Two interesting discussions on the political and legal structures undergirding capitalism aired on popular podcast series recently:
Shedding light on Zohran Mamdani’s economic agenda, Jamee Moudud was invited to “Odd Lots”, Bloomberg’s finance and economics podcast, to discuss the intellectual history of economics, changing boundaries between economic orthodoxy and heterodoxy, what becomes mainstream or what is marginalized in the discipline. This podcast builds on Professor Moudud’s new book Legal and Political Foundations of Capitalism (available here).
From Bloomberg:
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has certain ideas that make mainstream economists’ head explode. Anything in the ballpark of rent control, specifically, is widely derided by defenders of the orthodoxy. But how did the orthodoxy become the orthodoxy? And how did the heterodoxy become the heterodoxy? On this episode, we speak with Jamee Moudud, a professor of economics at Sarah Lawrence College. His scholarship sits at the intersection of economics and legal theory. He argues that one can not analyze the economy as if it were some separate thing that exists outside of the institutional and political realities of the time. We discuss the history of economics in the 19th and 20th centuries, and why certain ideas were adopted by the field, while others discarded and relegated to the margins.
The podcast is available here, as well as on “Apple podcasts” here or on “Spotify” here.
Katharina Pistor was invited to the “Capitalisn’t” podcast to unpack the legal architecture of global capitalism and how law is being used to “enclose” assets, from land to user data, giving owners the power to exclude others and monetize that value. The discussion covered the role lawyers play in shaping and supporting key pillars of the prevailing economic system, as well as potential avenues for egalitarian-minded reform. This podcast builds on Professor Pistor’s latest book The Law of Capitalism and How to Transform it (available here).
From Chicago Booth’s Stigler Center:
If we want to understand why capitalism feels broken, do we need to stop looking at the economy and start looking at the legal code that underpins it?
In our system, capital is often described as money, machinery, or raw materials. But Columbia Law School professor Katharina Pistor argues that capital is actually a legal invention. An asset, whether it’s a plot of land, an idea, or a promise of future pay, only becomes capital when it is given the right legal coding.
Pistor suggests that lawyers are the true coders of capitalism. They use the law to “enclose” assets, from land to user data, giving owners the power to exclude others and monetize that value. She argues for injecting principles of “fairness and reciprocity” back into private law, ensuring that contracts aren’t just tools for the powerful to extract value from the weak. Luigi Zingales suggests that large corporations have become so powerful we may need a new branch of “quasi-public law” to govern the asymmetry between an individual consumer and a corporate giant.
This episode explores the deep, often invisible architecture of our economic system and asks whether we can ever truly tame corporate power without rewriting the rules of the game.
The podcast is available here, as well as on “Apple podcasts” here or on “Spotify” here.