Symposia

Captive Labor

A Nation WithinAnti-Oligarchy ConstitutionBeyond the FedBlack Lives MatterBonds of InequalityCapitalism & DisabilityCaptive LaborCare WorkChina and LPEClimate, Economics & Green CapitalismCoerced: Work Under Threat of PunishmentCompetition Executive OrderCost-Benefit AnalysisCourts and CapitalismDecommodifying Urban PropertyDemocratizing Administrative LawEconomic Sanctions & TWAILFree Market FamilyGetting ByGlobal Value ChainsGlobalistsInformation FiduciariesJLPEJust TransitionsLaw and Settler Colonialism in PalestineLaw Clinics and Racial CapitalismLiberal Theory of PropertyLPE and Social MovementsLPE MethodsLPE of MeatLPE of Rural AmericaLPE Student GroupsMedicare for AllMeritocracy TrapMoney BailMutant NeoliberalismNot EnoughPiercing the Monetary VeilPolitical Economy of Sex WorkPolitical Economy of TechnologyPolitical Economy, Political TechnologyPower-Building StrategiesPrivate GovernmentProducing SubjectsRace for ProfitReconsidering ReparationsRoot & Branch AntitrustSAQ weekSocialist ConstitutionalismThe Color of Money & Racial CapitalismThe Deficit MythThe Neoliberal RepublicThe Next ShiftThinking Like an EconomistTorn Apart & Prosecuting PovertyTransforming a Broken SystemTransforming the Political EconomyUBIVulnerability TheoryWorker Surveillance, Collective Resistance
From Work in Prison to Carcerality at Work

From Work in Prison to Carcerality at Work

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How might organized labor be engaged in ending mass incarceration? One approach is to emphasize how carceral labor is exploited as a substitute for rights-bearing “free labor.” But the mere threat of substitution does not ensure solidarity. A more promising avenue is to consider how carcerality itself extends into so-called “free” labor markets. Under this “carceral labor continuum,” anti-carceral unionism emerges not from broad concerns over economic substitution but instead from the practical demands of workplace organizing.

Strategic Lessons from Abolitionist Labor Struggle In Immigration Detention

Strategic Lessons from Abolitionist Labor Struggle In Immigration Detention

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Since last summer, immigrants detained in California’s Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex detention centers have been on strike, demanding fair treatment as workers. Meanwhile, legal advocates have engaged in strategic policy campaigns and wage-and-hour litigation to support the strike from the outside. This partnership offers a valuable model for how solidarity and empowerment can blaze a path toward abolition.

Untangling the Nineteenth-Century Roots of Mass Incarceration

Untangling the Nineteenth-Century Roots of Mass Incarceration

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Popular historical narratives often trace the origins of penal labor to the post-Civil War South. Yet as insightful and politically useful as this familiar story may be, it overlooks the vast system of forced penal servitude that took shape in the antebellum North. Untangling the nineteenth-century roots of mass incarceration and forced labor can help clarify the shifting dynamics of expropriation, exploitation, and racialization across the long history of the U.S. carceral state.

Not Worker, But Chattel

Not Worker, But Chattel

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In this essay, the author draws on his experiences as an incarcerated organizer to argue for the importance of a Black abolitionist politic that resists both “work” and the adoption of the “worker” identity. Instead, the category of the slave-in-revolt is better suited to the project of abolitionist organizing.

Labor and the Carceral State

Labor and the Carceral State

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How can we understand mass incarceration as a system of labor governance? This post introduces our new symposium on “carceral labor” by offering an empirical and conceptual overview of the different ways in which the carceral state structures and compels work, both in and beyond the prison.