http://www.thedailybell.com/29006/Tibor-Machan-Public-Choice-Theory-is-Overlooked
Public Choice Theory is Overlooked
By Tibor Machan
Dr. Tibor Machan
Whenever public officials promise to manage affairs of state, I am baffled how they fail to pay heed to public choice theory. This is the idea for which the late, great James Buchanan, earned his Nobel Prize (an idea he developed with his friend and colleague Gordon Tullock in the book The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962]).
The gist of it is that public servants, so-called − politicians, bureaucrats and their colleagues − tend to promote goals of their own even as they claim to be serving the public interest. And this is not very difficult to grasp.
The public is, after all, a vast number of citizens whose interests vary enormously so it is a pure myth that there is a public interest that can be served by public servants. Given this plain fact, whose interest will public servants serve? The interest they consider important.
In the last analysis the so-called public interest is really the private interests public officials like best. Even the democratic process cannot sort out what the public interest is. (The best approximation is put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence where he identifies securing the protection of our basic rights as the purpose for which government is established, i.e., the public interest.)
Despite the hopelessness of pursuing and serving the public interest, politicians and their cheerleaders keep pretending that they have managed to overcome the hurdles facing them and assert that they are public servants instead of folks whose objectives are determined by lobbyists who represent innumerable, often conflicting, private and special interests.
I am confident that if one keeps the above in mind, one will have a clear picture of what is going on all the time in Washington, D.C. and other centers of political power. Intentionally or not, the public servants are all serving private and special interests and are hoping that their own calculation of how to line these up will assure their reelection because they all believe, earnestly, that somehow they will manage to figure out what is best for the country − or nation or state or the people or some equally nebulous body they claim they want to serve. (Or they are crooks!)
If they came to terms with public choice theory and learned the lesson it teaches, they would realize that the only public interest they can possibly serve is to secure the protection of the right to liberty of all citizens of the country. These citizens will then figure out what is in their own interest and pursue it good and hard in their own sphere of influence, with their own families, friends and fellows.
Until and unless this is acknowledged and implemented by our so-called public servants, there will simply continue a Hobbesian war of all against all to get a more or less sizable portion of the public wealth. And even the current worries about the national debt can best be understood as a result of this failure to appreciate the implications of public choice theory (as well as the tragedy of the commons).
Tibor Machan is the R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University in Orange, CA.
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I read The Daily Bell every day and I find it very informative.
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I read it everyday!
Jim Rogers
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I love reading The Daily Bell! Interesting investment information, a political and social viewpoint that lets me know I'm not alone in the world and "annotated" with analysis. I highly recommend it to all interested readers.
Rick Rule
INSIGHT YOU CANNOT IGNORE
The Daily Bell provides unique insights on contemporary political, economic and social problems that can be found in such a concentrated form nowhere else. Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, one cannot afford to ignore it.
Dr. Edwin Vieira
POWERFUL INSIGHTS
Congratulations on the new format of The Daily Bell. I consider The Daily Bell essential reading for anyone desirous of understanding the way the world really works.
Lord William Rees-Mogg
PREMIER FREE-MARKET ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell rings out for liberty every day. It is the premier online source for insightful and hard-hitting free-market analysis and interpretation of economic, political and business events. Every friend of freedom should begin their morning with it.
Dr. Richard Ebeling
EXCELLENT ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell has a great Libertarian point of view, and excellent economic analysis. Add it to your daily reading.
Peter Schiff
ESSENTIAL READING
Liberty is under assault by Big Government. The Daily Bell is an essential tool for information for those who want to fight for freedom.
Steve Forbes
EXCELLENT RESEARCH
I really enjoy reading The Daily Bell for the excellent research and content provided on a wide variety of issues vital to the Freedom Movement.
Dr. Mark Skousen
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE
I love the Daily Bell. Published from the free-market oriented country of Switzerland, every issue is principled and informative.
Lew Rockwell
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The Daily Bell does a remarkable job of exposing how money power uses central banking to crush people into submission via global government with economic and political slavery being the desired end result.
John Browne
ONE OF MY FAVORITE SITES
The Daily Bell is one of five sites that I review every day because I find there a clear, common-sense interpretation of everyday events.
Hugo Salinas-Price
A MUST-READ FOR EVERYONE
The Daily Bell is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the effects of the state on our economic future.
Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo
THOUGHTFUL NEWS, EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS
I always read the Bell. The news items are thoughtfully selected, and the interviews are unavailable elsewhere.
Doug Casey
A VIRTUAL WHO'S WHO
The good and the bad, the big dogs and the small, the thinkers and the doers among libertarians and on the "Right" – you can encounter them all in The Daily Bell's exclusive weekly interviews. Indispensable.
Dr. Hans Herman-Hoppe
A LEADING LIGHT
The future is created by the people who build it, not the people who predict it will not exist. You can meet lots of important builders by reading The Daily Bell.
Catherine Austin Fitts
CUTTING EDGE ANALYSIS
At a time when growing majorities worldwide are tuning out mainstream news, people are seeking the cutting edge, insightful and thought provoking analysis that the Daily Bell consistently provides.
Gerald Celente
COURAGEOUS REPORTING
There is no other publication in print or on the Internet like The Daily Bell. They have the courage to report the truth and analyze current foreign policy, politics and economic events in the context of a formerly hidden history of financial elites.
Ron Holland
SOURCES YOU CAN TRUST
The Daily Bell should be on everyone's shortlist of news sources you can trust. It's on mine, and we often refer to it in our own weekly news service at The Reality Zone.
G. Edward Griffin
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Editorial
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Public Choice Theory is Overlooked
By Tibor Machan
1
Dr. Tibor Machan
Whenever public officials promise to manage affairs of state, I am baffled how they fail to pay heed to public choice theory. This is the idea for which the late, great James Buchanan, earned his Nobel Prize (an idea he developed with his friend and colleague Gordon Tullock in the book The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962]).
The gist of it is that public servants, so-called − politicians, bureaucrats and their colleagues − tend to promote goals of their own even as they claim to be serving the public interest. And this is not very difficult to grasp.
The public is, after all, a vast number of citizens whose interests vary enormously so it is a pure myth that there is a public interest that can be served by public servants. Given this plain fact, whose interest will public servants serve? The interest they consider important.
In the last analysis the so-called public interest is really the private interests public officials like best. Even the democratic process cannot sort out what the public interest is. (The best approximation is put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence where he identifies securing the protection of our basic rights as the purpose for which government is established, i.e., the public interest.)
Despite the hopelessness of pursuing and serving the public interest, politicians and their cheerleaders keep pretending that they have managed to overcome the hurdles facing them and assert that they are public servants instead of folks whose objectives are determined by lobbyists who represent innumerable, often conflicting, private and special interests.
I am confident that if one keeps the above in mind, one will have a clear picture of what is going on all the time in Washington, D.C. and other centers of political power. Intentionally or not, the public servants are all serving private and special interests and are hoping that their own calculation of how to line these up will assure their reelection because they all believe, earnestly, that somehow they will manage to figure out what is best for the country − or nation or state or the people or some equally nebulous body they claim they want to serve. (Or they are crooks!)
If they came to terms with public choice theory and learned the lesson it teaches, they would realize that the only public interest they can possibly serve is to secure the protection of the right to liberty of all citizens of the country. These citizens will then figure out what is in their own interest and pursue it good and hard in their own sphere of influence, with their own families, friends and fellows.
Until and unless this is acknowledged and implemented by our so-called public servants, there will simply continue a Hobbesian war of all against all to get a more or less sizable portion of the public wealth. And even the current worries about the national debt can best be understood as a result of this failure to appreciate the implications of public choice theory (as well as the tragedy of the commons).
Tibor Machan is the R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University in Orange, CA.
VERY INFORMATIVE
I read The Daily Bell every day and I find it very informative.
