{"product_id":"the-power-to-tax-analytical-foundations-of-fiscal-constitution-9780865972292","title":"The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of Fiscal Constitution","description":"\u003cp\u003eCommenting on his collaboration with Geoffrey Brennan on \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Power to Tax\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e, James M. Buchanan says that the book is \"demonstrable proof of the value of genuine research collaboration across national-cultural boundaries.\" Buchanan goes on to say that \"\u003cem\u003eThe Power to Tax\u003c\/em\u003e is informed by a single idea--the implications of a revenue-maximizing government.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOriginally published in 1980, \u003cem\u003eThe Power to Tax\u003c\/em\u003e was a much-needed answer to the tax revolts sweeping across the United States. It was a much-needed answer as well in the academic circles of tax theory, where orthodox public finance models were clearly inadequate to the needs at hand.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe public-choice approach to taxation which Buchanan had earlier elaborated stood in direct opposition to public-finance orthodoxy. What Buchanan and Brennan constructed in The Power to Tax was a middle ground between the two. As Brennan writes in the foreword, \"The underlying motivating question was simple: Why not borrow the motivational assumptions standard in public-choice theory and put them together with assumptions about policy-maker discretion taken from public-finance orthodoxy?\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe result was a controversial book--and a much misunderstood one as well. Looking back twenty years later, Brennan feels confirmed in the rightness of the theories he and Buchanan espoused, particularly in their unity with the public-choice tradition: \"The insistence on motivational symmetry is a characteristic feature of the public choice approach, and it is in this dimension that \u003cem\u003eThe Power to Tax\u003c\/em\u003e and the orthodox public- finance approach diverge.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJames M. Buchanan\u003c\/strong\u003e (1919-2013) was an eminent economist who won the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986 and was considered one of the greatest scholars of liberty in the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Liberty Fund","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50846239359250,"sku":"9780865972292","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_623b94a9-b7e0-4f2c-b1a3-ef6c3be867db.jpg?v=1737361299","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-power-to-tax-analytical-foundations-of-fiscal-constitution-9780865972292","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}