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LPE Originals

Teaching Penal Abolition

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In April, the New York Times ran a profile on abolitionist visionary and scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and the Harvard Law Review published an entire issue on prison abolition. This fall, the University of Texas Law School Human Rights Center is hosting a conference on abolition. The new journalistic outlet The Appeal runs abolitionist pieces…
LPE Originals

In Defense of Grassroots-Powered Progressive Federalism

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Rather than serving as an obstacle to progressive change, the diffusion of power and resources across federal, state and local governments has allowed poor people’s movements to turn to federal authorities at times when local governments have been conservative and resistant and vice versa. Today, progressive federalism has allowed community-based organizations and poor people’s movements to expand the political class—making successful runs for elected office and pushing through local ordinances that become models for other city, state, and federal governments.

LPE Originals

Federalism is unlikely to save progressive politics

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American federalism is not neutral. In fact, federalism’s many venues generally disadvantage groups with comprehensive, progressive policy aims for several reasons: first, federalism does not just create political opportunities but also limits them; second, state and local governments  are poorly situated to solve national problems; third, jurisdictional boundaries can be remade in ways that disadvantage progressives; and finally, contestation itself over which level of government should perform which activities harms progressive causes.
LPE Originals

To Reimagine Intervention Strategies: The Political Economy of Domestic Violence

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In recent years, mainstream anti-domestic violence programs have moved away from a fixation on the criminal justice system to undertake economic justice initiatives designed to “respond to, address, and prevent financial abuse” related to domestic violence.  The shift reflects the growing realization that strategies of remedy through the penal state have tended to fracture the…
LPE Originals

The Uber/Lyft “Workers’ Association” Debate: A Response to Dubal

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I share Dubal’s worries about Uber and Lyft’s proposed “workers’ associations” and agree about the indispensable role played by independent, exclusive-representative unions. But I am more open to the possibility that we ought not necessarily reject workers’ associations of the sort being contemplated in the California debates.
LPE Originals

Gig Worker Organizing for Solidarity Unions

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The “gig economy” is one place where organizing outside of traditional trade unions is undoubtedly happening in surprising and perhaps unexpected ways. For example, on May 8, 2019, a group of independent app-based drivers in Los Angeles called the LA Rideshare Drivers United organized and launched an unprecedented international picket and work stoppage against Uber…
LPE Originals

Solidarity Unionism v. Company Unionism in the Gig Economy

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The CEOs of the two top-competing gig firms—Uber and Lyft—penned a June 12, 2019 OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle in which they claim that after over six years of local, state, federal, and international law-breaking, ignoring the concerns of drivers, and viciously fighting any efforts to achieve living wage and benefits, they are ready…
LPE Originals

Debtor Organizing Against Neoliberalism

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This post is part of an ongoing series on LPE & Social Movements. For the framing pieces, see here and here.  Neoliberalism is in crisis. For the first time in decades, alternatives of both terrifying and exhilarating varieties are on the table. The more democratic and humane alternative will only prevail if well organized social movements directly challenge…
LPE Originals

Social Movements in the Struggle for Redistribution

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The idea that social movements should be central to progressive agendas is appealing; I respond with two questions that aim push this discussion further. First, it is important to explicitly consider what constitutes a social movement – which voices rise to the top, who sets the agenda, and who garners resources? Second, and relatedly, legal realism teaches us that law exists in the foreground and background to shape our capacity to bargain, strategize, and organize. I wonder how lawyers and legal strategy constitute the redistributive imagination of left organizations?