Liberty, Property, and the Foundations of the American Constitution

Edited by Ellen Frankel Paul & Howard Dickman

Subjects: Constitutional Studies
Series: SUNY series in The Constitution and Economic Rights
Paperback : 9780887069154, 181 pages, December 1988
Hardcover : 9780887069147, 181 pages, December 1988
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Contractarian Logic of Classical Liberalism
JAMES M. BUCHANAN

Public Choice Constitutionalism and Economic Rights
MARK TUSHNET

Civil Rights and Property Rights
WILLIAM H. RIKER

Judicial Activism of the Right: A Mistaken and Futile Hope
LINO A. GRAGLIA

Economic Liberty and the Future of Constitutional Self-Government
STEPHEN MACEDO

Tutelary Jurisprudence and Constitutional Property
FRANK MICHELMAN

Takings: Of Maginot Lines and Constitutional Compromises
RICHARD A. EPSTEIN

The Politics of the New Property: Welfare Rights in Congress and the Courts and the Courts
R. SHEP MELNICK

Work, Government, and the Constitution: Determining the Proper Allocation of Rights and Powers
THOMAS R. HAGGARD

The Right to Organize Meets the Market
LEO TROY

Contributors

Index

Description

Here is what the Framers of the Constitution thought about economic rights. To the current debate over constitutional interpretation, this book adds a dispassionate examination of our beginnings. It focuses on the philosophical, political, and social currents that influenced the thought and behavior of the Framers.

What was the relationship between property rights and liberty? How important to the Framers was the protection of economic liberties? In what ways does the Constitution protect these liberties? Was the Constitution a document forged with the intent of securing what would later be called a capitalist system? Or were the Framers primarily concerned with promoting a society based upon civic virtue? These are a few of the major themes that the authors of this volume address.

Ellen Frankel Paul is Deputy Director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center and Professor of Political Science at Bowling Green State University. Howard Dickman is a Research Associate at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University.