What would it mean to make economic and political life more democratic? One way toward an answer is by getting more precise about how they are now undemocratic. Avoidance of democracy runs very deep in American law, and perhaps in the modern legal and political order generally. This is so despite the fact that constitutionalism…
How will new advanced information technologies impact work? This is a major focus of public debate right now, driven by widespread fears that automation will soon leave tens of millions unemployed. But debate so far has tended to neglect the relationship among technological innovation, political economy, and the law of work. This is a major…
On December 5th, I joined hundreds of people from 32 states in Washington D.C to protest the Republican tax bill. We packed the hallways outside of the offices of seven key members of Congress, and mic-checked one another so that people’s stories about the bill’s devastating consequences could be heard. A group of us –…
Economists tend to characterize the scope of regulation as a simple matter of expanding or contracting state power. But a political economy perspective emphasizes that social relations abhor a power vacuum. When state authority contracts, private parties fill the gap. That power can feel just as oppressive, and have effects just as pervasive, as garden…
