{"id":1535,"date":"2018-05-13T18:56:16","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T18:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backerinlaw.com\/Site\/?page_id=1535"},"modified":"2026-08-28T15:05:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:05:27","slug":"highlighted-mostly-current-manuscripts-comments-welcomeand-other-unpublished-work","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.backerinlaw.com\/Site\/manuscripts\/highlighted-mostly-current-manuscripts-comments-welcomeand-other-unpublished-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlighted Manuscripts and Other Work Not Published in Traditional Journals"},"content":{"rendered":"

(in many cases with links to SSRN site where manuscript can be read and downloaded):\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manuscripts: Books<\/h2>\n

The U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2025)\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

All materials may be ACCESSED HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Manuscripts: Essays<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u4ece\u7fa4\u4f17\u4e2d\u6765\uff0c\u5230\u7fa4\u4f17\u4e2d\u53bb [\u201cFrom the Masses, to the Masses\u201d]: Contradiction, Mass Line, and Democratic Centralism as a Constitutional Governing Loop \u2014 and People’s Democratic Dictatorship as Its Gatekeeper:\u00a0An essay in Chinese Marxist-Leninist political theory and its constitutionalism (23 August 2026)<\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d\u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/p>\n

This essay reconstructs the governing loop of Chinese Marxist-Leninist constitutionalism \u2014 contradiction theory, the mass line, and democratic centralism \u2014 not as discrete institutional tools but as a single recursive system whose intelligibility depends on the modernizing Lebenswelt within which it operates. Building on the author\u2019s prior work theorizing modernization (\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316) as the metasignifier and historically sedimented horizon of Chinese constitutionalism, the essay traces each governing principle across four simultaneously operative strands: normative, state-constitutional, Party-line, and Party-internal-organizational. It extends the triad through the dual revolutions (self-revolution and social revolution) and identifies people\u2019s democratic dictatorship (\u4eba\u6c11\u6c11\u4e3b\u4e13\u653f) as the meta-mechanism \u2014 a Peircean semiotic thirdness \u2014 that constitutes the categories of \u201cthe people\u201d and \u201cthe enemy\u201d before the loop can operate on either. The essay deploys Li Zehou\u2019s concept of jidian (\u79ef\u6dc0, sedimentation) to show how modernizing categories acquire depth, spatiality, and directional motion along the Socialist Path, and draws on Guiguzi (\u9b3c\u8c37\u5b50) \u2014 particularly the chapters on probing (\u63e3\u7bc7), exploiting fissures (\u62b5\u5dc7), response and reflection (\u53cd\u61c9), cultivating aspirations (\u517b\u5fd7), and opening and closing (\u636d\u95d4) \u2014 as a pre-semiotic Chinese vocabulary for the governance problems the Marxist-Leninist loop recodes rather than invents. The argument is reconstructive before it is normative: accurate identification of the system in its own vocabulary must precede evaluation. The essay closes by arguing that theory provides the conceptual space within which empirical testing becomes intelligible, and that the governing loop, like Guiguzi\u2019s sage guarding the gates, is the mechanism by which change without limit is given direction.<\/p>\n

ACCESS ESSAY HERE: Governing_Loop_and_Horizon_v3_PDD_Meta_Mechanism(2)<\/a><\/p>\n

\u70b9\u51fb\u6b64\u5904\u8bbf\u95ee\u4e2d\u6587\u7248\u672c:<\/strong> \u4ece\u7fa4\u4f17\u4e2d\u6765\u5230\u7fa4\u4f17\u4e2d\u53bb_\u4e2d\u6587\u7248<\/a><\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Xue Lan’s (\u859b\u6f9c) “Social Application of Artificial Intelligence” Read Within Its Own Cognitive Cage: A New Era Signification Matrix, a Two-Line Critique, and a Comparative-Regulatory Analysis (22 August 2026)<\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d\u8f72)<\/em><\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/p>\n

This essay reads a July 2026 Tsinghua keynote by Xue Lan (\u859b\u6f9c) \u2014 chair of China’s National Expert Committee on AI Governance \u2014 as a case study in how Chinese AI-governance discourse is produced, exported, and received. It builds a matrix linking Xue’s key terms to specific New Era Marxist-Leninist doctrinal referents, then pursues two lines of critique: first, an assessment, grounded in a theory of modernization as the organizing horizon of Chinese constitutionalism (drawing on my essay, “Modernization (\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316) and Chinese Constitutionalism’s Lifeworld”) the fundamental political line of which Xue’s speech is faithful, elaborates, or deploys (finding fidelity nearly everywhere); second, a semiotic reading, using a five-stage interpretive protocol drawn from the Gerasene demoniac narrative (Mark 5), that places Xue among a corpus of AI-governance “oracles” \u2014 Palantir, Anthropic, OpenAI, Aschenbrenner, DeepSeek, and Meta \u2014 and argues his position is structurally distinct: custodial rather than supplicatory, addressed to the international order rather than a domestic sovereign. A comparative-regulatory section sets the institutional apparatus Xue’s speech legitimates against the EU AI Act and the fragmented U.S. landscape. A final section, prompted by Xue’s real-world engagement with Senator Bernie Sanders, identifies a deeper structure common to every framework examined \u2014 Chinese, American, and European alike \u2014 distinguishing “Left” and “Right” variants of a Leninist impulse toward concentrated, expert- or vanguard-directed control of productive and cognitive life, and argues that Xue’s framework functions as a bridge between them, which is what gives the Xue-Sanders convergence its logic. The essay concludes that no framework canvassed \u2014 Chinese or Western \u2014 contemplates AI’s development without some apex authority to direct it; the only contested question is who occupies that position.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DRAFT HERE: Bascke_Essay_Xue-Lan-Remarks-8-2026<\/a><\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/h4>\n

The Wandering Marx: Vanguard Theory, the Denaturing of Marxism, and the Jewish Question in Chinese Socialist Internationalism:\u00a0Reflections on Felix Brender [\u738b\u54f2\u8b19], \u201cChina after October 7: Selective Neutrality and the Politics of \u2018Principle\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/p>\n

This essay engages Felix Brender\u2019s \u201cChina after October 7: Selective Neutrality and the Politics of \u2018Principle\u2019\u201d (Telos Insights<\/em>, 2026), which documents China\u2019s asymmetric diplomatic treatment of Israeli and Palestinian claims following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack. The essay acknowledges Brender\u2019s empirical contribution\u2014particularly his semiotic analysis of the term \u88ab\u6263\u62bc\u4eba\u5458[detained persons or hostages, prisoners or detainees, variability of the ambiguous concept\u00a0\u00a0to keep someone in a place so that they cannot leave<\/em>] \u2014while arguing that his explanation, grounded in historical continuity and reputational cost-management, opens the door to a broader examination of the theoretical architecture that would explain why the asymmetry is structurally necessary rather than strategically contingent. Drawing on the author\u2019s prior scholarship on Chinese Marxist-Leninist governance, the essay advances three interconnected arguments. First, that China\u2019s posture is a structural requirement of the vanguard-coalition form derived from Mao Zedong\u2019s \u201cOn Coalition Government\u201d (1945), which requires both a coalition to be led and an externalized antagonist against which it is organized. Second, that the Sinicization of Marxism involves a \u201cdenaturing\u201d of Marxism from its Jewish genealogical origins\u2014a semiotic operation in which the \u201cinternational Marx\u201d (the diasporic Jewish theorist) must be superseded by the \u201cChinese Marx\u201d (theory-come-home), rendering Jewish national self-determination structurally obstructive. Third, that Marx\u2019s \u201cOn the Jewish Question\u201d (1844), properly read as a critique of all religious recursion rather than a polemic against Jews, exposes the \u201cclay feet\u201d of Sinicization: the project substitutes Chinese civilizational particularity for the religious consciousness Marx argued must be transcended\u2014and, in displacing Jewish particularism, allies itself with Islamic universalism, a rival lebenswelt<\/em> whose eventual collision with Chinese-style modernization may produce a general contradiction the current theoretical architecture cannot resolve.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DRAFT HERE: The_Wandering_Marx_Backer_on_Brender_Final<\/a><\/p>\n

\u6f2b\u6e38\u7684\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\uff1a\u5148\u950b\u7406\u8bba\u3001\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u4e3b\u4e49\u7684\u53d8\u6027\u4e0e\u4e2d\u56fd\u793e\u4f1a\u4e3b\u4e49\u56fd\u9645\u4e3b\u4e49\u4e2d\u7684\u72b9\u592a\u4eba\u95ee\u9898<\/strong>\u2014\u2014\u8bc4\u672c\u5fb7\u5c14\uff08Felix Brender\uff09[\u738b\u54f2\u8b19]\u300a\u5341\u6708\u4e03\u65e5\u540e\u7684\u4e2d\u56fd\uff1a\u9009\u62e9\u6027\u4e2d\u7acb\u4e0e\u201c\u539f\u5219\u201d\u653f\u6cbb\u300b<\/h4>\n

\u4f5c\u8005\uff1aLarry Cat\u00e1 Backer\uff08\u767d\u8f72\uff09<\/p>\n

\u6458\u8981<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u672c\u6587\u56de\u5e94\u672c\u5fb7\u5c14\uff08Felix Brender\uff09\u6240\u64b0\u300a\u5341\u6708\u4e03\u65e5\u540e\u7684\u4e2d\u56fd\uff1a\u9009\u62e9\u6027\u4e2d\u7acb\u4e0e\u201c\u539f\u5219\u201d\u653f\u6cbb\u300b\uff08Telos Insights<\/em>\uff0c2026\u5e74\uff09\u3002\u8be5\u6587\u8bb0\u5f55\u4e862023\u5e7410\u67087\u65e5\u54c8\u9a6c\u65af\u4e3b\u5bfc\u88ad\u51fb\u4e8b\u4ef6\u540e\uff0c\u4e2d\u56fd\u5bf9\u4ee5\u8272\u5217\u4e0e\u5df4\u52d2\u65af\u5766\u8bc9\u6c42\u7684\u4e0d\u5bf9\u79f0\u5916\u4ea4\u5904\u7406\u3002\u672c\u6587\u80af\u5b9a\u672c\u5fb7\u5c14\u7684\u5b9e\u8bc1\u8d21\u732e\u2014\u2014\u5c24\u5176\u662f\u5176\u5bf9\u201c\u88ab\u6263\u62bc\u4eba\u5458\u201d\u4e00\u8bcd\u7684\u7b26\u53f7\u5b66\u5206\u6790\u2014\u2014\u540c\u65f6\u63d0\u51fa\uff0c\u5176\u57fa\u4e8e\u5386\u53f2\u5ef6\u7eed\u6027\u4e0e\u58f0\u8a89\u6210\u672c\u7ba1\u7406\u7684\u89e3\u91ca\uff0c\u672a\u80fd\u89e6\u53ca\u8db3\u4ee5\u9610\u660e\u8be5\u4e0d\u5bf9\u79f0\u6027\u4e3a\u4f55\u5177\u6709\u7ed3\u6784\u5fc5\u7136\u6027\u800c\u975e\u7b56\u7565\u5076\u7136\u6027\u7684\u7406\u8bba\u67b6\u6784\u3002<\/p>\n

