Anarchy, State And Public Choice

240 Pages·2006·0.65 MB·English

by  Edward Stringham

Anarchy, State and Public Choice
NEWTHINKING IN POLITICALECONOMY
Series Editor: PeterJ. Boettke
George Mason University, USA
New Thinking in Political Economy aims to encourage scholarship in the intersection
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specialization reduced the intersection between economics, philosophy and politics and
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New Thinking in Political Economy will stimulate new work that combines
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Explaining Constitutional Change
APositive Economics Approach
Stefan Voigt
Ethics as Social Science
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Joachim Ahrens
Constitutions, Markets and Law
Recent Experiences in Transition Economies
Edited by Stefan Voigt and Hans-Jürgen Wagener
Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom
Richard M. Ebeling
Anarchy, State and Public Choice
Edited by Edward Stringham
Anarchy, State and
Public Choice
Edited by
Edward Stringham
San Jose State University, USA
NEWTHINKING IN POLITICALECONOMY
Edward Elgar
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
©Edward Stringham, 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission
of the publisher.
Published by
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Acatalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
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Typeset by Cambrian Typesetters, Camberley, Surrey
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents
List of figures vii
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgements x
1 Introduction 1
Edward Stringham
2 Individual welfare in anarchy 10
Winston Bush
3 Jungle or just Bush? Anarchy and the evolution of cooperation 24
Jason Osborne
4 The edge of the jungle 36
Gordon Tullock
5 Social interaction without the state 49
Christopher Coyne
6 Towards a theory of the evolution of government 60
J. Patrick Gunning
7 Do contracts require formal enforcement? 67
Peter T. Leeson
8 Before public choice 77
James M. Buchanan
9 Public choice and Leviathan 88
Benjamin Powell
10 Cases in anarchy 98
Thomas Hogarty
11 Defining anarchy as rock ’n’roll: rethinking Hogarty’s three
cases 113
Virgil Storr
12 Private property anarchism: an American variant 123
Laurence Moss
v
vi Contents
13 Anarchism and the theory of power 153
Warren Samuels
14 Polycentrism and power: a reply to Warren Samuels 178
Scott Beaulier
15 Reflections after three decades 191
James M. Buchanan
16 Anarchy 194
Gordon Tullock
17 Tullock on anarchy 200
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
18 Anarchism as a progressive research program in political
economy 206
Peter J. Boettke
Index 221
Figures
2.1 Income–effort curve 14
2.2 Reaction curves 15
3.1 Signal detection and the receiver operating characteristic curve 30
3.2 Prisoner’s dilemma payoff matrix 31
3.3 Outcomes under different punishment regimes 33
6.1 Bribe function 62
6.2 Threat function 63
8.1 Law-abiding behavior and welfare 80
8.2 Payoff matrix for choices to observe law 82
9.1 Payoff matrix for choices to respect property rights 89
9.2 Payoff matrix for choices to obey social contract 91
vii

Contributors
Scott Beaulier, School of Business and Economics, Mercer University,
Macon, GA, USA.
Peter J. Boettke, Department of Economics, George Mason University,
Fairfax, VA, USA.
James M. Buchanan, Department of Economics, George Mason University,
Fairfax, VA, USA.
Winston Bush (1941–73), Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute, Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Christopher Coyne, Department of Economics, Hampden-Sydney College,
Hampden-Sydney, VA, USA.
J. Patrick Gunning, College of Business, Feng Chia University, Taiwan.
Thomas Hogarty, Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute,
Blacksburg, VA, USA.
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Department of Economics, San Jose State
University, CA, USA.
Peter T. Leeson, Department of Economics, West Virginia University,
Morgantown, WV, USA.
Laurence Moss, Department of Economics, Babson College, Wellesley, MA,
USA.
Jason Osborne, Department of Economics, George Mason University,
Fairfax, VA, USA.
Benjamin Powell, Department of Economics, San Jose State University, CA,
USA.
Warren Samuels, Department of Economics, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, MI, USA.
Virgil Storr, Department of Economics, George Mason University, Fairfax,
VA, USA.
Edward Stringham, Department of Economics, San Jose State University,
CA, USA.
Gordon Tullock, Department of Economics, George Mason University,
Fairfax, VA, USA.
ix
Acknowledgements
I am thankful to the late Winston Bush, who persuaded public choice econo-
mists to study anarchy three decades ago. Their initial work at the Center for
the Study of Public Choice is the impetus for this volume. I was fortunate
enough to take classes from James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock at George
Mason University. On many occasions I heard how rewarding their collabora-
tive project on anarchism had been, so I decided that the younger economists
at George Mason University should take up the issue once more.
Thanks go to these six contributors at George Mason University for doing
such a great job. It has been a pleasure working with them, and I learned a lot.
I also thank Buchanan, Tullock, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel and Peter Boettke for
writing comments. At various dates in 2002 the articles were presented at
George Mason University, the Association for Private Enterprise Education
Conference, the Austrian Scholars Conference, and a symposium on the topic
at the Mercatus Center, so thanks go to those who gave comments there,
including Bryan Caplan and Tyler Cowen.
I appreciate Jeffrey Tucker for advising me to move forward at the initial
stage of this project, and I appreciate Alan Sturmer, Tara Gorvine, Caroline
Cornish and those at Edward Elgar Publishing for their work at latter stages. I
also thank Tullock for allowing us to reprint the original essays. Tullock is a
great professor who never misses an opportunity to deride anarchism, but he
has been very encouraging in his unique way.
Most of all, I thank Peter Boettke for all his encouragement and support.
All the young contributors to the volume wrote their dissertation under Peter
Boettke, and we are grateful for that. Without Boettke, none of this would have
been possible. This book is dedicated to him.
x