The Limits of Liberty - (Collected Works of James M. Buchanan) by James M Buchanan

The Limits of Liberty by James M.

Buchanan is a groundbreaking work that established him as one of the three new contractarians alongside John Rawls and Robert Nozick.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the inherent limits of liberty in social interdependence, highlighting the importance of reason and agreement among individuals to maintain a free society.

With a foreword by Hartmut Kliemt, this publication is logically prior to Buchanan's Calculus of Consent and characterizes the status quo from the point where Paretian politics starts.

The author cogently frames the central idea in the opening of his preface: "Precepts for living together are not going to be handed down from on high.

Men must use their own intelligence in imposing order on chaos, intelligence not in scientific problem-solving but in the more difficult sense of finding and maintaining agreement among themselves." This book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the limits of liberty and how individuals can work together to maintain a free society.