Ezra's Bookshelf

The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution

by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath · 641 pages · ~11.5 hrs

Law & JusticeHistoryPolitics & Government

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Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath, law professors at UCLA and the University of Texas, recover a largely forgotten constitutional tradition that understood democracy as requiring not just political but economic foundations. They argue that from the Founding through the New Deal, American politicians and citizens believed the Constitution imposed affirmative duties to prevent oligarchy and ensure broadly distributed wealth and opportunity. This 'democracy of opportunity' tradition, articulated by Jacksonians, Radical Republicans, Populists, Progressives, and New Dealers, saw concentrated economic power as inherently threatening to republican self-government. The authors trace how this tradition was displaced by a narrow focus on individual rights enforced by courts, leaving progressives without constitutional language for their economic program. Fishkin and Forbath examine specific historical episodes where constitutional argument shaped economic policy, from debates over the national bank to Reconstruction to the labor movement to the welfare state. They argue that recovering this tradition offers contemporary progressives resources for challenging inequality as not merely unjust but unconstitutional. The book combines legal scholarship with political history to show how constitutional meaning changes through political mobilization rather than judicial interpretation alone. Essential reading for anyone interested in how economic and constitutional questions have intersected throughout American history and might again.

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