Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1086/704894
Abstract
Richard Epstein’s property scholarship tracks his classical liberal theory of government. The classical liberal would permit state intervention to overcome collective-action problems but not to engage in redistribution of wealth. With respect to private law, Epstein harbors no clear preference for either the legislature or the courts as a source of limits on owners’ autonomy to overcome collective-action problems. With regard to public law, in contrast, Epstein would elevate the courts to a superior status relative to legislatures and would have courts enforce the classical liberal ideal as a matter of constitutional law. This article questions whether giving such power to courts makes sense, even on classical liberal assumptions.
Disciplines
Law | Property Law and Real Estate
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Thomas W. Merrill,
Classical Liberal Property and the Question of Institutional Choice,
50(S2)
J. Legal Stud.
S9
(2021).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3386
Comments
© 2021 by The University of Chicago.