Monday, April 23, 2007

Radicals in Tweed

Saikrishna Prakash (San Diego), Radicals in Tweed Jackets: Why Extreme Left-Wing Law Professors are Wrong For America, 106 Colum. L. Rev. 2207 (2006)

Review essay of Sunstein's Radicals in Robes. Sunstein apparently argues for minimalism in the book, but Prakash says that minimalism is only Sunstein's argument because the "wrong" people are in power. If this were Brennan and Marshall running the court, Sunstein wouldn't be arguing for slow, incremental steps. Sunstein is a consequentialist. He wants good outcomes, and he prescribes methods by which to get them, or at least by which to slow the flow of bad ones.

Moreover, says Prakash, minimalism isn't even a theory of decisionmaking.

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