Pricing Liberty
8 Pages Posted: 21 May 2011 Last revised: 24 May 2011
Date Written: May 22, 2011
Abstract
The cost of liberty in despotic regimes is historically so high that colonials were resolved to die free men. I derive a model that prices liberty, providing immediate qualitative valuations consistent with the enclosed results of a national survey. The generalized model can be specified so as to generate parameter estimates for public policy. The intent of the Bill of Rights was to keep the expected price of liberty relatively low, a hallmark of a democracy. Significantly raising the expected price of liberty is a hallmark of despotism.
Keywords: liberty, bill of rights, due process, inalienable rights, public policy
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