Constitutional sense is worthless without the class power able to enforce it

Evidence

However, Kirchheimer did not avoid the desperate paradox here of insisting on the sense' or intention’, of a constitution which he asserted, on the other hand, was only worth the class power which was available to back it up. But he did make the point that there had been a weakening of the strength of the working class lasting ten years, with a simultaneous strengthening of the ruling classes, which had in part been newly reconstituted. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 254

Categorization

• DEFINE: States the core Kirchheimerian thesis: legal norms are meaningless apart from the class power backing them.
• XREF: connects to: No state grants an explicit legal right to demonstrate as such — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1196; Describing the Constitution as a promise obscures institutional power. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 504; Constitutional enshrinement of dignity does not guarantee solidarity in practice — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 746 (+7 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: No state grants an explicit legal right to demonstrate as such — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1196; Describing the Constitution as a promise obscures institutional power. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 504; Constitutional enshrinement of dignity does not guarantee solidarity in practice — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 746 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Class politics and anti-authoritarianism are a false choice to refuse outright #complicates (0.71) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1910