Towards material anti-oligarchic constitutionalism

Constitutional democracies have allowed for patterns of accumulation of wealth at the top, leading to acute inequality and dangerous oligarchisation of power. Moreover, the theoretical tools that liberal constitutionalism offers are inadequate to recognize systemic corruption and structural forms of domination that are enabled by law or its absence. As an alternative, the article proposes a material methodological approach to the study of constitutions. In the first section, it offers a critical analysis of the intellectual foundations of liberal constitutionalism, engaging with the right to property, political representation, and separation of powers. In the second section, it presents the intellectual foundations of plebeian constitutionalism in the works of Machiavelli, Condorcet, and Marx. Finally, it proposes a material approach to assessing constitutions, identifying the shortcomings of contemporary legal frameworks to materialize social rights, as well as new avenues for institutional anti-oligarchic innovation.