Debt, Value and Economic Theology

Economic theologies are systems of religiously legitimated beliefs and practices that align value (in Marx’s sense) with values (in broad anthropological usage). This article outlines the place of debt and the credit system in the economic theologies of four ideal-typical variants of capitalism: CatholicismAnglicanism, Calvinism-Puritanism, Pietism-Quakerism, and Free-Grace Evangelism. At the threshold of capitalist modernity, the economic theology of Catholicism-Anglicanism interwove debts into prevailing systems of status honor that maintained aristocratic boundaries for elites while forcing contenders into displays of sacrificial virtue. Calvinism-Puritanism sanctioned profit-seeking through rational assumption of risk in the credit system as a necessary ethicalduty to prove salvation. Pietism-Quakerism warranted a rational credit system as a communitarian means to foster pious enterprise and to ease the worldly burdens of believers. Free-Grace Evangelism encouraged the assumption of debt for get-rich-quick-ventures and speculative trading in the frothy credit markets of charismatic capitalism. Contemporary (global) capital has breached the geographic boundaries and moral vacuums that separated these economic theologies, engendering a monstrous accumulation of debt in hybridized form. Critical theories of economic theology reveal how debt and other forms of fictitious capital are supported by a complex, contradictory social imaginary whose dynamics generate openings for progressive change

Shining a Light on \u3ci\u3eRattley\u3c/i\u3e: The Troublesome Diligent Search Standard Undercutting New York\u27s Freedom of Information Law

New York’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) provides citizens with access to the documents, statistics, and information relied on by New York State government agencies. Modeled after the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), New York legislators designed the state’s “sunshine law” to promote transparency and accountability through a presumption of disclosure by requiring agencies to make all records available to the public except those specifically exempted by statute. But state agencies often rely on a separate, unceremonious reason to deny FOIL requests—they cannot find the documents. FOIL requires an agency to certify that it performed a diligent records search to justify such a denial, but a 2001 holding by the New York Court of Appeals in Rattley v. New York City Police Department permits agencies to properly deny a request in this manner without describing the search or offering a statement from the individual who personally performed the search. Despite FOIL’s promise of transparency and disclosure, an agency’s ability to deny a records request under Rattley without explaining its search efforts leaves requesters without their requested records and without meaningful recourse to challenge the agency’s alleged search in court. This Note argues that the Rattley standard used in New York state courts renders FOIL’s diligent search requirement entirely toothless, creates an inequitable burden-shifting framework for the agency and the requester, and contradicts FOIL’s original legislative intent to promote disclosure. This Note further argues that the New York Court of Appeals should replace Rattley with the federal courts’ reasonableness test and suggests a legislative fix to resolve FOIL’s statutory ambiguity regarding the diligent search certification requirement

Electronic structure and magnetism of equiatomic FeN

In order to investigate the phase stability of equiatomic FeN compounds and the structure-dependent magnetic properties, the electronic structure and total energy of FeN with NaCl, ZnS and CsCl structures and various magnetic configurations are calculated using the first-principles TB-LMTO-ASA method. Among all the FeN phases considered, the antiferromagnetic NaCl structure with q=(00pi) is found to have the lowest energy at the theoretical equilibrium volume. However, the FM NaCl phase lies only 1mRyd higher. The estimated equilibrium lattice constant for nonmagnetic ZnS-type FeN agrees quite well with the experimental value, but for the AFM NaCl phase the estimated value is 6.7% smaller than that observed experimentally. For ZnS-type FeN, metastable magnetic states are found for volumes larger than the equilibrium value. On the basis of an analysis of the atom- and orbital-projected density of states and orbital-projected Crystal Orbital Hamilton Population, the iron-nitrogen interactions in NM ZnS, AFM NaCl and FM CsCl structures are discussed. The leading Fe-N interactions is due to the d-p iron-nitrogen hybridization, while considerable s-p and p-p hybridizations are also observed in all three phases. The iron magnetic moment in FeN is found to be highly sensitive to the nearest-neighboring Fe-N distance. In particular, the magnetic moment shows an abrupt drop from a value of about 2 muB to zero with the reduction of the Fe-N distance for the ZnS and CsCl structures.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Uncoupling the Law of Takings

The following article is based on Deterrence and Distribution in the Law of Takings, 112 Harvard Law Review 997-1025 (March 1999), © 1999 by the Harvard Law Review Association, and appears here by permission. A complete version, with citations, is available from the authors or the editor of Law Quadrangle Notes. The law of takings couples together matters that should be treated independently. Whatever the boundaries of the the Takings Clause, we think there is much to be gained by analyzing takings in terms of the clause\u27s underlying purposes, and by understanding that efficiency and justice are best served by uncoupling matters and methods of deterrence from matters and methods of distribution

On Rereading Klaus Theweleit\u27s Male Fantasies

Klaus Theweleit\u27s Male Fantasies has generated broad interest in the literature of several academic disciplines. His analysis of the symbolic and gender dynamics of the leaders of the German Freikorps (German paramilitary mercenary units of the period 1918-1923) has been widely generalized into a theory of modern masculinity. Two issues inadequately explored in Theweleit\u27s work nonetheless must be read through more recent empirical and theoretical work in history and sociology: (1) the formative role of colonial military experience in the careers of the German Freikorps officers who provide the material for his analysis and (2) the complex historical problem of the facticity of rape in Freikorps activity