H Geoffrey Brennan

The power to tax : analytical foundations of a fiscal constitution

Preface 1. Taxation in constitutional perspective 2. Natural government: a model of Leviathan 3. Constraints on base and rate structure 4. The taxation of commodities 5. Taxation through time: income taxes, capital taxes, and public debt 6. Money creation and taxation 7. The disposition of public revenues 8. The domain of politics 9. Open economy, federalism, and taxing authority 10. Toward authentic tax reform: prospects and prescriptions Epilogue Notes Selected bibliography Index.

The hidden economy of esteem

A generation of social theorists have argued that if free-rider considerations show that certain collective action predicaments are unresolvable under individual, rational choice – unresolvable under an arrangement where each is free to pursue their own relative advantage – then those considerations will equally show that the predicaments cannot be resolved by recourse to norms (Buchanan, 1975, p. 132; Heath, 1976, p. 30; Sober and Wilson, 1998, 156ff; Taylor, 1987, p. 144). If free-rider considerations explain why people do not spontaneously keep the streets clean, though they would each prefer unlittered streets, then those considerations will also explain why there is no effective norm against littering the streets.

Against reviving republicanism

The strategy of this article is to consider republicanism in contrast with liberalism. We focus on three aspects of this contrast: republicanism’s emphasis on ‘social goods’ under various conceptualizations of that category; republicanism’s emphasis on political participation as an essential element of the ‘good life’; and republicanism’s distinctive understanding of freedom (following the lines developed by Pettit). In each case, we are skeptical that what republicanism offers is superior to the liberal alternative and indicate the grounds for that skepticism.

Economics and religion : are they distinct?

1. Introduction: Economics and Religion? H.G. Brennan, A.M.C. Waterman. Case Studies: 2. Theological Positions and Economic Perspectives in Ancient Literature B. Gordon. 3. Whately, Senior and the Methodology of Classical Economics A.M.C. Waterman. 4. John Bates Clark: the Religious Imperative J.F. Henry. 5. Wicksteed: Economist and Prophet I. Steedman. 6. Frank Knight: Economics versus Religion R.B. Emmett. 7. ORDO Liberalism and the Social Market Economy R.E. Wagner. 8. Keynes and Knowledge T.K. Rymes. Interpretative Essays: 9. The Impact of Theological Predisposition on Economics: a Commentary H.G. Brennan. 10. Mappings of (Economic) Meaning: Here be Monsters A.B. Cramp. 11. The Religious Content of Economics S.C. Dow. 12. Comments G.C. Harcourt. 13. Review of the Evidence P. Heyne. 14. Economics as Religion R.H. Nelson. 15. The Impossibility of a Theologically Sensitive Economics K.I. Vaughn. 16. Summary if not Conclusions H.G. Brennan, A.M.C. Waterman. References. Author Index. Subject Index.

Five Rational Actor Accounts of the Welfare State

In this paper, I want to explore possible explanations of the ‘welfare state’. I am not here interested in defending the welfare state, or criticising it, or suggesting how it might be made more effective. I want rather to treat it as a political phenomenon, and to ask what kind of explanation (or explanations) the rational choice tradition of political theory might offer as to why the welfare state came into being, and what impulses if any its continued existence depends on. Put a slightly different way, I am interested in the question: is distributive justice politically feasible? Or more specifically, what is it about political processes (if anything) that inclines us to the view that they are more conducive to the achievement of distributive justice than markets are? After all, a standard picture of the welfare state involves the proposition that the freely operating, more or less competitive, market order is likely to give rise to a distribution of income that shows excessive dispersion from the point of view of distributive justice. Or, if the market order is not likely to generate excessive income inequality, it at least cannot robustly ensure that excessive inequality will not emerge. That being so, we need government to correct the market distribution, or to be available to correct it, should norms of distributive justice require such corrective measures. Or so the argument goes. However, one of the important and consistent general themes of public choice theory (that brand of rational actor political theory that emerges from welfare economics) has been that this kind of justification for government action is inadequate. Perhaps interpreted as a statement about alternative conceivable distributions, the proposition that less dispersion ceteris paribus is better than more is unexceptionable (though which particular ceteris would have to

Revisionist Public Choice Theory

In a recent essay, Thomas Christiano coined a distinction between ‘mainstream’ and ‘revisionist’ rational choice political theory, and cast us in the role of revisionist theorists. While we disagree with some aspects of Christiano’s argument, we broadly accept our designated role as revisionist public choice theorists. The major purposes of this brief essay are to provide a summary statement of the revisionist position as we see it, and to sketch what we see as the advantages of this position over its more mainstream alternative. One preliminary terminological note requires some attention. While Christiano refers to ‘rational choice political theory’, in this essay we will use the term ‘public choice theory’. However, we do not intend this use of terms to indicate a distinction. Indeed, for the purposes of this discussion we take the two phrases to be interchangeable. We believe that the choice between ‘rational choice political theory’ and ‘public choice theory’ is more a matter of identifying the audience than it is of identifying either methodological or substantive distinctions. A central point of relevance in relation to public choice theory concerns the specification of the content of the idea of rationality. In Christiano’s terminology, with which we have no argument, mainstream rational choice theory

Comprehending conservatism: frameworks and analysis

Jan-Werner Müller provides a four-dimensional framework for comprehending conservatism as a political ideology. We focus on conservatism as a political philosophy, rather than an ideology, and provide more detailed analysis in order to re-assess Müllers framework; arguing that the suggested sociological and aesthetic dimensions do not play significant roles in defining political conservatism, while the suggested methodological and philosophical dimensions are better understood in terms of an alternative analytic structure.

An introduction to the status quo

The following collection of articles focus on the role and status of the idea of the status quo in constitutional economics, and derive from a symposium held in May 2004 in Blacksburg, Virginia. This brief note provides an introduction both to the papers presented and to some of the issues raised in considering the status quo.

Esteem, Norms of Participation and Public Goods Supply

Festschrifts are an occasion for registering the esteem in which the honouree is held. Given Beat Blankart’s significant contributions to public economics over an extended career, we thought it appropriate for this occasion to write a paper on a public economics topic in which esteem figures as a major analytic category. In that sense, esteem here plays a double role — as content and as intent.

The Logic of Spatial Politics: The 1998 Queensland Election

This paper combines one of the few facts we know about the 1998 Queensland state election, ie the break-up of seats before and after the poll, with some straightforward assumptions about political behaviour to develop a spatial model of the election. In doing so, we reach interesting conclusions about the nature of the political contest in Queensland and highlight the existence of somewhat surprising similarities and differences between the policies of the main parties. Just as in mathematics when we can imagine a line and then imagine it projected out further, even to infinity, through the exercise of rational thought, so in politics we can consider actions and calculate consequences. Remark ascribed to John Wallis, Professor of Geometry at Oxford University in the seventeenth century. (Pears 1997, 435)