Magna Carta Club
In my Public Choice lecture on Constitutions, I challenged Buchanan’s real (not merely hypothetical) “veil of ignorance” view. My claim:
There may be some constitutional rules where a veil of ignorance applies… But most constitutional rules are about permanently locking in existing political advantages.
I then present supportive evidence from the U.S. Constitution.
While walking down Carow Hall today, though, I noticed a copy of the Magna Carta on the wall, and reflected that I’ve never read it. Then a challenge came to mind: Whose view of constitutions will predict better “out of sample” on the Magna Carta – Buchanan’s, or mine?
So here’s my proposal. Let’s have a “book club” on the Magna Carta. We’ll read it together, then race the “veil of ignorance” theory against the “political advantage lock-in theory.” This translation has 37 paragraphs, so I suggest that for Monday, we read the preamble and grafs 1-9. Then I’ll blog my assessment, and you can tell me whether my coding is fair.
Interested?
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