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{
    "pk": 54361,
    "title": "Toward a Predistributive Democracy: Polanyi and Piketty on Capitalism, Moral Economy,  and Democracy in Crisis",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "As accelerating inequality careens into plutocracy, and America tilts toward autocracy, Karl Polanyi and Thomas Piketty have become key resources for understanding the link between the social exclusions of capitalism and democracy in crisis. This and its companion article (Somers 2022a) explore each of these thinkers and put them into dialogue to generate the outlines of a democratic political economy that I dub a \npredistributive democracy\n. Deconstructing capitalism’s moral economy of \nmarket justice\n, building on legal and economic\n institutionalism\n, and advocating a movement of \ncountervailing power \nagainst escalating commodification and dedemocratization are central components of the project. The first article focused on Polanyi’s contribution to a predistributive democracy. This one engages Piketty’s work as it evolves from a bent toward economic naturalism to a robust institutionalism and an agenda for a participatory democratic socialism. Neither Polanyi nor Piketty is a legal theorist, yet both thinkers are indispensable to the new Law and Political Economy (LPE) and the movement for a predistributive democracy.",
    "language": "en",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0"
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "Thomas Piketty"
        },
        {
            "word": "Karl Polanyi"
        },
        {
            "word": "capitalism"
        },
        {
            "word": "moral economy"
        },
        {
            "word": "predistribution"
        },
        {
            "word": "inequality"
        },
        {
            "word": "authoritarianism"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Articles",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jb6b2hc",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Margaret",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Somers",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Michigan",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": "2025-08-11T21:18:10Z",
    "date_accepted": "2025-08-11T21:18:10Z",
    "date_published": "2025-08-22T07:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/lawandpoliticaleconomy/article/54361/galley/41062/download/"
        }
    ]
}