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...

Book reviewed in this article: Don Lavoie and Emily Chamlee-Wright, Culture and Enterprise: The Development, Representation and Morality of Business Daniel F. Spulber (ed.), Famous Fables of Economics: Myths of Market Failures John Plender, A Stake in the Future: A Stakeholding Solution Paul...

Frederic Bastiat, who was born two hundred years ago, was a leader of the French laissez-faire tradition in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was influenced by Cobden's Anti-Corn Law League and became a convinced free trader. Joseph Schumpeter described Bastiat as 'the most brilliant...