Does classical liberalism imply an evolutionary approach to policy-making?

Jan Schnellenbach

No 14/07, Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics from Walter Eucken Institut e.V.

Abstract: This paper argues that an evolutionary approach to policy-making, which emphasizes openness to change and political variety, is particularly compatible with the central tenets of classical liberalism. The chief reasons are that classical liberalism acknowledges the ubiquity of uncertainty, as well as heterogeneity in preferences and beliefs, and generally embraces gradual social and economic change that arises from accidental variation rather than deliberate, large-scale planning. In contrast, our arguments cast doubt on a different claim, namely that classical liberalism is particularly compatible with the evolutionary biological heritage of humans.

Keywords: classical liberalism; evolution; Darwinism; economic policy; cultural evolution; institutional evolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-hme and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/102396/1/797137459.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does classical liberalism imply an evolutionary approach to policy-making? (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:aluord:1407

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics from Walter Eucken Institut e.V. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().