Lochner's Argumentative Analysis

During the late nineteenth century, the role of the government in the economy , money, and corporations in politics have been the subjects of some of the most important and pungent constitutional struggles in American history. Today, economic inequality is at its highest level since the early twentieth century. Concerns continue to grow towards the rising inequality that has become incompatible with a functioning and sustainable democracy. The comparison between today and the Lochner Era of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continues to arise from many political and legal commenters. The Court has previously protected the political and economic interests of many corporations and wealthy individuals during periods of economic inequality.

Those who oppose the mandate proclaim the limits of the federal commerce power in terms of individual economic liberty. They argue that the statue of forcing individuals to purchase health insurance forces them into the health insurance markets. Due to this reason opponents argue that the mandate does not regulate commerce at all, alternately it creates commerce by wrongly intruding into individual own decision making. Individual economic freedom is an important value, however to use individual economic freedom to define the limits of the commerce power. In comparison to Lochner Era, where it was used to define the limits of the state police powers, the time when the courts used the name of protecting individual economic liberty, which largely stripped legislatures of their ability to address systematic problems through social welfare. Today, we are confronting the healthcare crises, striking down this law may require reverting back to the Lochner Era conceptions of the Constitution. In spite of opponents’ arguments in terms of the Commerce Clause, their arguments rely on the Lochner idea that individual economic liberty must trump government action to address health and welfare