Overcoming the Great Forgetting: A Comment on Fishkin and Forbath

Purdy emphasizes the “great forgetting”—the disappearance of the discourse of constitutional political economy in the wake of the great triumph of the democracy of opportunity tradition in the New Deal. Purdy’s essay imagines what it would mean to recover this tradition and restore its central place in our understanding of our constitution. He imagines both benefits and potential risks, and explores both.