LPE and the Disappearance of the Individual
Abstract
The emerging LPE movement has significant resources at its disposal, as well as a firm commitment to its ideals and goals. According to its founders, great crises are upon us, and great change is necessary to meet the challenge. How will individuals fare under these great changes? This, along with many other critical questions, have not been asked before now. Because great changes impose great risks, such questions must be asked before policymakers choose the LPE path. A close look at LPE scholarship reveals that the individual plays no conceptual role in LPE principles, though LPE terminology is ambiguous enough that a surface reading of its tenets might not reveal that fact. Similarly, LPE policies focus almost exclusively on aggregate measures, so the individual is analytically absent from LPE policy choices. As a result, the negative impacts of LPE policies on individuals are largely ignored in the literature. If LPE wishes to solve impending crises and protect and preserve the rights, liberties, and lives of the individuals within society, it must cease to ignore those individuals.