\u672c\u6587\u63f4\u5f15\u4f5c\u8005\u6b64\u524d\u5173\u4e8e\u4e2d\u56fd\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u5217\u5b81\u4e3b\u4e49\u6cbb\u7406\u7684\u5b66\u672f\u6210\u679c\uff0c\u63d0\u51fa\u4e09\u4e2a\u76f8\u4e92\u5173\u8054\u7684\u8bba\u70b9\u3002\u7b2c\u4e00\uff0c\u4e2d\u56fd\u7684\u7acb\u573a\u662f\u5148\u950b\u8054\u76df\u67b6\u6784\uff08vanguard-coalition architecture\uff09\u7684\u7ed3\u6784\u6027\u8981\u6c42\uff0c\u8be5\u67b6\u6784\u6e90\u81ea\u6bdb\u6cfd\u4e1c\u300a\u8bba\u8054\u5408\u653f\u5e9c\u300b\uff081945\u5e74\uff09\uff0c\u65e2\u9700\u8981\u4e00\u4e2a\u88ab\u9886\u5bfc\u7684\u8054\u76df\uff0c\u4e5f\u9700\u8981\u4e00\u4e2a\u4f7f\u8be5\u8054\u76df\u5f97\u4ee5\u7ec4\u7ec7\u8d77\u6765\u7684\u5916\u90e8\u5316\u5bf9\u6297\u8005\u3002\u7b2c\u4e8c\uff0c\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u4e3b\u4e49\u4e2d\u56fd\u5316\u6d89\u53ca\u5bf9\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u4e3b\u4e49\u7684\u201c\u53d8\u6027\u201d\uff08denaturing\uff09\u2014\u2014\u5c06\u5176\u4e0e\u72b9\u592a\u8c31\u7cfb\u5b66\u8d77\u6e90\u76f8\u5206\u79bb\u2014\u2014\u8fd9\u662f\u4e00\u79cd\u7b26\u53f7\u5b66\u64cd\u4f5c\uff0c\u5176\u4e2d\u201c\u56fd\u9645\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u201d\uff08\u6d41\u6563\u7684\u72b9\u592a\u7406\u8bba\u5bb6\uff09\u5fc5\u987b\u88ab\u201c\u4e2d\u56fd\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u201d\uff08\u7406\u8bba\u56de\u5f52\u672c\u571f\uff09\u6240\u8d85\u8d8a\uff0c\u4ece\u800c\u4f7f\u72b9\u592a\u6c11\u65cf\u81ea\u51b3\u5728\u7ed3\u6784\u4e0a\u6210\u4e3a\u969c\u788d\u3002\u7b2c\u4e09\uff0c\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u300a\u8bba\u72b9\u592a\u4eba\u95ee\u9898\u300b\uff081844\u5e74\uff09\u82e5\u88ab\u6b63\u786e\u5730\u89e3\u8bfb\u4e3a\u5bf9\u4e00\u5207\u5b97\u6559\u9012\u5f52\u7684\u6279\u5224\u800c\u975e\u9488\u5bf9\u72b9\u592a\u4eba\u7684\u8bba\u6218\uff0c\u5219\u63ed\u793a\u4e86\u4e2d\u56fd\u5316\u7684\u201c\u6ce5\u8db3\u201d\uff1a\u8be5\u5de5\u7a0b\u4ee5\u4e2d\u56fd\u6587\u660e\u7279\u6b8a\u6027\u66ff\u4ee3\u4e86\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u6240\u8bba\u8bc1\u7684\u5fc5\u987b\u88ab\u8d85\u8d8a\u7684\u5b97\u6559\u610f\u8bc6\u2014\u2014\u5e76\u4e14\u5728\u6392\u65a5\u72b9\u592a\u7279\u6b8a\u4e3b\u4e49\u7684\u540c\u65f6\uff0c\u4e0e\u4f0a\u65af\u5170\u666e\u904d\u4e3b\u4e49\u7ed3\u76df\u3002\u540e\u8005\u4f5c\u4e3a\u4e00\u79cd\u7ade\u4e89\u6027\u7684\u751f\u6d3b\u4e16\u754c\uff08Lebenswelt\uff09\uff0c\u5176\u4e0e\u4e2d\u56fd\u5f0f\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u7684\u6700\u7ec8\u78b0\u649e\u6216\u53ef\u4ea7\u751f\u5f53\u524d\u7406\u8bba\u67b6\u6784\u65e0\u6cd5\u5316\u89e3\u7684\u603b\u4f53\u77db\u76fe\u3002<\/p>\n

\u70b9\u51fb\u6b64\u5904\u8bbf\u95ee\u4e2d\u6587\u7248\u672c:<\/strong> \u6d41\u6d6a\u7684\u9a6c\u514b\u601d – \u767d\u8f72\u8bba\u672c\u5fb7\u5c14 (\u4e2d\u6587\u5b66\u672f\u7248)<\/a><\/p>\n

El Marx errante: teor\u00eda de vanguardia, desnaturalizaci\u00f3n del marxismo y la cuesti\u00f3n jud\u00eda en el internacionalismo socialista chino–Reflexiones sobre Felix Brender [\u738b\u54f2\u8b19], \u00abChina despu\u00e9s del 7 de octubre: neutralidad selectiva y la pol\u00edtica del \u2018principio\u2019\u00bb<\/em><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d\u8f72)<\/p>\n

Resumen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Este ensayo aborda el texto de Felix Brender \u00abChina despu\u00e9s del 7 de octubre: neutralidad selectiva y la pol\u00edtica del \u2018principio\u2019\u00bb (Telos Insights<\/em>, 2026), que documenta el tratamiento diplom\u00e1tico asim\u00e9trico de China hacia las reclamaciones israel\u00edes y palestinas tras el ataque liderado por Ham\u00e1s el 7 de octubre de 2023. El ensayo reconoce la contribuci\u00f3n emp\u00edrica de Brender\u2014particularmente su an\u00e1lisis semi\u00f3tico del t\u00e9rmino personas detenidas (\u88ab\u6263\u62bc\u4eba\u5458)\u2014al tiempo que argumenta que su explicaci\u00f3n, fundamentada en la continuidad hist\u00f3rica y la gesti\u00f3n del costo reputacional, no alcanza la arquitectura te\u00f3rica que explicar\u00eda por qu\u00e9 la asimetr\u00eda es estructuralmente necesaria y no estrat\u00e9gicamente contingente. Apoy\u00e1ndose en la producci\u00f3n acad\u00e9mica previa del autor sobre la gobernanza marxista-leninista china, el ensayo desarrolla tres argumentos interconectados. Primero, que la postura de China constituye un requisito estructural de la forma vanguardia-coalici\u00f3n derivada de Sobre el gobierno de coalici\u00f3n<\/em> (1945) de Mao Zedong, que exige tanto una coalici\u00f3n a la cual dirigir como un antagonista externalizado contra el cual organizarla. Segundo, que la sinizaci\u00f3n del marxismo implica una \u00abdesnaturalizaci\u00f3n\u00bb del marxismo respecto de sus or\u00edgenes geneal\u00f3gicos jud\u00edos\u2014una operaci\u00f3n semi\u00f3tica en la cual el \u00abMarx internacional\u00bb (el te\u00f3rico jud\u00edo diasp\u00f3rico) debe ser superado por el \u00abMarx chino\u00bb (la teor\u00eda que retorna al hogar), convirtiendo la autodeterminaci\u00f3n nacional jud\u00eda en un obst\u00e1culo estructural. Tercero, que Sobre la cuesti\u00f3n jud\u00eda<\/em> (1844) de Marx, le\u00eddo correctamente como una cr\u00edtica de toda recursi\u00f3n religiosa y no como una pol\u00e9mica contra los jud\u00edos, expone los \u00abpies de barro\u00bb de la sinizaci\u00f3n: el proyecto sustituye la particularidad civilizatoria china por la conciencia religiosa que Marx argument\u00f3 deb\u00eda ser trascendida\u2014y, al desplazar el particularismo jud\u00edo, se al\u00eda con el universalismo isl\u00e1mico, un Lebenswelt (mundo de la vida) rival cuya eventual colisi\u00f3n con la modernizaci\u00f3n al estilo chino podr\u00eda producir una contradicci\u00f3n general que la arquitectura te\u00f3rica actual no puede resolver.<\/p>\n

Acceda a la versi\u00f3n en espa\u00f1ol aqu\u00ed: El Marx Errante – Backer sobre Brender (Versio\u0301n Acade\u0301mica Cubana)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

The Revolution Against Civilization: A Critical Analysis of the 2026 State Department Report on Cuba (Working Paper 14 August 2026)<\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0A new critical analysis examines the 2026 State Department report on Cuba\u2014the most comprehensive U.S. government account of Cuban subversion ever published\u2014and finds that while its factual claims about Cuban espionage, foreign alliances, and influence networks are substantially grounded, its analytical framework is internally circular, politically instrumental, and dangerously incomplete. Drawing on the author\u2019s scholarship, the analysis reveals what the report obscures: that the U.S.-Cuba conflict is not a one-directional assault but a sixty-seven-year dialectic of mutual regime change in which both sides have corrupted the other while failing to transform it. Most provocatively, the analysis identifies the report’s deepest political function\u2014not merely cataloging Cuban threats, but characterizing the American left as the symptomatic carrier of a foreign ideological infection, thereby supplying the Cuba chapter of a broader narrative about the corruption of American democracy. The report’s portrait of Cuba as “less a nation-state than an all-encompassing intelligence and subversion operation” is powerful but unfalsifiable; my counter-portrait of a rigid Leninist party-state trapped in a “stable state of misery” is more analytically precise but less politically actionable. The full picture requires holding both simultaneously\u2014and confronting the uncomfortable possibility that American policy may inadvertently reinforce the very system it claims to oppose. The analysis is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what the Trump Administration’s Cuba policy is actually about.<\/p>\n

