Liberty Fund

An Important Difference Between Historians and Originalist Law Professors

Objectives in studying the past matter, because there is a difference between the historian's “what the past is telling us” and original meaning.

John Stuart Mill discusses the origins of the state whereby the "productive class" seeks protection from one "member of the predatory class" in order to gain some security of property (1848)

Struggling for Justice Among Nations: A.J. Coates and The Ethics of War

Just war theory should not be an exercise in international law, nor should it be dismissed as unrealistic: A.J. Coates offers a way forward.

Neil Monnery on Hong Kong and the Architect of Prosperity

Neil Monnery, author of Architect of Prosperity, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book–a biography of John Cowperthwaite, the man often credited with the economic success of Hong Kong. Monnery describes the policies that Cowperthwaite championed and the role they played in the evolution of Hong Kong’s economy. How much those policies mattered is the focus of the conversation. Other topics include the relationship between Hong Kong and China and the irony of the challenges Hong Kong faced from U.S. and British protectionism.

Decentralization and international affairs, by Scott Sumner

In previous posts, I’ve criticized the US for bullying other countries to adopt our policies on issues such as tax evasion.  Here’s an excerpt from a 2015 post:

It seems breathtakingly arrogant for the US to insist that other countries have the same privacy laws that we have. But this is worse. How would you describe a country that used its awesome power to intimidate small countries to abandon their long cultural tradition of protecting privacy, and then turned around and drew in vast amounts of ill-gotten gains from overseas by shielding those investments from public scrutiny?

Today the problem is far worse.  Back in 2015, the US bullied countries on issues where there was substantial international support for the American position.  Today, the US is the outlier, and yet we continue to bully smaller nations.  Consider the following two facts:

1. There is very widespread support among developed nations for the Iran nuclear deal.

2. There is very widespread opposition among developed nations to launching international trade wars.

The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 7 (Society and Solitude) (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909). Vol. 7 Society and Solitude.

Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism: A Law and Liberty Symposium

Yoram Hazony's The Virtue of Nationalism offers a staunch defense of a world order anchored around independent nation-states.

Virgil Storr, "Marx and the Morality of Capitalism" (October, 2018)

This year is the bicentennial of the birth of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and in this month's Liberty Matters online discussion we will explore the strengths and weaknesses of Marx's political, economic, and social thought. The lead essay is by Virgil Store, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center and a professor of economics at George Mason University, where he explores Marx's "moral critique of capitalism" which he argues underlies his economic and social critiques of capitalism. He is joined in this discussion by Pete Boettke, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University; Steve Horwitz, Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in the department of economics at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana; David Prychitko, professor of economics at Northern Michigan University; and David Hart, the Director of Liberty Fund's Online Library of Liberty Project.

See the Archive of "Liberty Matters".

Predictable Irrationality and the Crisis of 2008

A decade after the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, economists are still grappling with its nature and significance. An important recent contribution is A Crisis of Beliefs, by Nicola Gennaioli and Andrei Shleifer (henceforth GS).1 They tell the story this way (page 7):

Homebuyers were unrealistically optimistic about future home price growth. Investors in mortgages and in securities backed by these mortgages, including financial institutions, considered the possibility that home prices might fall but did not fully appreciate how much and what havoc those declines would wreak. And macroeconomic forecasters from both the private sector and the Federal Reserve did not, in forming their expectations, recognize the risks facing the U.S. financial sector and the economy as late as the summer of 2008… they did not fully appreciate tail risks until the Lehman collapse [the investment bank went bankrupt in September of 2008] laid them bare.

Testing Textualism by Reading Biblical Law

Twisting orignalism and textualism into blunt tools isn't fair or representative of how scholars and judges think about legal texts.

The Metaphysics of Ethics (Immanuel Kant)

The Metaphysics of Ethics by Immanuel Kant, trans. J.W. Semple, ed. with Iintroduction by Rev. Henry Calderwood (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1886) (3rd edition).

