Abstract

Recently, the academic debate has shown a resurgence of interest in the notion of material constitution. The essay explores the reasons for this revival. First, it critically analyses two alternative readings of the constitution, noting that, although they get to opposing understandings, they reflect the same logic: on the one hand, the jurisdictionalisation of the fundamental direction of the constitution and the technocratic neutralization of democratic politics; on the other hand, the use of emergencyism as an ordinary mode of government threatening both social rights and constitutional freedoms. Then, the contribution examines the impact of the new neoliberal economic constitution on the labour and democratic-participatory core that Costantino Mortati and his students considered as the essence of the material constitution. Arguing that nowadays this core has been replaced by the external constraints of financial markets and the eurozones, the essay proposes to read the material constitution as an internal constraint, i.e. as the constitution of the state of the masses, and gets to the conclusion that in so far as neoliberalism is hostile to the state of the masses, it is incompatible with the material constitution.