Constitutions only endure when they reflect actual social power relations

Evidence

In addressing a Prussian audience in 1862, Lassalle said: The constitutional questions are in the first instance not questions of right but questions of might. The actual constitution of a country has its existence only in the actual condition of force which exists in the country: hence political constitutions have value and permanence only when they accurately express those conditions of forces which exist in practice within a society. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 839

The constitutional questions are in the first instance not questions of right but questions of might. The actual constitution of a country has its existence only in the actual condition of force which exists in the country: hence political constitutions have value and permanence only when they accurately express those conditions of forces which exist in practice within a society. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 839

Categorization

• XREF: Lassalle’s thesis is echoed in Milgrom’s work on institutions reflecting existing force/conditions of trade. — connects to: The ruling classes abandoned constitutional restraint while Social Democrats kept obeying it — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 956; Structural constitutional rules resist change despite eroding functional justification; A written constitution only becomes living law through enforcement. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 921 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing — this is a strong formal statement of the constitutions-as-social-power-theory that grounds Ambedkar’s whole argument.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 839