Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique

by David Kairys

Book Overview

The Politics of Law is the most widely read critique of the nature and role of the law in American society. This revised edition continues the book's concrete focus on the major subjects and fields of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067973161X
• ISBN13: 9780679731610
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 481 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

This book changed my life

As a non-traditional student returning to college to complete my undergraduate degree at the age of 47, I had accumulated hundreds of questions in my mind about the confusing state of American legal and political thought. Everywhere I turned, I ran into brick walls impermeable to logic. For example, if I helped to save the whales, how would that activity do anything about racism? And how would women who stayed at home with their children be empowered by entering a working environment rife with sexual harassment and discrimination? Why was it ok for so-called "captains of industry" to engage in selfish and rapacious behavior while being honored as "astute businessmen"? Why did some people's work receive more respect than others?This book provided the foundation from which I have been able to distill answers to my questions. The Politics of Law challenges the mythology we are spoonfed throughout our lives. I always get a big kick out the the Right Wing's claims that indoctrination is the special purview of progressive political thought. When our education system is reinforced by our illiberal media and the overwhelming presence of corporate advertising and influence, it's shocking that anyone can think their way out of this maze of programming. Start with The Politics of Law.

Understanding Law as Politics

This book makes sense of the limits of "the rule of law," without giving up on The Law's importance. Cutting through the dream that "we have a government of laws, not of men," Kairys and his contributors demonstrate that The Law is not necessarily on the side of justice, fairness, or democracy. Today, perhaps more than at any time in the last 50 years, the supposedly neutrality of the system of laws has been compromised. In so many crucial areas -- such as the criminal "justice" system, the welfare state, civil rights and civil liberties, labor, women's rights, health, environment law, poverty, and many more -- this book helps us see how The Law is there to serve the powerholders, the "haves" of society, rather than the "have-nots." There is a lot here too about legal processes: about access to the system (and restrictions in people's access), about the legal rights of racial minorities, immigrants, workers, women, low-income people, and gays, and about the politics of policing.Although highly critical of the present state of The Law, the writers here do not abandon the The Law as a zone where the struggle for justice, equality, and democracy goes on. Indeed they have written this book, in a sense, to redeem The Law as a tool for a true justice. Kairys and his collaborators want The Law truly to serve that cause, not merely to claim that it seeks justice when it so often does the reverse. The book will be crucial for law students, critical thinkers, and real believers in democracy everywhere. It helps us think about what freedom really means.

Complicated yet lucid...highly recommended for students

I use this book in my Sociology of Law course. The essays in this book are wonderful for instructional purposes because they are simultaneously clear enough that people not firmly entrenched in the legal field can read them, yet rich in their content, exposing the complexities of law and society.I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in law and society, and especially to instructors.