This timely book reveals that the budget deficits and accumulating debts that plague modern democracies reflect a clash between two rationalities of governance: one of private property and one of common property. The clashing of these rationalities at various places in society creates forms of...

In Economic Policy in a Liberal Democracy, Richard E. Wagner offers an approach to welfare economics and economic policy appropriate for a classically liberal society.

Trade Protection in the United States analyzes the history of US trade policy to explain why interest groups are able to foster protectionist policies despite the advantages which free trade offers consumers. The authors also explain why the principles of managed trade – as epitomized in the...

This book advances a social-theoretic treatment of public finance, which contrasts with the typical treatment of government as an agent of intervention into a market economy. To start, Richard Wagner construes government not as an agent but as a polycentric process of interaction, just as is a...

The enormous growth of the State occurring over much of this century has led the authors of this book to re-examine the proper relationship between the American people and their government.

In this far-reaching and insightful monograph, Richard Wagner exposes the failure of the United States constitution to overcome the tyranny of the majority so feared by the Founding Fathers.