The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Preface
• The Reason of Rules
• 1.: The Constitutional Imperative
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Reasons For Rules
• III.: Rules of Games
• IV.: Rules of the Road
• V.: Rules of the Market Order
• VI.: Rules of Political Order
• VII.: The Importance of Rules
• 2.: The Contractarian Vision
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Noncontractarian Constitutionalism
• III.: Individuals As Sources of Value
• IV.: Contract and Exchange
• V.: Politics In the Exchange Perspective
• VI.: Unanimity As the Contractual Ideal
• VII.: Agreement On Rules and the Veils of Ignorance and Uncertainty
• VIII.: Conclusions
• 3.: The Myth of Benevolence *
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Private Good and Public Good
• III.: Science, Truth, and Politics
• IV.: The Authoritarian Imperative
• V.: Majoritarian Democracy In the Noncontractarian Paradigm
• VI.: The Aim of Politics
• 4.: Modeling the Individual For Constitutional Analysis
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Homo Economicus In Politics: the Argument For Symmetry
• III.: Science and the Empiricist Defense
• IV.: A Methodological Defense of the Differential Interest Model of Behavior
• V.: Social Evaluation and Quasi-risk Aversion
• VI.: Gresham’s Law In Politics
• VII.: Summary
• 5.: Time, Temptation, and the Constrained Future *
• Preface
• Part 1.: Individual Private Choice
• I.: Introduction
• II.: The Ultimate Z ’s
• III.: Preferences For Preferences
• IV.: Past, Present, and Future
• Part 2.: Individual Public Choice
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Society With a History
• III.: Temporal Interdependence
• IV.: An Illustration
• V.: Moral Rules And/or Constitutional Commitment
• 6.: Politics Without Rules, I: Time and Nonconstrained Collective Action
• I.: Introduction
• II.: The Social Discount Rate
• III.: The High-tax Trap
• IV.: The Inflation Trap
• V.: The Public-debt Trap
• VI.: Other Examples
• VII.: Conclusions
• 7.: Rules and Justice
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Just Conduct and the Notion of Desert
• III.: Justice and Promise Keeping
• IV.: Justice Among Rules
• V.: Just Rules, Agreed-on Rules, and Just Conduct
• VI.: Conclusions
• 8.: Politics Without Rules, II: Distributive Justice and Distributive Politics
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Distributive Justice: the Conventional View
• III.: The Constitutional Perspective and Institutional Incidence
• IV.: The Incidence of Unrestricted Majoritarianism
• V.: Tax Rules and Distribution Under Majority Rule
• VI.: Direct Constitutionalism and Distributive Justice
• VII.: Summary
• 9.: Is Constitutional Revolution Possible In Democracy?
• I.: Introduction
• II.: Pareto-superior Change and Wicksellian Unanimity
• III.: Distributional Limits and Prospective Rules
• IV.: Status Quo Entitlements and Distributional Envy
• V.: Constitutional Change and Free Riders
• VI.: The Role of Norms
• VII.: Toward a Civic Religion

I.

Introduction

Our purpose in this chapter is to describe the normative position from which we approach the whole set of issues involving the rules of social order. Through what window do we view the world of social interaction, actual or potential? Until we make ourselves clear in this respect, we may seem to be “speaking in tongues” to those whose perspective differs categorically from our own. Our position is explicitly and avowedly contractarian. This term alone will identify the conceptual framework to those familiar with classical political philosophy, especially with those works that embody the intellectual foundations of liberal society. To counter the most familiar and pervasive criticisms of this position, we must note that the contractarian construction itself is used retrospectively in a metaphorically legitimizing rather than historical sense. Prospectively, the model is used in both a metaphorically evaluative and an empirically corroborative sense.1

The relationship between the contractarian philosophical perspective and the rules-oriented, or constitutionalist, perspective is not so direct as it may at first appear. Section II examines this relationship and briefly discusses possible noncontractarian elements in constitutional thought. The contractarian perspective is grounded in individualistic presuppositions about the ultimate sources of value and of valuation. These precepts are examined in Section III, particularly in contrast to other, more familiar nonindividualistic teleologies. Section IV presents the contractarian paradigm in its most well-known setting, that of ordinary economic exchange. Section V extends the perspective to politics, generally considered. The unanimity requirement is examined in some detail in Section VI. And in Section VII the difference in the choice among rules and choice within rules is related to the unanimity requirement.

[1. ]For other attempts to describe the contractarian position, see James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962); James M. Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty (University of Chicago Press, 1975); James M. Buchanan, Freedom in Constitutional Contract (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1977); and Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan, The Power to Tax (Cambridge University Press, 1980).