Death Grip: Loosening the Law’s Stranglehold over Economic Liberty

March 30, 2011 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Timothy Sandefur

My friend Clint Bolick has just published his new book, Death Grip: Loosening The Law’s Stranglehold Over Economic Liberty, with the Hoover Institution. It looks like a great discussion of how previous Supreme Court decisions—especially the Slaughterhouse Cases—have ramifications in daily life for so many hardworking entrepreneurs today. And on a personal note, Clint is not only the nicest man in the world, but is the man who convinced me to go to law school in the first place! In fact, it was hearing his talk about the Colorado taxi case, Jones v. Temmer, while I was a college senior that persuaded me that I wanted to defend private property rights and economic liberty in court. So I’m glad to see that he starts out his book with a discussion of the case (and you can read that in the free excerpt on Hoover’s website).

This is the third of four new books about economic liberty and the law that have come out in just the past year. First came my Right to Earn A Living, and then Liberty of Contract, by David Mayer at Capital University—a marvelous short history of the law of economic freedom that manages to be at once brief and very thoroughly researched. And in May, Prof. David Bernstein, the nation’s leading authority on the Lochner case, will release his new book about that decision, called Rehabilitating Lochner. I have read the manuscript of the latter, and it’s great. It is very exciting to see so many solid works coming out on the importance of constitutional protections for economic liberty!