It is shown that the basic normative argument of the 'calculus' is moored to a collectivistic unanimity norm. As most scholars working in the field of public choice, including the authors of the seminal 'calculus,' would otherwise reject collectivistic normative premises, a reinterpretation of...

The taming of power, the establishment of individual rights and rule of law in domestic affairs are the greatest achievements of the West. But it is not clear whether the West can survive in the international Hobbesian power game if its public opinion conceives power generally as an evil to be...

This paper distinguishes several types of contractarianism. It argues that Buchanan type contractarianism may be classified as a specific "formal type" of conservatism that grants normative status to the status quo. How such conservative contractarianism relates to and possibly blends into...

The public good provided by public health care is not the maintenance of citizens' health but rather the maintenance of the legal order and the citizens' support for it. Several policy proposals for achieving the aim of supporting the rule of law by minimal means of public health care provision...

Conceptualizing behavior decision theoretically as being ‘pulled’ (by an expected future) is fundamentally different from conceptualizing it as ‘pushed’ (or determined by past conditions according to causal laws). However, the fundamental distinction between...