A Case for Constitutional Reverence
In his second response to Sandy Levinson’s call for a new constitutional convention, Michael Greve cast doubt upon the efficacy of such a project given the mess of our fiscal circumstances. Under...
View ArticleCommon Law, Civil Law, and Jurisdictional Competition
This month’s Liberty Forum debate on the relationship between the inherited common law norms of liberty and our written Constitution also opens to a conversation on the comparison between civil law and...
View ArticleThe Civil Law and Monistic Education Systems in Germany and Sweden
If anything illustrates the very real and palpable necessity for jurisdictional limitations in both common and civil law systems, it is in the area of education. In our discussions of common law versus...
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Alexander Hamilton and the Politics of Impatience: Part I
Editor’s note: Occasioned by Thomas McCraw’s The Founders and Finance: How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy, this is the first post in a series by Liberty Fund Senior...
View ArticleAlexander Hamilton and the Politics of Impatience (and Immigrants): Part II
So returning to Thomas McCraw’s The Founders and Finance, McCraw’s interpretive concept around which he builds his narrative is the idea of the “immigrant,” but not just any immigrant. Rather, he has...
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Alexander Hamilton and the Politics of Impatience (From Balancing Trade to a...
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published the same year as the Declaration of Independence, and Hamilton was right to perceive a growing appreciation of its basic message among his countrymen....
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Alexander Hamilton: Switzerland or the Caribbean, Anyone?
McCraw uses the immigrant experience to explain in part the development of a national perspective (see here and here for the 1st 2 installments in this series). Being originally outsiders, immigrants...
View ArticleThe Bank of the United States and Mr. Hamilton’s Surprise!
As noted in the first post, Albert Gallatin initially aspired to being a private, rather than a political, entrepreneur. To that end the firm of Albert Gallatin and Co. tried to attract renters or...
View ArticleAlexander Hamilton’s Legacy in Banking and Finance
We come now to the final and perhaps most important part of McCraw’s Founders and Finance: the practical effects of Hamilton’s political economy. Here is where Hamilton’s ultimate legacy is often said...
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Economists Should Return to Moral Philosophy
Policy makers and economists of various stripes have had a field day since the onset of the last financial crisis blaming the downturn on market failures and proclaiming new regulatory fixes. Never...
View ArticleRestoring Federalism
In the third volume of Law Legislation and Liberty, Hayek argued that something was amiss with western constitutions. They have failed to contain the growth of government or prevent the encroachments...
View ArticleTo Keep America Will Be to Keep Its Balance
Many long posts ago, this website hosted a discussion of Michael Greve’s wonderfully illuminating Upside Down Constitution. A key part of the thesis was the degree to which local self-governing...
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American Liberty and the “Pursuit of Happiness”
In reflecting further on the issues raised by Ted McAllister’s emphasis on the American historical experience of liberty in this month’s Liberty Law Forum, I find myself returning again to consider the...
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Can Scotland Govern Itself?
What does it take to secure an independent, self-governing nation? Arguably it takes a self-governing citizenry. And what does that mean? Generally speaking, it means a citizenry composed of persons...
View ArticleWills and the Individual Conscience
As David Conway has noted in this space, the past week has seen quite a brouhaha in the United Kingdom over the Law Society’s decision to issue guidelines for sharia-compliant wills. The controversy...
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Charles Koch’s Jefferson
To whom does Jefferson belong in today’s political debates? The reality, it seems, is everyone. Quotes can be found on almost any topic expressing virtually any sentiment, in large measure because...
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Towards a Global Dystopia
There is a great and dangerous Trust seeking to form globally. Like any monopoly in days past, or OPEC now, its aim is profit. But its means are far more sinister, and potentially far more effective,...
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The Currency of Destruction
When Gary Becker put forward his idea of human capital in 1964, it was to address the effects of knowledge and training on individual economic performance. This idea can and should be extended to...
View ArticleSchmitt and the Power of Language
Jeremy Rabkin has captured a good sense of Carl Schmitt in his Liberty Forum essay. Like him, I agree that it is difficult to grapple with the author’s exceedingly abstract prose. But there is a...
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Moral Language and Time Preferences: Assessing the Great Libertarian Lacuna
William Ruger and Jason Sorens have identified a lacuna in both thought and rhetoric in the current conceptualization of individual freedom on the part of libertarians: an inability or perhaps...
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