Judicial deradicalization of the Wagner Act and the origins of modern legal consciousness, 1937-1941

Abstract

The legal system is, fundamentally, a normative instance of history.It defines goals, decides what roads society must travel, and dictates the norms of social action.The legal system, therefore, has within its essence a profound political content; it is not a flower which blossoms in the desert.Law always expresses a vision of society.It also expresses the groups behind this vision and the interests served by conceiving the society in that particular form.-From a speech by Jos6 Antonio Viera-Gallo* I. THE PROBLEMWhen passed, the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act' was perhaps the most radical piece of legislation ever enacted by the United States Congress. 2Enacted in the wake of the great strikes of 1934, at an unusually tense and fluid historical moment, it represented, in the words of one historian, "an almost unbelievable capitut