{"product_id":"the-power-to-tax-analytical-foundations-of-fiscal-constitution-9780865972292","title":"The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of Fiscal Constitution","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Geoffrey Brennan\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Liberty Fund\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Liberty Fund\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Taxation - General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\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","brand":"Liberty Fund","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":45298799739031,"sku":"9780865972292","price":2142.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780865972292.webp?v=1769284648","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/the-power-to-tax-analytical-foundations-of-fiscal-constitution-9780865972292","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}