The Justice of (Classical) Liberal Anarchy
The new issue of Regulation (Vol. 48, No. 1 [Spring 2025]) features, under the rubric “From the Past,” my review of Anthony de Jasay’s book Justice and Its Surroundings (Liberty Fund, 2002). This book may appeal more to political philosophers than to economists, compared with Against Politics (Routledge, 1997) which I recently reviewed for Econlib. We always find a dose of both philosophy and economics in de Jasay’s writings, which is not surprising since any proposal for social organization has moral underpinnings—ultimately requires value judgments as economists say.
Against Politics should probably be read before Justice and Its Surroundings, but since both books are collections of articles, the reader can, as it were, choose his level of difficulty within each. And his seminal book The State probably remains the best entrance door to his thought; moreover, it is available online at the Online Library of Liberty.
To go back to my latest Regulation review (available online in both html and pdf versions—scroll to p. 55 in the latter case) of Justice and Its Surroundings, here are a few excerpts:
Property can be considered as the infrastructure of society and it is, with its consequence of commerce, “prior to political authority, to the state.” All-voluntary private relations and the all-coercive state are at the two extremes of a spectrum. …
De Jasay argues that a cooperative game is played in society, not a prisoner-dilemma game, and that subjection to a central enforcer is not necessarily required. …
In an original typology, de Jasay considers a right as created by a voluntary exchange with a matching obligation. I lend you $100 for one year, and you agree to assume the obligation of reimbursing me $104 next year; thus, I have a right to $104 at that time. A liberty is something physically feasible that I may do if it is not a tort and does not violate an obligation I assumed. …
We can encapsulate de Jasay’s complex theory of justice in a combination of a strong presumption of liberty (or, in fact, liberties), spontaneous conventions as the foundation of law, and a strong respect for private property. …
De Jasay does not believe in a general and formal equality before the law as the liberal state is called to provide. This is because there is no state in his theory. He might say that equality before conventions exists as a matter of fact. Many will find this to be a weakness of his theory, at least in a standard classical liberal perspective.
Other interesting aspects of Justice and Its Surroundings include its attack on egalitarianism and socialism, including market socialism. De Jasay also criticizes Buchanan’s social contractarianism although he shows much respect for him—as Buchanan expressed much respect for de Jasay’s work. My review covers more and provides more detail.
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