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Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: May 15

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Sabeel Rahman on legislative supremacy, Joe Soss and Joshua Page on criminal-legal predation, and Justin Deystone on the return of critical legal theory. Plus, new jobs with Rutgers’ Housing Justice Clinic and NYU’s federal Indian Law Clinic, a CFP for junior work law scholars (broadly construed), a report on the nordic-US childcare gap, and. . .
Essay

Law & Political Economy, or Legal Theory & Capitalism?

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What is this thing called capitalism? What, if anything, is the use of legal theory in understanding capitalist society? Is anything gained, or anything lost, if we replace the phrase “Law and Political Economy” with “Legal Theory and Capitalism”? Answers to these questions (and more!) in a hot new double issue of Law & Contemporary Problems.
Essay

Taking Legislative Primacy Seriously

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As we work toward a durable democratic future, a commitment to legislative primacy can serve as an orienting north star. Reaching that goal, however, will require using both legislative and executive tools, especially while we are working with an imperfect, hobbled, and significantly co-opted legislature.
Essay

Diversity as Value, Diversity as Risk

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Corporate diversity practices, long celebrated for driving revenue growth and stabilizing stock prices, are now being targeted as liabilities by conservative shareholder activists, consumer boycotts, and litigation. This shift from rainbow capitalism to today’s anti-woke agenda reveals how diversity’s value in the marketplace has always been politically. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: May 1

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Our spring scouting report on some of the hottest new LPE and LPE-adjacent articles, and Andrew Miller on how personalized markets undermine solidarity. Plus, a new book from Shaun Ossei-Owusu, an upcoming event with Aziz Rana, Kate Andrias and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez on unions and abundance, Jordan Cozby on Federalism’s Labor-Law Exception, and Brian. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: April 24

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Patrick Lin on surveillance pricing, and Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff on the political economy of Elon Musk. Plus, last call for hot new scholarship, an opportunity for students to join ALPE, the University of Chicago launches a law and political economy minor, an interview with Stuart Schrader on the history of police unions, a report on how gig nursing. . .
Essay

Muskism as Fordism

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Coined by a German economist in 1926, Fordism came to describe the dominant political-economic order of the mid-twentieth century. Could “Muskism” play a similar role in the twenty-first? How should we understand its distinctive regime of accumulation, and what kind of social contract does it propose?
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: April 17

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Ben Kaufman discusses our broken banking bargain, and Vincent Joralemon reflects on the neglected class dimension of addictive platform design. Plus, a call for (your!) hot new LPE scholarship, an upcoming event on the law, politics, and economy of apocalypse, Christine Desan on the constitutional conflict over the power to make money, a new strategic agenda. . .
Essay

The Class Politics of the Feed

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By targeting the addictive design features of social media platforms, K.G.M. v. Meta marks a breakthrough in product liability law. Yet the case also reveals a neglected class dimension: the harms of addictive platform design fall most heavily on those with the fewest alternatives. In addition to regulating these harmful products, we must build. . .
Essay

Banks Have Abandoned Their Public Purpose

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At the core of the U.S. banking system is the public’s choice to delegate money-creation privileges to private actors. But what is the public getting in exchange? An ever-swelling suite of predatory credit products and few basic services. It’s time to reset the terms of the bargain.
Essay

The Student Loan Conjuncture

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While student loan repayment has resumed, stability is an illusion. Beneath the surface, mounting delinquency, administrative chaos, and the potential dismantling of federal loan management point to a deeper crisis in the governance of higher education finance.

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Student Editor Emeriti Sam Aber Ashraf Ahmed Will Bloom Adam H. Bradlow Matthew Buck Brett Davidson Isabel Echarte Tariq El-Gabalawy Berto Elysee Molly Gordon Jeff Gordon Ruthie Lazenby Talya Lockman-Fine Chloe Miller Andrew Miller Roxana Moussavian Lydia Nicholson Ure Obioma