Marc Faber
PART OF MY DAILY NEWS DIET
I read it everyday!
Jim Rogers
GREAT INVESTMENT INFORMATION
I love reading The Daily Bell! Interesting investment information, a political and social viewpoint that lets me know I'm not alone in the world and "annotated" with analysis. I highly recommend it to all interested readers.
Rick Rule
INSIGHT YOU CANNOT IGNORE
The Daily Bell provides unique insights on contemporary political, economic and social problems that can be found in such a concentrated form nowhere else. Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, one cannot afford to ignore it.
Dr. Edwin Vieira
POWERFUL INSIGHTS
Congratulations on the new format of The Daily Bell. I consider The Daily Bell essential reading for anyone desirous of understanding the way the world really works.
Lord William Rees-Mogg
PREMIER FREE-MARKET ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell rings out for liberty every day. It is the premier online source for insightful and hard-hitting free-market analysis and interpretation of economic, political and business events. Every friend of freedom should begin their morning with it.
Dr. Richard Ebeling
EXCELLENT ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell has a great Libertarian point of view, and excellent economic analysis. Add it to your daily reading.
Peter Schiff
ESSENTIAL READING
Liberty is under assault by Big Government. The Daily Bell is an essential tool for information for those who want to fight for freedom.
Steve Forbes
EXCELLENT RESEARCH
I really enjoy reading The Daily Bell for the excellent research and content provided on a wide variety of issues vital to the Freedom Movement.
Dr. Mark Skousen
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE
I love the Daily Bell. Published from the free-market oriented country of Switzerland, every issue is principled and informative.
Lew Rockwell
SIMPLY TERRIFIC
The Daily Bell does a remarkable job of exposing how money power uses central banking to crush people into submission via global government with economic and political slavery being the desired end result.
John Browne
ONE OF MY FAVORITE SITES
The Daily Bell is one of five sites that I review every day because I find there a clear, common-sense interpretation of everyday events.
Hugo Salinas-Price
A MUST-READ FOR EVERYONE
The Daily Bell is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the effects of the state on our economic future.
Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo
THOUGHTFUL NEWS, EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS
I always read the Bell. The news items are thoughtfully selected, and the interviews are unavailable elsewhere.
Doug Casey
A VIRTUAL WHO'S WHO
The good and the bad, the big dogs and the small, the thinkers and the doers among libertarians and on the "Right" – you can encounter them all in The Daily Bell's exclusive weekly interviews. Indispensable.
Dr. Hans Herman-Hoppe
A LEADING LIGHT
The future is created by the people who build it, not the people who predict it will not exist. You can meet lots of important builders by reading The Daily Bell.
Catherine Austin Fitts
CUTTING EDGE ANALYSIS
At a time when growing majorities worldwide are tuning out mainstream news, people are seeking the cutting edge, insightful and thought provoking analysis that the Daily Bell consistently provides.
Gerald Celente
COURAGEOUS REPORTING
There is no other publication in print or on the Internet like The Daily Bell. They have the courage to report the truth and analyze current foreign policy, politics and economic events in the context of a formerly hidden history of financial elites.
Ron Holland
SOURCES YOU CAN TRUST
The Daily Bell should be on everyone's shortlist of news sources you can trust. It's on mine, and we often refer to it in our own weekly news service at The Reality Zone.
G. Edward Griffin
INDEPENDENT
Get outside the box with The Daily Bell and experience independent views.
Paul Craig Roberts
HOME
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
THINKTANK
LIBERTY SUMMIT 2013
FREE MEMBERSHIP
The Daily Bell Newswire
Editorial
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Public Choice Theory is Overlooked
By Tibor Machan
1
Dr. Tibor Machan
Whenever public officials promise to manage affairs of state, I am baffled how they fail to pay heed to public choice theory. This is the idea for which the late, great James Buchanan, earned his Nobel Prize (an idea he developed with his friend and colleague Gordon Tullock in the book The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962]).
