Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Toward A Libertarian Reconstruction Of Neoclassical Welfare Theory, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Faculty Publications

Many libertarians, especially those inclined toward the Austrian school of economics, counter the market-failure justification for government intervention by denying any legitimacy whatsoever to the neoclassical concept of efficiency. But properly interpreted, neoclassical efficiency, rather than providing an open-ended justification for all sorts of government intervention, provides one of the most powerful and comprehensive objections to government coercion in general.