The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing The Economic Foundations Of American Democracy, by Joseph Fishkin & William E. Forbath

What is the sort of American Democracy that the author wants to construct? If you take the time to read this book–and it is honestly not worth the time–it becomes increasingly clear that the sort of people that the authors view as being worthwhile models to follow are the radical Republicans of the Civil War era who thought it wise to seek to steal property from white Southerners to give to blacks and to permanently disenfranchise Southern whites through military occupation–which the American people soon tired of–as well as the social democracy radicals of the New Deal era. The authors openly admit that their view of the constitution is critical and historicist–and therefore invalid because it views its own thinking as the judge of the validity of the constitution and not vice versa, which makes the authors’ labeling of originalists all the more invalid given their own bias. When one has no legitimacy in one’s own worldview, as is the case with these authors, it is hard to see others as doing any better. Given the weakness of the case of the authors, the book amounts to very long and very tedious special pleading for people to support a wholesale effort in radical social change designed to benefit members of the parasite class like the authors and drag everyone else down to the suffering of Communist countries during the Cold War.

This book consists of 9 large chapters that take up nearly 500 pages of text. The authors begin with an introduction that at least explains their position well enough. This is followed by a chapter in which the authors put themselves on the far left, justifying Shay’s Rebellion while discussing the political economy of the early American Republic (1). This is followed by a discussion of the different political economic views of antebellum America (2), as well as a discussion of the crisis of the Civil War (3) and the authors’ clear hostility to respect for property from government seizure. The authors then discuss the idea of class struggle in the Gilded Age (4) as well as the Progressive corruption of the constitution in the beginning of the 20th century (5). After this comes a look at the New Deal and the way that FDR coerced the Supreme Court into letting his unconstitutional and ineffective policies stand (6), as well as a discussion of the appropriate counters to this overreach (7), as well as the failures of the Great Society (8). The authors close with a discussion of their view of a disastrous democracy of opportunity which would amount to no opportunity to for anyone who wasn’t a party apparatchik like themselves (9), as well as notes, acknowledgements, and an index.

One of the most telling moments in this book comes when the authors admit that their ideological opponents (of which I am one) have enjoyed great success in pointing out that despite claiming to be anti-oligarchy, the writers of this book are in favor of some definite oligarchies, including the paid agitators of public unions, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, and even companies like Disney, Vanguard, and Blackrock which corrupt the money they are responsible for in order to support leftist social causes at variance with their profit obligations. It is worth wondering if a properly originalist Constitution can seek to enforce companies fulfilling their obligations to their shareholders (to say nothing of their employees and customers) by seeking to provide goods and services that people want in search of profits that are used to benefit workers and shareholders alike. The authors seem to assume that monopolistic companies are going to behave in ways that are contrary to the wishes of the left, rather than ways that are in favor of the left. Indeed, although I share a great deal of the hostility of concentration of power in the hands of elites that the authors claim to support, my question is more one of how it is possible to ensure that the enjoyment of property is as widespread as possible to make socialism unappealing. The authors, of course, have nothing to offer except for theft (what they call redistribution) and the support of the usual wasteful identity politics of the contemporary left. Yet despite having nothing to offer they drone on repetitively on and on, hoping that by repeating their big lie often enough that it will become plausible to the reader.