Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial

Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial

by Paul Kens
Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial

Lochner v. New York: Economic Regulation on Trial

by Paul Kens

eBook

$18.99  $24.95 Save 24% Current price is $18.99, Original price is $24.95. You Save 24%.

Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Lochner v. New York (1905), which pitted a conservative activist judiciary against a reform-minded legislature, remains one of the most important and most frequently cited cases in Supreme Court history. In this concise and readable guide, Paul Kens shows us why the case remains such an important marker in the ideological battles between the free market and the regulatory state.

The Supreme Court's decision declared unconstitutional a New York State law limiting bakery workers to no more than ten hours per day or sixty hours per week. By evoking its "police power," the state hoped to eliminate the employers' abuse of these workers. But the 5-4 majority opinion, authored by Justice Rufus Peckham and renounced by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, cited the state's violation of due process and the "right of contract between employers and employees," which the majority believed was protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Critics jumped on the decision as an example of conservative judicial activism promoting laissez-faire capitalism at the expense of progressive reform. As series editors Peter Hoffer and N.E.H. Hull note in their preface, "the case also raised a host of significant questions regarding the impetus of state legislatures to enter the workplace and regulate hours, wages, and working conditions; of the role of courts as monitors of the constitutionality of state regulation of the economy; and of the place of economic and moral theories in judicial thinking."

Kens, however, reminds us that these hotly contested ideas and principles emerged from a very real human drama involving workers, owners, legislators, lawyers, and judges. Within the crucible of an industrializing America, their story reflected the fierce competition between two powerful ideologies.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780700622436
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Publication date: 10/30/1998
Series: Landmark Law Cases and American Society
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 226
Sales rank: 752,553
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Paul Kens is associate professor of political science and history at Southwest Texas State University and the author of Justice Stephen Field: Shaping Liberty from the Gold Rush to the Gilded Age and Judicial Power and Reform Politics: The Anatomy of Lochner v. New York, on which this book is based. In 1996 the Supreme Court Historical Society awarded him the Hughes-Gossett Award for Historical Excellence for the best article published in its journal.

Table of Contents

Editors' Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. Not Like Grandma Used to Bake
3. A Long Struggle for Shorter Hours
4. The Politics of Business as Usual
5. Tenement Reform Looks in the Cellar
6. Free to Bake or Left to Toil?
7. Nothing to Do with Due Process
8. Freedom to Agree to Anything
9. The Final Forum
10. Reform's Nemesis
11. The Lochner Era
12. Epilogue
Chronology
Bibliographical Essay
Index
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews