Australasian Public Choice Conference

I realise this blog has become nothing more than a venue for shameless self-promotion, but I’m okay with that.  I’ll be attending the Australasian Public Choice Conference next week. I’ll be presenting a paper on constitutions; Patri will be presenting our co-authored paper on seasteading as a plenary via video, and Eric will be presenting [...]

Governing Seasteads

[Cross-posted at LaTNB] The Seasteading Institute has just published my paper on governance mechanisms for seasteads. As I point out in the paper, trying to predict what will work ahead of time is not what letting a thousand nations bloom is all about. We do, however, need to start from somewhere and the experience of customary [...]

Quote of the Day: Anti-Federalist Edition

When the public is called to investigate and decide upon a question in which not only the present members of the community are deeply interested, but upon which the happiness and misery of generations yet unborn is in great measure suspended, the benevolent mind cannot help feeling itself peculiarly interested in the result. That’s the [...]

Brutus on the Optimal Size of Nations

In a republic, the manners, sentiments, and interests of the people should be similar. If this be not the case, there will be a constant clashing of opinions; and the representatives of one part will be continually striving against those of the other. This will retard the operations of government, and prevent such conclusions as [...]

Analytical Anarchism

I’ve been remiss in not plugging this excellent collection of writing on the positive analysis of anarchism created by Michael Wiebe. There’s a list of published papers and books, and some working papers (including one by Eric and I). Here’s how Michael introduces the site: The purpose of Analytical Anarchism is to create an open forum [...]

Constitutional Dilemmas: The Push for Proportional Representation

Luke Malpass of the Centre for Independent Studies gives an interesting talk (based on a forthcoming paper) on proportional representation and the possibility of bicameralism in New Zealand. In my view, bicameralism is the best constitutional reform for New Zealand which has much hope of succeeding. I’m not sure why it isn’t more of a [...]

Behind the Moral Curtain

I’m slow in posting this video of Elise Parham presenting her monograph Behind the Moral Curtain: The Politics of a Charter of Rights. The paper and video are both well worth checking out. Astute viewers may even be able to spot the back of my head in the video. Elise’s argument is that bills of [...]

Fear the Boom and Bust

Hayek versus Keynes rap battle. Many hat tips; most recently Daniel Aguilar via email, which gave me the impetus to post. I hope Russ Roberts and the econstories crew will consider a rap video of Tullock explaining why government performs poorly. I imagine a hype-man (Charles Rowley?) yelling “Trapzoid, motherfuckers!” somewhere in the chorus.

I Don’t Think the Word “Land” Means What You Think it Means…

Federated Farmers are unsurprisingly upset at the prospect of a land tax: Federated Farmers’ Rangitikei-Manawatu president Gordon McKellar said a land-based tax would be “a pretty dumb idea”. The projected profit for a typical 220 hectare Manawatu beef or sheep farm would be about $21,000 for the next financial year but a land tax on the [...]

Democraphobia Goes Mainstream (Sort of)

This op-ed from Tapu Misa contains an odd mix of democraphobia (yay!) and statophilia (boo!). First the good: The catalyst for the march was the Government daring to ignore the result of the recent ambiguously worded citizens-initiated referendum on the child discipline law. Which means the Government is clearly undemocratic. “The people are the boss [...]