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Articles by William E. Forbath
Remarks on Taxation (1909)
Document Excerpt I desire in this connection to direct the attention of the House to the best, the fairest, the most equitable system of taxation that has yet been devised—the taxation of incomes.
Populist Party Platform (1892)
Document Excerpt The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. . . . The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists.
The New Nationalism (1911)
Document Excerpt I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good work …. The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems.
The Promise of American Life (1909)
Document Excerpt A numerous and powerful group of reformers has been collecting whose whole political policy and action is based on the conviction that the “common people” have not been getting the Square Deal to which they are entitled under the American system…. A considerable proportion of the American people is beginning to exhibit economic and political, as well as personal discontent….
The Oldest Constitutional Question — Harvard University Press
A groundbreaking challenge to a core principle of constitutional law, arguing that congressional action is not limited by the legislative branch’s textually enumerated powers. Every law student learns that the federal government is constrained to act only according to its enumerated powers, meaning that Congress can do what the Constitution expressly authorizes it to and nothing more.
Opinion | Want to Tax the Rich for Real? Pay Attention to This Supreme Court Case.
Guest Essay Dec. 10, 2023, 9:00 a.m. ET Joseph Fishkin and Mr. Fishkin and Mr. Forbath are the authors of “The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy.” Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Last week, the wealthiest Americans had their day in court. The case before the Supreme Court, Moorev.
Opinion | Want to Tax the Rich for Real? Pay Attention to This Supreme Court Case.
Opinion|Want to Tax the Rich for Real? Pay Attention to This Supreme Court Case. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/opinion/supreme-court-wealthy-taxes.html Guest Essay Joseph Fishkin and Mr. Fishkin and Mr. Forbath are the authors of “The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy.” Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning.
Opinion | Want to Tax the Rich for Real? Pay Attention to This Supreme Court Case.
Last week, the wealthiest Americans had their day in court. The case before the Supreme Court, Moorev. United States, is a challenge to an obscure and narrow provision of the tax code, in Donald Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, that taxes certain assets held abroad. An activist lower court judge, most likely inspired by right-wing constitutional scholars and think tanks, cleverly framed Moore as a grand occasion to rule against some future wealth tax, and the high court took it up.
True Americanism: Fourth of July Oration (1915)
Document Excerpt E pluribus unum – out of many one, – was the motto adopted by the founders of the Republic when they formed a union of the thirteen States…. The founders were convinced, as we are, that a strong nation could be built through federation. They were also convinced, as we are, that in America, under a free government, many peoples would make one nation. Throughout all these years we have admitted to our country and to citizenship immigrants from the diverse lands of Europe.
How liberals should confront a right-wing Supreme Court
For American progressives, the Supreme Court has become a maddening institution. The comforting notion of the court as umpire lies in tatters. It is Justice Samuel Alito's court now: methodologically flexible but ideologically rigid. Last term, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the court struck down Roe v. Wade on ostensibly originalist grounds, yet this term it is poised to strike down affirmative action on grounds that make a mockery of original understandings.
Opinion | How Liberals Should Confront a Right-Wing Supreme Court
Opinion|How Liberals Should Confront a Right-Wing Supreme Court https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/opinion/liberals-supreme-court-constitution.html Guest Essay Oct. 17, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET Credit...Illustration by Zisiga Mukulu/The New York Times; images by Robert Alexander via Getty Images Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. By Joseph Fishkin and William E.
The Left Needs to Take Back the Constitution
With the catastrophic recent term of the Supreme Court finally concluded, it can no longer be denied that the judiciary is firmly under the thumb of the conservative movement. In discussions of how the conservatives accomplished this feat, we often hear about the organizing acumen of the Federalist Society, or the vast financial resources of the Kochs, the Olins, and the Scaifes.
Beyond Neoclassical Antitrust
In their recovery of the democracy-of-opportunity tradition of constitutional argument, Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath make a powerful case in favor of the affirmative governance obligations created by the Constitution, particularly in the arena of economic life.
From Constitutional Theory to Political Practice
Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath are right that we should invoke the Constitution to build a more democratic and egalitarian political economy—not only because the Constitution is a powerful rhetorical tool in political debates, but also because, notwithstanding its antidemocratic features, the Constitution both enables and requires a more democratic, equal, and inclusive society than the one we now have.
