The Law in Its Majestic Equality

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread.” The rule of law: the #resistance has construed it to be a cornerstone of opposition to Trump. It is certainly alarming to live under a president who flirts with operating in a permanent and near-total state of exception. But it’s the rule of law as we’ve known it that has blessed the wide-open floodgates of corporate money into American politics, looked the other way in the face of unchecked national security state abuses, christened separate and unequal schools and, of course, rubber-stamped the rise of mass incarceration. The law has no transcendent moral basis. Rather, it is shaped by political-economy.

Dan’s guest is Amy Kapczynski, professor of law at Yale Law School, and a co-convenor of LPEblog.org.

Thanks to Verso Books. Check out Police: A Field Guide by David Correia and Tyler Wall

And support this podcast with $ at patreon.com/thedig