Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
10-16-2024
Publisher
The New Rambler Review
Language
en-US
Abstract
Due to its length and richness, The Constitutional Bind could be considered several books in one. It is a socialist critique of American political development that highlights the tradeoffs from incremental rather than transformational progress. It is also a partial intellectual history of radical and alternative constitutional theories marginalized by the set of ideas that came to rule. Finally, the book serves as an urgent plea for fellow citizens to give up the mesmerizing, yet frustratingly confining rhetoric of twentieth-century liberal constitutionalism.
Given Rana’s central objective of investigating the rise of the “creedal” approach to American constitutionalism, I believe it most fruitful to assess The Constitutional Bind as building a layered critique of a society’s civic culture, i.e., a set of beliefs concerning, attitudes towards, and ways of talking about the state’s basic law (which he repeatedly refers to as the “1787 Constitution”). Our attitudes about the original constitution have stifled a people’s imagination and helped make most of its features untouchable. Much of this formal law—which long ago established an enormously difficult process for amending the nation’s basic charter, a Senate that permitted even the states with the smallest populations to frustrate legislation desired by a strong majority of Americans, and a Court that has grown into a potent national policymaker in its own right—either suffocates or coopts liberatory movements while making it nearly impossible for ordinary people to countermand the priorities of elites. This basic structure has endured, Rana contends, whether those elites have included the Slave-holding planter class or corporations hellbent on maximizing profit on the backs of workers here and abroad.
Above all else, Rana seeks to hold up a mirror to American society so that academics and citizens alike can finally recognize that they/we have all played a part in reifying the Constitution and thereby narrowing the range of political possibilities. Though there is more in the book than a single review can do justice, what follows is a treatment of Rana’s volume in this light. Rediscovering the radical tradition of American constitutionalism—complete with systemic critiques of the original constitution, including how mainstream constitutionalism has insulated markets from political accountability and facilitated the domination of non-white populations at home and abroad—requires combing through the writings and activism of black intellectuals, committed socialists, decolonial theorists, and even the occasional liberal. Many such thinkers fluctuated between openly acknowledging the deep flaws of an 18th century constitution and a desire to achieve some measure of social and legal change in their lifetime. The result is a thrilling, iconoclastic synthesis of constitutionally-inflected debates of the past and the recovery of lines of argument that have long been relegated to the margins.
Recommended Citation
Robert L. Tsai,
Searching for the Radical Constitution
,
The New Rambler
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4240
