Background
Epstein, Richard A. was born in 1943 in. Bachelor of Arts, Columbia University, 1964.
( If legal scholar Richard Epstein is right, then the Ne...)
If legal scholar Richard Epstein is right, then the New Deal is wrong, if not unconstitutional. Epstein reaches this sweeping conclusion after making a detailed analysis of the eminent domain, or takings, clause of the Constitution, which states that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. In contrast to the other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, the eminent domain clause has been interpreted narrowly. It has been invoked to force the government to compensate a citizen when his land is taken to build a post office, but not when its value is diminished by a comprehensive zoning ordinance. Epstein argues that this narrow interpretation is inconsistent with the language of the takings clause and the political theory that animates it. He develops a coherent normative theory that permits us to distinguish between permissible takings for public use and impermissible ones. He then examines a wide range of government regulations and taxes under a single comprehensive theory. He asks four questions: What constitutes a taking of private property? When is that taking justified without compensation under the police power? When is a taking for public use? And when is a taking compensated, in cash or in kind? Zoning, rent control, progressive and special taxes, workers' compensation, and bankruptcy are only a few of the programs analyzed within this framework. Epstein's theory casts doubt upon the established view today that the redistribution of wealth is a proper function of government. Throughout the book he uses recent developments in law and economics and the theory of collective choice to find in the eminent domain clause a theory of political obligation that he claims is superior to any of its modern rivals.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674867297/?tag=2022091-20
( With this book, Richard A. Epstein provides a spirited ...)
With this book, Richard A. Epstein provides a spirited and systematic defense of classical liberalism against the critiques mounted against it over the past thirty years. One of the most distinguished and provocative legal scholars writing today, Epstein here explains his controversial ideas in what will quickly come to be considered one of his cornerstone works. He begins by laying out his own vision of the key principles of classical liberalism: respect for the autonomy of the individual, a strong system of private property rights, the voluntary exchange of labor and possessions, and prohibitions against force or fraud. Nonetheless, he not only recognizes but insists that state coercion is crucial to safeguarding these principles of private ordering and supplying the social infrastructure on which they depend. Within this framework, Epstein then shows why limited government is much to be preferred over the modern interventionist welfare state. Many of the modern attacks on the classical liberal system seek to undermine the moral, conceptual, cognitive, and psychological foundations on which it rests. Epstein rises to this challenge by carefully rebutting each of these objections in turn. For instance, Epstein demonstrates how our inability to judge the preferences of others means we should respect their liberty of choice regarding their own lives. And he points out the flaws in behavioral economic arguments which, overlooking strong evolutionary pressures, claim that individual preferences are unstable and that people are unable to adopt rational means to achieve their own ends. Freedom, Epstein ultimately shows, depends upon a skepticism that rightly shuns making judgments about what is best for individuals, but that also avoids the relativistic trap that all judgments about our political institutions have equal worth. A brilliant defense of classical liberalism, Skepticism and Freedom will rightly be seen as an intellectual landmark.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226213056/?tag=2022091-20
(Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liber...)
Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (Studies in Law and Economics (Paperback)) Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (Studies in Law and Economics (Paperback)) by Epstein, Richard Allen ( Author ) Paperback Sep- 2004 Paperback Sep- 01- 2004
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FQ4134M/?tag=2022091-20
(This highly successful casebook integrates modern scholar...)
This highly successful casebook integrates modern scholarship and historical background to provide students with a thorough understanding of tort law. Written by leading scholar Richard Epstein, Cases and Materials on Torts takes an explicitly economics-based point of view and examines the processes of legal methods and reasoning, and the impact of legal rules on social institutions. The Tenth Edition welcomes new co-author Catherine Sharkey, an expert on punitive damages and federal preemption of state tort law. Hypothetical problems have been added to assist students in their understanding of core issues. New developments, such as privacy and defamation in the Internet Age, and the relevance of race and gender in calculating damages, are given thorough coverage. Features: • Written by a leading scholar in the field, • Economics-based point of view makes a good foil for counterpoint and fuels class discussion. • Traditional approach integrates cases with modern scholarship on moral theory, law and economics, and salient policy questions. • Begins with Intentional Torts and other physical and mental harms, and progresses logically through to nonphysical interests. • Thoughtful presentation examines the processes of legal method, legal reasoning, and the impact of legal rules on social institutions. • Exposes students to different intellectual approaches that have been employed to interpret tort law over the years. • Historical background provides contextual framework of tort law and its development up to the present. Thoroughly updated, the revised Tenth Edition includes: • New co-author, Catherine Sharkey, an expert on punitive damages and federal preemption of state tort law. • Empirical approach to many issues harmonizes the topics with cutting edge scholarship. • Hypothetical problems, inspired by the facts of actual cases, to help students develop a deeper understanding of the core issues. • New issues are explored, such as privacy and defamation in the age of the Internet, and the relevance of race and gender to damages calculations.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735599920/?tag=2022091-20
( Too many laws, too many lawyers--that's the necessary ...)
