When describing a polity, “constitutional” can refer (1) to something in a normative political-theoretic sense-that is, an effective means for empowering collective decision-making, creating institutional safeguards for those same collective decision-making processes, and explicitly guaranteeing social, political, and legal rights or it can refer (2) to the form of the polity itself, its “material constitution.” 2 The second meaning can be used to articulate the view that an emancipated polity should not have a constitution but be a constitution: the well-formed polity will be one in which institutional design will not frustrate mass political participation, but enable it in the context of a robust democratic culture. In what follows I offer some reasons for doubting that a society in which “ the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” should or could be a constitutional polity sharing features with currently existing liberal democracies. This is especially the case when it comes to envisioning a society that has been substantially emancipated from the domination, compulsion, and exploitation that are inherent to capitalism. 1 The practice of constitutionalism cannot be abstracted from its historical context in order to serve as a model for how this or that community should be organized. ![]() ![]() ![]() Modern constitutionalism is not a historical achievement that an emancipated society should retain.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |