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ABSTRACT: Political economy concerns historical, legal and heterodox economics analysis of complex systems. This article attempts to analyze the current state of the European Union from historical, legal and interdisciplinary economics perspectives. Historically, the ancient Athenian democracy, the Holy Roman Empire and the early formation of the United States serve as examples of early innovative legal constructs of their times that were sui generis and share key features with the current European Union. Regarding legal developments, this paper discusses the bicameral parliamentary structure, electoral processes and populist pressures. The future of the European Union economy is likely to see an AI (r)evolution shaping markets and rising big data revenues. This develop necessitates the creation of a fifth fundamental freedom of data transfer within the European Union, as well as taxation of growth generated by big data. Heterodox economic growth theories will increasingly have to account for this growth. KEYWORDS: Ancient Athenian democracy, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Bicameral parliament, Big data, Electoral system, European Union, Holy Roman empire, market disruption, political economy, Populist pressures, Taxation, United States

Jurisdictions around the world have developed different mechanisms to balance the need to enforce corporate law with the problem of non-meritorious litigation when derivative suits can be brought bring easily. One instrument to channel shareholder litigation is preliminary procedures, which typically constitute a screening stage before fact-finding. These have been adopted in several jurisdictions in recent years. This article argues that in jurisdictions applying the "loser pays" rule, preliminary procedures can serve as cutoff points for potential plaintiffs' litigation cost risk, which often blunts incentives to litigate. To make preliminary procedures an effective instrument this article proposes two elements of institutional design. First, the risk of paying litigation costs should initially be limited to the preliminary procedure. Second, at the preliminary stage, shareholders should not be required to provide evidence about the merits of the suit or whether the company would benefit from it. Instead, as in the US, the emphasis of the preliminary stage should be on conflicts of interest of directors that make it unlikely that they bring such a suit themselves. Such a system would permit courts to screen our abusive lawsuits at an early stage while at the same time reducing incentive problems that have long plagued shareholder litigation.