Suchergebnisse

The purpose of a constitution should be to restrain governments. The proposed EU constitution does not do that ‐ it provides agendas for government action. There is also no mechanism to facilitate jurisdictional competition. As such, if adopted, it will lead to further centralisation and abuse of statutory powers.

A remarkable feature of contemporary political discourse is the
dominance of morality. One legacy of logical positivism (which was
dominant from the mid-1930s until the end of the 1960s) and analytical
(or linguistic) philosophy was the reluctance of political theorists
during the twentieth century to engage in substantive argument about
appropriate social ends or individual rights and values. Philosophers
were content to describe the linguistic framework within which related
political proposals were discussed without offering any proposals
themselves. It was felt that the philosopher was not especially
qualified to give political advice or make any recommendations. The
technical political theorist was properly confined to the
second level of inquiry, that is, explanation of the meaning
of concepts, not the first level, which was concerned with
questions of how we ought to live, or issues of public policy.
Economists and sociologists might have the technical skills appropriate
for inquiries into public policy, but as to the big
questions—such as the ends and purposes of man and
society—almost anybody could make pronouncements. The important
point was that reason was incapable of adjudicating between
rival versions of the good life.

Examines the theoretical reasoning & objectives of minimal statists. A core tenet is that the state has evolved as a powerful organism that appears to have an extensive will of its own. The role of a state to supply public goods in cases of market failure is discussed with attention to the perspective from minimal statists. Public spending in contemporary Western states is analyzed, particularly cases of health care, state pensions, & poverty relief, & viewpoints from minimal statists & Milton Friedman are posited. Minimal statists' ideal organization of the state & suggestions for constraining the state are summarized. L. Collins Leigh

Marjorie Grice‐Hutchinson, who recently died, was a leading scholar of the Salamanca school of economics. That school anticipated much of the economic thinking which helped underpin the case for liberal markets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.