The Right to Earn a Living Economic Freedom and the Law

by Sandefur, Timothy

• ISBN13: 9781935308331
• ISBN10: 1935308335
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-08-16
• Publisher: Cato Institute

Summary

America's founders thought the right to earn a living was so basic and obvious that it didn't need to be mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Yet today that right is burdened by a wide array of government rules and regulations that play favorites, rewrite contracts, encourage frivolous lawsuits, seize private property, and manipulate economic choices to achieve outcomes that bureaucrats favor. The Right to Earn a Living charts the history of this fundamental human right, from the constitutional system that was designed to protect it by limiting government's powers, to the Civil War Amendments that expanded protection to all Americans, regardless of race. It then focuses on the Progressive-era judges who began to erode those protections, and concludes with today's controversies over abusive occupational licensing laws, freedom of speech in advertising, regulatory takings, and much more.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
"The Most Precious Liberty Man Possesses"	p. 1
"Corporations" and "Monopolies," Part I: 1602-1870	p. 17
"Corporations" and "Monopolies," Part II: 1870 to the Present	p. 39
The Contracts Clause: Victim of the Living Constitution	p. 67
The Era of Substantive Due Process: Slaughterhouse to Lochner	p. 83
The Rational Basis Test	p. 123
Protectionism and The Law	p. 141
The Dormant Commerce Clause	p. 175
Commercial Speech	p. 191
The Manipulation of Contracts	p. 213
The Abuse of Tort Law	p. 239
Regulatory Takings	p. 255
The Future of Economic Liberty	p. 279
Notes	p. 295
Index	p. 361
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