Price and Sovereignty Harvard Law Review

Restoring Consumer Sovereignty: How Markets Manipulate Us and What the Law Can Do About It

Abstract. For decades, there has been broad consensus within antitrust, intellectual property, and consumer law scholarship that consumers make decisions i

A Tale of Two Theories (of Coordination)

Leveraging and Deleveraging Toward Thick Sovereignty

Restoring Consumer Sovereignty

For decades, there has been broad consensus within antitrust, intellectual property, and consumer law scholarship that consumers make decisions in their own best interests by consciously weighting the market’s relative prices, quantities, and qualities against each other. That consensus is unraveling in light of novel findings from cognitive and social psychology that explain how individuals’ concepts of what they prefer drive the global economy. At the same time, producers nowadays no longer merely satisfy consumers’ needs but also communicate their values, identities, and aspirations through the sale and marketing of products. As part of the growing interest in observations such as these, a wealth of psychological studies challenge the fundamental teaching of economics that the interplay of demand and supply of goods in a free market economy provides us with material wealth. This book provides a normative defense of that assumption and a theoretical framework for understanding its contradictions. It argues that the erosion of consumer sovereignty through the ability of product manufacturers and sellers to systematically take advantage of individuals’ psychological weaknesses demands a twenty-first-century reconceptualization of the consumer and a modern account of how the law should regulate the digital economy. Such an account is justified to ensure a diverse marketplace in which consumers can influence how our societies are structured and arranged. By examining the role that market manipulation plays, it offers ingredients for a realistic descriptive and normative market regulatory theory that is aware of its political economy, its behavioral suppositions, and its distributional consequences.

The Eye 02: When is sovereignty not sovereign?

As we start to reject reliance on US tech monopolies, Palantir and its allies rush to strip the word "sovereignty" of its meaning

Opinion | One Senator’s Plea for Tariff Breaks

How protectionism works in practice: Public support, but seeking exemptions in private.

From Territorial to Functional Sovereignty: The Case of Amazon

Economists tend to characterize the scope of regulation as a simple matter of expanding or contracting state power. But a political economy perspective emphasizes that social relations abhor a power…

Think Like a Commoner | A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons

In our age of predatory markets and make-believe democracy, our troubled political institutions have lost sight of real people and practical realities. But if you look to the edges, ordinary people are reinventing governance and provisioning on their own terms. The commons is arising as a serious, practical alternative to the corrupt Market/State.

Sovereign Accountable Commons

In the MetaCurrency Project, we’re committed to practicing what we preach, or eating our own dog food, if you prefer that way of saying it…

On Independence

No brand money. No affiliates. No investors. The rules Worse on Purpose runs on.

Is Dollar Dominance Good for the U.S.?

Thoughts on the U.S.'s so-called exorbitant privilege.

From ownership to stewardship: reimagining intellectual property governance through the Knowledge Commons Framework

Contemporary intellectual property (IP) governance remains strongly shaped by proprietary logics of exclusivity, control, and rights allocation, even as knowledge production becomes increasingly co...

Power: A Primer for Perplexed Economists

Let's Assume an Unfettered Marketplace of Ideas! Or Actually, Let's Not.

Pluralistic: All (antitrust) politics are local (02 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

The US government has abandoned antitrust. Today, companies facing antitrust jeopardy can just pay key Trumpland figures a million bucks, and they will make a discreet visit to the fifth floor of the DoJ building, have a little shoofty around the Antitrust Division and the whole thing will just…go away:

Sovereignty Is Not Solitude: Open Source as Canada’s Third Path in AI

True artificial intelligence (AI) sovereignty isn't about building a Canadian fortress; it’s about mastering the open-source ecosystems that power the world.

Labor-Value Commodity Chains: The Hidden Abode of Global Production - Monthly Review

Intan Suwandi is a frequent contributor to Monthly Review. This article is adapted from her book, Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism, winner of the 2018 Paul M. Sweezy-Paul A.... READ MORE