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LPE Originals

LPE Without Borders: Lessons from the Global South

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Law and political economy scholarship, immersed in a particular history of Northern law and capitalism, has tended to focus on US law and policy, with occasional excursions into Europe. But in a world where imperialist ideas and technologies tend to circle back to the metropole, and where the periphery appears to be the future of the center, the Global South has much to teach LPE about law, capitalism, and development.
LPE Originals

Hospice Commodification and the Limits of Antitrust

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As hospice care is increasingly dominated by private equity firms, an antitrust response, while necessary, has the potential to normalize the language of the market as the default mode for discussing healthcare reform. Hospice demonstrates what is lost when healthcare is described as a mere economic exchange, and Medicare’s per diem hospice benefit harbors as-yet-unrealized potential for decommodification.
LPE Originals

The Long Anti-Tax Tradition of American Oligarchy

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Throughout U.S. history, oligarchs have fettered the tax power of the state to ensure that the government would be too feeble to rein in their power. The Trump Administration’s capricious tariffs and mass firings at the Internal Revenue Service are the latest iteration of this long, anti-tax, anti-democratic tradition.
LPE Originals

From Movement Lawyering to Prefigurative Lawyering: Living Out Liberatory Values Now

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As the far right consolidates power at the federal level, many progressive lawyers are turning to state policy or crafting rebuilding plans for after the storm. Yet this moment also offers a chance to adopt a more radical orientation: prefigurative lawyering at the local level. According to this approach, we must create the world we want to live in now, working with movement partners in the co-creation of non-capitalist ecosystems based on care and cooperation.
LPE Originals

The Rise of OIRA 2.0

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The Trump Administration’s use of individualized, firm-level waivers and exemptions marks a new frontier in presidential control of the administrative state. This strategy allows the administration to bypass the formal process for repealing regulations while turning deregulation itself into a tool for distributing political favors.
LPE Originals

Capitalism and Democracy: Always, Weimar, and Now

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In the current moment, it is not a crisis of capitalism that challenges democracy, but its triumph. For this reason, our political-economic situation is quite different from that of Weimar Germany, whatever continuities and similarities may exist.
LPE Originals

Intel and the New State Capitalism

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While some have cast the U.S. government’s $8.9 billion equity stake in Intel as the first step on the road to socialism, upon closer examination it looks more like a distinctive form of American state capitalism: one that entrenches corporate power while foreclosing more democratic and effective alternatives.
LPE Originals

Movement Law Under Fascism

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As fascist tendencies intensify across the United States, social movements continue to organize against the forces of state repression. Legal scholars must stand with these movements, grounding our analysis in struggle and supporting those fighting on the frontlines with our relative social power and institutional resources.
LPE Originals

Anti-Monopolism as an Ideology of the Left

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Some on the left dismiss anti-monopolism as a distraction from the core conflict between labor and capital. But this view misunderstands both history and strategy: antitrust has long been a tool for democratizing economic power, and it remains essential for resisting attempts to control economic production wherever and whenever it occurs.
LPE Originals

Predistribution and the Law and Economics of Income Inequality

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Law and Economics scholars argue that if income redistribution is to happen at all, it should occur exclusively through the tax system, rather than through supposedly less efficient methods, such as the minimum wage, collective bargaining, or housing regulation. Yet even by their own lights, these arguments fail: in many cases, predistributive policies are actually more efficient than the tax and transfer system. More fundamentally, to address economic inequality, we must move beyond narrow issues of distribution and transform the mode of production itself.
LPE Originals

Rebuilding State Authority In A Post-Trump America

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In the ruins of the administrative state after Trump, many on the left see an opportunity to design a New Deal-type reconstruction agenda. But building state capacity requires a government that is seen as legitimate, and it is precisely the erosion of legitimacy in the eyes of the public that has enabled Trump to carry out his deconstructive agenda.
LPE Originals

The Neoliberal Foundation of the Authoritarian Turn in Higher Education

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Recent authoritarian attacks on higher education mark a significant shift from the neoliberal era, which celebrated institutional independence from the state, the role of education in boosting worker productivity, and the value of research in driving profitable innovation. However, there are key continuities between the two periods. The neoliberal era laid the groundwork for today’s authoritarian turn by making public institutions increasingly reliant on federal funding, dismantling independent state planning boards, and deepening inequality within the higher education system.
LPE Originals

The Staying Power of the Antimonopoly Movement

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In the United States and elsewhere, the forces of monopoly, antitrust, and corporate power tend to follow a certain historical pattern, with long-term swings between strong anti-monopoly policies and pro-business policies. To anticipate the future of anti-monopoly politics, we need to understand the dynamic forces that drive these recurring large-scale shifts between monopoly and competition.