Journal Articles

THE LOST HISTORIES OF AMERICAN ECONOMIC RIGHTS

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This article examines the concept and the discontinuous historical usage of the term 'economic rights' in American political discourse from the perspective of democratic political freedom. It views the idea and ideology of 'economic rights' as a discursive marker pointing to historically contingent relations between government, national economy and individual freedom. It focuses on the only two American presidential articulations of an Economic Bill of Rights and their conjunctures: one by Franklin Roosevelt and another by Ronald Reagan. These two articulations represent two opposing political traditions of economic rights in the United States: the neo-liberal laissez-faire free market tradition and the liberal welfare-state tradition. Both of these liberal traditions are haunted by an older democratic-republican discourse of economic rights, from which they continue to draw normative and affective energy without ever confronting its guiding premises. Contemporary popular discourses about the economic crisis demonstrate the continuation of deeply entrenched though historically outdated understandings of the promise and possibilities of individual freedom and autonomy within the folds of a society completely transformed by capitalist modernity. Present considerations of this history reveal possible resources for political struggles.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Cultural Studies

Call Number

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Publisher

Oxon, UK : Routledge Taylor & Francis Group., 2010

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

09502386

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 24, Issue 3 May 2010 , pages 333 - 355

Subject(s)

Politics
Government
Freedom
Economic rights
US history

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