Federalism, Liberty and the Law (The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan) (Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, The)

As diverse as the papers presented in this volume may seem at first glance, all of them touch on two characteristic themes of James Buchanan s 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 threat—and also the greatest protector—of 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