Search results for ""author charles k rowley""

This major book brings together four essays which rigorously defend classical liberal philosophy and present a convincing justification of the minimal state.In Before Resorting to Politics, the first essay, Anthony de Jasay rejects political solutions, seeks to de-politicise society and provides an original analysis of liberty, coercion, the role of chance and deserts in the distribution of resources. This is followed by Norman Barry's Classical Liberalism in the Age of Post-Communism, a succinct but comprehensive reconstruction of classical liberal theory explaining its implications for law, constitutionalism and public policy. Adam Smith into the Twenty-First Century by Edwin West shows how Smith's liberalism - less ambivalent than that of J.S. Mill and his followers - continues to thrive and is enjoying a revival in the 1990s. In the final essay, Economic Policy in a Liberal Democracy, Richard E. Wagner offers an approach to welfare economics and economic policy appropriate for a classically liberal society.The essays are co-ordinated by an introduction in which Charles K. Rowley explains why some notable classical liberal scholars have abandoned classical liberalism and presents a vigorous philosophical justification for the minimal state. Including essays by some of the most eminent scholars in the field, The Political Economy of the Minimal State makes an important and distinguished contribution to one of the most contentious issues in twentieth century political economy.

Read more less

'They have built a dam across the rivers of justice and then they complain of the drought in the field below.' - With these stinging words W. Clarke Durrant III, then Chairman of the Legal Services Corporation, admonished the American Bar Association in 1987 for its use of monopoly prices to exclude less affluent Americans from access to civil justice.The Right to Justice reviews the history of legal services in the US from its origins in the 1890s to the multi-million dollar Federal program of the late 20th century. But this is no ordinary text. Charles Rowley skilfully shows how government transfers tend to be dissipated in competitive rent-seeking by special interest groups, that much of what is left tends to be subverted to the agendas of the more powerful groups and that the residuals tend to be inefficiently managed by a poorly monitored and ideologically motivated supply bureaucracy. The upshot is that customer preferences play little or no role in the allocation of resources within the legal services budget.In a veritable tour de force, Charles Rowley places the US Federal legal services program on the scholarly rack of public choice - which analyses individual behaviour in terms of universal self-seeking motivations in a political market. He offers a convincing unique explanation of the forces that have subverted a well meaning attempt to assist poor Americans into a co ordinated attack on the central institutions of the family, capitalism and of Madisonian Republicanism which together constitute the essence of the American dream.

Read more less

This impressive book brings together four essays, which along with an insightful introduction from Charles Rowley, provide a robust defence of the concept of classical liberalism in modern 'civil' society. In the first essay, Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Uyl discuss the basic approaches and principles of liberalism in the post-modern age and show how a moral philosophy can serve to support a political philosophy. They supply a clear, fundamental defence of liberalism in an era which has become sceptical of its doctrines. This is followed by Peter Ordeshook's authoritative analysis of the foundations of democracy, in relation to the demise of communist ideology, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Paul Rubin then examines, from a libertarian perspective, the differing methods and degrees of success of adapting contract law in Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in the wake of political change. Finally, Mwangi S. Kimenyi provides an original study of highly centralized, unitary systems of government and the breakdown of civil society in Sub-Saharan Africa. He argues persuasively that institutional reform involving decentralization and federalism can better accommodate ethnic diversity in the area. With contributions from some of the most eminent scholars in the field, Classical Liberalism and Civil Society provides a rigorous justification of classical liberal polity.

Read more less

Property rights lie at the heart of the economic success of any economy and the extent to which its citizens enjoy economic freedom. At a time when Eastern Europe is breaking free from the yoke of collectivist-socialist ideas, this book presents essays by four political economists evaluating a range of feasible reforms intended to breathe new life into constitutional republicanism. The first essay by James M. Buchanan grounds the defence of private property ownership in the protection that it affords to individual liberty. This is followed by a succinct but comprehensive account by Gordon Tullock of his research programme in rent seeking. This is a great and instructive contribution which skilfully draws out the dangerous implications of rent seeking for private property rights. A far-reaching and insightful essay by Richard E. Wagner exposes the failure of the United States constitution to overcome the tyranny of the majority so feared by the Founding Fathers: the author demonstrates why the tyranny of the majority cannot be overcome by a written constitution unless the institutions of society are designed to offer complementary support to limited government and the rule of law. In the final essay, Charles Rowley retraces the history of social choice theory, identifies the errors that it has promulgated and the corrective lessons that can be learned from the classical liberal philosophy that it has substantially ignored. Including essays by some of the most eminent scholars in the field, Property Rights and the Limits of Democracy makes an important and distinguished contribution to one of the most central issues in political economy in the late twentieth century.

Read more less

Gordon Tullock is among a small group of living legends in the field of political economics. This volume provides an entree to the mind of an original thinker. Professor Rowley provides deliberately sparse contextual introduction to each volume, opting to allow the very able and eloquent Tullock to speak for himself.

