THE CONSTITUTION AND A PLANNED ECONOMY

A little more than a decade has passed since the collapse of the wildest speculative orgy ever indulged in by a nation not markedly given to underestimating its own economic and financial potentialities. It came at a time when the conjuncture of world-wide economic forces combined with almost world-wide unsound practices in the fields of international trade and finance had created an extremely unstable economic situation throughout the world. It would require a degree of optimism as large as that entertained by the speculative community during the boom period to believe that the measures and policies adopted and followed during the past decade have solved the political and economic problems with which the whole world has been wrestling during the years since what has now come to be called World War I. No such doubts can be entertained concerning the marked changes that have occurred during the past decade in the political, economic and social philosophies of both the leaders and the general mass of the population in this, as in other countries. It is beyond the purview of this study to trace the precise manner in which many forces and causes have contributed to these changes. This article will be limited to considering the extent to which these shifts in belief and opinion have affected the judicial interpretations of the Constitution in a direction that will make it legally possible to realize the changing views as to the proper functions of government in the control and direction of the nation\u27s social and economic life