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Legal Commentary

: Balkinization

It's morning (or perhaps 1937) in America

By Jack M. Balkin

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Perhaps the most important story in this afternoon's NYTimes is not the one indicating probable agreement on a bailout for the Big Three automakers, but, rather, a just-posted story tellingly titled "Illinois Threatens Bank Over Siti-In," about the response by Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich to the sudden shutting down and subsequent sit-in by dismissed employees of the Republic Window and Door Co, who are, among other things, demanding severance and vacation time owed them.

Many employees said they had worked in the factory for decades. Lalo Muñoz, who was among those sleeping over in the building, said he arrived 34 years ago. The workers ? about 80 percent of them Hispanic, with the rest black or of other ethnic and national backgrounds ? made $14 an hour on average and received health care and retirement benefits....?This never happens ? to take a company from the inside,? Ms. Mazon said. ?But I?m fighting for my family, and we?re not going nywhere.?

The Governor noted that the Bank of America cut off its line of the credit to the company and demands that they restore it as a condition of doing business with the state of Illinois. More to the point, perhaps is the endorsement on Sunday of the justice of the workers' claims by former community organizer Barack H. Obama.

With regard to the US Constitution, there are at least two interesting features: The first, of course, is federalism, and the ability of state leaders to do things that are harder, if not impossible, for national leaders to do, i.e., threaten the financial interests of a major bank if it doesn't comply with the political vision of the Governor. The second feature, equally obvious, is the ability of the modern state (or State) to impose all sorts of conditions on those seeking state largesse (where largesse can be given a rather broad definition, including access to state contracts). Although I applaud Gov. Blagojevich in this instance, let me say immediately that I would be, shall we say, considerably more concerned if he were threatening to cut off economic relations with the Bank of America if it didn't withdraw a line of credit to, say, Planned Parenthood in order to build a state-of-the-art abortion facility.

In any event, I confess myself exhilarated by having a president-elect who may be unafraid to recognize the existence of class conflict in America and who seems willing to put the power of the United States behind the victims of what in the 1930s would have been called capitalist exploitation (and today can be described perhaps as "the operation of impersonal economic forces"). As John McCain so aptly said, the election was a clear choice between free market ideologues and proponents of "sharing the wealth." We know who won! So whatever explanation one finds most compatible with regard to the present condition of the working class, the central question is "which side are you one?" And former community organizer Barck H. Obama is, I think, giving us an inspiring answer to that question. I don't expect unanimous agreement on this point :)

Full post as published by Balkinization on December 08, 2008 (boomark / email).