ROGERS.TOPRINTER (DO NOT DELETE) 6/14/2016 5:06 PM Libertarian Corporatism is Not an Oxymoron Brishen Rogers* Introduction Our constitutional democracy and our republican form of government, Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath argue in their recent work, depend on “a measure of economic and social democracy.”1 A truly democratic state, in their view, cannot just regulate powerful actors. It must also enable or positively encourage “robust intermediate organizations,” especially unions, to “offset the political power of concentrated wealth.”2 The history of the welfare state bears out this point. It is no accident that the era of mass unionization was also an era of quite progressive taxation, relatively tame executive compensation, and definancialization.3 Nor is it an accident that the decline of the welfare state, the decline of the labor movement, and the rise in income inequality have occurred in tandem in virtually every advanced economy.4 Mainstream policy debate around inequality, which focuses largely on ensuring progressive taxation, often misses this lesson.5 And yet empowering secondary associations can be very difficult in a constitutional culture that prizes individual liberty. It is not enough to just protect workers’ freedom to choose unionization while leaving other property relations intact,6 since economic elites will generally resist * Associate Professor, Temple University Beasley School of Law,
[email protected]. The research leading up to this Essay was supported in part by the Roosevelt Institute’s Future of Work Initiative. For helpful comments and conversations, thanks to Willy Forbath, Joey Fishkin, and participants in the Texas Law Review Symposium on the Constitution and Economic Inequality.