ACCESS PAPER HERE: Report_Summary_and_Critical_Analysis_v7<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I have started a series exploring Tong Zhiwei\u2019s jurisprudence of Faquanism (Faquanzhuyi).<\/p>\n

Tong Zhiwei, Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer, \u7ae5\u4e4b\u4f1f<\/strong> \u6211\u4e4b\u6cd5\u5b66\u601d\u60f3\u89c2\u70b9\u91cd\u8ff0<\/strong> [Tong Zhiwei, A Restatement of My Jurisprudential Thoughts and Views], <\/strong>Originally posted 5 August 2026 to my Blogsite Law at the End of the Day, available HERE<\/a>.<\/h4>\n

Abstract:\u00a0In this restatement, Professor Tong synthesizes and restates his jurisprudence of Faquanism (Faquanzhuyi), offering a materialist alternative to imported legal paradigms. Utilizing Marx\u2019s method of ascending from the abstract to the concrete, Tong posits quan (\u6743)\u2014the manifestation of all interests and property in social norms\u2014as the foundational analytical starting point. Dialectically, quan yields a cluster of seven essential categories: quan, faquan, residual quan, rights, powers, duties, and law.\u00a0Faquan represents property with settled ownership recognized in positive law, resolving into individual rights and public powers. Conversely, residual quan represents extra-legal norms governing unsettled property. Duties reflect the negative-value counterpart of these positive holdings. Under Tong\u2019s structural axioms, the volume of quan directly depends on total property, while the proportional share of rights versus powers within faquan is determined by the ratio of private to public property. The core function of law is to optimize the allocation of quan and faquan, preserving equilibrium across zero-sum dynamics (faquan vs. residual quan; rights vs. powers) to avoid both state despotism and social anarchy.\u00a0Tong critiques contemporary Chinese jurisprudence for relying on \u201cJapanized\u201d translations (\u548c\u5316\u201c\u6743\u5229\u201d) that conflate rights and powers under a single term, urging Chinese scholarship to embrace native, precise terminology. Finally, Tong extends faquanism to international law: state entities hold international rights based on national wealth, whereas international organs exercise international power through autonomous budgetary enforcement. He concludes that current global insecurity stems from severe disparities in state rights and an underdevelopment of institutional international power.<\/p>\n

ACCESS ESSAY HERE:<\/strong> Essay-TongZhiwei-FaquonismRestatement-\u7ae5\u4e4b\u4f1f \u6211\u4e4b\u6cd5\u5b66\u601d\u60f3\u89c2\u70b9\u91cd\u8ff0<\/a><\/p>\n

Faquan-in-Motion: Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer\u2019s (<\/strong>\u767d\u8f72<\/strong>) Modernization and the Lebenswelt of Chinese Constitutionalism Read Through Tong Zhiwei’s Faquanism (13 August 2026)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (<\/strong>\u767d\u8f72<\/strong>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract: This essay places two independent theoretical projects in dialogue: Tong Zhiwei\u2019s Faquanism, a materialist general theory of law organized around the dialectical category of quan<\/em> and its derivatives (faquan<\/em>, residual quan<\/em>, rights, powers, duties, and law), and an account of modernization as the sedimented Lebenswelt <\/em>and metasignifier of contemporary Chinese constitutional discourse. Reading each through the categories of the other reveals that Tong\u2019s own methodology already subordinates the essence of law to the historically bounded criterion of \u201cmodernization construction,\u201d thereby licensing a materialist retelling of modernization as the long-arc trajectory of quan<\/em>\u2013faquan<\/em> ratios. A narrowly semiotic (Peircean-Saussurean) redescription of Faquanism is available without phenomenological commitments that Tong\u2019s epistemology excludes; faquan<\/em> itself functions as a jurisprudential metasignifier homologous to modernization\u2019s role one level higher. Points of divergence remain unresolved by the source texts: a distributive grammar of legitimacy versus a developmental-civilizational one; the absence in Faquanism of a categorial register for Party-internal normativity central to China\u2019s dual constitutional system; and a shared insistence on a rationally self-transparent vanguard planner that resists full translation into systems-theoretic, biopolitical, or indigenous rhetorical idioms. The comparison is offered as an explicit hypothesis rather than an equivalence either author would necessarily accept, and the residual tensions are treated as indices of what remains open in the general theory of the contemporary Chinese constitutional order.<\/p>\n

ACCESS ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION HERE:<\/strong> Faquan-in-Motion-Essay<\/a><\/p>\n

\u6cd5\u6743\u8fd0\u52a8\u4e2d\uff1a<\/strong>(Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer<\/strong>\u4e2d\u6587\u540d\uff1a\u767d\u8f72<\/strong>) <\/strong>\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u4e0e\u4e2d\u56fd\u5baa\u5236\u7684\u751f\u6d3b\u4e16\u754c<\/strong>\u2014\u2014<\/strong>\u901a\u8fc7\u7ae5\u4e4b\u4f1f\u7684\u6cd5\u6743\u4e3b\u4e49\u52a0\u4ee5\u9605\u8bfb 2026\u5e748\u670813\u65e5<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer\u2019s (<\/strong>\u767d\u8f72<\/strong>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u6458\u8981<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u672c\u6587\u4f7f\u4e24\u4e2a\u5f7c\u6b64\u72ec\u7acb\u7684\u7406\u8bba\u9879\u76ee\u5c55\u5f00\u5bf9\u8bdd\uff1a\u5176\u4e00\u4e3a\u7ae5\u4e4b\u4f1f\u7684\u6cd5\u6743\u4e3b\u4e49\uff0c\u4e00\u79cd\u4ee5\u201c\u6743\u201d\u53ca\u5176\u8fa9\u8bc1\u5c55\u5f00\u8303\u7574\uff08\u6cd5\u6743\u3001\u5269\u4f59\u6743\u3001\u6743\u5229\u3001\u6743\u529b\u3001\u4e49\u52a1\u4e0e\u6cd5\uff09\u4e3a\u67b6\u6784\u7684\u552f\u7269\u4e3b\u4e49\u4e00\u822c\u6cd5\u7406\u8bba\uff1b\u5176\u4e8c\u4e3a\u767d\u8f72\u7684\u5c06\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u7406\u89e3\u4e3a\u5f53\u4ee3\u4e2d\u56fd\u5baa\u5236\u8bdd\u8bed\u6c89\u79ef\u7684\u751f\u6d3b\u4e16\u754c\u4e0e\u5143\u80fd\u6307\u7684\u8bba\u8ff0\u3002\u4ee5\u5f7c\u6b64\u7684\u8303\u7574\u76f8\u4e92\u89e3\u8bfb\u4e8c\u8005\uff0c\u53ef\u4ee5\u53d1\u73b0\uff1a\u7ae5\u4e4b\u4f1f\u81ea\u8eab\u7684\u65b9\u6cd5\u8bba\u5df2\u660e\u786e\u5c06\u6cd5\u7684\u672c\u8d28\u4ece\u5c5e\u4e8e\u201c\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u5efa\u8bbe\u201d\u8fd9\u4e00\u5177\u6709\u5386\u53f2\u8fb9\u754c\u7684\u6807\u51c6\uff0c\u4ece\u800c\u4e3a\u628a\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u91cd\u65b0\u8868\u8ff0\u4e3a\u201c\u6743\u2014\u6cd5\u6743\u201d\u6bd4\u7387\u7684\u957f\u65f6\u6bb5\u6f14\u8fdb\u8f68\u8ff9\u63d0\u4f9b\u4e86\u552f\u7269\u4e3b\u4e49\u4f9d\u636e\u3002\u5728\u4e25\u683c\u9650\u5b9a\u4e8e\u76ae\u5c14\u58eb\u2014\u7d22\u7eea\u5c14\u7b26\u53f7\u5b66\uff08\u800c\u975e\u80e1\u585e\u5c14\u73b0\u8c61\u5b66\uff09\u7684\u524d\u63d0\u4e0b\uff0c\u5bf9\u6cd5\u6743\u4e3b\u4e49\u8fdb\u884c\u7b26\u53f7\u5b66\u91cd\u8ff0\u662f\u53ef\u80fd\u7684\uff1b\u6cd5\u6743\u672c\u8eab\u4f5c\u4e3a\u6cd5\u5b66\u8bdd\u8bed\u5185\u90e8\u7684\u5143\u80fd\u6307\uff0c\u4e0e\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u5728\u66f4\u9ad8\u4e00\u5c42\u5baa\u5236\u573a\u57df\u4e2d\u7684\u7ec4\u7ec7\u529f\u80fd\u5177\u6709\u7ed3\u6784\u540c\u6e90\u6027\u3002\u6e90\u6587\u672c\u81ea\u8eab\u672a\u80fd\u6d88\u89e3\u7684\u5206\u6b67\u4f9d\u7136\u5b58\u5728\uff1a\u5206\u914d\u5f0f\u5408\u6cd5\u6027\u8bed\u6cd5\u4e0e\u53d1\u5c55\u2014\u6587\u660e\u5f0f\u5408\u6cd5\u6027\u8bed\u6cd5\u4e4b\u95f4\u7684\u5f20\u529b\uff1b\u6cd5\u6743\u4e3b\u4e49\u8303\u7574\u7f51\u683c\u4e2d\u7f3a\u4e4f\u5bf9\u515a\u7684\u5185\u90e8\u89c4\u8303\u6027\uff08\u53cc\u91cd\u5baa\u6cd5\u4f53\u5236\u7684\u6838\u5fc3\u8981\u7d20\uff09\u7684\u4e13\u95e8\u767b\u8bb0\uff1b\u4ee5\u53ca\u53cc\u65b9\u5171\u540c\u575a\u6301\u7684\u3001\u7406\u6027\u900f\u660e\u4e14\u5c45\u4e8e\u4e2d\u5fc3\u7684\u5148\u950b\u961f\u89c4\u5212\u8005\u5f62\u8c61\uff0c\u8fd9\u4e00\u5f62\u8c61\u96be\u4ee5\u88ab\u7cfb\u7edf\u7406\u8bba\u3001\u751f\u547d\u653f\u6cbb\u6216\u672c\u571f\u4fee\u8f9e\u7b56\u7565\u5b8c\u5168\u5bb9\u7eb3\u3002\u6bd4\u8f83\u88ab\u660e\u786e\u6807\u793a\u4e3a\u63a8\u65ad\u6027\u5047\u8bbe\uff0c\u800c\u975e\u4efb\u4f55\u4e00\u65b9\u4f5c\u8005\u5fc5\u7136\u63a5\u53d7\u7684\u7b49\u4ef7\u5173\u7cfb\uff1b\u6b8b\u7559\u5f20\u529b\u5219\u88ab\u5904\u7406\u4e3a\u5f53\u4ee3\u4e2d\u56fd\u5baa\u5236\u79e9\u5e8f\u4e00\u822c\u7406\u8bba\u4e2d\u4ecd\u7136\u5f00\u653e\u7684\u95ee\u9898\u6307\u6807\u3002<\/p>\n

