When I put libertarians and slaveholders in the same orbit, libertarians go ape-shit.
But when they do it—
We treat John C. Calhoun as a precursor of modern public choice theory. Calhoun anticipates the doctrine of public choice contractarianism as developed by Buchanan and Tullock and expands this approach in original directions. We consider Calhoun’s theory of why democracy fails to preserve liberty and Calhoun’s suggested constitutional reform, rule by unanimity. We also draw out parallels between Calhoun and Hayek with regard to theories of social change and Hayek’s analysis of “why the worst get to the top.” The paper concludes with some remarks on problems in Calhoun’s theory.
—it’s all good.
Of course, it helps if you can resolve that pesky question of slavery like so:
Furthermore, Calhoun furnishes only weak ethical foundations for his advocacy of the concurrent majority…
This lack of ethical foundation shows up in Calhoun’s defense of slavery, which continues to hurt his reputation and draw attention from his more valid and interesting contributions.
H/t Suresh Naidu