Imagining a Twenty-first Century Constitution
Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath offer an impressive manifesto for progressives thinking about the Constitution we need now. They look to U.S. historical experience with progressive constitutional change. They offer both a method of achieving that change and the content the authors argue should be pursued. The method is what some have called “political constitutionalism,” in contrast to our current fetishism of judicial constitutionalism; the content is a new political economy.
The Limits of Imperial Social Democracy
In their essay for this forum, and in the book from which it is adapted, Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath have provided a pathbreaking intervention in constitutional history and politics, one that will fundamentally reshape how scholars imagine the relationship between the Constitution and the economy. For decades there has been a taken-for-granted left-liberal framework for thinking about the connection between the Constitution and the economy.
Up From Originalism
Alexis de Tocqueville observed that in the United States, almost every political debate ends up becoming a legal one. During his visit in 1831, he watched Americans incorporate legal language and ideas “in their daily polemics” and concluded that the spirit of the lawyer “infiltrates all of society.” Tocqueville had a point: even today, if you can convince an American that something is legal, it’s a short step from there to convincing him that it’s good.
Make Progressive Politics Constitutional Again
Two years of a devastating pandemic have exposed deep cracks in the U.S. political and economic order. After decades of economic policies that hollowed out the middle class, shocking numbers of Americans lacked the economic means to withstand COVID-19’s disruptive force. But the pandemic also demonstrated that those decades of economic policy are not set in stone.
Make Progressive Politics Constitutional Again
Two years of a devastating pandemic have exposed deep cracks in the U.S. political and economic order. After decades of economic policies that hollowed out the middle class, shocking numbers of Americans lacked the economic means to withstand COVID-19’s disruptive force. But the pandemic also demonstrated that those decades of economic policy are not set in stone.
Constitutional Political Economy for a Democracy, Not an Oligarchy
This post introduces a symposium on The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution, a new book by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath. Read the rest of the symposium here. *** We are glad to be having this conversation about our new book, The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Foundations of American Democracy, under the auspices of the Law and Political Economy Project and its terrific blog. We see this as a perfect way to launch the book.
congress not the courts has the final say about the constitution.
Jurisprudence The parties have profoundly different views about what the Constitution means, with major implications for our democracy. By Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath March 21, 202210:09 AM The US Senate takes up the historic nomination on of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court.
Book review of The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy by Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath
In 1787, when the framers of the United States Constitution assembled in Philadelphia to launch a new democracy, there was one known form of oligarchy in the Western world: aristocracies consisting of dukes, viscounts and other titled nobles. Accordingly, the framers inserted a clause forever prohibiting titles of nobility in the new nation. Job done.
How Progressives Can Take Back the Constitution
America’s slow-burning crisis of economic and political inequality poses a profound challenge to our constitutional system. Today, as in the 1930s, an immediate crisis—then the Depression, now the economic devastation wrought by a pandemic—has laid bare the depth of the challenge. Too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands.
Law Profs: How Progressives Can Take Back the Constitution
; SOURCE: The Atlantic 2/8/2022 Breaking News tags: Constitution, legal history, progressivism by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath Joseph Fishkin is a law professor at UCLA. William E. Forbath holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Chair in law at the University of Texas, Austin. They are the authors of The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution: Reconstructing the Economic Foundations of American Democracy.
The 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
The Sixteenth Amendment The Sixteenth Amendment By Joseph R. Fishkin, William E. Forbath, and Erik M. Jensen The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, played a central role in building up the powerful American federal government of the twentieth century by making it possible to enact a modern, nationwide income tax. Before long, the income tax would become by far the federal government’s largest source of revenue.
The Labor Movement Never Forgets?
Constitutional Political Economy – What Is It Good For? – On the Labor Scene, Part I of III William Forbath – 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.
Opinion | A New Type of Labor Law for a New Type of Worker (Published 2017)
Labor Day was born in the late 19th century, during a time of raw fear about the path of economic development. Opportunities for decent, middle-class livelihoods seemed to be shrinking, and the “laboring classes” confronted a grim future of what many called wage slavery. Conservatives held most of the seats of power, but reform-minded politicians, activists and policy mavens were thinking big about labor’s rights and wrongs.
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