Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager

218 Randall G. HolcombeA utilitarian contractarian rights theory of policyespousalI close my paper with my own reflections on this topic. I was invited to write a paperin honor of Leland Yeager, and people who know both of us (even if just by ourwork) will recognize that the honor is really mine. Leland is a true scholar andintellectual: a man of ideas. He is also a genuinely nice, decent, honest, and straightforwardindividual who has earned my respect many times over. His scholarship isbroad, and I chose a topic for my paper where his work most overlaps with mine,though I recognize that Leland knows much more about the topic than I do. Assuch, I do not view my paper as a critique or evaluation of Leland’s work, but rathermerely as my own reaction to it. I also must admit that from my first conversationson this topic with Leland more than 20 years ago, his views have influenced mine.So while it is apparent from what I have written that my views are not identical tohis, they have been influenced substantially by him.My own views probably lie closer to the natural rights arguments regardingpolicy espousal than the utilitarian and contractarian alternatives. I am persuadedby the normative arguments of Locke and Rothbard that self-ownership is a goodstarting place for ethics, and that one can get much mileage out of the homesteadingextensions that Rothbard (1982) puts in his ethics. However, I agree with Yeagerthat ultimately I have utilitarian foundations for this rights theory. I believe thathappiness is best served by a policy regime that lays the protection of individualrights at its foundation, both because such a regime is conducive to productivityand the generation of wealth and because independent of wealth people arehappier when they are free to make their own choices. Yeager (2001: 82) talksabout social cooperation as a nearly ultimate criterion in policy espousal, but myown reasoning leads me to conclude that rights protection is the nearly ultimatecriterion. My reasoning is utilitarian, just as Yeager’s is about social cooperation,but he and I arrive at different “nearly ultimate criteria” through similar lines ofreasoning. And again, I gratefully acknowledge that my reasoning has beeninfluenced by Yeager’s arguments.If rights protection is not my absolutely ultimate criterion for policy espousal,when would I allow people’s rights to be compromised? My contractarian sideappears here, and I would allow people’s rights to be compromised when theyagree to it. I would not argue that people always know their own interests betterthan the utilitarian observer; rather, I would argue that because these are theirrights, they have the right to trade those rights away. 9 If people agree to progressivetaxation to finance redistribution, then even though they have a right to theirincomes, they also have a right to give up some of their incomes through taxation– if they agree to it. However, I would be quick to recognize that such taxationviolates my “nearly ultimate criterion” of the protection of individual rights. It doesnot violate Yeager’s nearly ultimate criterion of social cooperation.I find my conclusions completely in the spirit of Yeager’s work, as I accept hisrules-utilitarian approach to the issue, and I deduce that the rule that best fostershappiness is a policy regime that sets as its first principle the protection of individual