This year, students are asked to consider the following quote from James M. Buchanan

2024 Quote:

"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 experience."
-- James M. Buchanan

Prompt:

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?