David Singh Grewal

The Political Theology of Laissez-Faire: From Philia to Self-Love in Commercial Society

This essay examines the neglected theological origins of early economic discourse. Against accounts emphasizing the secular and scientific foundations of classical political economy, I examine the origins of economic thought in religious debates concerning the nature of human love and divine grace. Specifically, the theorization of what was called “commercial society” in the eighteenth-century depended upon two general theoretical innovations, each of which began in the post-Hobbesian social contract tradition. The first was a conception of the oeconomy understood as a domain of non-political “society,” based on pre-political property relations and sub-political voluntary associations of a primarily commercial variety, reflecting divinely ordained social progress. The second was the transformation of the ancient concept of philia to stress the self-love underlying all human relationships and the necessary role of divine grace in generating social integration. The idea that an “invisible” mechanism – the market functioning according to Gods providential design – makes private vices conduce to public benefit promised an account of social order generated through essentially non-political processes based on a specific political theology. Tracing these ideas from their origins in theological debates through to their appropriation as core features in the analysis of commercial society takes us from a late seventeenth-century theological argument to the late eighteenth-century formalization of a secular model of sociability in classical political economy. In conclusion, I consider how aspects of this early political theology may remain implicit in the modern conception of economic rationality.

Democracy and Legitimacy in Investor-State Arbitration

In January 2016, the Canadian infrastructure company TransCanada Corporation filed a notice of intent to sue the United States government in a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Chapter 11 arbitration over the Keystone XL pipeline. At the center of this dispute is the State Departments refusal to permit the construction of an oil pipeline between Canada and Nebraska. TransCanada claims that the State Department ignored its own favorable environmental assessments of the pipeline multiple times and rejected the proposal to placate misinformed activists and foreign governments. The State Department acknowledges that it denied the permit to enhance the Obama Administrations credibility at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, with the long-term goal of reducing emissions through collective political action. This Essay situates the TransCanada arbitration within the history of investment arbitration, highlighting recent collisions between arbitral regimes and the modern regulatory state. After briefly discussing the history of investment arbitration, we discuss in depth the collisions most startling fallout so far- the Clayton v. Canada award on liability. Finally, we suggest how the TransCanada tribunal should view the Clayton award.