Reviews for Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 10

The average rating for Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy, Vol. 10 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-24 00:00:00 Bruce Whatley This book is probably one of the most important and (somewhat) accessible introductions to Buchanan's constitutional political economy perspective. It is a mature restatement and reworking of the material found in his own previous book The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan and, of course, in his co-authored classic book with Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. It also presages the material on "nondiscriminatory democracy" that is worked out in more detail in his and Congleton's Politics by Principle, Not Interest: Towards Nondiscriminatory Democracy. It is hard to gauge Brennan's precise contribution here (as is often the case) but the collaboration seems to work well and the chapters feel unified enough (with the exception of chapter 3 where the divergent ontological and ethical assumptions of the authors lead to confusion). The writing is crisp, precise, and concise. The first half of the book (chapters 1-4) are an elegant summary of the importance of rules, constitutions, contractarianism, and the pragmatic value of the Homo Economicus assumption. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with the element of time (preference, expectation, and planning) in framing the rules of political and economic decision making. These time elements are perhaps the most unique contribution of this book in comparison to some of Buchanan's previous books. The latter third of the book (chapters 7-9) deal with various ways in which, according to Buchanan and Brennan, the absence of constitutional rules creates welfare losses and political "traps." (Including "the high tax trap", "the inflation trap", and "the public debt trap.") The conclusion offers some suggestions for modest constitutional reforms while cautioning against excessive optimism. Buchanan and Brennan's analyses have a distinctively conservative ring to them that sometimes goes beyond the mere neutrality of the science and into ideology. For example, in their discussion of deficit spending or Keynesianism, they effectively bypass several commonly entertained (and, to many, plausible) arguments or, at best, dismiss them with a shrug. Another more striking example is when they use the example of light sentences for criminals as an example of a narrow time horizon. They do not attempt to prove the point since they take it for granted that harsher punishments would be to the mutual benefit of all parties concerned. (In fact, there is arguably little evidence that tougher sentences correlate with lower crime.) However, their ideological position is not reducible to libertarian conservatism. For example, in their discussion of distributive politics, they entertain the theoretical possibility of a constitutional "demogrant" (a type of Universal Basic Income in today's parlance) which would open the door for massive redistribution. The proper conclusion is that the constitutional political economy perspective is mostly value neutral in its methods - whatever the ideological proclivities of its founders and lodestars. Its only commitment is to constitutional democracy as an open-ended decision making procedure. Overall, I highly recommend The Reason of Rules as a coherent and mature statement of the constitutional political economy and public choice perspective. It does not reinvent the wheel, so it cannot have the same impact as The Calculus of Consent or some of his earlier books. Stylistically, it is mostly very good, but its coherence occasionally suffers from the mutually conflicting views of its two authors. At the same time, the libertarian-conservative bias of its authors occasionally conflicts with its neutrality. But as a distillation of decades of hard work and thinking, The Reason of Rules is a worthy entry in the annals of political economic and institutionalist theorizing.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-06-20 00:00:00 Scott Oakford This book is a useful introduction and overview to Buchananite constitutional political economy. It lays out the principles of Buchanan's system, including methodological individualism, the unanimity rule, and contracting behind a veil of uncertainty, in a manner approachable to the economics layperson. Buchanan also addresses some concerns regarding his system which provide some context for the system outline, and speculates on the applicability of the system to the real world.