This is the second of two introductory posts in our symposium on socialist constitutionalism. In my last post, I began a discussion of the Weimar Constitution as one of the first constitutions containing provisions for social and economic rights (SER), and perhaps the very first one, in which socialists had an important hand drafting and…
This is the first of two introductory posts in our symposium on socialist constitutionalism. Socialism is back. But what is socialism? We have forgotten a lot about what it meant in its salad days, a century ago. And what we have forgotten may include what might be compelling today. Universal health care and basic income,…
Join us this week for a series on the political economy of labor & the constitution. “Political economy” has an antique ring. More than a century ago, the field of “political economy” began to give way to what was called “economics.” By the mid-twentieth century, political economy was forgotten; economics ruled the roost. But what…
Constitutional Political Economy – What Is It Good For? – On the Labor Scene, Part III of III To recap, what constitutional political economy is good for on the labor scene is three-fold: as a movement discourse that provides moral and political legitimacy to acts of civil disobedience and law-breaking – and lends reform-minded publics…
Constitutional Political Economy – What Is It Good For? – On the Labor Scene, Part II of III Unlike the workers’ organizations in Kate’s study, just about everything the striking teachers did in West Virginia and Kentucky fell outside the bounds of legality – the strikes themselves, the efforts to “bargain” over not only teachers’…
Constitutional Political Economy – What Is It Good For? – On the Labor Scene, Part I of III Is it really a good idea for liberals and the left to be making constitutional arguments against economic inequality? Give it a rest! Take a break from constitutionalizing everything. And don’t talk about “taking the Constitution away…