Rethinking Political Economy

This series asks how we build a new world after forty years of market fundamentalism. We debate new ways to think about protecting the planet, the relationship of equality and democracy, the need for racially inclusive prosperity, the promise of industrial policy, the dangers of concentrated economic power, and a revival of investment in public goods.

Generously supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The Case for Abolishing Elections

They may seem the cornerstone of democracy, but in reality they do little to promote it.

The Banality of Surveillance

The ordinary roots of our extraordinary regime of high-tech monitoring.

Why Biden’s New Industrial Policy Won’t Work Without Reforms

The passage of the administration’s Inflation Reduction Act should be celebrated, but without explicit corporate guardrails it’s doomed.

How Black Communist Women Remade Class Struggle

And what today’s organizers can learn from them.

The Asset Economy Strikes Again

The Federal Reserve’s bid to “get wages down” reflects the enduring hold of neoliberal thought at the highest levels of economic policymaking.

What’s Wrong with Technocracy?

Democratic theory points to two problems: unjust concentrations of power and a flawed theory of knowledge.

The Education of Ben Bernanke

His new book cuts through economic orthodoxy on central banking. But he fails to reckon deeply with its political consequences.

How Capitalism—Not a Few Bad Actors—Destroyed the Internet

Twenty-five years of neoliberal political economy are to blame for today’s regime of surveillance advertising, and only public policy can undo it.

Freedom, Not Benefits

Sex workers are labor’s vanguard.

Cooperation without Domination

To escape the imperial legacies of the IMF and World Bank, we need a radical new vision for global economic governance.

Make Progressive Politics Constitutional Again

We must reject the legal liberalism that attempts to cordon off constitutional questions from democratic politics.

Radicalizing Human Rights

Critics say human rights discourse blunts social transformation. It doesn’t have to.

Labor’s Militant Minority

How a new class of “salts”—radicals who take jobs to help unionization—is boosting the organizing efforts of long-term workers.

Law for Black Radical Liberation

The language of universal rights can be a powerful tool for advancing social justice.

After Free Trade

As the neoliberal order unravels, the international economic system can and must make room for cooperative forms of state-driven development.

Roe Was Never Enough Anyway

It is long past time for law and policy to facilitate affordable and accessible services.

Are the Courts the Way to Queer Rights?

Saving LGBT equality requires strategic pluralism—marshaling legal challenges and electoral mobilization as well as social movement activism.

The Racial Capitalism of Care

A recording and transcript of our event on inequities in medicine and child welfare.

Our Global Food System Was Already in Crisis. Russia’s War Will Make It Worse

The Global South will suffer the most as colonial legacies, climate change, and capitalism continue to plunge millions into hunger.

What Movements Do to Law

When we think, write, and act alongside movements, we help disrupt the everyday violence of law and imagine more radical transformation.

What Makes Laws Unjust

King could not accomplish what philosophers and theologians also failed to—distinguishing moral from immoral law in a polarized society.

On Antitrust, Don’t Take Big Tech’s Word for It

Corporate restructurings are not a cure-all, but they would tilt the balance of power toward ordinary Americans.

Bad Economics

How microeconomic reasoning took over the very institutions of American governance.

Care Work in a Wageless World

Selma James’s work with the Wages for Housework movement shows that we ignore the labor of care at our own peril.

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