Germany’s Supreme Court turned Weimar’s equality rights into capitalist defenses
Evidence
In his Limits of Expropriation(1930), Kirchheimer showed brilliantly how the basic rights guaranteed under the Weimar constitution had been undermined bit by bit by legal judgements and legal theory, and how the old bourgeois elements in the constitution were pushing the other elements aside. The principle of equality and the article on expropriation in the Weimar constitution, which many socialists had hoped to use to revolutionize the bourgeois state legally, had been made into a bulwark of private capitalism by the German Supreme Court. With a critical acuity comparable to that of Horkheimer in the aphorisms of Dawn, Kirchheimer analysed the anti-social renaissance of the bourgeois constitutional state against the background of a historical and sociological sketch of the way in which the working of legal institutions had changed. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 957
In his Limits of Expropriation(1930), Kirchheimer showed brilliantly how the basic rights guaranteed under the Weimar constitution had been undermined bit by bit by legal judgements and legal theory, and how the old bourgeois elements in the constitution were pushing the other elements aside. The principle of equality and the article on expropriation in the Weimar constitution, which many socialists had hoped to use to revolutionize the bourgeois state legally, had been made into a bulwark of private capitalism by the German Supreme Court. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 957
Categorization
- XREF: Concrete legal-institutional instance of the class power reproduction Chapter 8 identified as making submission to rulers appear rational; and the functionalist reversal of Chapter 33’s claims. — connects to: Weimar’s constitution functioned as a trap for the working class by masking bourgeois advantages — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 955; Weimar democracy fell because its constitution aided reactionaries — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 929; Nazi dictatorship was functionally necessary to preserve a fully monopolized economy — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1185 (+1 more)
- ADDENDUM: Illuminates the legal-technical mechanism behind ‘Grafting & Growth’ style institutional capture arguments, though the subject differs.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 957
Broader Connections
- Weimar’s constitution functioned as a trap for the working class by masking bourgeois advantages
#complicates(0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 955 - Nazi dictatorship was functionally necessary to preserve a fully monopolized economy
#corroborates(0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1185 - Weimar democracy fell because its constitution aided reactionaries
#exemplifies(0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 929 - Capitalist contradictions operated at higher and more dangerous levels in Germany
#complicates(0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1203