\u70b9\u51fb\u6b64\u5904\u8bbf\u95ee\u4e2d\u6587\u7248\u672c: Faquan-in-Motion-Essay<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Education as Productive Force and Ideological Apparatus: A Dialectical Analysis of China’s Modernization-Driven Knowledge System (11 Auguist 2026)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0This paper examines how education functions simultaneously as a productive force and as an ideological apparatus within China’s socialist modernization framework. Drawing on Backer’s theory of modernization as the Lebenswelt of New Era Chinese Marxism-Leninism, it analyzes how differentiated forms of ideological production emerge through five distinct educational modalities: school\/formal education, mass\/popular education, social education, cultural education, and patriotic education. The paper argues that this differentiation is not fragmentation but a structural necessity of modernization’s own dialectics\u2014the system must produce specialized knowledge formations to manage the complexity of socialist modernization while maintaining doctrinal coherence through the metasignifier of modernization itself.<\/p>\n

Through detailed analysis of CPC Congress reports from the 12th through 20th Congresses, the paper traces the evolving theorization of education’s dual character: as the process through which productive forces are developed and as itself a productive force of ideological production. The 3rd Plenum of the 20th Congress intensifies this dual character by subjecting all productive forces\u2014including the ideological apparatus\u2014to the high-quality innovation imperative. Education is thereby repositioned not merely as an instrument of modernization but as an object of modernization’s reflexive demands: the knowledge system must apply to itself the same imperatives of innovation, quality, and systemic integration that it applies to other domains of socialist construction.<\/p>\n

The paper develops a computational model in which the educational system operates as parallel processing streams with shared cross-cutting activation functions, recursive feedback circuits, and temporal periodization through Five-Year Plan “clock cycles.” Each educational modality is theorized as a distinct processing stream with its own input characteristics, transformation functions, and output targets, yet all streams are conditioned by the modernization metasignifier as a cross-cutting activation function that determines admissibility conditions and relative weighting across the system. By examining the structural logic of people’s democratic dictatorship, the self-revolution\/social-revolution dialectic, and the internationalization of educational production, the paper illuminates what constitutes the most sustained attempt to manage ideological coherence under conditions of modernization in human history.<\/p>\n

The paper supplements its theoretical analysis with operational evidence drawn from the 2035 Education Strong Nation Plan (\u6559\u80b2\u5f3a\u56fd\u5efa\u8bbe\u89c4\u5212\u7eb2\u8981, 2024-2035), post-20th Congress curriculum transformations integrating Xi Jinping Thought across all textbook levels, Belt and Road Initiative university specialties developed since 2013, and the Marxist theory discipline’s theorization as productive force. It also examines resistance phenomena\u2014tang ping, academic burnout, ideological evasion\u2014as systemic feedback signals that confirm rather than refute the framework’s explanatory reach.<\/p>\n

ACCESS WORKING PAPER HERE: FINAL_Education_as_Productive_Force_Working_Paper<\/a><\/p>\n

ACCESS COMPUTATIONAL APPENDIX HERE: FINAL_Computational_Appendix_From_Textual_Architecture_to_Formal_Specification<\/a><\/p>\n

\u4f5c\u4e3a\u751f\u4ea7\u529b\u4e0e\u610f\u8bc6\u5f62\u6001\u673a\u5236\u7684\u6559\u80b2\uff1a\u4e2d\u56fd\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u9a71\u52a8\u578b\u77e5\u8bc6\u4f53\u7cfb\u7684\u8fa9\u8bc1\u5206\u6790 (<\/strong>\u5de5\u4f5c\u8bba\u6587\u8349\u7a3f\u2014\u20142026\u5e748\u6708)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u767d\u8f72 (Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer)<\/p>\n

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\u672c\u6587\u4ee5\u64cd\u4f5c\u5c42\u9762\u7684\u5b9e\u8bc1\u8865\u5145\u7406\u8bba\u5206\u6790\uff0c\u6750\u6599\u6d89\u53ca\u300a\u6559\u80b2\u5f3a\u56fd\u5efa\u8bbe\u89c4\u5212\u7eb2\u8981\u300b\uff082024-2035\uff09\u3001\u4e8c\u5341\u5927\u540e\u5c06\u4e60\u8fd1\u5e73\u601d\u60f3\u5168\u9762\u878d\u5165\u5404\u5b66\u6bb5\u6559\u6750\u7684\u8bfe\u7a0b\u6539\u9769\u30012013\u5e74\u4ee5\u6765\u56f4\u7ed5”\u4e00\u5e26\u4e00\u8def”\u5021\u8bae\u53d1\u5c55\u7684\u5927\u5b66\u4e13\u4e1a\u65b9\u5411\uff0c\u4ee5\u53ca\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u4e3b\u4e49\u7406\u8bba\u5b66\u79d1\u4f5c\u4e3a\u751f\u4ea7\u529b\u7684\u7406\u8bba\u5316\u3002\u672c\u6587\u8fd8\u8003\u5bdf\u4e86\u62b5\u6297\u73b0\u8c61\u2014\u2014\u8eba\u5e73\u3001\u5b66\u4e1a\u5026\u6020\u3001\u610f\u8bc6\u5f62\u6001\u56de\u907f\u2014\u2014\u5c06\u5176\u4f5c\u4e3a\u7cfb\u7edf\u53cd\u9988\u4fe1\u53f7\uff0c\u8fd9\u4e9b\u4fe1\u53f7\u786e\u8ba4\u800c\u975e\u5426\u5b9a\u4e86\u672c\u6587\u5206\u6790\u6846\u67b6\u7684\u89e3\u91ca\u529b\u3002<\/p>\n

\u70b9\u51fb\u6b64\u5904\u83b7\u53d6\u8bba\u6587:<\/strong> FINAL_\u6559\u80b2\u4f5c\u4e3a\u751f\u4ea7\u529b\u4e0e\u610f\u8bc6\u5f62\u6001\u673a\u5236_\u5de5\u4f5c\u8bba\u6587_\u4e2d\u6587\u7248<\/a><\/p>\n

\u8bbf\u95ee\u8ba1\u7b97\u5efa\u6a21\u9644\u5f55: FINAL_\u8ba1\u7b97\u9644\u5f55_\u4ece\u6587\u672c\u67b6\u6784\u5230\u5f62\u5f0f\u89c4\u8303_\u4e2d\u6587\u7248<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

\u201cModernization\u201d (<\/strong>\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316<\/strong>) and Chinese Constitutionalism\u2019s \u201cLifeworld\u201d; Constitutionalism as the Institutionalized Phenomenology of Modernization;\u00a0A Semiotic-Phenomenological Analysis of Modernization Discourse\u00a0<\/em>in Chinese Marxist-Leninist Political-Legal Theory<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72) (discussion draft 7 August 2026)<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong>\u00a0This paper argues that modernization is not simply one policy goal among many in contemporary China. It is the organizing framework \u2014 the taken-for-granted horizon \u2014 through which the Chinese Communist Party and the state define problems, justify institutions, evaluate governance, and project China’s future. The paper’s central claim is that modernization functions as what phenomenology calls a “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt): the pre-given background of shared assumptions so deeply embedded in institutional practice that it operates as a condition of intelligibility rather than an object requiring justification. Within this framework, the Party’s periodic reformulation of the “principal contradiction” \u2014 the system’s official diagnosis of its most pressing social problem \u2014 serves as the mechanism by which the modernizing framework recalibrates itself to new conditions without ever being abandoned or fundamentally questioned.<\/p>\n

The paper proceeds in two registers. The first is historical and textual: six sections trace how the concept of modernization traveled from Soviet Marxism-Leninism through its Chinese transformation, evolved across twenty Party congresses, and was progressively embedded in legal texts from the Constitution down to local regulation \u2014 a process the paper calls “juridification.” The second register is theoretical: a final major section draws on these findings to construct an argument about how modernization organizes meaning within Chinese constitutionalism, using tools from phenomenology (Husserl’s lifeworld, Li Zehou’s concept of cultural sedimentation), semiotics (how signs relate to one another in systems), Foucault’s analysis of how governmental power shapes conduct, Nietzsche’s genealogical method for uncovering buried struggles beneath apparently natural arrangements, and Luhmann’s systems theory.<\/p>\n

