Liggio Legacy Project

Professor Daniel Klein (Economics, George Mason University) in his 2012 book, Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation (New York, Oxford University Press, 2012), notes a contribution by Clarence Philbrook. Klein is addressing the challenge in the second half of the twentieth century to the broader outlook of Adam Smith’s whose morality subsumed his economic analysis. He notes the contributions of Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek challenging specialization and scientism, and restoring Classical Liberalism. Klein quotes Clarence Philbrook: “The degree of apparent influence of the person holding an idea is, therefore, no measure of the potential effect of his giving…

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This article was presented in a book honoring Robert Nef of the Liberales Institut, Zurich, Switzerland. Federalism, by Leonard P. Liggio, George Mason University and Atlas Economic Research Foundation The U. S. Constitution, written in the Philadelphia convention in 1787, is based on the principle of federalism. It was a necessary as well as desirable result. The thirteen provinces of England’s empire in North America who jointly gained independence sought to retain their autonomy while forming a single entity for international relations. The Americans were well aware of the confederal forms of The United Provinces of the Netherlands and the Helvetic…

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The recent discussion around the study on the economic consequences of public debt by Harvard economics professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff is mainly about statistical methodology. About which I will not comment. However, the question of public debt has played a major role in European and US history for many centuries, including recent history since 1700. The South Sea Bubble in England and the Mississippi Bubble in France in1720 led to political changes in both countries. In England it ushered in the Whig Supremacy (and Salutary Neglect) of Sir Robert Walpole and Henry Pelham (1720-1760) who pursued low taxes…

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The Economist (April 27, 2013) reports that the Obama administration is contemplating the privatization of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a landmark relic of FDR’s New Deal. Originally based on damming the Tennessee river to provide hydroelectric power to a poor region, hydropower now accounts for only 9% of output, while 41% is from coal, 38% from nuclear, 12% from natural gas, and “a token contribution of less than 1% from renewables (mostly solar).” By Obama’s budget, TVA must retire 59 coal units by 2017 and install scrubbers in others. With a debt of $25 billion and a legal limit of…

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The Euro: the Beginning, the Middle … and the End? is a new publication (edited by Philip Booth) of the Institute of Economic Affairs, 2 Lord North Street, Westminster, London SW1P, 3LB, England. Patrick Minford shows that Britain’s non-entry into the Euro was a triumph of economics over politics. Tony Blair was anxious to join the Euro as a political statement of European union, but Gordon Brown insisted that economic tests be meet, and Britain did not join the Euro. But, other countries had rushed headlong into Euro membership as a a symbol of their adherence to the European Union.…

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