Knowledge, Risk, and the Surprised Banker: A Conversation with Alex Pollock

Alex Pollock discusses the philosophy of finance and why the quant guys keep getting it wrong.

Tariffs and the Trade Deficit, by Pierre Lemieux

Michael Hicks, a professor of economics at Ball State University, tweeted on Monday:

For everyone who thinks trade policy (tariffs) will affect the trade deficit (instead of just slowing economic activity in general, as taxes without better public services tend to do, I offer Exhibit #1: US Trade Deficit Grows for months after Trump’s Tariffs.

Instead of reproducing the trade deficit chart used by Professor Hicks, my figure shows exports and imports separately. The increase in the trade deficit (the difference between the two curves) since June can be seen clearly.

Many people seem puzzled by the fact that the U.S. trade deficit does not necessarily decrease as tariffs are increased. But this is not surprising when you realize that the trade deficit is influenced by many other factors, including the value of the dollar, the net inflow of foreign investment, total domestic savings, and the federal budget deficit, to name the obvious suspects.

Past Is Prologue in Ken Starr’s Contempt

One of the most unsettling aspects of former independent counsel Ken Starr’s memoir is that his cast of characters from the 90s remains prominent today.

Antitrust

Origins:
Before 1890, the only “antitrust” law was the common law. Contracts that allegedly restrained trade (e.g., price-fixing agreements) often were not legally enforceable, but they did not subject the parties to any legal sanctions, either. Nor were monopolies illegal. Economists generally believe that monopolies and other restraints of trade are bad because they usually reduce total output, and therefore the overall economic well-being for producers and consumers (see monopoly). Indeed, the term “restraint of trade” indicates exactly why economists dislike monopolies and cartels. But the law itself did not penalize monopolies. The Sherman Act of 1890 changed all that by outlawing cartelization (every “contract, combination . . . or conspiracy” that was “in restraint of trade”) and monopolization (including attempts to monopolize).

The Sherman Act defines neither the practices that constitute restraints of trade nor monopolization. The second important antitrust statute, the Clayton Act, passed in 1914, is somewhat more specific. It outlaws, for example, certain types of price discrimination (charging different prices to different buyers), “tying” (making someone who wants to buy good A buy good B as well), and mergers—but only when the effects of these practices “may be substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly.” The Clayton Act also authorizes private antitrust suits and triple damages, and exempts labor organizations from the antitrust laws.

Objections to Impeachment: The Protest that “This Hasn’t Been Our Practice,” Part 1

Impeachment practice tells us almost nothing – and nothing at all clear or authoritative – that would “settle” the Constitution’s meaning.

Edmund Burke on liberty as "social" not "individual" liberty (1789)

Plato’s Concept of Liberty in the Laws

YOUNG, C. HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT Abstract: In this article, I argue that Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between positive and negative concepts of liberty is useful for articulating nuanced aspects of Platonic liberty, but that this terminology has led readers to fail to grasp the full dimensions of Plato’s conception of liberty and the essential virtue that […]

Chaucer's Astrolabe

Treatise on the Astrolabe for his son in about 1400 in order to encourage him to learn about science. It was calibrated to the latitude of Oxford.

The Latest at ASW

How Open Borders Died in Five Countries, by Bryan Caplan

During the last half of the 19th century , many countries competed to attract immigrants.  All of them eventually reversed course, but how exactly did this reversal unfold?  In “Immigration Policy Prior to the 1930s” (Population and Development Review, 1998), Ashley Timmer and Jeffrey Williams show what happened to immigration policy in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, and the United Kingdom from 1860 to 1930.

Timmer and Williams begin by proposing a policy coding system.  Quick version, “The index ranges over a scale of +5 to -5. A positive score denotes a pro-immigration policy, possibly including comprehensive subsidies for passage and for support upon arrival. A negative score denotes anti-immigration policy, possibly including quotas, literacy tests, and legal discriminatory treatment after arrival. A zero denotes policy neutrality, or a neutral outcome between conflicting pro- and anti-immigration policies.”

