John Meadowcroft | King's College London (original) (raw)
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Papers by John Meadowcroft
... Joseph A. Schumpeterby John Medearis (Riverside, California, US) FA Hayek by Adam Tebble (UCL... more ... Joseph A. Schumpeterby John Medearis (Riverside, California, US) FA Hayek by Adam Tebble (UCL, UK) Michael Oakeshott by Edmund Neill (Oxford, UK) Karl Popper by Phil Parvin (Loughborough, UK) Ayn Randby Mimi Gladstein (Texas, US) Milton Friedman by William ...
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2011
A Theory of Justice is a powerful, deep, subtle, wide-ranging, systematic work in political and m... more A Theory of Justice is a powerful, deep, subtle, wide-ranging, systematic work in political and moral philosophy which has not seen its like since the writings of John Stuart Mill, if then. It is a fountain of illuminating ideas, integrated together into a lovely whole. Political philosophers must now either work within Rawls' theory or explain why not ... It is impossible to read Rawls' book without incorporating much, perhaps transmuted, into one' own deepened view. And it is impossible to finish his book without a new and inspiring vision of what a moral theory may attempt to do and unite; of how beautiful a whole theory can be. (p. 183) Rawls’s construction is incapable of yielding an entitlement or historical conception of distributive justice … If historical- entitlement principles are fundamental, then Rawls’s construction will yield approximations of them at best; it will produce the wrong sorts of reasons for them, and its derived results sometimes will conflict with the precisely correct principles. The whole procedure of persons choosing principles in Rawls’s original position presupposes that no historical-entitlement conception of justice is correct. (p/ 202)
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, 2010
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2011
Political Studies, Jun 8, 2018
If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.
Economic Affairs, Jun 1, 2016
Social Science Research Network, 2022
Journal of Institutional Economics, Jun 29, 2023
James M. Buchanan's politics-as-exchange retrospectively conceptualized formal institutions emerg... more James M. Buchanan's politics-as-exchange retrospectively conceptualized formal institutions emerging from bilateral agreements to establish reciprocal rights and prospectively guided constitutional entrepreneurs to broker Pareto-superior reforms that had unanimous consent. Buchanan believed this conceptualization of politics-as-exchange was necessitated by his ontological-methodological individualism and would initiate a new era of consensual politics, but it is argued it led to illiberal conclusions that reflected dissonance between his Kantian individualism and Humean subjectivism. It meant, for example, that slavery was characterized as a bilateral agreement between very unequal parties and it is argued it logically implied abolition required the consent of slaveowners. But Buchanan's ontology was compatible with the introduction into his framework of a right of exit that would have differentiated between exchanges with and without the sword to produce a consistent liberal constitutionalism.
Advances in Austrian Economics, Oct 28, 2019
If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.
A case study of UK tax policy from 1979 to 1997 is used to examine the role of ideas and interest... more A case study of UK tax policy from 1979 to 1997 is used to examine the role of ideas and interests in the destruction of political rents. Rent destruction has been typically understood as occurring when the battle for distributional advantage that normally characterises democratic politics has been temporarily superseded by policies informed by ideology pursued in the public interest. The benefits that resulted from the destruction of political rents by the Conservative governments of Thatcher and Major could have been distributed broadly across all taxpayers, but instead were targeted at specific groups of taxpayers. It is argued that this is evidence of the continued salience of distributional demands, even when rents are being destroyed. It suggests that political reforms that destroy rents require the support of a political coalition and the mobilisation of that coalition may require the promise of direct pecuniary benefits from the new arrangements.
Constitutional Political Economy, 2020
In a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’—a form of universal ... more In a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’—a form of universal basic income that applied the principles of generality and non discrimination to the tax and the transfer sides of the scheme and was to be implemented as a constitutional rule outside the realm of day-to-day politics. The demogrant has received surprisingly little scholarly attention, but this article locates it in Buchanan’s broader constitutional political economy project and shows it was a logical application of his theoretical framework to the problem of inefficient and unfair welfare systems when reform to the basic institutions of majoritarian democracy was not forthcoming. The demogrant aims to end the problems of majority cycling and rent seeking that plague contemporary welfare states and therefore offers a model of welfare without rent seeking—a constitutional welfare state. We compare Buchanan’s demogrant model to other universal basic income and negative income tax models an...
Political Studies, 2016
How do dissident, far-right groups overcome the collective action problem inherent to political o... more How do dissident, far-right groups overcome the collective action problem inherent to political organisation in order to recruit sufficient activists willing to bear the costs of participation and not free-ride on the participation of others? An original ethnographic study of the UK anti-Islamic street protest organisation, the English Defence League, shows that it solved the collective action problem by supplying selective incentives to members in the form of the club goods of access to violence, increased self-worth and group solidarity. These benefits were offset against the costs of stigma, time, money and unwanted police attention that also accompanied English Defence League membership. The personal benefits the English Defence League provided to its members enabled it to supply what Mancur Olson has termed the first unit of collective action, but limited its ability to supply the additional units required to build a broader, more mainstream movement.
Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) is recognised as a classic of modern politi... more Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) is recognised as a classic of modern political philosophy. Along with John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971), it is widely credited with breathing new life into the discipline in the second half of the twentieth century. This Companion presents a balanced and comprehensive assessment of Nozick's contribution to political philosophy. In engaging and accessible chapters, the contributors analyse Nozick's ideas from a variety of perspectives and explore neglected areas of the work such as his discussion of anarchism and his theory of utopia. Their detailed and illuminating picture of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, its impact and its enduring influence will be invaluable to students and scholars in both political philosophy and political theory.