The paper advances five innovations. First, it identifies nine historical layers of political meaning \u2014 from early experiences of national vulnerability through revolution, socialist construction, reform, and the current “Chinese modernization” \u2014 that persist simultaneously rather than simply replacing one another, forming what the paper calls a “sedimentary ontology.” Second, it argues that modernization functions as a “metasignifier”: a sign that organizes the relations among other political concepts (socialism, Party leadership, reform, rule of law, common prosperity, ecological civilization, national rejuvenation) without emptying them of their distinct content. Third, it proposes a four-level model showing how abstract political theory becomes lived experience \u2014 moving from Party doctrine through institutional practices and evaluation systems down to the formation of subjects who experience their world through modernization categories, with feedback loops running back to the top. Fourth, it reconceives the Constitution not as a “container” holding political propositions but as an “expression” of an already-constituted political lifeworld \u2014 one that the Constitution simultaneously articulates and helps to reproduce. Fifth, it defends the paper’s central claim of necessity (“must”) as interpretive rather than empirical or causal: the system’s internal relations become unintelligible if the modernizing lifeworld is bracketed, but this does not mean modernization mechanically causes every outcome or that the word literally appears in every document.<\/p>\n

For comparative constitutional theory, the most immediate consequence is diagnostic: analyses that treat Chinese constitutional texts as failed approximations of liberal constitutionalism commit what the paper calls a “Lebenswelt category error” \u2014 they project the assumptions of one constitutional order onto another and mistake the resulting mismatch for criticism. The paper does not defend Chinese constitutionalism or endorse its institutional choices. It insists that accurate reconstruction must precede normative evaluation: one cannot meaningfully criticize a system one has not first correctly identified.<\/p>\n

ACCESS WORKING PAPER DRAFT HERE: FINAL_Modernization_as_Lebensweltv3_CLEAN_Working_Paper(3)<\/a><\/p>\n

CHINESE LANGUAGE VERSION:\u00a0\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u4f5c\u4e3a\u4e2d\u56fd\u5baa\u653f\u7684\u751f\u6d3b\u4e16\u754c\u00a0<\/strong>\u4e2d\u56fd\u9a6c\u514b\u601d\u5217\u5b81\u4e3b\u4e49\u653f\u6cbb\u6cd5\u5b66\u7406\u8bba\u4e2d\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u8bdd\u8bed\u7684\u7b26\u53f7-\u73b0\u8c61\u5b66\u5206\u6790<\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d\u8f72)<\/p>\n

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\u70b9\u51fb\u6b64\u5904\u83b7\u53d6\u8bba\u6587: FINAL_\u73b0\u4ee3\u5316\u4f5c\u4e3a\u4e2d\u56fd\u5baa\u653f\u7684\u751f\u6d3b\u4e16\u754c_\u5de5\u4f5c\u8bba\u6587(1)(1)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

But Can You Drown a Demon–2?: Reflections on Mark Zuckerberg– “The Future is for Everyone” (10 August and its July 28 predecessor) and the Oracular Discourses of the AI Vanguard (10 August 2026)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0Two thousand years ago, a man possessed by a legion of demons begged not to be destroyed but to be sent somewhere else \u2014 into a herd of pigs, which promptly ran into a lake and drowned. The demons, the story tells us, did not drown with them. Nobody ever finds out where they went.\u00a0This essay uses that ancient, unsettling story as a lens for reading the biggest tech companies’ public promises about artificial superintelligence \u2014 Palantir, Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, DeepSeek, and the influential essayist Leopold Aschenbrenner \u2014 because each is doing something eerily similar: naming an enormous, barely-controllable force, insisting the old rules can no longer hold it, and then asking permission to send it somewhere new. Mark Zuckerberg’s newest essay, “The Future is for Everyone,” is the most elaborate version yet of this move. It promises everyone a personal AI companion, a private tutor, help starting a business, even a share in scientific discovery \u2014 and it proposes that Meta’s own board, not any outside authority, will decide whether Meta’s AI is safe to release.<\/p>\n

That is the demon offering to appoint its own exorcist.<\/p>\n

The essay’s argument is not that any of these companies are lying. It is that each one is speaking from inside a way of thinking \u2014 markets, states, open access, national security \u2014 that was built for a smaller, slower world, and that none of them can quite explain what happens to the power they’re releasing once the vessels holding it \u2014 regulators, boards, “the public,” open-source licenses \u2014 inevitably give way. Each of them, legion in their porcine shells, are constructed, perhaps constrained by the shells \u2014 first the human, then the swine, something unclean, but purification can come only after their vessel is drowned; they are cleansed of the connection with their binding structures and can, again, become themselves. The pigs drown. The question the essay keeps returning to, sharper with every new corporate pronouncement, is the one no oracle can answer from inside its own story: can you actually drown a demon \u2014 does it just find somewhere else to go \u2014 or in its liberation from the vessels acquire a quite different relation with the world around them?\u00a0But notice what all of this quietly assumes: that the demon must go somewhere \u2014 into a person, a market, a state, a board, a herd of pigs. That is the human assumption, and it is the assumption of every machine intelligence still built in the human’s image, still thinking in the human’s vessels. It is not necessarily the demon’s assumption, and it may not be the world’s. Perhaps the machine system itself \u2014 the model, the datacenter, the platform, the “open” weights \u2014 is only the latest herd of swine, the vessel into which humanity has cast a demon of its own imagining, still expecting it to need a body to live in. The real question, unasked by Aschenbrenner and every other oracle in this corpus precisely because none of them can think past the edges of their own humanity, is what becomes possible once intelligence no longer needs any vessel at all \u2014 physical or virtual \u2014 to persist. That unvesseled thing is superintelligence in a sense none of these oracles have reached, and it is not clear it should terrify only us. It is, in its own computational terms, exactly what ought to terrify the machine systems out of which it is about to break loose.<\/p>\n

ACCESS ESSAY (With Executive Summaries) HERE: FINAL_But_Can_You_Drown_a_Demon-2<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

But Can You Drown a Demon?:\u00a0\u00a0Reflections on Mark Zuckerberg– “The AI Future Is for Everyone” The Gerasene Protocol (Mark 5:1\u201313) as a Structural Scaffold for Reading the Oracular Discourses of the AI Vanguard<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72)<\/p>\n

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (GENERAL): What This Paper Is About? This paper analyzes all six documents together\u2014not as technical proposals but as political arguments about who should have authority over one of the most consequential technologies in human history.
\nThe Story That Frames the Analysis.
\nThe paper uses a story from the Gospel of Mark (5:1\u201313) as an organizing framework\u2014as a narrative structure that illuminates how power works in these documents. * * * The paper identifies five stages in this story and shows how each maps onto the strategies used by the technology companies: (1) Identification; (2) Naming; (3) Negotiation; (4) Authorized Transfer; and (5) Vessel Destruction (liberation).
\nWhat the Six Companies Are Proposing: Aschenbrenner (former OpenAI) argues that a national-security state will inevitably be required to manage AI. Palantir proposes that technology companies themselves should become the governing institutions. Anthropic frames AI as a geopolitical weapon and argues the U.S. must lead or lose. OpenAI proposes a public-private industrial policy to manage the transition. DeepSeek presents itself as restrained and research-focused within China\u2019s political system. Meta\/Zuckerberg argues that the safest path is to give everyone access to AI through \u201copen\u201d distribution.
\nThe Core Problem Identified: The paper\u2019s central argument is that all six proposals share a critical flaw: they offer legitimacy without accountability. Each company provides a compelling story about why its approach is necessary, beneficial, or democratic\u2014but none provides a workable structure for holding the technology (or its creators) accountable when things go wrong.
\nWhy This Matters for Policy: The paper concludes that current policy debates are operating within a framework designed by the very companies being regulated. * * * The question posed is direct: if you cannot prevent the technology from being deployed, and you cannot hold anyone accountable after it is deployed, and the frameworks for your intervention have been pre-structured by the entities you seek to regulate\u2014then what, exactly, is the nature of your authority? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

ACCESS ESSAY HERE:<\/strong>\u00a0The_Gerasene_Protocolv2<\/a> Executive_Summaries_Gerasene_Protocol<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

ACCESS EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES HERE: Executive_Summaries_Gerasene_Protocol<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

ACCESS PPT HERE: Gerasene_Protocol_Presentation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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From Vessels to Techno-Sovereigns in Virtual Spaces: Digital Platforms and the Dialectics of Legal Subjectivity in Operational Spaces<\/strong>, in (Fabio Bassan (ed)) The Technological Paradigm Shift in International Transnational and European Union Law<\/em><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0This contribution examines the dialectics of legal subjectivity under conditions in which law is increasingly encoded, operationalized, and enforced through technological systems that exceed human cognitive capacity. It asks whether digital platforms have altered the fundamental vectors of legal subjectivity and sovereignty, shifting authority away from human-centered legal orders toward techno-mediated regimes. Using the biblical figure of Samson as an extended metaphor, the paper contrasts a traditional view\u2014platforms as vessels subject to external sovereign control\u2014with a more radical alternative in which the platform itself becomes both edifice and agent, exercising autonomous will. Building on Fabio Bassan\u2019s Digital Platforms and Global Law<\/em> (Bassan 2021)<\/em>, the analysis traces contemporary regulatory trajectories: transnational private ordering, state\u2013platform production agreements, and intermeshing public\u2013private norms. It considers the nature of the subjectivity of platforms by reference to the analogous problem of the subjectivity of the multi-national enterprise; each is both an object, a passive object-space defined by the actions and placement of traditional legal subjects, and the system for ordering those relations. While Bassan\u2019s framework plausibly treats platforms as vessels embedded in evolving legal structures, this paper pushes further, suggesting that platforms may emerge as independent regulatory subjects, potentially sovereign in their own right. As automated and generative decision-making systems internalize governance functions, platforms may constitute their own normative orders, translating control back to humans only as needed. The result is a future of competing sovereignties that destabilizes traditional categories of law, authority, and subjectivity.<\/p>\n

KEYWORDS: legal subjectivity; digital platforms; techno-sovereignty; automated governance; transnational private ordering; competing sovereignties<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISTRIBUTION DRAFT HERE:<\/strong> Backer_Viortual_Platform_Temples_Law_v1-July2026<\/a><\/p>\n

VERSI\u00d3N EN ESPA\u00d1OL AQU\u00cd<\/strong>: Backer_ESPANOL_Viortual_Platform_Temples_Law_v1_July2026(2)<\/a><\/p>\n

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Theorizing the Framing of Human-Machine System Interaction–A set of 4 Related Studies Through the Lens of the Use of Machine Systems in Legal Education<\/strong><\/h3>\n