Objections to Impeachment: “This Hasn’t Been Our Practice,” Part 2

The argument that popular understanding alters constitutional meaning is really just another form of the argument against written constitutionalism.

Heineccius argues that no man should be deprived of anything which he has received by nature, or has justly acquired (1738)

A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations (Johann Gottlieb Heineccius)

The natural law theory of Johann Gottlieb Heineccius was one of the most influential to emerge from the early German Enlightenment. Heineccius continued and, in important respects, modified the ideas of his predecessors, Samuel Pufendorf and Christian Thomasius. He developed distinctive views on central questions such as the freedom of the human will and the natural foundation of moral obligation, which also sharply distinguished him from his contemporary Christian Wolff. The Liberty Fund edition is based on the translation by the Scottish moral philosopher George Turnbull (1698–1748). It includes Turnbull’s extensive comments on Heineccius’s text, as well as his substantial Discourse upon the Nature and Origin of Moral and Civil Laws. These elements make the work into one of the most extraordinary encounters between Protestant natural law theory and neo-republican civic humanism.

Laissez Faire and The Role of the State

An Economics Reading List

Burke, Edmund, Select Works of Edmund Burke, edited by E. J. Payne, with forewords and bibliography by Francis Canavan. (Three volumes, plus Miscellaneous Writings)

Edmund Burke was a reformer who originated the political usage of the term “conservative.” He was an advocate of reduced government control and increased free trade who changed his mind after initially defending the East India Company’s charter. The complexities of his independent thought, wit, and erudition pervade his speeches, letters, and writings. Liberty Fund’s four-volume set of Burke’s works are here presented online: three volumes chosen and authoritatively edited by E. J. Payne between 1874-1878, along with a fourth volume of miscellaneous writings.

Burke lived contemporaneously with Smith, studied law and ultimately literature, and learned economics not in academia, but through his practice in the House of Commons and through his efforts at farming. Economic thought is scattered throughout these selected works, which demonstrate his attention to detail (for example, tables of revenue for industries from tea to the post office) and his clarity of reason. His interest in the lessons learned from the French and American revolutions is central to his writings. He was an advocate of religious and personal freedom, reductions in the slave trade and emancipation, and a reduced role for government, based on what had been learned.

What Makes a Utopia Inconvenient? On the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Realist Orientation to Politics

BENJAMIN L. MCKEAN AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW, Volume 110, Issue 4 Abstract: Contemporary politics is often said to lack utopias. For prevailing understandings of the practical force of political theory, this looks like cause for celebration. As blueprints to apply to political practice, utopias invariably seem too strong or too weak. Through an immanent critique […]

The Claim of the American Loyalists (Joseph Galloway)

The Claim of the American Loyalists reviewed and maintained upon incontrovertible Principles of Law and Justice (London: G. and T. Wilkie, 1788).

Reforming U.S. Environmental Policy

Start with two big obstacles to good policymaking on the environment: federal review under NEPA, and undue judicial deference to the executive branch.

The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated (William Molyneux)

The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated, with a new Preface (London: J. Almon, 1770).

Gustave de Beaumont and Irish liberty (1839)

Nationalism as Political Realism

Hazony's The Virtue of Nationalism helps build a realist conception of political order that goes beyond theory to understand history.

Hands, Not Lands: John Locke, Immigration and the ‘Great Art of Government’

SMITH, B. HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT Abstract: This paper looks at the transmigration of peoples in Locke’s thought, particularly the migration of foreigners into England. I pay close attention to the ‘great art of government’ passage in the Second Treatise which shows that rather than exhibiting a hard right to exclude aliens, rulers are obligated to […]

The Soul’s Need for Rootedness

Hazony on the metaphysical source (much devalued in our day) of the nation.