This keeps happening. Not an accident.

The Constitution is Not Your Friend

Every once in awhile there is a flash of hope for a democratic America. Then, the oligarchic system clicks in, as intended.

Munn v. Illinois (1877) is an anomaly: a Supreme Court decision for the people. The National Grange, a small farmers movement, had managed to acquire significant power in the Illinois state government. A large group of relatively weak people, farmers, used the state government to control the monopolies of railroads and grain elevators, owned by a small group of rich men. The Grangers passed legislation in the state government set the price of grain.

This was straight up command socialism: the price of the product determined by the government, not the free market. On the other hand, as the farmers well knew, there was no free market in the first place.

The Supreme Court sided with the state and the farmers in 1877. The weak have won against the strong only in a handful of cases. This same court gutted the Civil War amendments and killed Reconstruction, crudely undermining the plain meaning of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. In Munn, however, unexpectedly, the Court considered both sides, rich and poor, looked at what the Constitution actually said, and made a fair decision. A miracle.

The word “capitalism” is not in the constitution. The Constitution is supposed to be a blueprint for government and economic policy is not necessarily determined by the form of government, at least in principle. In fact, the Consitution is absolutely designed to favor the powerful and elite over the masses, but that is not the overt rhetoric behind the American republic.

Logically under Munn, one can say that price controls may or may not be good economics in the situation, but that is a political matter. Let the democratic process determine the economic system, the Court ruled.

Where in the Constitution does it say that a state government can’t set grain prices? Private property? No: the state government did not take the assets of the grain silos and the railroads, merely manage their operations. Of course, the government can regulate an industry.

Such a democratic decision did last long as the law of the land.

Munn was so surprising and unexpected that it sparked a right-wing, pro-business movement to capture the federal bench, to make sure no other decision would allow the democratically elected governments of the United States interfere in monopoly capitalism. This right-wing reaction to the Munn ruling was entirely successful and there was no other “people power” decision by the federal bench until well after FDR in the 1940s. Here is an account of this process of right-wing reset of the courts to stop progressive legislation, killing legislation in favor of weekends, preventing child labor, and all the horrors of the pre-FDR court.

Prior to Munn v. Illinois and even in other cases involving the rights of Black citizens, the Supreme court has always sided with more powerful over the less powerful. After the defeat of the Populists, the court returned to elitist form until the New Deal.

In fact, the Constitution, with a judiciary far stronger than any previous government, was itself instituted to thwart the masses voting themselves a raise. Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts, along with pro-inflation policies in Rhode Island and Georgia state legislatures, showed the moneyed elites of the 1780s the danger of the Articles of Confederation to the rich. The masses of debtors could create inflation and effectively nullify their debts. As debtors outnumber creditors 1000 to 1, there was little hope in the states to control the masses. The federal government, particularly the courts, could, however, stymie the interests of the majority.

Elections are dominated by the corporate media and big money. One would hope for a fair shake in the supposedly disinterested courts. But nope, just the opposite.

The Populists often railed against the courts and talked about fundamental reform of the Supreme Court. The rhetoric of fundamental reform of the court system is far better than Democratic fear-mongering about Roe v. Wade (the Republicans control the White House, Congress and Supreme Court and there is no change to abortion law… just as when the Democrats has run of the place from 2009 to 2011 there was no gun control).

Democratic nominee, Republican nominee: the court has never been the friend of working people, with a few exceptions. The Civil Rights movement would have been quite different if not for the New Deal legacy judges but those few relatively good decisions, like the Munn case, are the exceptions that prove the rule.

True, the Consitution was designed to protect big money from real democracy and to stop the redistribution of wealth and has always done so. The Supreme Court is bad now, but that is not new. The system we have is not designed for us.