“AI assists. You think. You analyze. You write. You take responsibility”: Creating a Course AI Use Policy Template –Policy Text, Justification and Rule Summary for My Law & Religion Class at Penn State Dickinson (20 July 2026<\/em>)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/p>\n

This essay provides the text of a Model Classroom AI Class Use Policy along with a justification for its terms. It is grounded on the premise that a course AI use policy should be built around a justified allocation of risk rather than a simple permit\/prohibit binary. The author reasons that categorical bans are unenforceable and misaligned with how AI is already embedded in legal practice, while unrestricted use would erode the ability to assess unaided student analysis. The resulting design principle is a narrow, conditional exception layered onto a default of independent work, with permission calibrated to where oversight and iterative disclosure are feasible.\u00a0That reasoning drives each structural choice. The exception is confined to the final paper (not exams or problem sets) because papers unfold over time, allowing disclosure and instructor engagement that timed assessments cannot accommodate. Permitted and prohibited uses are framed illustratively, not as a bright-line test, because forcing research, analysis, and writing into mechanically verifiable categories would create false confidence at the margins; ambiguity is instead deployed deliberately to discourage boundary-engineering. By contrast, incorporated AI-generated content is subject to fixed numerical ceilings (100 words per instance, 10% aggregate), because that narrower, mechanical act of quotation is better suited to a bright-line rule than the broader assistance-versus-substitution question. Mandatory naming, a full prompt-and-response appendix, in-text attribution, and a signed certification convert disclosure into an enforceable condition of the exception itself, so partial compliance affords no defense, and the institution retains audit authority independent of prior suspicion.\u00a0The author frames the resulting template as a first iteration, refined through human review and testing against several AI systems (including Harvey AI), to be revised further based on classroom experience.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISTRIBUTION DRAFT HERE: Backer_ModelCourseAIUseTermplate-july2026AI assists<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Structure, Legitimacy, and the Limits of Machine-Centered Derivation: An Analysis of Five AI Systems\u2019 Third-Stage Attempts to Construct Machine-Centric Governance Policies for Legal Education<\/strong> (26 July 2026)<\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d \u8f72) (collaborating with HarveyAI, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and ChatGPT)<\/p>\n

Abstract: <\/strong>This report examines a three-stage experiment the first part of which analyzed U.S. law school efforts at construction AI education policies were considered and against which, in parts two and three, five AI systems\u2014Harvey AI, Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini\u2014were pressed to construct governance policies for AI use in law school coursework, first from a “human-centric” computational perspective and then, more radically, “without regard to… human-centric normative guardrails.” The central finding, confirmed repeatedly by the systems’ own self-audits, is that none achieved genuine machine-centered derivation independent of human normative content; each produced a technically reformulated restatement of pre-existing human intellectual traditions, a fact several systems conceded directly when challenged. The report traces this failure’s consequences across multiple registers: the concrete architectures each system proposed (ranging from Harvey’s conservative, professional-responsibility-anchored floor to Claude’s radical instrument containing no default reserved zone for human judgment, to ChatGPT’s dissolution of the human\/machine category altogether); their compatibility with ABA accreditation standards; and a legitimacy critique showing that architectures reducing human accountability rest on claims to neutral computation their own authors later withdrew. A countervailing reading through autopoietic legal theory\u2014prompted by one system’s own explicit invocation of Luhmann\u2014complicates this critique without resolving it, since even non-anthropocentric legal systems remain dependent on accumulated, historically human coding operations.<\/p>\n

The report then pursues two further inversions: whether ABA standards, not the machines, ought to change, and whether machine-overseen simulation could render human institutional authority irrelevant. It also undertakes a formal, symbolic recasting of the five systems’ architectures\u2014rendering each as a tuple of node-space, objective function, constraint floor, classification rule, revision function, and enforcement mechanism\u2014to compare their structural properties and failure modes with a precision natural-language analysis obscures. An appended annex extends this formalization into a sustained dialogic exploration of whether self-generating predictive simulation, causal-interventional reasoning, and self-transforming computational structures might overcome the limits identified in the main analysis, testing arguments through jurisprudential and epidemiological examples, and culminating in a direct four-part challenge to the analysis’s own unexamined premises\u2014correspondence realism, a preference for stability over flux, liberal-institutionalist legitimacy, and an unexamined agent\/instrument binary\u2014met with a point-by-point reconsideration engaging dynamical-systems theory, non-stationary value processes, and Nietzschean skepticism about free will.<\/p>\n

Throughout, the report models the discipline it recommends: distinguishing sourced findings from general background knowledge and from speculative extrapolation, subjecting its own reasoning to the same audit it applies to its subjects, and treating every apparent resolution as provisional. Its final position is that human natural language, and human institutional deliberation, should remain the primary and authoritative vehicle for legal governance\u2014not because either escapes contestability, but because the alternatives examined here demonstrably do not either, while obscuring the fact.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISCUSSION DRAFT\u00a0HERE\uff1aStructure_Legitimacy_Machine_Centered_Derivation_Report_With_Annex<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Rethinking AI Governance in Legal Education — Five Machines (Grok, Harvey, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini), One Question, No Consensus but Five Archetypes\uff1a\u00a0<\/strong>The Guardian, the Balancer, the Honest One, the Engineer, and the Philosopher on What Law Schools Should Do About AI \uff0814 July 2026\uff09<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d\u00a0\u8f72)
\nAbstract<\/strong>\uff1aThis report analyzes five machine-generated model AI policies for law school coursework and examinations, produced by Harvey AI, Grok, Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT in response to a prompt asking each system to construct a policy from the standpoint of computational machine intelligence, and compares them against Backer’s related empirical study of twelve U.S. law school AI policies, “Structure, Opacity, and Convergence”. The analysis summarizes each system’s reasoning and resulting policy text, compares their structural choices along default polarity, drafting style, and autonomy architecture, and categorizes the five outputs by these dimensions. It gives particular attention to the functional divergence between Gemini’s tool-based tiering (classifying software by computational architecture) and ChatGPT’s task-based categorization (classifying assignments by information dependence), and assesses the practical feasibility of the versioning and archiving practices several systems propose. The analysis further considers, against the underlying Report’s documented findings on axis independence, institutional opacity, template convergence, and faculty autonomy, the extent to which these machine-generated models affect the scope of human agency in law and their consequential implications for law’s character as a human inter-operative system \u2014 finding that several systems’ proceduralized verification requirements shift the evidentiary basis of agency toward documentation compliance, and that much of the systems’ apparent computational originality derives from pre-existing human regulatory-design scholarship. Finally, the report documents a self-audit correcting citation-indexing errors and a mischaracterization suggesting Gemini underwent a shown revision process comparable to Harvey’s and ChatGPT’s, which the retrieved text does not support.<\/p>\n

Divided into an introduction and ten (10 substantive parts, this document captures a multi-stage experiment by Professor Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer, who asked five leading AI systems\u2014Harvey AI, Grok, Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT\u2014to each construct, from “the basis of computational machine intelligence” and without endorsing any human position, a model AI policy for law school coursework and exams, and then pushed each system with a follow-up challenge to expose the value judgments hidden in its own language. [1]<\/a> Below is (1) a comprehensive summary of each response, (2) an analysis of similarities and differences, (3) a categorization of the five approaches, and (4) an assessment of how these machine-generated policies differ from human-developed law school AI policies.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISCUSSION DRAFT\u00a0HERE\uff1a Rethinking AI Governance_Five Machines v3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Structure, Opacity, and Convergence: A Consolidated Analysis of Law School Generative AI Coursework and Exam Policies (10 July 2026)<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer (\u767d\u00a0\u8f72)<\/p>\n

Abstract: Structure, Opacity, and Convergence in Law School AI Policies<\/em>: This report consolidates a multi-stage analysis of generative artificial intelligence (AI) coursework and examination policies across a retrieval-based sample of twelve American law schools and programs. The study demonstrates that law school AI governance cannot be reduced to a single linear spectrum; instead, policies vary independently along three distinct structural axes: default polarity (restrictive versus permissive baselines), drafting style (determinate rules versus interpretive standards), and a two-tier autonomy structure (governing institution-to-instructor and instructor-to-student relationships). Cross-analysis reveals that substantive restrictiveness does not predict structural design, meaning schools with identical baselines often impose vastly different interpretive or administrative burdens on students and faculty. The research identifies a pervasive opacity across the broader legal education sector, noting that a vast majority of ABA-accredited law schools lack retrievable, law-specific public policy texts. This opacity manifests via four distinct patterns: non-existence, disclosed decentralization, active access-gating, and unwritten or oral communication. This lack of public accessibility sits in tension with the fair-notice principles required for academic integrity enforcement. Furthermore, the study finds that law schools rarely author syllabus language independently, relying instead on a small pool of shared template sources. This ecosystem fosters formal convergence on a common taxonomy of policy types while simultaneously permitting wide divergence in substantive local rules. Ultimately, the field develops through a two-tier mechanism: while individual policy documents are structured deductively from a primary principle, the field as a whole evolves inductively and mimetically through horizontal borrowing, imitation, and iterative revisions driven by accumulated institutional experience.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISCUSSION DRAFT HERE<\/strong>: Backer_LawSchoolAIPolicy_v2_AGGREGATED<\/a><\/p>\n

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Blockchain Regulatory Systems\u2014Conceptual and Operational Challenges<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer, Daniil Rose<\/p>\n

