The essays in this volume offer a reassessment of Jeremy Bentham's strikingly original legal philosophy. Early on, Bentham discovered his “genius for legislation” — “legislation” included not only law making and code writing, but also political and social institution building and...

There is little doubt that J. S. Mill was one of the greatest classical liberals of the nineteenth century. F. A. Hayek holds the same distinction for the twentieth century. It is, then, something of a puzzle that Hayek is so critical of Mill. In his conversation with James Buchanan, Hayek...

This article addresses the question of whether sanctions constitute violence in the broad sense of that term, and whether, and under what conditions, sanctions can be justified. The sanctions imposed against Iraq and Cuba are discussed as case studies and several ethical theories are applied to...

This paper provides an overview and discussion of the legal and economic philosophy of Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), a French political economist. A bibliography with links to other Bastiat studies is also included

Adam Smith acquired yet another fifteen minutes of fame when his views on collusion were injected into the Supreme Court's ruling in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly. We consider Smith's views on the small group solidarity. Motivation by a desire for approbation provides Smith's explanation for the...

This paper contains the chapters on public enforcement of law and on criminal law from a general, forthcoming book, Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Harvard University Press, 2003). By public law enforcement is meant the use of public law enforcement agents - such as police, tax...

This chapter summarizes the case for considering money as a legal institution. The Western liberal tradition, represented here by John Locke’s iconic account of money, describes money as an item that emerged from barter before the state existed. Considered as an historical practice, money is...

Some scholars have argued that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution did not have a common set of views on economics, or that the Constitution, except perhaps in isolated clauses, does not reflect any specific economic views. The principal Framers did, in fact, share a basic set of economic...

The ‘Coase theorem' has long been the idea most commonly associated with Ronald Coase's analysis in The Problem of Social Cost. Yet, Coase frequently argued late in his career that he has been misunderstood, and that the central message(s) of the article lay elsewhere. Though virtually all of...