The Reason of Rules

by Brennan, Geoffrey

• ISBN13: 9780865972315
• ISBN10: 0865972311
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Liberty Fund

Summary

In his foreword, Robert D Tollison identifies the main objective of Geoffrey Brennan and James M Buchanan's THE REASON OF RULES: "...a book-length attempt to focus the energies of economists and other social analysts on the nature and function of the rules under which ordinary political life and market life function." In persuasive style, Brennan and Buchanan argue that too often economists become mired in explaining the obvious or constructing elaborate mathematical models to shed light on trivial phenomena. Their solution: economics as a discipline would be better focused on deriving normative procedures for establishing rules so that ordinary economic life can proceed unaffected as much as possible by social issues. In THE REASON OF RULES, Brennan and Buchanan sketch out a methodological and analytical framework for the establishment of rules. They point out that the consideration of rules has its roots in classical economics and has been hinted at in the work of some contemporary economists. But the enterprise of applying the analytical rigor of modern economics to the establishment of effective rules is the little-traveled road that bears the most promise. In fact, the basic idea of the importance of rules is a thread that runs through virtually the whole of Buchanan's distinguished career, and it is one of his signal contributions to the contemporary discipline of economics. THE REASON OF RULES is an elaboration of the potential for rules and the normative process by which they can best be devised.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Preface	xv
The Constitutional Imperative	3	(20)
Introduction	3	(2)
Reasons for Rules	5	(3)
Rules of Games	8	(2)
Rules of the Road	10	(6)
Rules of the Market Order	16	(2)
Rules of Political Order	18	(1)
The Importance of Rules	19	(4)
The Contractarian Vision	23	(15)
Introduction	23	(1)
Noncontractarian Constitutionalism	24	(1)
Individuals as Sources of Value	25	(2)
Contract and Exchange	27	(2)
Politics in the Exchange Perspective	29	(2)
Unanimity as the Contractual Ideal	31	(2)
Agreement on Rules and the Veils of Ignorance and Uncertainty	33	(3)
Conclusions	36	(2)
The Myth of Benevolence	38	(15)
Introduction	38	(1)
Private Good and Public Good	39	(4)
Science, Truth, and Politics	43	(3)
The Authoritarian Imperative	46	(2)
Majoritarian Democracy in the Noncontractarian Paradigm	48	(2)
The Aim of Politics	50	(3)
Modeling the Individual for Constitutional Analysis	53	(23)
Introduction	53	(3)
Homo economicus in Politics: The Argument for Symmetry	56	(2)
Science and the Empiricist Defense	58	(1)
A Methodological Defense of the Differential Interest Model of Behavior	59	(2)
Social Evaluation and Quasi--Risk Aversion	61	(7)
Gresham's Law in Politics	68	(5)
Summary	73	(3)
Time, Temptation, and the Constrained Future	76	(16)
Preface	76	(1)
Individual Private Choice
Introduction	77	(1)
The Ultimate Z's	77	(1)
Preferences for Preferences	78	(2)
Past, Present, and Future	80	(3)
Individual Public Choice
Introduction	83	(1)
Society with a History	84	(1)
Temporal Interdependence	85	(2)
An Illustration	87	(2)
Moral Rules and/or Constitutional Commitment	89	(3)
Politics Without Rules, I: Time and Nonconstrained Collective Action	92	(16)
Introduction	92	(1)
The Social Discount Rate	93	(1)
The High-Tax Trap	94	(7)
The Inflation Trap	101	(3)
The Public-Debt Trap	104	(2)
Other Examples	106	(1)
Conclusions	107	(1)
Rules and Justice	108	(17)
Introduction	108	(1)
Just Conduct and the Notion of Desert	109	(2)
Justice and Promise Keeping	111	(6)
Justice among Rules	117	(2)
Just Rules, Agreed-on Rules, and Just Conduct	119	(4)
Conclusions	123	(2)
Politics Without Rules, II: Distributive Justice and Distributive Politics	125	(24)
Introduction	125	(1)
Distributive Justice: The Conventional View	126	(2)
The Constitutional Perspective and Institutional Incidence	128	(3)
The Incidence of Unrestricted Majoritarianism	131	(4)
Tax Rules and Distribution under Majority Rule	135	(7)
Direct Constitutionalism and Distributive Justice	142	(4)
Summary	146	(3)
Is Constitutional Revolution Possible in Democracy?	149	(20)
Introduction	149	(2)
Pareto-Superior Change and Wicksellian Unanimity	151	(1)
Distributional Limits and Prospective Rules	152	(3)
Status Quo Entitlements and Distributional Envy	155	(5)
Constitutional Change and Free Riders	160	(2)
The Role of Norms	162	(3)
Toward a Civic Religion	165	(4)
Index	169