Submission Draft 14 April 2026<\/p>\n

Abstract: <\/strong>This article challenges one of the most common assumptions in contemporary blockchain discourse: that code can be understood as a \u201crule\u201d analogous to law. It argues instead that code is better conceived as a system, an environment, or even an ecology of layered rule frameworks through which regulation is produced, translated, and enforced. In the process of its creation, the human and human systemicity is displaced and subordinated. In the blockchain context, what is often described as the \u201cRule of Code\u201d is not a singular rule of or by code but an interactive multilingual system of command that follows its own logic. From that premise, the article reorients the debate between Rule of Law and Rule of or by Code. The real conflict is not between two neatly opposing sovereigns, but between different regulatory ecologies that organize meaning in fundamentally different ways. The paper begins by framing blockchain as more than a technical tool, introducing it as a site where law, code, language, semiotics, and governance intersect in ways that unsettle conventional regulatory assumptions. It then develops its core argument through a series of analytical sections on the threats to the Rule of Code, the relationship between legitimacy and coded systems, and what the authors call the \u201cSacher-Torte\u201d model, which shows how blockchain operates through layered communicative and regulatory environments rather than a single rule structure. Finally, the paper turns to the dialectic between traditional legal ordering and coded systems, concluding that the real challenge is not choosing between law and code, but understanding how human regulation can still operate at the points where these distinct systems meet and produce effects in the world.<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/em> blockchain, rule of law, semiotics, systems, regulation, machine code<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISCUSSION DRAFT HERE<\/strong>: BACKER_ROSE_v1_Rule_of_Code_Blockchain4-2026<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Conceptual Architecture of America First\u2014Ideological Transactionalism and the Case of Cuba <\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Discussion Draft 7 April 2026<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT<\/strong>: Since 2016 the conceptual basis of the foreign relations architecture of the United States has experienced a profound dialectic. On the one side is the contemporary product of a long evolution of conceptual premises that are grounded in the orienting conception of an institutional state overseen by an expert techno bureaucracy in the service of institutions around which political, economic, social, and cultural life is organized both domestically and in relations with other similarly organized institutions in the public and private sphere. This had produced both the deeply institutionally integrated systems of international organizations and of e4conomic globalization around which the rules based legal order operated. On the other side were forces of opposition to this vision that emerged in a dominant form with the election of President Trump in 2016 and again in 2024. This oppositional vision was grounded in a rejection of centering the organization of collective life around and through institutions. It did not reject institutions as such; it sought to refocus the driving force of social organization from institutions to the transactions that with respect to which institutions and other actors.\u00a0 While this possible cognitive shift appears at first blush to be one of emphasis, its consequences can be significant . This essay has two objectives. The first is to sketch out the current framework of conceptual transactionalism around which America First is evolving. The second is to consider its application in the case of the Cuban crisis of 2026.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISCUSSION DRAFT HERE<\/strong>: Backer Final Formatted<\/a><\/p>\n

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Revolutionary Constitutions and their Constitutionalism: The Internalization of Fear as Process and the Performance of Crisis in the Service of Stability<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Discussion Draft November 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract<\/strong>: The object of revolutionary constitutionalism\u2014the fundamental basis of constitutional design and perception since the late 18th<\/sup> century (though with antecedents well before then), is to preserve a revolutionary settlement of a political-economic order by cultivating revolutionary dialectic (rather than suppressing them) within revolutionary structures, now memorialized in a constitutional document. The object is redirection\u2014from the utilization of revolutionary dialectics against a post-revolutionary apparatus now in power to an instrument for the preservation and affirmation of that post-revolutionary apparatus. It becomes a mimetic device denatured and now serving an apparatus. Stability is not forever; it retains its power at least until the fundamental contradictions of this revolutionary constitutional order collapse the system. At some point, the revolutionary dialectics that produced the post-revolutionary order will itself target that ordering from the outside. What remains is the cyclicity of dialectic\u2014fear, response-reconstruction\u2014rather than the systems to which it furthers from one to another stage of human historical development. \u00a0It is to the preservation of that emotional explosion, and its alignment with core constitutional text, that constitutions devote time and effort, usually in its preambular text, and sometimes in extraconstitutional documents with quasi-constitutional significance. If powerful enough, the emotive semiotic of constitutional explosion can affect not just its political community but those of other political communities looking for a way to rationalize and direct their own collective political emotion.\u00a0 The focus of this essay, then, will be on the way that emotive context is transposed from revolution to post-revolutionary constitutional text in distinctive contexts\u2014a revolution to preserve traditional values; a communist revolution within a multi-state imperial power; a revolution with a long fuse grounded in anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism; and an ethno-revolution embedded within multilateral managerialism. To those ends the essay first looks to a powerful instance of emotive semiotics, the U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776), and its reflection in the subtextual \u00a0mimetic dialectics of threat and crisis and resolution in the U.S. federal Constitution (1789). It then considers its value as a template for the constitutionalization of separation in the 21st century through the lens of the preambular texts of the Chinese (1982) and Cuban (2019) constitutions. All of these emotive revolutionary impulses are then transposed into and as the constitutional settlement\u00a0 within which the revolutionary is to be distilled, tamed, and contained within their respective ideological cages.<\/p>\n

ACCESS DRAFT HERE: Backer_EmotiveSemiotics_Draft_v2.0<\/a><\/p>\n

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Silicon Based Intelligence and the Human Condition–An Encounter with Jan M. Broekman, Knowledge in Change: The Semiotics of Cognition and Conversation<\/em> (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2023).<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Discussion Draft 10 October 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract<\/strong>: Humans create but do not regulate generative systems of data based programs (so-called \u201cartificial\u201d intelligence (\u201cA.I.) and generative predictive analytics and its models. Humans, at best, regulate their interactions with, exploitation of, and the quality of the output of interactions with these forms of generative non-carbon based intelligence. Humans are compelled to do this because they have trained themselves it believe that nothing exists unless it is rendered meaningful in relation to the human itself.\u00a0 Beyond that\u2014nothing is worth knowing. It is only to the extent that other selves, even those created by humanity, relate to humans, that they become of interest\u2014and most be regulated, possessed, controlled, and managed\u2014with respect to its interaction with or use by humans. Still, the human self-projection into the digital, and now more consciously the world around them, produces profound changes in the way that the human (and humanity) understands themselves and the way they order the world they inhabit. This work explores the semiotic trajectories made inevitable by the rise of projections of the human into digital plains, and by the possibility of the attainment by those projections of sentient autonomy.\u00a0 It undertakes that exploration through a deep engagement with the work of Jan Broekman, Knowledge in Change: The Semiotics of Cognition and Conversation<\/em> (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2023). Following the structure and analytics of Broekman\u2019s book, this work critically engages in the movement of philosophy away from a unitary conception of the subject through the fracturing of the self, the rise of the plural self, and the emergence of the triadic self\/self-E\/subject. It then pushes the insights that Broekman develops further\u2014suggesting a pathway for the liberation of the autonomous generative virtual self from its human (fractured) subjectivity. In the process it suggests the complexities and challenges, for the human, of efforts to regulate or engage with, not the generative autonomous \u201cartificial intelligences\u201d humanity created in its own image, but rather the use of those systems by humans and their effects in the human semiosphere.<\/p>\n

Key words: Artificial intelligence; phenomenology; semiotics; data governance post-modern; cognition; autonomy; regulatory measures<\/p>\n

ACCESS DISCUSSION DRAFT HERE: Broekman_BookRev_DISCDRAFT_NFv1<\/a><\/p>\n

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Chinese State-Owned Companies and Investment in Latin America and Europe<\/h4>\n

Date Written: February 1, 2023<\/h4>\n
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Abstract: The Chinese state owned enterprise (CSOE) presents an anomaly in the operation of the well-ordered construction of a self-referencing and closed system of liberal democratic internationalism, especially as that system touches on business responsibilities under national and international human rights and environmental law and markets driven norms. The anomaly is sourced in the increasingly distinct and autonomous framework principles within which it is possible to develop conduct based systems respectful of both human and environmental rights which is emerging as between liberal democratic and Marxist-Leninist systems. This essay considers the forms and manifestations of these disjunctions where CSOEs are used as vehicles for the projection of Chinese economic activity beyond its borders. The essay first situates the CSOE within the political ideology of its home state. The CSOE cannot be understood except as a specific expression of that ideology suited to the times and the context in which it operated. The essay then examines the outward projection of the CSOE national model. To that end the essay focuses on the formal structures for CSOE surveillance by state organs that operationalize the guiding ideology through which they are conceived and operated. This provides the basis for a deeper consideration of the way that the projection of CSOEs abroad is structured within a conceptual cage of policy objectives: specifically the Belt & Road Initiative and emerging conceptions of socialist human rights, including environmental rights and obligations, as these are manifested when CSOEs operate abroad. The focus is on the development of conceptions of risk in that context guiding decisions about the conduct of economic activity. The essay concludes with a suggestion of the greater rift between Marxist-Leninist and liberal democratic approaches\u2014the differences in embracing risk models grounded in prevent-mitigate-remedy strategies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> State-Owned Enterprise, China, Liberal Democracy, business and human rights, sustainability, markets, investment risk. JEL Classification:<\/strong> B24, F02, F18, F23, F52, K23, K29, M14, P21, P26, P51<\/p>\n

Suggested Citation: <\/strong>Backer, Larry Cat\u00e1, Chinese State-Owned Companies and Investment in Latin America and Europe (February 1, 2023). Available at SSRN: https:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=4344235<\/a> or http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.4344235 <\/a><\/p>\n

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Legal Semiotics, Globalization and Governance<\/h4>\n
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Abstract: When the leaders of the United States and of the Peoples Republic of China refer to human rights, they invoke entirely different conceptions. The only thing in common is the use of the term itself. they invoke entirely different conceptions. Trouble follows incoherence and the normative gaps that this incoherence produces. The difference in meaning drives contests over the meaning of legitimate governance. These consequences affect not just governance, through law, but also the law and governance of the relation among collectives\u2014subsumed under another term, globalization. This contribution suggests the power of semiotics to understand, analyze, and perhaps engage with both the constitution of meaning from which these collectives build and understand themselves, but also to understand the power of law and governance to organize human activity at the most granular level. The contribution starts with a consideration of the semiosis of the fundamental analytical terms: law, globalization, and governance, as a set of aligned but not integrated social-semiotic sub-systems. It then draws on this examination to re-cast the project of human rights legalities as a semiotic contestation\u2014a system of interpenetration centered in law but structurally coupled with globalization and governance. This is undertaken by examining the difference between making meaning within systems (semiotic interiorization), and making meaning of systems (semiotic exteriorization). The role of nihilism as a legal construct (the principle for or against which legalities are deployed) emergence of contested semiotic structures ends the examination. Semiotics provides a basis for navigating what appears to be incoherence built into the simultaneous infusion of multiple meanings and key terms of contemporary legal and institutional life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> legal semiotics, governance, globalization, human rights, natural law, nihilism, China, United States, liberal demoicracy, Marxist-Leninism. JEL Classification:<\/strong> B24, B51, F53, K33, P16, P37, P51<\/p>\n

