The Calculus of Consent at 50 : Insights for Liberalism

Recently, the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Calculus of Consent, the monumental work by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock providing logical foundations of constitutional democracy, occurred. The main aim of the book is scientific, but I claim that it also provides insights that can inspire and renew liberalism. The purpose of this paper is to clarify in what way it can do so in four areas: constitutionalism, generality, robust political economy and Paretian constructivism. In all, the book can be taken to imply a ”liberalism without foundations”, which nevertheless entails institutional foundations (of a particular kind) for the political game