While the debate may be “curiously non-ideological,” it’s somewhat odd to suggest that the trend emerged as either political decisions or economic determinism. To test this flimsily supported theory, you have to look back at the political forks in the road and ask whether they’re but-for causes of the current decline of the middle class. We’re in a skills-based economy. Might as well get used to it instead of pretending we can resurrect the past without immensely punitive tax and redistribution schemes.

Also, criticizing that evil Chicago school and the social darwinist right probably feels good, but claiming that enterpreneurs are going to suffer because the big corporations win the competitive battle due to pro-competitive antitrust laws is misguided. If they’re merely offering a similar good or service which a larger corporation can provide more cheaply, that doesn’t really strike me as entrepreneurship, but as poor business judgment. Consumer market tastes are becoming more particularized, consumers care about how their goods are produced more than ever before, and the internet has dramatically reduced geographic constraints to new market entrants. That we don’t see more small business growth may suggest that we’re not equipping the creative workforce with the right tools to be successful in the market.

Orin is exactly right that we need to look more at whether we have the proper incentives for *creative* enterpreneurs instead of wringing our hands over whether everyone who earns a JD will be set for life. One labor market is undersupplied, one is oversupplied–zhouldn’t we start there instead of jumping straight into the political arena?

1) duly noted. . . my rushed comment paints in broad strokes.

2. I take that approach re skepticism about economics (or at least a need to supplement it with other points of view), but I don’t think many others do.

3. Just blog syntax!

2. Maybe a reason for the nonideological tenor of the professional students’ laments is because they’re fed the fiction that economics *is* a study of natural forces. If you’re teaching law and economics to your students, do you go out of your way to tell them economics is a kind of applied politics (notwithstanding that its planes of cleavage don’t necessarily match those of US party politics), rather than a science?

3. Apropos of David Cay Johnston, I haven’t read his work, but are you suggesting that attorneys get tax breaks *for themselves* that smother the hopes of entrepreneurs? or was that just blog syntax?

As for the lawyers for people like Deborah Shank or Lily Ledbetter–I have a hard time characterizing them as having too much clout.

Of course, given the bimodal distribution of starting lawyer salaries that Bill Henderson has discussed, there’s an important class overlay on the simple plaintiff/defense division I’ve drawn. But in the end what helps the plaintiff bar creates demand for the defense bar, so I feel it’s accurate to describe lawyers as a group with some common economic interests.

MC: The class war has been on for a long time; the books I’m citing are a belated call for its victims to organize a defense.

Maybe I’m breaking the rules by speaking against the guild, but I would think that any forces that lessen the clout of lawyers is likely to be good for America. We have too much influence and too much clout to be the subject of a great deal of concern, I think. Maybe I’m just quirky, but I’m much more interested in what forces are helping or hurting the small businesses and entrepreneurs in our society that create jobs than I am in what happens to my fellow attorneys.