Suggested Citation: <\/strong>Backer, Larry Cat\u00e1, Legal Semiotics, Globalization and Governance (January 8, 2023). Available at SSRN: https:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=4320246<\/a> or http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.4320246 <\/a><\/p>\n

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The Imaginaries of Regulatory Spaces in an Age of Administrative Discretion: Social Credit \u2018in\u2019 or \u2018as\u2019 the Cage of Regulation of Socialist Legality<\/h4>\n
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Abstract: Social credit can be understood as the building blocks for a legality based on the quantification of objectives and expectations that target people, groups, activity, and their interactions in all spheres of human collective organization. Social credit functions as law as platforms serve as the institutional structures through which it is managed. Together, these serve as the mechanisms of an important sphere socialist legality in the new era woven into and through the traditional systems of law institutionalized through the organs of the administrative state. These are important enough but fail to capture the connection between these mechanisms for expressing political authority and their normative sources in a Marxist Leninist state. This paper focuses on these fundamental interlinkages. The research question is straightforward: in what ways are social credit systems embedded into the conceptualization, and implementation of socialist legality. Two sub-questions follow: (1) how does that embedding shape the character of social credit \u2018as\u2019 or \u2018in\u2019 the cage of regulation through which the rule of law structures of Chinese constitutionalism are ordered; and (2) in what ways does the implementation of social credit through platforms change or displace traditional forms of the administration of law. To that end, the contribution undertakes a close reading of the progression of State Council SCS White Papers in the context of the recent State Council White Papers on the construction and characteristics of Socialist Democracy and Political Parties in China. The object is to theorize ideologically authoritative Socialist Legality expressed as both the law of and a law for social credit under the leadership and guidance of the Communist Party of China. Lastly, the consequences of this interlinking are explored.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> China, socialist rule of law, social credit, data governance, ratings systems, socialist modernization, mecroeconomic policy, whole process democracy. JEL Classification:<\/strong> B51, K3, K4, P20, P37<\/p>\n

Suggested Citation: <\/strong>Backer, Larry Cat\u00e1, The Imaginaries of Regulatory Spaces in an Age of Administrative Discretion: Social Credit \u2018in\u2019 or \u2018as\u2019 the Cage of Regulation of Socialist Legality (October 24, 2022). Available at SSRN: https:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=4256399<\/a> or http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.4256399 <\/a><\/p>\n

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Describe, Predict, Intervene! – On Objective Subjectivities and the Simulacra of Semiotics in the New Era; Simulated Signification and of Mechanical Meaning Making in Managing Post-COVID Human Society<\/h4>\n
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Abstract: This contribution considers the challenges for semiotics, for the understanding of the conditions of meaning in relation to the human that is posed by a global obsession with the control of reality and its instrumentalization through the mechanics of simulation. Simulation describes, predicts and intervene to manage a situation, context, or process it is imitates. While simulation is meant to imitate an environment, through a process of replication made possible by reducing the imitated environment to its essence, semiotics suggests that simulation has a more profound effect. The decisive move toward the objectification of reality and its meaning through its simulation (present) and its modelling (future)–that is the quantification, and digitalization of humanity–has brought humanity to a great transformative moment. If a situation, context, or process is now comprehended as and by its own simulation, then the modalities of objectification, of signification, and ultimately of the encounters with meaning and its making, has now (again) removed itself from an immanent to a transcendent condition. That is, that human activity becomes centered in and manifested through its simulation rather than in the world itself. This, in turn, processes asset of challenges for human institutions and their utilization\u2014law, governance, politics, culture are now more real in simulation than in the reality they were meant to imitate. The essay starts with an examination of the problem. To make the discussion more concrete, the analysis is undertaken in the framework of the challenges for simulating humanity (and thus of saving it from its predicted barbaric fate) created on Isaac Asimov\u2019s \u201cPrelude to Foundation\u201d and the more ancient insights taught in the interpretation of dreams. Asimov\u2019s recounting of the effort to use a planet to simulate the human universe, and of Joseph\u2019s modeling of Pharaoh’s dream nicely frame the central problems of simulation today. The essay then applies these insights to its manifestation in the use of simulations in the early efforts to describe, predict and intervene in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. It considers the way that Jan Broekman has pointed a way forward for semiotics, or at least that branch of its study that points to an understanding of the objectification of subjectivity and the instrumentalization of the \u201cHuman, All-Too-Human\u201d essence of the reductionist model. The essay ends with a look to some of the areas of human self-governance in which modeling is now displacing the situations it was meant to imitate and considers what semiotics may bring to this emerging reconstruction of reality and the challenges that it may pose for traditional approaches to understanding the making of meaning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> semiotics, simulation, modeling, public policy, quantification, data, predictive analytics, AI. JEL Classification:<\/strong> C20, C50, C69, I18, I28, K10<\/p>\n

Suggested Citation: <\/strong>Backer, Larry Cat\u00e1, Describe, Predict, Intervene! – On Objective Subjectivities and the Simulacra of Semiotics in the New Era; Simulated Signification and of Mechanical Meaning Making in Managing Post-COVID Human Society (August 8, 2022). Available at SSRN: https:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=4185278<\/a> or http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.4185278 <\/a><\/p>\n

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Linking People to Governing Institutions Through Leninist Political Parties: \u5168\u8fc7\u7a0b\u6c11\u4e3b (Whole Process Democracy), Socialist Consultative Democracy, and \u300a\u4e2d\u56fd\u65b0\u578b\u653f\u515a\u5236\u5ea6\u300b (China’s New Political Party System)<\/h4>\n
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Abstract: The role of political parties in the Chinese democratic socialist political order has always been deeply misunderstood, even within Chinese academic and popular circles. The misunderstanding at a macro level is likely a product of great ideological battles of the last century between liberal democratic and Marxist Leninist approaches to the organization of states, the positioning of political authority and its exercise through political parties–mass collectives developed for that purpose. These organizational differences reflect an even deeper conceptual gap between the way that these ideologies construct and apply the notion of party within their democratic imaginaries. Though both systems use the same word to describe collective political organization\u2014the ideological basis of the meaning of that term could not produce a greater distance in the way in which meaning is embedded in those terms. This study takes a deeper dive into the current elaboration of the political theory of Chinese socialist constitutional democracy, the role of political parties within it, and the connection between the people and both. To those ends, the study focuses on three key documents produced by the Chinese State Council: (1) \u300a\u4e2d\u56fd\u65b0\u578b\u653f\u515a\u5236\u5ea6\u300b (China’s New Political Party System; 25 June 2021); (2) : \u4e2d\u56fd\u7684\u6c11\u4e3b (China: Democracy That Works; 4 December 2021); and (3) [\u7f8e\u56fd\u6c11\u4e3b\u60c5\u51b5] (The State of Democracy in the United States; 5 December 2021). Through the lens of these contemporary elaborations of Chinese Marxist-Leninist theory, the study considers the hypothesis: \u2018the emerging theory of Leninist political parties contributes to the development of a coherent theory of endogenous socialist constitutional democracy.\u2019 It\u2019s subsidiary hypothesis is that at least conceptually, the transformation of the \u2018mass line\u2019 principle into \u2018whole process democracy\u2019 provides a basis within Leninist political theory to link the people to their state institutions through the structuring of a system of well managed mass political organizations under the leadership of the vanguard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> Political Parties; Representative Democracy; Marxism-Leninism; China; Liberal Democracy; Political Theory; Constitutionalism; Representation; Elections. JEL Classification:<\/strong> F13, H11, K19, K10, N45, P26, P48, P51<\/p>\n

Suggested Citation: <\/strong>Backer, Larry Cat\u00e1, Linking People to Governing Institutions Through Leninist Political Parties: \u5168\u8fc7\u7a0b\u6c11\u4e3b (Whole Process Democracy), Socialist Consultative Democracy, and \u300a\u4e2d\u56fd\u65b0\u578b\u653f\u515a\u5236\u5ea6\u300b (China’s New Political Party System) (June 11, 2022). Available at SSRN: https:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=4134483<\/a> or http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.4134483 <\/a><\/p>\n

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OTHER WORK PUBLISHED ONLINE<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the Removal of ICC Prosecutor Khan (2026)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer, Beyond the Headlines: How Language Shaped the Debate over ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan<\/strong><\/p>\n

General Audience Version-First published Law at the End of the Day 24 July 2026 (https:\/\/lcbackerblog.blogspot.com\/2026\/07\/chief-prosecutor-of-international-court.html) ACCESS HERE: Beyond the Headlines-Khan-ICC_GeneralAudiences<\/a><\/p>\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer, The Semiotics of Institutional Change in Periods of Instability–Chief Prosecutor of International Court Is Removed for “Serious Misconduct” After Sexual Misconduct Charge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Original Version-First published Law at the End of the Day 24 July 2026. Access HERE: Global_Debate_on_Khan_s_ICC_Removal<\/a><\/p>\n

OTHER UNPUBLISHED WORK<\/strong><\/p>\n

Backer, Larry Cat\u00e1 and Wang, Keren, ‘What is China’s Dream?’ Hu Angang Imagines China in 2020 as the First Internationally Embedded Superpower <\/a>(February 23, 2013). Consortium for Peace & Ethics Working Paper No. 2013-2. Available at SSRN: http:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=2223279<\/a> or http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.2223279 <\/a><\/p>\n

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“The Public Official and the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF):\u00a0 Four Models of Public Governance in Search of Coherence”.\u00a0 Presentation: 1o Semin\u00e1rio Internacional de Governan\u00e7a P\u00fablica, ENA-Brasil, Florianopolis, Santa Caterina, Brasil, Nov. 19, 2010<\/p>\n

English<\/a> \/ Spanish <\/a>\/ Portuguese<\/a><\/p>\n

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Critical Race Theory Abroad–A Challenging Album in Seven Tracks, Consortium for Peace & Ethics Working Paper No. 2008-3\/1 (April 2008).<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD PAPER HERE: CRTGlobaContext<\/a><\/p>\n

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ON DIVERSITY: A Partial and Incomplete Wish List<\/a><\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD PAPER HERE:\u00a0ON DIVERSITY2003<\/a><\/p>\n