Topic: Legal and Political Foundations of Capitalism: The End of Laissez Faire?

Time: 19:00-20:30, Friday, September 18, 2026 (Beijing Time)

Format: TencentMeeting 355-715-516

Speaker: Jamee K. Moudud  

Moderator: Zhang Kangle, Assistant Professor, Peking University Law School

Speaker Biography:

Jamee K. Moudud (PhD) is a Professor of Economics at Sarah Lawrence College, USA. He is the co-founder and on the Board of the Law and Political Economy Collective，and also co-founder and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Law and Political Economy. His research focuses on law and political economy, monetary theory, and the institutional foundations of capitalism; he is the author of Legal and Political Foundations of Capitalism: The End of Laissez Faire? (Routledge, 2025).

Abstract:

    "Institutions matter" is a common refrain among all economists — including many who have proposed progressive alternatives to free market fundamentalism. However, this sentiment does not go far enough. Drawing on Original Institutional Economics, American Legal Realism, and thinkers such as Polanyi and Sraffa, this book challenges traditional binary frameworks of ‘state-market’ and ‘private law-public law’. Centered on property, money and business enterprises, it develops a legal-economic theory of institutions distinct from New Institutional Economics. Its core argument is that laissezfaire is merely the foundational myth of capitalism. The dichotomies of ‘state intervention versus deregulation’ and ‘market failure versus free markets’ are false ones. They obscure law’s intrinsic role in shaping economic life and the distribution of power. To comprehend capitalist realities, we must turn to legal-economic theory and history, moving beyond the analytical frameworks of neoclassical institutionalism.