Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-2026

Abstract

Much of the focus of the live Symposium was on comparing existing scholarship associated with two intellectual communities. I have no objection to that enterprise in the abstract, though I think it is a bit premature where law and political economy (LPE) is concerned and sets up an apples-to-oranges comparison to the decades-old streams of work and thinking in law and economics (L&E). But I would rather use the privilege of the space in this written Symposium to sketch what I believe is the ultimate substantive nub of contestation in this conversation about the core subject matter of “the economy” and law’s relationship to it.

As a threshold matter, I recognize that travelers in both LPE and L&E circles are engaged with subject matters beyond that of the economy and the legal basis for it. I also recognize that the subject matter of the economy itself intersects (at a minimum) with many broader realms of social life; this indeed is one of the premises of LPE. Still, it’s fair to say that economic life as such is a core, anchoring concern of both intellectual tendencies or communities. By the economy or economic life, I mean to refer to the arrangements and mechanisms by which we collectively fulfill the practical functions of production (or the harnessing of potentially productive resources), the provisioning and care of people and social units, as well as all the immediate second-order pursuits (including conscious or deliberative allocation of resources and efforts) that these basic activities involve and are affected by. Both academic communities recognize that these arrangements and mechanisms essentially involve law, decisions about law, and debates about law, though perhaps LPE leads with that point a bit more.

Comments

Originally published as Paul, Sanjukta. "Law and the Self-Coordinating Market Idea." University of Chicago Law Review 93, no. 2 (2026): 517-541.

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