a new special issue on Law & Economics vs. Law & Political Economy, Shahrzad Shams and Todd N. Tucker make the progressive case for court. . .

Modern(izing) Indian Capital?

Jason Jackson’s erudite Traders, Speculators, and Captains of Industry shows that, for more than a century, Indian firms labeled as “traditional” capital faced policy hostility, while those considered “modern” were more likely to receive favorable government treatment. Yet how should we understand the modernity of so-called “modern Indian. . .

Market Governance in Trumpworld

Over the past year, the much-touted right-wing embrace of anti-monopolism has been reduced to a distant memory. What has emerged instead is a personalist form of market governance, where regulatory authority persists only insofar as it serves the ambitions of political insiders.

Weekly Roundup: Feb 27

Sophina Clark on work-spreading as a non-reformist reform, Jason Jackson on the moral orders of capitalist legitimacy, and Amy Cohen on a potential post-moral turn in American capitalism. Plus, Lenore Palladino shines a slight on unregulated private capital, Lev Menand and Joel Michaels dismiss Trump’s latest tariff gambit, Beatrice Adler-Bolton speaks. . .