30 June 2025
A European Charter of Fundamental Human Obligations
The effort to anchor animal rights in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights has gained relevance in light of the widespread commodification of animals within the EU’s market-driven integration process. While commendable in principle, incorporating animal rights into the Charter risks serving a largely symbolic function if it diverts attention from the more pressing task of reconfiguring what I take to be the six foundational institutions of private law in capitalist political economy: property, contract, corporation, tort, labor, and consumption. These institutions reinforce the binary between the human subject and the other-than-human object, a division that enables the commodification of non-human beings. Continue reading >>
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22 January 2025
Trump and the Folklore of Capitalism
How can we make sense of the return of Donald Trump, who again convinced enough US voters of his populist bonafides? Populist authoritarianism has made inroads around the world. Only Trump’s version, however, probably brings together so much wealth and power, with super-rich business executives now at the helm. Here I tap a brilliant but neglected book, The Folklore of Capitalism (1937), by the legal scholar and New Deal trustbuster, Thurman Arnold (1891-1961), to understand this remarkable development. Folklore of Capitalism helps explain Trump’s wide appeal, despite the electorate’s disagreements with many of his policy preferences. Continue reading >>
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07 March 2020
The Constitutional Theory of the Firm and Varieties of Capitalism
In this blog post, Jamee K. Moudud argues that labor relations are conflictual and corporations are fundamentally political creatures who have always attempted to structure the legal and political foundations of the economy so as to further their investment activities. Thus, corporations will generally oppose progressive reforms, especially if they raise costs. Continue reading >>06 March 2020