Exploring Community Land Trusts as an Alternative to Mainstream Models of Affordable Housing and Envisioning a CLT in Lewiston, Maine

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are non-profit organizations that create perpetually affordable housing through decommodification of the land. CLTs essentially serve as community stewards of land by acquiring the land that the housing is on and maintaining ownership of it through a ground lease document and use of a resale formula to determine a fair sale price of the home. Initially founded in the United States by Black farmers and civil rights activists in rural Georgia in the 1960s as a response to structural racism excluding people of color from accessing land, there are now over 200 CLTs in the US alone today, with many of them located in urban areas. Through an analysis of the different ways that CLTs choose to operate, this project attempts to understand what factors contribute to CLTs with an enhanced ability to provide fully democratized housing for residents on top of just an affordable home to live in. This thesis explores what conditions lead to CLTs that are able to empower residents in all aspects of decision making processes. Findings indicate that CLTs are most effective when they collaborate with actors both inside and outside of traditional systems which often looks like partnering with both grassroots organizations and city government. Rooted in place, the goal of this thesis is to provide resources for anyone assisting in the process of starting a CLT in the Tree Streets Neighborhood of Lewiston and apply CLT best practices to the context of Lewiston. While it is necessary to acknowledge the ways that CLTs are forced to operate under the constraints of capitalism, hindering their ability to transform in certain scenarios, the CLT model does provide a viable alternative option to more mainstream affordable housing models. The process of establishing a CLT is time consuming and involves many actors, but hopefully this thesis will serve as a baseline resource for anyone interested in taking up the project of establishing a CLT in Lewiston

Capitalism as a System of Contingent Expectations: Toward a Sociological Microfoundation of Political Economy

Political economy and economic sociology have developed in relative isolation from each other. While political economy focuses largely on macrophenomena, economic sociology focuses on the level of social interaction in the economy. The paper argues that economic sociology can provide a microfoundation of political economy beyond rational actor theory and behavioral economics. Based on a discussion of what I call the four Cs of capitalism (credit, commodification, creativity, and competition), I argue that macroeconomic outcomes depend on the contingent expectations actors have in decision situations. Expectations are based on the indeterminate and therefore contingent interpretation of the situations actors face. This shifts attention to the management of expectations as a crucial element of economic activity and to the institutional, political, and cultural foundations of expectations. The dynamics of capitalist development are precarious because they hinge on the creation of expectations conducive to economic growth.Politische Ökonomie und Wirtschaftssoziologie haben sich relativ isoliert voneinander entwickelt. Während die Politische Ökonomie vornehmlich Makrophänomene untersucht, konzentriert sich die Wirtschaftssoziologie zumeist auf die Ebene der sozialen Interaktion in der Wirtschaft. Der Beitrag zeigt, dass die Wirtschaftssoziologie Grundlagen für eine Mikrofundierung der Politischen Ökonomie jenseits der Theorie rationalen Handelns und behavioristischer Theorien bietet. Ausgehend von der Diskussion vier zentraler Elemente kapitalistischer Ökonomie, die ich als the four Cs of capitalism bezeichne (credit, commodification, creativity, and competition), zeige ich, dass makroökonomische Resultate auf den kontingenten Erwartungen der Akteure in der Handlungssituation beruhen. Erwartungen gründen auf den unbestimmten und daher kontingenten Interpretationen der Handlungssituation, mit der die Akteure konfrontiert sind. Dies lenkt die Aufmerksamkeit auf das Erwartungsmanagement als zentrales Element wirtschaftlichen Handelns und zu den institutionellen, politischen und kulturellen Grundlagen von Erwartungen. Die Dynamik kapitalistischer Entwicklung ist immer prekär, weil sie von der Schaffung von Erwartungen abhängt, die Wachstum befördern

Market institutions and judicial rulemaking

Assuming that the degree of discretion granted to judges was the main distinguishing feature between common and civil law until the 19th century, we argue that constraining judicial discretion was instrumental in protecting freedom of contract and developing the market order in civil law. We test this hypothesis by analyzing the history of Western law. In England, a unique institutional balance between the Crown and the Parliament guaranteed private property and prompted the gradual evolution towards a legal framework that facilitated market relationships, a process that was supported by the English judiciary. On the Continent, however, legal constraints on the market were suppressed in a top-down fashion by the founders of the liberal state, often against the will of the incumbent judiciary. Constraining judicial discretion there was essential for enforcing freedom of contract and establishing the legal order of the market economy. In line with this evidence, our selection hypothesis casts doubts on the normative interpretation of empirical results that proclaim the superiority of one legal system over another, disregarding the local conditions and institutional interdependencies on which each legal system was grounded