... Joseph A. Schumpeterby John Medearis (Riverside, California, US) FA Hayek by Adam Tebble (UCL... more ... Joseph A. Schumpeterby John Medearis (Riverside, California, US) FA Hayek by Adam Tebble (UCL, UK) Michael Oakeshott by Edmund Neill (Oxford, UK) Karl Popper by Phil Parvin (Loughborough, UK) Ayn Randby Mimi Gladstein (Texas, US) Milton Friedman by William ...
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2011
A Theory of Justice is a powerful, deep, subtle, wide-ranging, systematic work in political and m... more A Theory of Justice is a powerful, deep, subtle, wide-ranging, systematic work in political and moral philosophy which has not seen its like since the writings of John Stuart Mill, if then. It is a fountain of illuminating ideas, integrated together into a lovely whole. Political philosophers must now either work within Rawls' theory or explain why not ... It is impossible to read Rawls' book without incorporating much, perhaps transmuted, into one' own deepened view. And it is impossible to finish his book without a new and inspiring vision of what a moral theory may attempt to do and unite; of how beautiful a whole theory can be. (p. 183) Rawls’s construction is incapable of yielding an entitlement or historical conception of distributive justice … If historical- entitlement principles are fundamental, then Rawls’s construction will yield approximations of them at best; it will produce the wrong sorts of reasons for them, and its derived results sometimes will conflict with the precisely correct principles. The whole procedure of persons choosing principles in Rawls’s original position presupposes that no historical-entitlement conception of justice is correct. (p/ 202)
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, 2010
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2011
Political Studies, Jun 8, 2018
If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.
Economic Affairs, Jun 1, 2016
Social Science Research Network, 2022
Journal of Institutional Economics, Jun 29, 2023
James M. Buchanan's politics-as-exchange retrospectively conceptualized formal institutions emerg... more James M. Buchanan's politics-as-exchange retrospectively conceptualized formal institutions emerging from bilateral agreements to establish reciprocal rights and prospectively guided constitutional entrepreneurs to broker Pareto-superior reforms that had unanimous consent. Buchanan believed this conceptualization of politics-as-exchange was necessitated by his ontological-methodological individualism and would initiate a new era of consensual politics, but it is argued it led to illiberal conclusions that reflected dissonance between his Kantian individualism and Humean subjectivism. It meant, for example, that slavery was characterized as a bilateral agreement between very unequal parties and it is argued it logically implied abolition required the consent of slaveowners. But Buchanan's ontology was compatible with the introduction into his framework of a right of exit that would have differentiated between exchanges with and without the sword to produce a consistent liberal constitutionalism.
Advances in Austrian Economics, Oct 28, 2019
If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.
A case study of UK tax policy from 1979 to 1997 is used to examine the role of ideas and interest... more A case study of UK tax policy from 1979 to 1997 is used to examine the role of ideas and interests in the destruction of political rents. Rent destruction has been typically understood as occurring when the battle for distributional advantage that normally characterises democratic politics has been temporarily superseded by policies informed by ideology pursued in the public interest. The benefits that resulted from the destruction of political rents by the Conservative governments of Thatcher and Major could have been distributed broadly across all taxpayers, but instead were targeted at specific groups of taxpayers. It is argued that this is evidence of the continued salience of distributional demands, even when rents are being destroyed. It suggests that political reforms that destroy rents require the support of a political coalition and the mobilisation of that coalition may require the promise of direct pecuniary benefits from the new arrangements.
Constitutional Political Economy, 2020
In a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’—a form of universal ... more In a number of works, James M. Buchanan set out a proposal for a ‘demogrant’—a form of universal basic income that applied the principles of generality and non discrimination to the tax and the transfer sides of the scheme and was to be implemented as a constitutional rule outside the realm of day-to-day politics. The demogrant has received surprisingly little scholarly attention, but this article locates it in Buchanan’s broader constitutional political economy project and shows it was a logical application of his theoretical framework to the problem of inefficient and unfair welfare systems when reform to the basic institutions of majoritarian democracy was not forthcoming. The demogrant aims to end the problems of majority cycling and rent seeking that plague contemporary welfare states and therefore offers a model of welfare without rent seeking—a constitutional welfare state. We compare Buchanan’s demogrant model to other universal basic income and negative income tax models an...
Political Studies, 2016
How do dissident, far-right groups overcome the collective action problem inherent to political o... more How do dissident, far-right groups overcome the collective action problem inherent to political organisation in order to recruit sufficient activists willing to bear the costs of participation and not free-ride on the participation of others? An original ethnographic study of the UK anti-Islamic street protest organisation, the English Defence League, shows that it solved the collective action problem by supplying selective incentives to members in the form of the club goods of access to violence, increased self-worth and group solidarity. These benefits were offset against the costs of stigma, time, money and unwanted police attention that also accompanied English Defence League membership. The personal benefits the English Defence League provided to its members enabled it to supply what Mancur Olson has termed the first unit of collective action, but limited its ability to supply the additional units required to build a broader, more mainstream movement.
Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) is recognised as a classic of modern politi... more Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) is recognised as a classic of modern political philosophy. Along with John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971), it is widely credited with breathing new life into the discipline in the second half of the twentieth century. This Companion presents a balanced and comprehensive assessment of Nozick's contribution to political philosophy. In engaging and accessible chapters, the contributors analyse Nozick's ideas from a variety of perspectives and explore neglected areas of the work such as his discussion of anarchism and his theory of utopia. Their detailed and illuminating picture of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, its impact and its enduring influence will be invaluable to students and scholars in both political philosophy and political theory.