ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an example of good society analysis of the kind just sketched. It considers the prospects for realizing a commercial republican regime in the United States. A commercial republic is one of several regimes that have been commended by a long line of political thinkers, and the United States is the nation that has made the most sustained effort to realize it. The analysis of a particular attempt to realize a commercial republic can then tell us much about whether such a regime ought to have a serious hold on those committed to a just politics. A theory of the political constitution of the commercial republic must start by considering what a "constitution" in fact is, and particularly by discussing the nature of the political institutions that are its principal components. A commercial republic is a republican regime in the sense that the opinions of the governed will be regularly consulted and will constrain the actions of governors.
