Toward a Marxist Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution

Abstract

When Moses invented ten fundamental laws for the Jewish people, he had God write them down on stone tablets. Lycurgus, too, represented the constitution he drew up for ancient Sparta as a divine gift. According to Plato, whose book, The Republic offers another version of the same practice, attributing the origins of a constitution to godly intervention is the most effective way of securing the kind of support needed for it to work. Otherwise, some people are likely to remain skeptical, others passive, and still others critical of whatever biases they perceive in these basic laws and hence less inclined to follow their mandates.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.