In radically different ways, limited-government advocate James M. Buchanan and welfare-state apologist John Rawls held that constitutions could be designed to provide enduring salvation to an otherwise doomed political community. Anthony de Jasay challenges this conclusion by pointing out that individuals, groups, and majorities operate under the same assumptions in the domain of constitutional politics as they do in ordinary politics.
No Salvation through Constitutions
Jasay versus Buchanan and Rawls
By André Azevedo Alves
This
article
appeared in
the Summer 2015 issue of The Independent Review.