Lochner: The Moment of Creation: And it was good?

 Here we are at the moment of creation of the SDP right to contract:

"The statute necessarily interferes with the right of contract between the employer and employees, concerning the number of hours in which the latter may labor in the bakery of the employer. The general right to make a contract in relation to his business is part of the liberty of the individual protected by the 14th Amendment of the Federal Constitution....Under that provision no state can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The right to purchase or to sell labor is part of the liberty protected by this amendment, unless there are circumstances which exclude the right." Lochner at page 502.

When the Court reads its own moral and policy views into the Constitution, those views tend to be those held by elite groups in society, by the 1%.

 Consider this statement by one scholar:

“After noting that the American Bar Association was founded in 1878, Professor Corwin described its early years as ‘a sort of juristic sewing circle for mutual education in the gospel of laissez faire’ . . . .  From this base, there emerged a ‘rising demand in professional circles for an indefinite extension of judicial review in the name of “liberty” and “due process of law” . . . .’”  [See Buchanan, “The Right of Privacy,” 16 Ohio Northern L. Rev. 403, 411 n. 41 (1989)(citing E. Corwin, Liberty Against Government 137-38, 139-40 (1948).]

What kind of "juristic sewing circle" are legal and cultural elites participating in in contemporary America?

Here is how Prof. Nowak describes this period of economic liberty: 
    
    “Freedom in the marketplace and freedom to contract were viewed as liberties which were protected by the due process clause.  Thus, the justices would invalidate a law if they thought it restricted economic liberty in a way that was not reasonably related to a legitimate end.  Because they did not view labor regulation, price control, or other economic measures as legitimate “ends” in themselves, only a limited amount of business regulation could pass this test.  Only when the justices were convinced that the regulation actually promoted public health, safety, or some other important 'public interest' would they uphold the law.”