Design for liberty : private property, public administration, and the rule of law / Richard A. Epstein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Epstein, Richard Allen, 1943-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Liberty.

Rule of law.

Natural law.

Right of property--United States.

Right of property.

Rule of law--United States.

Law--Political aspects--United States.

Law.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (246 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Following a vast expansion in the twentieth century, government is beginning to creak at the joints under its enormous weight. The signs are clear: a bloated civil service, low approval ratings for Congress and the President, increasing federal-state conflict, rampant distrust of politicians and government officials, record state deficits, and major unrest among public employees.In this compact, clearly written book, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein advocates a much smaller federal government, arguing that our over-regulated state allows too much discretion on the part of regulators, which results in arbitrary, unfair decisions, rent-seeking, and other abuses. Epstein bases his classical liberalism on the twin pillars of the rule of law and of private contracts and property rights-an overarching structure that allows private property to keep its form regardless of changes in population, tastes, technology, and wealth. This structure also makes possible a restrained public administration to implement limited objectives. Government continues to play a key role as night-watchman, but with the added flexibility in revenues and expenditures to attend to national defense and infrastructure formation.Although no legal system can eliminate the need for discretion in the management of both private and public affairs, predictable laws can cabin the zone of discretion and permit arbitrary decisions to be challenged. Joining a set of strong property rights with sound but limited public administration could strengthen the rule of law, with its virtues of neutrality, generality, clarity, consistency, and forward-lookingness, and reverse the contempt and cynicism that have overcome us.

Contents:

The traditional conception of the rule of law

Reasonableness standards and the rule of law

Where natural law and utilitarianism converge

Where natural law and utilitarianism diverge

Property rights in the grand social scheme

The bundle of rights

Eminent domain

Liberty interests

Positive sum projects

Redistribution last

The rule of law diminished

Retroactivity

Modern applications: financial reform and health care

Final reflections.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674263321

0674263324

9780674063051

0674063058

OCLC:

768123030