Too many laws, too many lawyers--that's the necessary consequence of a complex society, or so conventional wisdom has it. Countless pundits insist that any call for legal simplification smacks of nostalgia, sentimentality, or naiveté. But the conventional view, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein tells us, has it exactly backward. The richer texture of modern society allows for more individual freedom and choice. And it allows us to organize a comprehensive legal order capable of meeting the technological and social challenges of today on the basis of just six core principles. In this book, Epstein demonstrates how. The first four rules, which regulate human interactions in ordinary social life, concern the autonomy of the individual, property, contract, and tort. Taken together these rules establish and protect consistent entitlements over all resources, both human and natural. These rules are backstopped by two more rules that permit forced exchanges on payment of just compensation when private or public necessity so dictates. Epstein then uses these six building blocks to clarify many intractable problems in the modern legal landscape. His discussion of employment contracts explains the hidden virtues of contracts at will and exposes the crippling weaknesses of laws regarding collective bargaining, unjust dismissal, employer discrimination, and comparable worth. And his analysis shows how laws governing liability for products and professional services, corporate transactions, and environmental protection have generated unnecessary social strife and economic dislocation by violating these basic principles. Simple Rules for a Complex World offers a sophisticated agenda for comprehensive social reform that undoes much of the mischief of the modern regulatory state. At a time when most Americans have come to distrust and fear government at all levels, Epstein shows how a consistent application of economic and political theory allows us to steer a middle path between too much and too little.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674808215/?tag=2022091-20
(This timely and controversial book presents powerful theo...)
This timely and controversial book presents powerful theoretical and empirical arguments for the repeal of the anti-discrimination laws within the workplace. Richard Epstein demonstrates that these laws set one group against another, impose limits on freedom of choice, unleash bureaucratic excesses, mandate inefficient employment practices, and cause far more invidious discrimination than they prevent. Epstein urges a return to the now-rejected common law principles of individual autonomy that permit all persons to improve their position through trade, contract, and bargain, free of government constraint.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674308093/?tag=2022091-20
( In this seminal work, distinguished legal scholar Richa...)
In this seminal work, distinguished legal scholar Richard Epstein daringly refutes the assumption that health care is a right” that should be available to all Americans. Such thinking, he argues, has fundamentally distorted our national debate on health care by focusing the controversy on the unrealistic goal of government-provided universal access, instead of what can be reasonably provided to the largest number of people given the nation’s limited resources.With bracing clarity, Epstein examines the entire range of health-care issues, from euthanasia and organ donation to the contentious questions surrounding access. Basing his argument in our common law traditions that limit the collective responsibility for an individual’s welfare, he provides a political/economic analysis which suggests that unregulated provision of health care will, in the long run, guarantee greater access to quality medical care for more people. Any system, too, must be weighed on principles of market efficiency. But such analysis, in his view, must take into account a society-wide as well as an individual perspective. On this basis, for example, he concludes that older citizens are currently getting too much care at the expense of younger Americans.The author’s authoritative analysis leads to strong conclusions. HMOs and managed care, he argues, are the best way we know to distribute health care, despite some damage to the quality of the physician-patient relationship and the risk of inadequate care. In a similar vein, he maintains that voluntary private markets in human organs would be much more effective in making organs available for transplant operations than the current system of state control. In examining these complex issues, Epstein returns again and again to one simple theme: by what right does the state prevent individuals from doing what they want with their own bodies, their own lives, and their own fortunes?Like all of Richard Epstein’s works, Mortal Peril is sure to create controversy. It will be essential reading as health-care reform once again moves to the center of American political debate.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201136473/?tag=2022091-20
(Bargaining with the State examines the threats to liberty...)
Bargaining with the State examines the threats to liberty that arise through the power of government selectively to distribute benefits and favors to its citizens. For Richard Epstein, the preservation of individual liberty against government contractual power advances not only the short-term interest of the individual citizen but also the long-term overall social welfare.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691001553/?tag=2022091-20
Epstein, Richard A. was born in 1943 in. Bachelor of Arts, Columbia University, 1964.
AB summa cum laude, Columbia University, 1964. Bachelor Juris., Oxford University, 1966. Bachelor of Laws cum laude, Yale University, 1968.
Doctor of Laws (honorary), University Ghent, 2003.
Assistant professor School Law University Southern California, Los Angeles, 1968—1970, associate professor, 1970—1973. Visiting professor Law. School University Chicago, 1972—1973, professor Law School, 1973-1982, James Parker Hall professor law, 1982-1988, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service professor, since 1988, interim dean, 2001.
Peter & Kirsten Bedford senior fellow Hoover Institute, since 2000. Senior fellow Center Clinical Medical Ethics, University Chicago Medical School, since 1983.
(Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liber...)
( In this seminal work, distinguished legal scholar Richa...)
(Bargaining with the State examines the threats to liberty...)
(This timely and controversial book presents powerful theo...)
(This highly successful casebook integrates modern scholar...)
( Too many laws, too many lawyers--that's the necessary ...)
( If legal scholar Richard Epstein is right, then the Ne...)
(Book by Epstein, Richard A.)
( With this book, Richard A. Epstein provides a spirited ...)
Member American Academy Arts and Sciences, Order of Coif.