Abstract
One of the key aspects in James Buchanan’s work is the question of how far governmental action should legitimately reach. In this respect his ideas often stand in conflict with those of the orthodox public finance school of thought as, for instance, with Richard Musgrave’s. According to Buchanan’s classification, Musgrave represents the insider-Harvard vision of sociopolitical reality whereas he himself stands for the outsider-Chicago-Virginiapublic choice school of thought (Buchanan 1989, p. 291). Both scholars’ ideas concerning government intervention appear to be mutually exclusive (see also Hansjürgens 1999). Buchanan emphasized that all governmental action should aim at fulfilling the interests of only the individuals concerned. He stressed ‘that in the conceptual derivation of the origins of the state ..., there is no resort to any source of value external to the expressed preferences of individuals who join together in political community.’ Consequently, he states that ‘the state does not exist as an organic entity independent of the individuals in the polity. The state does not act as such, and it cannot seek its own ends or objectives’ (Brennan/Buchanan 1985, p. 22).
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Müller, C., Tietzel, M. (2002). Merit Goods from a Constitutional Perspective. In: Brennan, G., Kliemt, H., Tollison, R.D. (eds) Method and Morals in Constitutional Economics. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04810-8_24
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