Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig has written a book, Republic, Lost.

Lessig introduces the book and discusses it’s implications for the Occupy Wall Street movement, here.

A Republic — by which the framers meant, as Federalist 10 makes clear, a “representative democracy.” By which the framers expected, as Federalist 52makes clear, a Congress “dependent upon the People alone.” … But ours is not a Congress “dependent upon the People alone” — or even mainly. It has instead allowed a different dependency to grow within its midst: a dependency upon the Funders of its campaigns. And so great is that different and conflicting dependency that even the worst financial crisis in three generations can’t break [that dependency]. Neither party dares to cross Wall Street, since both parties know they could not win control of Congress or the White House without Wall Street’s money. So they feed the addiction, and ignore the real work that they should be doing.

Marvin Ammori reviews Republic Lost at Balkinization.

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