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Essay

How the Corporation Lost Its Image as a “Creature of State”

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Previously recognized as quasi-public institutions whose shareholders received corporate privileges in exchange for the fulfillment of public goods, corporations are today primarily understood to be private economic actors. This conceptual shift is in some ways quite puzzling. Despite the changing nature of the relationship between states and corporations throughout. . .
Essay

Democracy Without Law?

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Two different mortal threats to democracy have been on vivid display this past year: Trump’s January 6 insurrection and the Supreme Court’s rampage through statutory and constitutional law. Considering these events on split-screen raises some uncomfortable questions about LPE analysis of democracy, law, and courts. In particular, certain law-is-just-politics views. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 21, 2022

By LPE Editors

Jules Gill-Peterson offers a materialist analysis of recent anti-trans legislation, Liat Ben-Moshe and Dean Spade discuss the influence and legacy of Marta Russell, and Zohra Ahmed examines the right to counsel in the neoliberal age. Plus, an upcoming mentoring session for those interested in teaching at a law school.
Essay

The Right to Counsel in a Neoliberal Age

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Over the past forty years, the Supreme Court has increasingly recognized the rights of defendants in criminal proceedings to exert autonomy over their own representation, including dispensing with counsel. Analyzing these developments in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, this post argues that encoding defendant choice into constitutional rules will likely deepen,. . .
Symposium

Disability and the Cisgender State

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In the escalating wave of anti-trans legislation and administrative violence sweeping the United States over the past several years, the credo on the left has often been that political violence against trans people is mere pretense: a right wing culture war meant to distract from issues more properly political-economic, or a cynical ploy to motivate a. . .
Symposium

The Reactive Model of Reasonable Accommodation

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The concept of reasonable accommodations at the heart of the ADA severely undercuts the efficacy of the law. Employers, public entities, and private businesses are allowed to ignore the inaccessible nature of their programs or activities until an individual with a disability seeks (or begs) for access. This reactive, individualized model does little to. . .
Symposium

Moral Equality, Marxism, and Outraged Empathy

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In her earlier work, Marta Russell called readers attention to the economy as a factor producing disablement and argued that we needed to re-embed the market in society, to tame businesses’ need to profit via the social policies of an interventionist state. By the end of her career, however, Russell had gone further, focusing on capitalism itself. Her. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: October 7, 2022

By LPE Editors

Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Artie Vierkant, and Karen Tani blow the doors off a new symposium on Marta Russell and the Political Economy of Disability, while Rick Weinmeyer calls attention to our public reliance on privately owned toilets. Plus, a new issue of the JLPE, as well as articles by Aziz Rana, Sanjukta Paul, and about the noble work that Sabeel Rahman. . .
Essay

The Public Reliance on Private Toilets

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When most people consider the crisis of American infrastructure, they imagine crumbling roads and bridges, decrepit schools and hospitals, or dysfunctional railways and power grids. This post calls attention to a different, often overlooked component of American infrastructure — public restrooms. Specifically, it argues for a constitutional right to. . .
Symposium

Capitalism & Disability as Research Agenda

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The late Marta Russell is not a well-known figure among legal scholars and practitioners. She should be. Running throughout her writings is a powerful thesis: in many respects, law works to enable profit-seeking, and disability, as a concept, is crucial to that work.
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: September 30, 2022

By LPE Editors

Ruth Dukes and Wolfgang Streeck on labour law & political economy, Sydney Forde on the economic basis of journalistic “objectivity,” and William Novak on the rise of the modern American administrative. Plus, upcoming events with Sara Nelson, Tim Wu, Sanjukta Paul, and more!