Synopses & Reviews
As diverse as the papers presented in this volume may seem at first glance, all of them touch on two characteristic themes of James Buchanans work: the respect for individual sovereignty and the threat of monopoly power on the rights of the individual.
In his foreword, Hartmut Kliemt says, As opposed to more extreme and more utopian libertarians, [Buchanan] well understands that in our world it takes a state to defend the individual from the state. Buchanan, therefore, is not an anarchist but, rather, what may be called a reluctant anarchist who accepts both that the state is the greatest threat to individual sovereignty and that without some statelike monopoly, individual sovereignty cannot be protected.”
The twenty-six essays included in Federalism, Liberty, and the Law are grouped into these categories:
1.The Analytics of Federalism
2.Federalism and Freedom
3.Liberty, Man, and the State
4.The Constitution of Markets
5.Economists, Efficiency, and the Law
6.Law, Money, and Crime
The central issue that unites the pieces in this volume is monopoly power and its control. As a libertarian, Buchanan sees government as the greatest threatand also the greatest protectorof individual liberties.
James M. Buchanan is an eminent economist who won the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986 and is considered one of the greatest scholars of liberty in the twentieth century.
The entire series will include:
Volume 1: The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty
Volume 2: Public Principles of Public Debt
Volume 3: The Calculus of Consent
Volume 4: Public Finance in Democratic Process
Volume 5: The Demand and Supply of Public Goods
Volume 6: Cost and Choice
Volume 7: The Limits of Liberty
Volume 8: Democracy in Deficit
Volume 9: The Power to Tax
Volume 10: The Reason of Rules
Volume 11: Politics by Principle, Not Interest
Volume 12: Economic Inquiry and Its Logic
Volume 13: Politics as Public Choice
Volume 14: Debt and Taxes
Volume 15: Externalities and Public Expenditure Theory
Volume 16: Choice, Contract, and Constitutions
Volume 17: Moral Science and Moral Order
Volume 18: Federalism, Liberty, and the Law
Volume 19: Ideas, Persons, and Events
Volume 20: Indexes
Table of Contents
Foreword xi 1.The Analytics of Federalism
Federalism and Fiscal Equity 3
An Efficiency Basis for Federal Fiscal Equalization (James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner) 23
Efficiency Limits of Fiscal Mobility: An Assessment of the Tiebout Model (James M. Buchanan and Charles J. Goetz) 44 2.Federalism and Freedom
Federalism as an Ideal Political Order and an Objective for Constitutional Reform 67
Federalism and Individual Sovereignty 79
Economic Freedom and Federalism: Prospects for the New Century 90
Europe ’Constitutional Opportunity 99
National Politics and Competitive Federalism: Italy and the Constitution of Europe 118
On a Fiscal Constitution for the European Union (James M. Buchanan and Dwight R. Lee) 131
Secession and the Limits of Taxation: Toward a Theory of Internal Exit (James M. Buchanan and Roger L. Faith) 148 3.Liberty, Man, and the State
Man and the State 167
Criteria for a Free Society: Definition, Diagnosis, and Prescription 173
The Individual as Participant in Political Exchange 185
Towards the Simple Economics of Natural Liberty: An Exploratory Analysis 198
Property as a Guarantor of Liberty 216 4.The Constitution of Markets
On the Structure of an Economy: A Re-emphasis of Some Classical Foundations 263
Market Failure and Political Failure 276
The Market as a Creative Process (James M. Buchanan and Viktor J. Vanberg) 289
Cultural Evolution and Institutional Reform 311 5.Economists, Efficiency, and the Law
Good Economics —Bad Law 327
Comment 338
Politics, Property, and the Law: An Alternative Interpretation of Miller et al. v. Schoene 342
In Defense of Caveat Emptor 358
Notes on Irrelevant Externalities, Enforcement Costs and the Atrophy of Property Rights 369 6.Law, Money, and Crime
Gold, Money and the Law: The Limits of Governmental Monetary Authority (James M. Buchanan and T. Nicolaus Tideman) 385
A Defense of Organized Crime? 432 Name Index 449 Subject Index 453