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December 24, 2018|Alexis de Tocqueville, Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, Self-Interest

A Tocquevillean Christmas Fable

by Elizabeth Amato|

Still image of Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Image: 20th Century Fox.
Americans are, as Tocqueville says, better than they say, but the doctrine lets Americans appear more self-sufficient than they really are.

January 29, 2018|Federalist 10, heightened judicial review, Self-Interest, United States v. Carolene Products Co

Crony Capitalism and the Trouble with Heightened Judicial Review

by James R. Rogers|

U.S. Supreme Court. Orhan Cam/Shutterstock.com
Heightened judicial review of economic life can't be justified if the judiciary avoids treating government action the same way.

March 2, 2016|Bernie Sanders, James Buchanan, Public Choice, Self-Interest, socialism

Feel the Romantic Bern

by Dylan Pahman|

Public choice theory, which applies to the realm of politics the rational-actor postulate of economists, rightly enjoys a high regard among advocates of liberty. From voting habits to inefficient, Kafkaesque bureaucracies, to the strength of special interest lobbies and rent-seeking behavior, public choice has shined a bright light on the need to affirm limited government and political freedom. It is politics, to use James Buchanan’s phrase, “without romance.”

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March 18, 2014|Adam Smith, Bernard Mandeville, capitalism, Milton Friedman, Self-Interest

Les Maladies and Le Monde

by Theodore Dalrymple|

When I was a student, my friends and I would stay up all night to discuss such questions as the truth or otherwise of determinism. Was the entire future of the universe immanent in its past, indeed had everything been determined from the very foundation of the universe (if it had one)? If so, what of our supposed freedom?

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October 24, 2013|French republicanism, James Madison, John Calhoun, Justice Breyer, Self-Interest

Why Justice Breyer Should Put Down the Baguette and Grab a Hot Dog and Beer

by H. Lee Cheek, Jr.|

Cogitating Proust? (Photo/Steven Masker)

The current issue of the New York Review of Books contains a delightful yet potentially bewildering interview with Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer on the pleasures of reading Proust and other French writers in their original language. Long obsessed with all things French, Breyer has consistently endorsed the incorporation of European jurisprudential insights into American constitutional decision-making in an attempt to refute originalist interpretations of the American legal and political tradition. Judge Richard A. Posner, in a now-famous critique of Breyer, correctly suggests that what is ultimately at stake is a disavowal of the “liberty of the ancients” for a new and “active” liberty and theory of unrestrained democracy embodied in recent studies of European law and political thought.[1]

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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