James Brandt

lpeproject.org/blog/the-ant...

Weekly Roundup: Dec 5 Madison Condon on climate change and externalities-thinking, Colleen Carrol on MAGA's attempt to outflank democrats on college affordability, and Alvin Velazquez and Christopher Hampson on what LPE…

Week in review: @madisoncondon.bsky.social on climate change and externalities-thinking, @markieviczlass.bsky.social on MAGA’s faux populism & college affordability, and @alvinvelazquez.bsky.social and @chrishampton.bsky.social on LPE and the Bible.

Plus, the Best of LPE from around the web 🧵👇

I've learned today that, read properly, both the Bible and Ronald Coase are in favor of LPE.

“What has New Haven to do with Jerusalem?”

"Asserting democratic control over corporate investment decisions is key to an anti-capitalist climate agenda…Imagine if we had collectively decided to build wind turbines and flood gates instead of data centers. Imagine that we could." 👀

The Dark Doppelganger of Affordable Higher Education In the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, the Trump administration included a brilliant bit of faux-populism: a five-year tuition freeze. The proposal creates the illusion that the…

Today, Colleen Carroll discusses a little noticed aspect of Trump's Compact: the attempt to subsume and corrupt the issue of college affordability.

External to what?

*change* our approach. le sigh.

If we rejected the idea that climate change is best thought of as an externality, how would it our approach to regulation:

Public Money, Private Secrets: Rethinking FOIA in the Age of Public-Private Governance As public-private partnerships become central to modern governance, FOIA’s Exemption 4 has evolved into a powerful tool for corporate secrecy. After Argus Leader, government agencies and private firms...

Today, Mason Kortz explains how FOIA’s Exemption 4 has evolved into a powerful tool for corporate secrecy, allowing government agencies and private firms to thwart transparency through confidentiality pacts.

lpeproject.org/blog/public-...

What Can Politics Make of Nature? Alyssa Battistoni’s Free Gifts argues that capitalism limits our freedom to decide how to value the nonhuman world. Politics, as the domain in which we choose the terms of our collective life…

Today, Jed Britton-Purdy continues our symposium on @alybatt.bsky.social's *Free Gifts.*

To what extent, he asks, can a turn to politics make space for the ecological values that many of us want to take seriously?

Weekly Roundup: Nov 21 Alyssa Battistoni on the free gifts of nature, Rob Hunter on value form theory and the accelerating climate crisis, and Reshard L. Kolabhai on what LPE can learn from the Global South. Plus…

The week in review: @alybatt.bsky.social on the free gifts of nature, @selfactingmule.bsky.social on value form theory and the accelerating climate crisis, and Reshard Kolabhai on what Africa might mean for thinking about LPE.

Plus, the best of LPE from around the web 🧵👇

Thanks Megan - she was the best!

Stella at HLS.

Stella at HLS.

Yeah, I did a photo shoot with her for her sixth birthday over in front of the library and volleyball court. I'm so glad we did it; it's nice to look back on photos of when she was in her prime.

Thanks Dan. We were lucky to have so many good years. And she originally hailed from Toronto -- we'd been following one the rescues in the city, and then came across Stella, who was living in Rexdale at the time and whose owner was having mobility issues. The rest was history.

Thanks Nate, she was just the best.

Thanks Evan - I always love seeing videos of your big floof, whose movements often remind me of Stella when she was younger (she was a berner/border collie/newfie mutt).

Stella hug, ~2018

Stella hay seed lean, ~2018

Stella holding me down, ~2020

Stella snuggle, ~2021

In honor of the perfect dog, Stella T. Brandt (May 2012 - Nov 2025), please let your four-legged companions sit atop and lean against you for a few extra minutes today 💔

You have misinterpreted the title or haven't understand the argument of the post, which is that under capitalism, we cannot but treat nature as worthless. This, the piece argues, is obviously bad and a driving force of our climate catastrophe!

When Nature is Worthless Under capitalism, the social domination of nature occurs through and is mediated by the commodity form. Certain portions of non-human nature can be valued, but only when they are transformed into…

I wrote for @lpeblog.bsky.social about @alybatt.bsky.social's new book—which, I argue, shows how the critique of political economy can allow us to clearly name the social cause of climate catastrophe: capital. lpeproject.org/blog/when-na...

LPE Without Borders: Lessons from the Global South 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...

Today, Reshard Kolabhai lays out some lessons for LPE from the Global South. A focus on Africa, he argues, could helpfully destabilize our narratives about capitalist periods, our assumptions about the links between law and capitalism, and our understanding of progressive development policy.

Hi Nathan -- thanks for this incredibly informative thread. I help run the law and political economy blog, and I wondered if you might be interested in writing this up into a blog post. (Feel free to send me a message on here, or at james.brandt@yale.edu).

What terrific news, and also what a terrific hire for UNC! Can't wait to see all the great books he's going to publish.

This post is both a helpful primer for anyone who has ever wondered, "what, exactly, do Marxists mean by value form theory?" as well as an insightful analysis of why such theory can help us understand the accelerating climate catastrophe. Good stuff!

"although the scope of things that may be bought and sold is vast, the things that matter most have no value. Dignity, beauty, freedom, robust ecologies—none of these can be produced and exchanged as commodities... their production or preservation are matters of indifference to capital."

Don't miss Alyssa Battistoni's post about her excellent new book!!

Don't miss Alyssa Battistoni's post about her excellent new book!!

In the Shadow of Commodification While capitalism is typically said to commodify everything, much of what makes up our world isn’t commodified at all. It instead appears as a free gift: a social form that describes the condition of…

Today, @alybatt.bsky.social kicks off a symposium on her book, *Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature*

The idea of the free gift, she argues, can give us a deeper understanding of the environmental problems that plague capitalism. It can also help us better understand capitalism itself.

Weekly Roundup: Nov 14 Vanessa Williamson on oligarchy and taxation, and Elle Rothermich on the commodification of hospice care. Plus, Kate Redburn on Skrmetti, LPE Night School on municipal power, Claire Kelloway on public...

The week in review: @vanessawilliamson.bsky.social on oligarchy and taxation, and Elle Rothermich on private equity and the commodification of hospice care.

Plus, the best of Law and Political Economy from around the web, including new events, books, essays, and articles 🧵👇

Medicare's hospice benefit "was designed not to maintain a healthy market for hospice, but to disentangle hospice from market logic. To achieve this, we need to do more than merely stabilize the hospice industry through greater competition—we need to create spaces where care remains uncommodified."