Posts Tagged ‘politics’
Law and the Politics of Legitimacy
The word ‘law,’ itself, is always a primary object of contention. People argue and fight over ‘what is law’ because the very term is a valuable resource in the enterprises that lead people to think and talk about law in the first place….On a political level, it connotes legitimacy in the exercise of coercion and in the organization of authority and privilege. On a philosophical plane it connotes universality and objectivity….The struggle over what is ‘law’ is then a struggle over which social patterns can plausibly be coated with a veneer which changes the very nature of that which it covers up. There is not automatic legitimation of an institution by calling it or what it produces ‘law,’ but the label itself is a move, the staking out of a position in the complex social game of legitimation. The jurisprudential inquiry into the question ‘what is law’ is an engagement at one remove in the struggle of what is legitimate.
Robert M. Cover, “The Folktales of Justice: Tales of Jurisdiction.” (pdf)
The Economics-Politics Distinction: The Shift from the Welfare to the Predator State
If “economics” is isolated from other aspects of social life, then the criterion for policymakers becomes the simple one of efficiency. Expenditure, and government policy generally, is to be viewed in terms of whether or not a program pays, whether it creates incentives for the private sector to expand output and employment. In a market economy [sic], government must depend on tax collection, and this in turn depends on the level of economic activity–which depends on the expectation of profit. In the economist’s view, if tax incentives can attract or retain business, they should be granted. The income redistribution effects [sic] of such policies may be regressive but this is simply an unavoidable consequence of a market economy: government can step in after production decisions are made and through tax expenditure policies rectify any damage that may have resulted. How much and what type of action it will take will be decided in the political arena.
Yet government, especially at the local level, in under constant pressure not to redistribute from the rich to the poor.
–William K. Tabb, The Long Default : New York City and the Urban Fiscal Crisis.
An Anti-Political Stance is Anti-Democratic Stance
Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint — Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most problems… that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments which do not lend themselves to the great sort of “passionate movements” which have stirred this country so often in the past. Now they deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.
John F. Kennedy, quoted in John R. MacArthur, The Selling of Free Trade: NAFTA and the Subversion of American Democracy.







A Legalistic Heritage and a Democratic Ideology
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Written by David Kaib
March 14, 2013 at 10:03 am
Posted in Submitted without comment
Tagged with Constitution, Decisions, democracy, James Young, Law, political science, politics, Social Science, Washington DC