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The Lost World of Classical Legal Thought: Law and Ideology in America, 1886-1937
This book examines the ideology of elite lawyers and judges from the Gilded Age through the New Deal. Between 1866 and 1937, a coherent outlook shaped the way the American bar understood the sources of law, the role of the courts, and the relationship between law and the larger society. William M. Wiecek explores this outlook--often called "legal orthodoxy" or "classical legal thought"--which assumed that law was apolitical, determinate, objective, and neutral.
American classical legal thought was forged in the heat of the social crises that punctuated the late nineteenth century. Fearing labor unions, immigrants, and working people generally, American elites, including those on the bench and bar, sought ways to repress disorder and prevent political majorities from using democratic processes to redistribute wealth and power. Classical legal thought provided a rationale that assured the legitimacy of the extant distribution of society's resources. It enabled the legal suppression of unions and the subordination of workers to management's authority.
As the twentieth-century U.S. economy grew in complexity, the antiregulatory, individualistic bias of classical legal thought became more and more distanced from reality. Brittle and dogmatic, legal ideology lost legitimacy in the eyes of both laypeople and ever-larger segments of the bar. It was at last abandoned in the "constitutional revolution of 1937", but--as Wiecek argues in this detailed analysis--nothing has arisen since to replace it as an explanation of what law is and why courts have such broad power in a democratic society.
American classical legal thought was forged in the heat of the social crises that punctuated the late nineteenth century. Fearing labor unions, immigrants, and working people generally, American elites, including those on the bench and bar, sought ways to repress disorder and prevent political majorities from using democratic processes to redistribute wealth and power. Classical legal thought provided a rationale that assured the legitimacy of the extant distribution of society's resources. It enabled the legal suppression of unions and the subordination of workers to management's authority.
As the twentieth-century U.S. economy grew in complexity, the antiregulatory, individualistic bias of classical legal thought became more and more distanced from reality. Brittle and dogmatic, legal ideology lost legitimacy in the eyes of both laypeople and ever-larger segments of the bar. It was at last abandoned in the "constitutional revolution of 1937", but--as Wiecek argues in this detailed analysis--nothing has arisen since to replace it as an explanation of what law is and why courts have such broad power in a democratic society.
- GenresLaw
296 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 1998
About the author
William M. Wiecek
16 books2 followersWilliam M. Wiecek is Professor Emeritus of History and Law at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
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May 14, 2014
This book is actually much better at setting up the rise of classical legal thought than describing it in action.
Like other scholars (although here, seemingly with more research), Wiecek concludes that classical legal though did not have such a monolithic hold on the Supreme Court until it had already been defeated among theoreticians. So seeing it in action does not lead to real clarity about ideology. And the defeat in the 30's is, as he said, shopworn.
But there's an awful lot of good stuff here about the 19th century.
Like other scholars (although here, seemingly with more research), Wiecek concludes that classical legal though did not have such a monolithic hold on the Supreme Court until it had already been defeated among theoreticians. So seeing it in action does not lead to real clarity about ideology. And the defeat in the 30's is, as he said, shopworn.
But there's an awful lot of good stuff here about the 19th century.
Displaying 1 of 1 review