Be careful what you wish for

Can the promotion of liberal norms have an unintended – and damaging – impact on how states confront the challenges of irregular immigration

Be careful what you wish for…

Closing address to DITSELA Labour Law Seminar, 25 February 2007Some points to ponderThe history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle.– Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto (1848)The Brazilian worker is a worker surrounded by laws on all sides but dead from hunger. So many laws! But we lack one to keep him from dying of hunger.– Brazilian trade union leader in the 1950s One of the biggest problems for any person trying to understand the South African economy is the question: through whose eyes do we study it? We can look at the economy through the eyes of the capitalists or we can look at it through the eyes of workers. Depending on which set of eyes we use, we’ll see a very different picture.– Political Economy: South Africa in Crisis COSATU Education Publication, 198

Be Careful What You Wish For

[A]ny change in sentencing practices is likely to be an improvement. Judge Marvin Frankel in 1973 1 Fifty years ago, Marvin E. Frankel published an elegant, timely, and extraordinarily influential book, Criminal Sentences: Law Without Order. Four years after this book called for the appellate review of sentences and for greatly limiting the discretion of both sentencing judges and parole boards, California became the first state to limit sharply judicial sentencing discretion and abolish parole.2 Twenty other states joined the reform movement before Congress embraced the move from individualized to wholesale sentencing in 1984.3 The Sentencing Reform Act of that year4 abolished parole, created the United States Sentencing Commission, and directed this body to create mandatory sentencing guidelines5 in which “the maximum of the range established for [every term of imprisonment] shall not exceed the minimum . . . by more than the greater of 25 percent or six months.”6 Judge Frankel wasn’t alone in urging a major restructuring of American sentencing,7 but he merited the title Senator Ted Kennedy bestowed on him: the “father of sentencing reform.”8 Frankel was as wise and generous a friend as I’ve had9 —a superb role model for me and many others.10 But I was skeptical of his proposals 50 years ago, and I haven’t changed my mind

Brexit: Be Careful What You Wish For?

In this paper, I focus on the British future from Brexit. The institutional form this will take is not yet fixed. However, one can consider likely outcomes based on dominant economic frameworks. From this perspective, it seems unlikely that Brexit will address the actual grievances that resulted in Brexit. These transcend European Union membership

The Paradox of Championships: Be Careful What You Wish For, Sports Fans

This paper examines issues related to the economic impact of sports championships on the local economy of host cities. While boosters frequently claim a large positive effect of such championships, a closer examination leads to the conclusion that the impact is likely much smaller than touted and may even be negative.impact analysis, sports, mega-event, championship