It’s the first day of August, which means that the blog is officially on hiatus for the next month. But before we hit the beach (library) and catch some rays (plan our fall schedule), a couple brief announcements.
Cha-Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes
This summer, we say a fond farewell to two members of our editorial board, Angela Harris and Sanjukta Paul. Since 2020 and 2021 respectively, Angela and Sanjukta have generously shared their insight, helped guide our programming, and scouted up-and-coming LPE talent. We are grateful for their service, and they will be missed!
But the ship of Theseus must sail on, and to help us navigate these uncertain waters, the Board has added three new members: Veena Dubal, Aziz Rana, and Karen Tani. Readers of the Blog will immediately recognize how fortunate we are to have these LPE powerhouses join the team.
Veena has been at the forefront of analyzing the platform labor economy, and her writing on the Blog has included posts on employment classification, gig worker organizing, and algorithmic wage discrimination, as well as a pair of interviews about the farmer-laborer strikes in India.
Aziz is one of the most insightful political thinkers on left, whose scholarship charts how shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity. On the Blog, he has written about the imperial roots of American social democracy, the long history of anti-CRT politics, and the links between American constitutionalism and racial capitalism. (It is also hard to believe that it has been three years since our ten-year retrospective on his Two Faces of American Freedom).
Karen is a leading legal historian, whose work illuminates the construction of American social welfare policy and the operation of the administrative state. On the Blog, she has written on a wide range of issues, including notice and comment, cost-benefit analysis, and the divided welfare state. She also put together our symposium on Marta Russell’s Capitalism & Disability and our conversation on LPE & Disability.
We are also bidding adieu to two stalwart editors, Ann Sarnak and Caroline Parker, who both graduated from YLS this past May. Among other feats, Ann was responsible for our symposia on Decommodifying Urban Property, Coerced: Work Under Threat of Punishment, and Worker Surveillance, Collective Resistance, as well as generally holding down the housing and labor beats. She leaves us to join Cohen Milstein, in DC.
Caroline’s many highlights include the famed LPE Field Guide for 1Ls (and accompanying reading list), the LPE of Meat symposium, our series on Just Transitions, and the coolest series during a hot summer: climate, economics, and “green capitalism.” She will spend the upcoming year clerking for Judge Sidney Thomas on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Billings, MT. But Big Sky doesn’t mean goodbye: while Caroline will no longer be serving as an editor at the Blog, she has agreed to stick around and join the Editorial Board.
Fortunately, the editorial staff has a fantastic new addition to the team as well: Kate Yoon. Kate is a rising 3L at YLS who holds a DPhil in politics from Oxford. At the Blog, she plans to focus on international law, gender, and social reproduction.
The Most Read Posts of 2023
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. But if you find yourself pining for LPE content during the dog days of summer, you can revisit some of our most loved posts from the first half of 2023.
10. Six Reactions to the Silicon Valley Bank Debacle
Featuring Christine Desan, Lev Menand, Raúl Carrillo, Rohan Grey, Dan Rohde, and Hilary J. Allen.
9. Eight Reaction to the FTC’s Proposed Ban on Non-Competes
Featuring Suresh Naidu, Catherine Fisk, David Seligman, Leah Samuel, Sandeep Vaheesan, Sanjukta Paul, Najah A. Farley, and Basel Musharbash.
8. Reading the Post-Neoliberal Right – Amy Kapczynski
Amy Kapczynski reflects on the political vision put forward by the post-neoliberal right, as well as what their arrival on the scene means for the LPE movement.
7. Terrorism Torts and the Right to Colonize – Darryl Li
Darryl Li argues that a recent lawsuit against the Campaign for Palestinian Rights is not merely an instance of terrorism laws potentially trampling human rights but an an aggressive assertion of a right to colonize.
6. What CLS Meant by the Indeterminacy Thesis – Akbar Rasulov
The demise of legal theory has, apparently, been overstated. Akbar Rasulov explains what the crits talk about when they talk about indeterminacy, and makes clear what progressively motivated lawyers, such as those involved in the LPE movement, can take today from CLS’s complex and varied legacy.
5. The Origins of the Nonprofit Industrial Complex – Claire Dunning
Claire Dunning looks back at the emergence of the nonprofit industrial complex, and explains why government grants are a poor vehicle for reinforcing fundamental rights.
Three UC faculty members explain how their university system, by investing $4.5 billion in the Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust, is directly contributing to and profiting from housing scarcity and tenant disempowerment.
3. What’s Beyond “Beyond Neoliberalism?” – Amy Kapczynski
Amy Kapczynski raises some doubts about the recent turn to supply-side progressivism. Once we accept that our economy is more than a mere system of production, how far can industrial policy alone take us?
2. Damage Functions (Or Why I Am Mad At Economists) – Madison Condon
Madison Condon gets big mad at economists for pretending they can predict the economic effects of global warming by extrapolating from differences in climate between places, or past changes in climate. As she notes, “We don’t have data on what the economy looks like when all the ice melts.” [skull emoji]
1. The House Always Wins: The Algorithmic Gamblification of Work – Veena Dubal
Veena Dubal lays out how recent technological developments are transforming the basic terms of worker compensation. As a result, many workers now experience their jobs as a form of gambling, in which they are being tricked into working longer for less.
