That is the title of my contribution (in press) to the next issue of the Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice. Among other things, my refereed research article extends Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan’s public-choice critique of the “optimal taxation” literature to Adam Smith’s maxims of taxation — see here or here, for example, or better yet, check out Book V, Chapter 2 of The Wealth of Nations! — and inspired by Brennan & Buchanan’s powerful critique, I identify two new “meta-maxims” of taxation:
- Meta-maxim #1: What is one’s baseline assumption about government power? That is, are benevolent patriarchs or wicked despots the norm?
- Meta-maxim #2: What are the constitutional rules or outer limits of government power? Put another way, how much authority does the government have, and what remedies exist (if any) if it exceeds those powers?
prior probability 