Weimar’s constitution functioned as a trap for the working class by masking bourgeois advantages

Evidence

But for Kirchheimer what mattered was to understand that the constitution was not an opportunity but a trap. The constitution obscured awareness of the advantages of constitutionally guaranteed bourgeois property over the constitutionally guaranteed demands of the working class; it weakened the workers’ will to realize what they had demanded; and it encouraged a passive observation of events while the ruling classes regained their supremacy. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 955

Categorization

• QUESTION: Kirchheimer’s claim that constitutional guarantees of property obscure class advantage - worth comparing with modern constitutional-theory critiques of the same pattern.
• XREF: connects to: Weimar democracy fell because its constitution aided reactionaries — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 929; Kirchheimer saw the Weimar constitution as a trap for workers — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 955; Germany’s Supreme Court turned Weimar’s equality rights into capitalist defenses — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 957 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• A progressive bourgeois law was repurposed to suppress workers’ associations #exemplifies (0.82) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1948
• Bourgeois class behavior explains the subjective key to fascism #expands (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1421