Read more less

This major reference collection presents in three volumes the key articles and papers on social choice theory.Volume One centres attention on key aspects of the debate on Arrow's impossibility theorem, carefully counter-poising differing viewpoints and embracing competing methodologies. In a field prone to the excessive use of mathematics and of arcane high theory, Charles Rowley skilfully presents a literature which is accessible to non-mathematicians and yet which offers full coverage of all the major debates. Volumes two and three extend the coverage of social choice theory to review the attempts of leading scholars to resolve the ageless problems of determining social goals and reconciling apparent inconsistencies among such goals. Professor Rowley carefully guides the reader through a litany of approaches, both methodological individualist and social engineering, ends-related and process-related in nature. Volume two reprints leading contributions to the utilitarian and contractarian ethics while volume three completes this exercise with material on the social justice and contractarian ethics. Professor Rowley's own introductory essay exposes the social choice research programme to his own Virginian critique, while integrating a large, diffuse literature into a unified whole.

Read more less

This unique collection of largely unpublished papers brings together the founding fathers of law and economics to provide their own views on the origins and intellectual history of the field. Law and economics emerged as a separate field of scholarship during the early 1960s, fueled by two seminal papers, one by Ronald Coase and one by Guido Calabresi. The ideas generated by scholars researching in the field have deeply influenced the major disciplines of economics and the law.These 16 essays (including three by Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences) provide an impressive blend of differing experiences and varying perspectives, reflecting on the intellectual foundations of the field, its early struggles for recognition, and its remarkable advance during the last four decades of the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first. The essays clearly outline, and contribute new insights into, all of the central issues of this still vibrant research programme. A unifying theme of the book is the central importance attached by each scholar to scientific analysis, rather than to any particular ideology or dogma.This book provides an absorbing intellectual history of law and economics, and will be a fascinating read for academics and researchers with an interest in law and economics, the history of economic thought, public choice and public policy.

Read more less

This unique collection of largely unpublished papers brings together the founding fathers of law and economics to provide their own views on the origins and intellectual history of the field. Law and economics emerged as a separate field of scholarship during the early 1960s, fueled by two seminal papers, one by Ronald Coase and one by Guido Calabresi. The ideas generated by scholars researching in the field have deeply influenced the major disciplines of economics and the law.These 16 essays (including three by Nobel Laureates in Economic Sciences) provide an impressive blend of differing experiences and varying perspectives, reflecting on the intellectual foundations of the field, its early struggles for recognition, and its remarkable advance during the last four decades of the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first. The essays clearly outline, and contribute new insights into, all of the central issues of this still vibrant research programme. A unifying theme of the book is the central importance attached by each scholar to scientific analysis, rather than to any particular ideology or dogma.This book provides an absorbing intellectual history of law and economics, and will be a fascinating read for academics and researchers with an interest in law and economics, the history of economic thought, public choice and public policy.

Read more less

This monograph provides a detailed explanation how the Great Depression and the current financial crisis and economic contraction in the United States were both caused by and exacerbated by government, not by capitalism. The monograph provides a well-reasoned free market alternative to current statist policies with respect to economic recovery in the United States.

Read more less

The Economics of Budget Deficits provides a comprehensive overview of the scholarly literature exploring the causes and consequences of deficit spending and the public debt. Incorporating classical, Keynesian and public choice analyses of debt-financed public expenditures, the two volumes contain major theoretical and empirical contributions to the debate. They cover such critical fiscal policy issues as the history and measurement of budget deficits, the question of who bears the burden of the public debt, the use of deficits to solve problems of dynamic policy inconsistency and the relative effectiveness of fiscal rules and constitutional constraints as mechanisms for achieving budget balance. The editors provide an authoritative introduction to the two volumes and separate overviews of each of the seven parts. The Economics of Budget Deficits is an indispensable reference for all scholars and students interested in fiscal policy and for all policymakers.

Read more less

Trade policy in the United States since 1930 is rigorously evaluated in this major new book. Using public choice analysis to identify and explain protectionist behavior, Charles K. Rowley, Willem Thorbecke and Richard E. Wagner demonstrate why unilateral free trade cannot be achieved through the normal political process and make a strong case for constitutional reform.Trade Protection in the United States analyzes the history of US trade policy to explain why interest groups are able to foster protectionist policies despite the advantages which free trade offers consumers. The authors also explain why the principles of managed trade - as epitomized in the institution of the GATT - are inevitably subverted by protectionism. This important book concludes with a vigorous justification of unilateral free trade and makes a convincing case for protecting the freedom to trade through an amendment to the US constitution.Applying recent developments in constitutional political economy to a key policy issue, this book will be welcomed by economists, political scientists and lawyers as a major statement of the right to trade.

Read more less