American liberal constitutionalism regards private ownership and freedom of contract as the most important natural rights, it prohibiting on the one hand the democratic transformation of these rights, and on the other hand indulging in the deprivation of social and public power by capital within contractual relations. Under the patronage of liberal constitutionalism, financial capital is emerged from the monopolistic integration of functional capital, shifting the cost of the crisis of financial capital to the middle and lower classes, which in turn causes increasing social polarization. At a time of growing social contradictions, financial capital turns to support right-wing populism to divert popular discontent through identity politics that stresses racial and cultural characteristics, thereby impacting the principles the universalist civic principle and abstract republican principle of liberal constitutionalism and highlighting the inherent logic of liberal constitutionalism towards self-denial in practice.

Editor: Zhong Yao、Zheng Yifan

From:World Socialism Studies.2023.No.1.