The Carolene Products Paradigm of Participatory Democracy

Carolene Products embraced judicial responsibility of ensuring that everyone has a fair say in the formulation of public policy, including the distribution of societal resources. The case discusses protecting the key political rights of speaking and voting. In positioning itself as the referee over politics, the Court assumed the daunting challenge of fashioning a theory of democracy. Key to this has been the weak libertarian paradigm of free speech, which prohibits government censorship of speech. In essence, it requires: “Government generally cannot stop me from saying whatever I want to say.” In contrast, the strong libertarian paradigm of free speech shouts, “I can say whatever I want to say with whatever resources I have to say it.” Despite weakened protection for property rights, this strong libertarian paradigm has dramatically increased constitutional protection for property interests. Preeminently, the campaign finance cases hinge influence over elections, law, public policy, and all of government on wealth.

Campaign finance · Citizen journalism · Constitutional law · Democracy · Free speech · Government (linguistics) · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Property rights · Sociology · Voting · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms · Philosophy · Campaign funds · Distributive justice · Economic aspects · LAW · law and legislation · Libertarianism · Political aspects