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APPEAL’s “What Is Capitalism?” Reading Group

Mar 26, 2021

Please join APPEAL for the next session of their reading group on the law and political economy of capitalism.  All are welcome, and participants need not attend each session, though we do ask participants to read the materials in advance.  We also encourage participants to join APPEAL by signing up as a member, www.politicaleconomylaw.org.

This session will explore how the historically changing relationship between the corporation, state and society sheds light on capitalism. To facilitate the discussion, we’re excited to have Dr. Maha Rafi Atal, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Copenhagen Business School, who will soon begin a position as Lecturer at the University of Glasgow School of Social & Political Sciences.

Readings (they’ll email these when you register):

  1. Excerpt, pp. 18-37, from Edmund Burke, speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings for abuses at the East India Company (1788), from P. J. Marshall and William B. Todd (eds), The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Vol. 6: India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment: 1786-1788.
  2. Excerpt, Chapter 8, from James Ferguson, Global Shadows (2006, Duke University Press). The book is broadly about globalization in turn-of-the-millennium sub-Saharan Africa. This chapter considers the political economy of extraction and the role of mining and oil and gas multinationals on the continent.

For more information, please email APPEAL@politicaleconomylaw.org with Capitalism Reading Group in the subject line.