The shape of constitutions has changed greatly in the last fifty years or so. During this time, the new or substantially revised constitutions that have accompanied major changes in the political or economic order of states have almost always included extensive lists of individual rights for recognition or protection, and, normally, such lists have included rights bearing particularly on the economic life and well-being of subjects. So, too, have the new constitutions of the many states that have undertaken, since 1989, the so-called transition process from a socialist command economy to one based, wholly or largely, on market principles. 1 Are such rights worth having? The question is of more than academic interest. There remain important areas of the world where the choice whether or not to incorporate such rights in the constitution remains a matter of practical politics. China is one country where the move to a form of market economy (“socialist market economy,” in this case) 2 has not (yet) been accompanied by any systematic incorporation of economic rights into the Constitution. Elsewhere, a number of countries whose economies have long been run on market principles have hitherto seen no need for such incorporation, at least not in comprehensive and explicit terms, despite the decadeslong trend in this direction. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia all fall into this class.