Robust Political Economy: Classical Liberalism and the Future of Public Policy
Mark Pennington - Edward Elgar Publishing, Incorporated, 2011
Mark Pennington presents a wide ranging
and imaginative treatment of the superiority of classical liberalism over the
various state-centered ideologies that presently enjoy wide currency. Among
other things, we learn why people who are concerned with inequality and social
solidarity should embrace the minimal state of classical liberalism and reject
today s total states with their unlimited domains. I was delighted to have been
able to read this book as I learned much from it, and I am confident other
readers will have the same experience. Richard E. Wagner, George Mason
University, US I really enjoyed reading Mark Pennington s book. Really, really
enjoyed it. He nicely blends public choice and Austrian insights, the notion of
robust political economy as something that takes into account self-interest,
knowledge, and incentives. Pennington expertly highlights the comparative
institutional arrangements and the plurality of choices that a system with
several property and exit possibilities provides. Uniquely, he discusses how
neither straight neoclassical economics nor the Stiglitz variety gets it. This
is an important book because it attempts to address the critics directly. It is
a book almost custom-made for those who want to defend classical liberalism
against the common arguments. Bruce J. Caldwell, Duke University, US This
important book offers a comprehensive defence of classical liberalism against
contemporary challenges. It sets out an analytical framework of robust political
economy that explores the economic and political problems that arise from the
phenomena of imperfect knowledge and imperfect incentives. Using this framework,
the book defends the classical liberal focus on markets and the minimal state
from the critiques presented by market failure economics and communitarian and
egalitarian variants of political theory. Mark Pennington expertly applies the
lessons learned from responding to these challenges in the context of
contemporary discussions surrounding the welfare state, international
development, and environmental protection. Written in an accessible style, this
authoritative book would be useful for both undergraduate and graduate students
of political economy and public policy as a standard reference work for
classical liberal analysis and a defence of its normative prescriptions. The
book s distinctive approach will ensure that academic practitioners of economics
and political science, political theory and public policy will also find its
controversial conclusions insightful.
