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Although most people believe that some form of government is necessary, the necessity of government was an assumption in political economy that had never been analyzed from an economic point of view. This changed in the 1970s when economists at the Center for the Study of Public Choice engaged in a systematic exploration of the issue.

Anarchy, State and Public Choice, the first book-length treatment on the public choice theory of government, continues and extends the research program begun more than three decades ago. It reprints the main articles from the 1972 volume Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy, and it contains a response to each chapter by a new generation of economists, as well as new comments by Gordon Tullock, James Buchanan, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, and Peter J. Boettke. The new generation is notably less pessimistic about markets and more pessimistic about government than previous generations. Much of the new analysis suggests that private property rights and contracts can exist without government.

Might anarchy be the best choice after all? This provocative volume explores this question in depth and provides some interesting answers. Economists, political scientists, philosophers and lawyers interested in public choice, political economy, and spontaneous order will find this series of essays illuminating.

“The collection is well-rounded, including both purely theoretical analyses, as well as contributions with a strong historical and empirical focus. . . . This is an excellent collection not only for all those interested in the question of whether anarchy constitutes a feasible option that is superior to statist societies, but also for those interested in understanding how many real-world interactions do take place in the absence of effective third-party enforcement.”

—Ralf M. Bader, in Economic Affairs

“An excellent book that collects a set of helpful essays exploring the economics of bottom-up social organization—of anarchy. . . . Many contributors have gone on to venture more substantial discussions of state failure and non-state social organization like Coyne’s After War, Stringham’s Private Governance, and Leeson’s Anarchy Unbound. But this remains a valuable source of crisp, accessible discussions of anarchic social order.”

—Gary Chartier, in Review of Austrian Economics

Edward Stringham is the president of the American Institute for Economic Research, the Davis Professor of Economic Organizations and Innovation at Trinity College (Connecticut), and editor of the Journal of Private Enterprise. He is the editor of two books and author of more than seventy journal articles, book chapters, and policy studies. His work has been discussed on major broadcast networks, including CBS, CNBC, CNN, NPR, and MTV.