New Aristocracy

Abstract

We are in a period when US legal thought is again opening up to renewed and sustained critiques of capitalism. This article situates this renaissance within both a longer history of political thought and the current political context in the United States. Drawing upon the observations of Alexis de Tocqueville, who argued that the rise of industry could lay the groundwork for a return to aristocracy, the article also considers how US jurisprudence since the early 1970s has proved Tocqueville somewhat prophetic. Today, we confront the accelerating rise of political wealth alongside the fall of the working classes into neofeudal labor practices—trajectories embedded in and abetted by decisions of the US Supreme Court.