The LPE Project

Weekly Roundup: Dec 12 A call to join the ranks of the Association for Law and Political Economy, an interview with Bench Ansfield about the business of arson, and a new entry by Amna Akbar in our symposium on Free Gifts.

The week in review: a call to join the ranks of the @a-lpe.bsky.social, an interview with @benchansfield.bsky.social about the business of arson, and a new entry by Amna Akbar in our symposium on Free Gifts.

Plus, the best of Law and Political Economy from around the web 👇🧵

Registration closed yesterday (over 400 attendees!), but I heard a rumor that there's a brief grace period. So register if you didn't!

And a little bird has told us that there is *still time* to register. But our phone lines are lighting up as we speak, so you need to jump on this offer now, before it's too late!

And a little bird has told us that there is *still time* to register. But our phone lines are lighting up as we speak, so you’re going to want to jump on this offer now, before it's too late!

Facing the Limits In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism’s persistent failure to value the natural world. Yet the lesson of this exploration is much broader: that capitalism imposes fundamental limits on…

Today, Amna Akbar continues our series on @alybatt.bsky.social's *Free Gifts,* reflecting on what her account of capitalism tells us about the state and law as terrains of struggle.

🚨Today is the final day to register for the Association of Law and Political Economy's inaugural conference🚨

And even if you are unable to attend the conference, you can still join @a-lpe.bsky.social as a member and vote in the spring elections!

Links to both can be found in the post below!

New interview! Andrew Anastasi and I discuss the emotional logic of insurance and how racial capitalism is being misconstrued in the present -- as made manifest in some reviews of my book. Grateful for this partnership between @hpe-project.bsky.social and @lpeblog.bsky.social!

ICYMI: become a member of the new Association of Law and Political Economy, and you'll be eligible to vote in upcoming elections this spring.

The Business of Arson: An Interview with Bench Ansfield An examination of the wave of landlord perpetrated arson in the Bronx during the 1970s presents an untold story of racial capitalism and financialization. Andrew Anastasi interviews Bench Ansfield…

Today, Andrew Anastasi and @benchansfield.bsky.social discuss the wave of landlord-perpetrated arson during the 1970s, how residents organized to stop it, and what this tells us about the ongoing interplay between property and racial capitalism.

LPE 2.0: A New Association to Meet the Times As the Trump administration attempts to suppress critical inquiry and operate outside of conventional legal boundaries, the work of LPE scholars, organizers, and practitioners has never been more…

Today, a call to join the next era of LPE: a democratic, independent, member-led organization that will serve as a home for a broad array of LPE work.

LPE 2.0: A New Association to Meet the Times As the Trump administration attempts to suppress critical inquiry and operate outside of conventional legal boundaries, the work of LPE scholars, organizers, and practitioners has never been more…

This has been a labor of love! Read on to learn about the new, democratic, membership-based structure. Join as a member — and come to our first annual conference in Richmond in Feb! 😊

LPE 2.0: A New Association to Meet the Times As the Trump administration attempts to suppress critical inquiry and operate outside of conventional legal boundaries, the work of LPE scholars, organizers, and practitioners has never been more…

A new era for LPE — a more democratic one, not subject to university administrators and not reliant on funder money.

LPE lfg

lpeproject.org/blog/lpe-2-0...

LPE 2.0: A New Association to Meet the Times As the Trump administration attempts to suppress critical inquiry and operate outside of conventional legal boundaries, the work of LPE scholars, organizers, and practitioners has never been more…

Proud to be part of this effort @lpeproject.bsky.social/@lpeblog.bsky.social! Check out the great lineup for the upcoming ALPE conference and register! And pls consider joining the new org. All info is in the linked post: lpeproject.org/blog/lpe-2-0...

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 🧵👇

What LPE and the Christian Bible Have in Common In today’s polarized political discourse, it is easy to forget that the Bible’s economic values align better with LPE’s market critiques than with the neoliberal right’s twentieth-century synthesis.

Today, @alvinvelazquez.bsky.social and @chrishampsonlaw.bsky.social explore the intersection of Christian Legal Thought and LPE, and warn against leaving theological discourse to the theocrats.

By proposing a five-year tuition freeze, the Trump administration's compact dangerously repackages the issue of college affordability in a faux-populist rhetoric.

Check out this post by Colleen Carroll, VP of Legislative & Political Action at AAUP-Portland State University👇

@psuaaup.bsky.social

"Trump’s proposed solution, a five-year tuition freeze, represents a brilliant bit of faux-populism—one that will appeal to voters while also reassuring his wealthy backers and corporations that they have nothing to fear."

"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.

Come for the discussion of Pigou and Coase, stay for the discussion of Hale and Holmes.

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

Is Climate Change an Externality? Environmental harms are often cast as externalities, even by those seeking to emphasize their urgency. Yet the major modern environmental statutes, written before America'

Today, @madisoncondon.bsky.social makes the case that we should stop thinking of climate change as an externality.

The latest in our series on @alybatt.bsky.social's *Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature.*

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?

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…

"Climate change’s cause is truly social, and so the response to it must be as well. Struggling to avert climate catastrophe is one and the same with struggling to overcome capitalism...." lpeproject.org/blog/when-na...

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 🧵👇

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.

Hospice Commodification and the Limits of Antitrust As hospice care is increasingly dominated by private equity firms, an antitrust response, while necessary, has the potential to normalize the language of the market as the default mode for discussing…

In a new post for the @lpeblog.bsky.social, @solomonctryls.bsky.social Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow Elle Rothermich reflects on the potential limits of antitrust law as a tool to improve health care for terminally ill patients. lpeproject.org/blog/hospice...

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…

Today, Rob Hunter (@selfactingmule.bsky.social) continues our symposium on @alybatt.bsky.social *Free Gifts,* explaining why capitalist subjects are incapable of valuing the ecological systems on our which existence depends, even as they collapse around us.