Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein's new book, The Classical Liberal Constitution, is the subject of Professor Epstein's column this week. From the column:
When our Supreme Court drops its guard and defers to the federal government on matters of taxation and regulation, we end up with a huge government that saps the energy of a nation and gives us the tragedy that is Obamacare.
The Court's progressives uphold these laws because they believe in their efficacy, even though labor unions and agricultural cartels always work against the long-term aggregate interests of the community. For their part, conservatives often practice a narrow and misguided originalism that ignores the foundational economic principles that lend coherence to the Constitution as a whole. The classical liberal approach does neither. It rejects both the judicial restraint of the conservatives and the economic naiveté of the progressives, and in so doing supplies the only blueprint for judicial action that can help lift this nation from its current malaise.
The 700-page book took Professor Epstein "over seven years to complete," he says. And Professor Epstein is known for working fast, so that is saying something.