Two years ago, I began writing out all my survey lectures. Each class averaged 15 pages (with breaks for questions, discussion, etc ...), leaving me with roughly 350 pages at the end of the semester. As enrollment for the survey rose from the low 20s six years ago (when it was almost entirely a
discussion class) to the high 90s last spring, written lectures helped improve
class flow, even as they provided students with an additional resource to study for the exam (all lectures were posted on TWEN). In addition to pedagogical benefits, written lectures also lent themselves to the development of new themes, much as if one were writing a book. One theme that emerged profoundly was anti-socialism. Long before Marx, American law steadfastly prevented the redistribution of wealth along egalitarian lines (incidentally, this is how Michael Kazin defines the Left in his new book, American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation (New York: Knopf, 2012)). Early examples of American law's anti-egalitarian stance were not expressly anti-socialist (see, for example, John Winthrop's Model of Christian Charity or James Madison's Federalist 10), but they worked to maintain inequality nevertheless. Following the Civil War (which did little to promote equality, just take a look at Jim Downs new book Sick from Freedom: African American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)), American law took on socialism in earnest. This began in the context of criminal syndicalism laws, anti-strike measures, and a complex series of concessions aimed at co-opting labor and preserving inequality. Prominent legal theorists like Christopher G. Tiedeman railed against socialism, Progressives like Theodore Roosevelt co-opted the Left by decrying monopoly and embracing anti-trust, even as the Supreme Court carved out a complex jurisprudence granting concessions to labor in some contexts (Holden v. Hardy), meanwhile crushing it in others (Lochner v. New York). Finally, outspoken socialists like Eugene V. Debs, Charles Schenk, Jacob Abrams, and Benjamin Gitlow all found themselves prosecuted and jailed for espousing socialist views. Though Kazin argues in American Dreamers that the Left has consistently influenced American politics by developing ideas that were later co-opted by moderates, I find a much more entrenched tradition of anti-egalitarianism in American law. Even though moderates did co-opt ideas advanced by figures on the Left, conservatives and moderates alike did much to crush any formal socialist politics in the United States. Indeed, can it really be argued that there even is a Left "left" in America? Just a thought for Labor Day ...
Monday, September 3, 2012
The Survey: Socialism
Two years ago, I began writing out all my survey lectures. Each class averaged 15 pages (with breaks for questions, discussion, etc ...), leaving me with roughly 350 pages at the end of the semester. As enrollment for the survey rose from the low 20s six years ago (when it was almost entirely a
discussion class) to the high 90s last spring, written lectures helped improve
class flow, even as they provided students with an additional resource to study for the exam (all lectures were posted on TWEN). In addition to pedagogical benefits, written lectures also lent themselves to the development of new themes, much as if one were writing a book. One theme that emerged profoundly was anti-socialism. Long before Marx, American law steadfastly prevented the redistribution of wealth along egalitarian lines (incidentally, this is how Michael Kazin defines the Left in his new book, American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation (New York: Knopf, 2012)). Early examples of American law's anti-egalitarian stance were not expressly anti-socialist (see, for example, John Winthrop's Model of Christian Charity or James Madison's Federalist 10), but they worked to maintain inequality nevertheless. Following the Civil War (which did little to promote equality, just take a look at Jim Downs new book Sick from Freedom: African American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)), American law took on socialism in earnest. This began in the context of criminal syndicalism laws, anti-strike measures, and a complex series of concessions aimed at co-opting labor and preserving inequality. Prominent legal theorists like Christopher G. Tiedeman railed against socialism, Progressives like Theodore Roosevelt co-opted the Left by decrying monopoly and embracing anti-trust, even as the Supreme Court carved out a complex jurisprudence granting concessions to labor in some contexts (Holden v. Hardy), meanwhile crushing it in others (Lochner v. New York). Finally, outspoken socialists like Eugene V. Debs, Charles Schenk, Jacob Abrams, and Benjamin Gitlow all found themselves prosecuted and jailed for espousing socialist views. Though Kazin argues in American Dreamers that the Left has consistently influenced American politics by developing ideas that were later co-opted by moderates, I find a much more entrenched tradition of anti-egalitarianism in American law. Even though moderates did co-opt ideas advanced by figures on the Left, conservatives and moderates alike did much to crush any formal socialist politics in the United States. Indeed, can it really be argued that there even is a Left "left" in America? Just a thought for Labor Day ...
