What is the origin of the constitution? Andréa Ford claims that the constitution was not established to limit government. "If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn't say so. Article I, Section 8, the longest section of the longest article of the Constitution, is a drumroll of congressional power. And it ends with the "necessary and proper" clause, which delegates to Congress the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." Limited government indeed."
James Buchanan in his contribution to the economic discipline examines the issue of constitutional political economy. As Ed Younkins writes, "Buchanan distinguishes between two levels of public choice—the initial or first level sets the rules of the game through the choice of a constitution and the second or post-constitutional level involves playing the game within the rules. Different rules have different distributional consequences and the rules chosen are applicable into the future. Constitutional politics thus places boundaries over what ordinary politics is permitted to do. Ordinary political decisions are made often based on majority voting. One of Buchanan’s major contributions is bringing attention to the two-level structure of collective decision making.
Two types of analysis fall under the taxonomy of public choice—constitutional economics and operational public choice analysis. The purpose of constitutional economics is to legitimize the existence of a constitutionally circumscribed state and to discuss what type of constitutional rules could reasonably reach unanimous consent at the stage of constitutional choice. Buchanan’s primary interest lies in constitutional choice and constitutional reform. Operational public choice analysis deals with political processes within existing constitutional structures. Operational public choice analysis involves the study of a nexus of evolving exchanges, bargains, trades, agreements, contracts, and side payments."
For Buchanan the issues is one of pre and post constitutional political economy. The pre-constitutional idea was a contractual arrangement where individuals set and agreed on the rules. The post-constitutional world is one that each of us has an obligation to participate in the constitutional dialogue to insure that we maintain this contract. This a powerful idea and Public Choice theory provides us the tools to examine the political decision making in this post constitutional world, and can explain why we will violate the constitutional rules.
Buchanan also addressed the issue of anarchy and decided it could not work, but a group of young public choice scholars such as Edward Stringham, Benjamin Powell, Chis Coyne, and Peter Leeson are returning to this question. They argue that constitutional constraint cannot work as long as government is both rule maker and umpire.
The issues of constitutional crisis, reform, and anarchy are all ones we should be thinking about and participating in a dialogue about today.
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