In Only One Place of Redress David E. Bernstein offers a bold reinterpretation of American legal history: he argues that American labor and occupational laws, enacted by state and federal governments after the Civil War and into the twentieth century, benefited dominant groups in society to the detriment of those who lacked political power. Both intentionally and incidentally, claims Bernstein, these laws restricted in particular the job mobility and economic opportunity of blacks.
A pioneer in applying the insights of public choice theory to legal history, Bernstein contends that the much-maligned jurisprudence of the Lochner era-with its emphasis on freedom of contract and private market ordering-actually discouraged discrimination and assisted groups with little political clout. To support this thesis he examines the motivation behind and practical impact of laws restricting interstate labor recruitment, occupational licensing laws, railroad labor laws, minimum wage statutes, the Davis-Bacon Act, and New Deal collective bargaining. He concludes that the ultimate failure of Lochnerism-and the triumph of the regulatory state-not only strengthened racially exclusive labor unions but contributed to a massive loss of employment opportunities for African Americans, the effects of which continue to this day.
Scholars and students interested in race relations, labor law, and legal
or constitutional history will be fascinated by Bernstein's daring-and controversial-argument.


About the Author

David E. Bernstein is Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law and coeditor of Phantom Risk: Scientific Inference and the Law.

Reviews
"Only One Place of Redress presents a bold reinterpretation of the relationship between governmental regulations of the marketplace and economic opportunity for blacks. Bernstein challenges the conventional wisdom and invites readers to reconsider breezy assumptions about how employment regulations operated."-James W. Ely, Jr., author of The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights
"A provocative revisionist overview of legislation regulating labor relations. This will undoubtedly receive a great deal of attention from historians and students of the Constitution, and for good reason."-Mark Tushnet, author of Making Constitutional Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961-1991



Book Information
ISBN 9780822325833
Author David E. Bernstein
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press