Arrow's Impossibility Theorem is commonly understood to invoke a dictatorship that is somehow lurking within our voting arrangements. A well-recognized statement of the theorem is that "any constitution that respects transitivity, independence of irrelevant alternatives and unanimity is a...

Utilitarianism can be misplaced or ambiguous. As a prescription for individual behaviour, the injunction to seek the greatest good for the greatest number is misplaced because there remains a domain of life where, within the bounds of law and custom, one is free to act as selfishly or as...

John Rawls has made two large claims for “the two principles of justice”: that they are what everyman would choose behind the veil of ignorance as the foundation for laws and institutions, and that they are the rock bottom requirement for the stability of political liberalism. I argue here...

Written over a span of 30 years, the essays in these volumes make significant contributions to the study of national accounting, demand theory, capital theory, public finance, the Canadian constitution, the subsidization of investment, equity and predatory behaviour.

A dynastic cycle is a periodic alternation of society between despotism and anarchy. In a society of farmers, rulers, and bandits, population growth simultaneously impoverishes farmers and reduces the ruler's surplus per head. Society evolves into a despotic stationary state or into a dynastic...