2024

Prompt

Nobel Laureate James Buchanan commented on the relationship between the collective and the individual observing the following,

“If, however, the collectivity is empowered to enforce individual rights, how is it to be prevented from going beyond these limits? What are the “rights” of the enforcing agent itself, the state? …. How can Leviathan be chained? This problem has worried political philosophers of all ages, but no fully satisfactory answer has been advanced, either as an ideal to be approached or as a practical program to be experienced.”

Discussions about the role of the state and how and when its powers should be limited remain a point of discussion and disagreement today.

How would you respond to Buchanan’s question either in the ideal or in the practical?

Winners

First Place
Connor Sutton

Second Place

Breanna McBride

Third Place

Andy Yu

2023

Prompt

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it… He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that…in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.

Adam Smith, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”; Part IV, section II, chapter 2. pp 380-381

Winners

First Place
Christian Torsell

Notre Dame

Second Place

Jonathan Meilaender
Saint Vincent College

Third Place

Paul Weisser
St. Vincent College

Honorable Mention
Myron Highsmith

Auburn University
Davis Smith

Gutenberg College
Michael Sparks

Christopher Newport University

2022

Prompt

A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests. On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first, will as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality. Though a by-product of freedom, greater equality is not an accident. A free society releases the energies and abilities of people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from becoming institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today’s disadvantaged to become tomorrow’s privileged and in the process, enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a fuller richer life.

Milton Friedman, “Free to Choose”

Winners

First Place
Wein Li Teng
University of Chicago

Second Place

Tegan Truitt
Grove City College

Third Place

Paul Weisser
St. Vincent College

Honorable Mention
Marcus Shera
George Mason University
Stephen Bork
Princeton