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In this Essay I explore the impetus for the Seventeenth Amendment, which was in large measure driven by an effort to curb corruption in senatorial elections. I begin by exploring the difficulty of formal amendment in the United States. I explain the rules of formal amendment and I review briefly the empirical literature suggesting that the United States Constitution is one of the world’s most difficult to amend, if not the most difficult. Then, I discuss the Progressive Era, a period of time during which formal amendment seemed much easier than it is today. I review the movement and its purposes, and I situate the four Progressive Era amendments. Finally, I focus on one of these four amendments, the Seventeenth, and consider the motivations driving its adoption as well as current critiques about its effectiveness. I conclude by questioning whether repealing the Seventeenth Amendment would necessarily reinstate indirect senatorial elections as a matter of practice, whatever it would mean as a matter of formal law.

Tomando Thorstein Veblen como autor de um sistema original de economia política, este artigo explora as conexões entre o contexto social e a estrutura do método e da teoria que o fundador do institucionalismo propôs. Dentro disso, duas ideias se destacam: analisar o sistema vebleniano, tomando predominantemente por base o capítulo introdutório de seu livro de 1914, The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of Industrial Arts, aqui considerado como a mais clara exposição de sua economia política; e, em consonância com um conjunto de interpretações historiográficas do tempo e do lugar de Veblen, expor a estrutura da sua proposta teórico-metodológica como reflexo dessas condições contextuais.Taking Thorstein Veblen as the author of an original system of political economy, this article explores the connections between the social context and the structure of his method and theory. Within this, two ideas take precedence: to approach the veblenian system predominately based on the introductory chapter of his 1914 book, The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of Industrial Arts, which is considered as the clearest exposure of his political economy; and, in compliance with a set of historical interpretations of his time and place, to show the structure of his methodological and theoretical proposal as a reflex of these contextual conditions.

This essay aims to discuss the socalled First Law and Economics Movement, linked to the American Progressive Era, whose design allowed a paradigmatic rupture in the american legal practice. Lawyers and economists have joined together to unravel by one hand, the positions assumed by the distinctly economistic U.S. Supreme Court in the early twentieth century, based on laissez-faire and justified, contrary sense, as mere formalists; on the other hand, sought to propose interaction of both disciplines (law and economics) to enhance the consideration of historical and social aspects of judicial decisions and, therefore, open for the discussion of the possibility of redefining the economic fundamentals of the general welfare of society. In this sense, it welcomes, therefore, the existence of an economic movement of the law, linked with the progressists and clearly earlier from that started in the 60s of the twentieth century by the University of Chicago.O presente ensaio visa discorrer sobre o chamado First Law and Economics Movement, vinculado à Progressive Era Americana, cuja concepção possibilitou uma ruptura paradigmática na prática jurídica dos Estados Unidos. Juristas e economistas se uniram para desvendar, por um lado, as posições nitidamente economicistas assumidas pela Suprema Corte Americana no início do século XX, fundadas na economia do laissez-faire e justificadas, contrário senso, como meramente formalistas; por outro, buscaram propor a interação de ambas as disciplinas (direito e economia) para potencializar a consideração dos aspectos histórico-sociais das decisões judiciais e, com isso, abrir vista à discussão acerca da possibilidade de se redefinir os fundamentos econômicos do bem-estar geral da sociedade. Nesse sentido, enaltece-se, por consequência, a existência de um movimento econômico do (ao) direito de cunho progressista e nitidamente anterior aquele iniciado na década de 60 do século XX pela University of Chicago.

This essay aims to discuss the so-called First Law and Economics Movement, linked to the American Progressive Era, whose design allowed a paradigmatic rupture in the american legal practice. Lawyers and economists have joined together to unravel by one hand, the positions assumed by the distinctly economistic U.S. Supreme Court in the early twentieth century, based on laissez-faire and justified, contrary sense, as mere formalists; on the other hand, sought to propose interaction of both disciplines (law and economics) to enhance the consideration of historical and social aspects of judicial decisions and, therefore, open for the discussion of the possibility of redefining the economic fundamentals of the general welfare of society. In this sense, it welcomes, therefore, the existence of an economic movement of the law, linked with the progressists and clearly earlier from that started in the 60s of the twentieth century by the University of Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]