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Overview
ACS believes that the law can and should be a force to improve the lives of all people.
Powerful interest groups, rent seekers, and the economically and politically dominant, however, have long had the opportunity to influence and shape laws in a way that entrenches their power. Law and Political Economy (LPE) recognizes the inextricable link between politics and the economic power. Even though many laws may appear neutral, they increase the power of those at the top of our economic system and disadvantage historically marginalized groups, including racial, religious, and sexual minorities, women, the working class, and the economically insecure.
LPE seeks to expose and dismantle the systems that concentrate too much economic and political power in too few hands, similar to other critical legal traditions including critical legal theory, critical race theory, and feminist legal theory. In collaboration with LPE thinkers, scholars, and activists, ACS is engaged in the fight over our nation’s political economy—the role of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the extent and reach of redistribution, and the threat that concentrated private wealth and power pose to democracy.
Media
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Video
Reviving Progressive Constitutional Political Economy Conference at Berkeley Law
Apr 14, 2023
For most of our history, when Americans argued and fought about how to organize our political economy—the role of government, the extent and reach of redistribution, the tension between democracy and concentrated private wealth and power—advocates on all sides of these questions made constitutional arguments. For generations, a main current in American constitutional thought held […]
Video
The Constitution and Political Economy Conference at Columbia Law School
Mar 3, 2023
For generations, a main current in American constitutional thought held that oligarchy—defined as too much economic and political power concentrated in too few hands—threatens the “Republican form of government” at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. Join ACS, the Center for Constitutional Governance, and the Columbia Center for Political Economy for a day-long conference on Friday, March 3, that […]
Video
Reviving Progressive Constitutional Political Economy Conference at Georgetown University Law Center
Nov 18, 2022
For most of our history, when Americans argued and fought about how to organize our political economy—the role of government, the extent and reach of redistribution, the tension between democracy and concentrated private wealth and power—advocates on all sides of these questions made constitutional arguments. For generations, a main current in American constitutional thought held that […]