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LPE Blog

Labor Governance in the Shadow of Racialized Mass Incarceration

The threat of precarious work does not come exclusively from marketization swamping a shrinking welfare and regulatory state. It comes as well from a metastasizing and thoroughly racialized carceral state, one that simultaneously speaks the language of public violence and sings in the liberal key of choice. Even critical accounts of the criminal legal system. . .

LPE in Europe as Critique of Ordoliberalism

The relevance of LPE for Europe might not be instantly obvious. LPE in the U.S. gets part of its conceptual thrust from its opposition to the dominance of Law and Economics, a framework that never achieved the same kind of intellectual hegemony in Europe. But there is a European parallel that could ground critique: the guiding role that ordoliberalism has. . .

The Road to Free-Market Family Policy

There’s a widely accepted story that the US’s reliance on markets and paid work over direct government provision in supporting families derives from the country’s unique, longstanding economic ideology supporting free enterprise. A close attention to the historical record shows that this story is a myth.

The Regulatory Roots of Inequality in the U.S.

The surge in US economic inequality since the 1970s was powerfully driven by politics and policy. Firms and individuals actively shaped market governance – from corporate governance to labor regulation – in their own favor and then took advantage of that favorable governance in the marketplace. This “inequality snowball” was particularly pronounced in. . .

The Case for Making Rent Disappear

To understand what’s at stake in the fight for rent cancellation, we first need to understand the significance of rent. In the US, rent is the vehicle for a wealth transfer from the poorest third of the population to a mere 7% of US residents and a relatively small number of corporate entities. The mom-and-pop landlords that make up that 7% face more. . .