Appraising 9/11: \u27Sacred\u27 Value and Heritage in Neoliberal Times

On September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 — one of the four airplanes hijacked that day — crashed into a vacant parcel of land in rural Pennsylvania, killing all on board. For many, including family members of those killed in the attack and the Park Service that now manages the national memorial at the site, the former strip mine was transformed into ‘sacred’ ground. Unable to settle on a price with the landowner, in 2009 the government took the property through eminent domain. Focusing on the ongoing effort in United States of America v. 275.81 Acres of Land to determine the amount of compensation due the owner under the Fifth Amendment, this article tells the story of this piece of property. It argues that even if the attack increased the monetary value of the site fifty-fold as the landowner’s stigma appraiser contends, the government should not have to pay that enhanced amount. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that just compensation is grounded in equity. Unlike other windfalls, there are equitable reasons why this increase should not accrue to the landowner

The Value of Valor: Money, Medals and Military Labor

The United States Supreme Court recently overturned the Stolen Valor Act on the grounds that the law’s blanket prohibition on falsely claiming to have received a military medal or decoration violated the First Amendment right to free speech. This Article uses the controversy provoked by the law to explore the implications of offering compensation for military service in the form of medals. How is compensation in medals related to monetary compensation? Querying the distinctions between money and medals — and the ways in which the boundaries around medals are drawn and policed — offers a means of considering the forms of value that underlie compensation for the work of those who fight in the name of the nation. In an era where value is increasingly assessed in monetary terms, what might medals tell us about the resistance of certain forms of value to such conversion? Furthermore, understanding the relation between medals and money is of vital importance because, this Article contends, the government’s increased use of private military contractors, who are ineligible for most military medals, constitutes a retrenchment from a workforce that is paid in both forms of value — honor and money — to one that is paid in money alone

Outsourcing Sacrifice: The Labor of Private Military Contractors

Numerous scandals arising from the United States government’s increased use of armed private military contractors have drawn attention to the contractors’ legally ill-defined position. But the complexity of the contractors’ relation to various bodies of law and doctrine — including military law, international law, state tort law, employment law, and sovereign immunity — is not the only salient issue. The contractors are also awkwardly positioned in relation to the traditional understanding of sacrifice, which has structured Americans’ imaginings about those who kill and are killed on behalf of the nation. This Article examines the contractors’ relation to the tradition of sacrifice and finds that they are officially excluded from it — their deaths are not included in body counts, for instance, and they are not given medals and honors. The Article then focuses on one case in which this policy of exclusion ran into difficulties: the spectacular and grotesque killing, dismembering and immolation of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq. In this event, individuals who had contracted their services came to be seen as having sacrificed for the U.S. In conclusion, the Article urges that while it is important to address the lack of legal clarity surrounding contractors, it is also necessary to address their position in the tradition of sacrifice and attend to the deeper issues of popular and governmental sovereignty which that tradition articulates

Appraising 9/11: \u27Sacred\u27 Value and Heritage in Neoliberal Times

On September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 — one of the four airplanes hijacked that day — crashed into a vacant parcel of land in rural Pennsylvania, killing all on board. For many, including family members of those killed in the attack and the Park Service that now manages the national memorial at the site, the former strip mine was transformed into ‘sacred’ ground. Unable to settle on a price with the landowner, in 2009 the government took the property through eminent domain. Focusing on the ongoing effort in United States of America v. 275.81 Acres of Land to determine the amount of compensation due the owner under the Fifth Amendment, this article tells the story of this piece of property. It argues that even if the attack increased the monetary value of the site fifty-fold as the landowner’s stigma appraiser contends, the government should not have to pay that enhanced amount. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that just compensation is grounded in equity. Unlike other windfalls, there are equitable reasons why this increase should not accrue to the landowner

What is Life Worth? A Rough Guide to Valuation

In this speculative article, the aim is to elaborate a definition of life that is not biological, and a valuation of it that is not commodified. This is undertaken by the development of an understanding of death as a process which is embedded in the life of a community. The idea is that we can best understand what life is worth by first understanding what death means

The Value of Valor: Money, Medals and Military Labor

The United States Supreme Court recently overturned the Stolen Valor Act on the grounds that the law’s blanket prohibition on falsely claiming to have received a military medal or decoration violated the First Amendment right to free speech. This Article uses the controversy provoked by the law to explore the implications of offering compensation for military service in the form of medals. How is compensation in medals related to monetary compensation? Querying the distinctions between money and medals — and the ways in which the boundaries around medals are drawn and policed — offers a means of considering the forms of value that underlie compensation for the work of those who fight in the name of the nation. In an era where value is increasingly assessed in monetary terms, what might medals tell us about the resistance of certain forms of value to such conversion? Furthermore, understanding the relation between medals and money is of vital importance because, this Article contends, the government’s increased use of private military contractors, who are ineligible for most military medals, constitutes a retrenchment from a workforce that is paid in both forms of value — honor and money — to one that is paid in money alone