The gist of it is that public servants, so-called − politicians, bureaucrats and their colleagues − tend to promote goals of their own even as they claim to be serving the public interest. And this is not very difficult to grasp.
The public is, after all, a vast number of citizens whose interests vary enormously so it is a pure myth that there is a public interest that can be served by public servants. Given this plain fact, whose interest will public servants serve? The interest they consider important.
In the last analysis the so-called public interest is really the private interests public officials like best. Even the democratic process cannot sort out what the public interest is. (The best approximation is put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence where he identifies securing the protection of our basic rights as the purpose for which government is established, i.e., the public interest.)
Despite the hopelessness of pursuing and serving the public interest, politicians and their cheerleaders keep pretending that they have managed to overcome the hurdles facing them and assert that they are public servants instead of folks whose objectives are determined by lobbyists who represent innumerable, often conflicting, private and special interests.
I am confident that if one keeps the above in mind, one will have a clear picture of what is going on all the time in Washington, D.C. and other centers of political power. Intentionally or not, the public servants are all serving private and special interests and are hoping that their own calculation of how to line these up will assure their reelection because they all believe, earnestly, that somehow they will manage to figure out what is best for the country − or nation or state or the people or some equally nebulous body they claim they want to serve. (Or they are crooks!)
If they came to terms with public choice theory and learned the lesson it teaches, they would realize that the only public interest they can possibly serve is to secure the protection of the right to liberty of all citizens of the country. These citizens will then figure out what is in their own interest and pursue it good and hard in their own sphere of influence, with their own families, friends and fellows.
Until and unless this is acknowledged and implemented by our so-called public servants, there will simply continue a Hobbesian war of all against all to get a more or less sizable portion of the public wealth. And even the current worries about the national debt can best be understood as a result of this failure to appreciate the implications of public choice theory (as well as the tragedy of the commons).
Tibor Machan is the R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University in Orange, CA.
VERY INFORMATIVE
I read The Daily Bell every day and I find it very informative.
Marc Faber
PART OF MY DAILY NEWS DIET
I read it everyday!
Jim Rogers
GREAT INVESTMENT INFORMATION
I love reading The Daily Bell! Interesting investment information, a political and social viewpoint that lets me know I'm not alone in the world and "annotated" with analysis. I highly recommend it to all interested readers.
Rick Rule
INSIGHT YOU CANNOT IGNORE
The Daily Bell provides unique insights on contemporary political, economic and social problems that can be found in such a concentrated form nowhere else. Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, one cannot afford to ignore it.
Dr. Edwin Vieira
POWERFUL INSIGHTS
Congratulations on the new format of The Daily Bell. I consider The Daily Bell essential reading for anyone desirous of understanding the way the world really works.
Lord William Rees-Mogg
PREMIER FREE-MARKET ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell rings out for liberty every day. It is the premier online source for insightful and hard-hitting free-market analysis and interpretation of economic, political and business events. Every friend of freedom should begin their morning with it.
Dr. Richard Ebeling
EXCELLENT ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell has a great Libertarian point of view, and excellent economic analysis. Add it to your daily reading.
Peter Schiff
ESSENTIAL READING
Liberty is under assault by Big Government. The Daily Bell is an essential tool for information for those who want to fight for freedom.
Steve Forbes
EXCELLENT RESEARCH
I really enjoy reading The Daily Bell for the excellent research and content provided on a wide variety of issues vital to the Freedom Movement.
Dr. Mark Skousen
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE
I love the Daily Bell. Published from the free-market oriented country of Switzerland, every issue is principled and informative.
Lew Rockwell
SIMPLY TERRIFIC
The Daily Bell does a remarkable job of exposing how money power uses central banking to crush people into submission via global government with economic and political slavery being the desired end result.
John Browne
ONE OF MY FAVORITE SITES
The Daily Bell is one of five sites that I review every day because I find there a clear, common-sense interpretation of everyday events.
Hugo Salinas-Price
A MUST-READ FOR EVERYONE
The Daily Bell is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the effects of the state on our economic future.
Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo
THOUGHTFUL NEWS, EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS
I always read the Bell. The news items are thoughtfully selected, and the interviews are unavailable elsewhere.
Doug Casey
A VIRTUAL WHO'S WHO
The good and the bad, the big dogs and the small, the thinkers and the doers among libertarians and on the "Right" – you can encounter them all in The Daily Bell's exclusive weekly interviews. Indispensable.
Dr. Hans Herman-Hoppe
A LEADING LIGHT
The future is created by the people who build it, not the people who predict it will not exist. You can meet lots of important builders by reading The Daily Bell.
Catherine Austin Fitts
CUTTING EDGE ANALYSIS
At a time when growing majorities worldwide are tuning out mainstream news, people are seeking the cutting edge, insightful and thought provoking analysis that the Daily Bell consistently provides.
Gerald Celente
COURAGEOUS REPORTING
There is no other publication in print or on the Internet like The Daily Bell. They have the courage to report the truth and analyze current foreign policy, politics and economic events in the context of a formerly hidden history of financial elites.
Ron Holland
SOURCES YOU CAN TRUST
The Daily Bell should be on everyone's shortlist of news sources you can trust. It's on mine, and we often refer to it in our own weekly news service at The Reality Zone.
G. Edward Griffin
INDEPENDENT
Get outside the box with The Daily Bell and experience independent views.
Paul Craig Roberts
HOME
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
THINKTANK
LIBERTY SUMMIT 2013
FREE MEMBERSHIP
The Daily Bell Newswire
Editorial
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Public Choice Theory is Overlooked
By Tibor Machan
1
Dr. Tibor Machan
Whenever public officials promise to manage affairs of state, I am baffled how they fail to pay heed to public choice theory. This is the idea for which the late, great James Buchanan, earned his Nobel Prize (an idea he developed with his friend and colleague Gordon Tullock in the book The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962]).
The gist of it is that public servants, so-called − politicians, bureaucrats and their colleagues − tend to promote goals of their own even as they claim to be serving the public interest. And this is not very difficult to grasp.
The public is, after all, a vast number of citizens whose interests vary enormously so it is a pure myth that there is a public interest that can be served by public servants. Given this plain fact, whose interest will public servants serve? The interest they consider important.
In the last analysis the so-called public interest is really the private interests public officials like best. Even the democratic process cannot sort out what the public interest is. (The best approximation is put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence where he identifies securing the protection of our basic rights as the purpose for which government is established, i.e., the public interest.)
Despite the hopelessness of pursuing and serving the public interest, politicians and their cheerleaders keep pretending that they have managed to overcome the hurdles facing them and assert that they are public servants instead of folks whose objectives are determined by lobbyists who represent innumerable, often conflicting, private and special interests.
I am confident that if one keeps the above in mind, one will have a clear picture of what is going on all the time in Washington, D.C. and other centers of political power. Intentionally or not, the public servants are all serving private and special interests and are hoping that their own calculation of how to line these up will assure their reelection because they all believe, earnestly, that somehow they will manage to figure out what is best for the country − or nation or state or the people or some equally nebulous body they claim they want to serve. (Or they are crooks!)
If they came to terms with public choice theory and learned the lesson it teaches, they would realize that the only public interest they can possibly serve is to secure the protection of the right to liberty of all citizens of the country. These citizens will then figure out what is in their own interest and pursue it good and hard in their own sphere of influence, with their own families, friends and fellows.
Until and unless this is acknowledged and implemented by our so-called public servants, there will simply continue a Hobbesian war of all against all to get a more or less sizable portion of the public wealth. And even the current worries about the national debt can best be understood as a result of this failure to appreciate the implications of public choice theory (as well as the tragedy of the commons).
Tibor Machan is the R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University in Orange, CA.
VERY INFORMATIVE
I read The Daily Bell every day and I find it very informative.
Marc Faber
PART OF MY DAILY NEWS DIET
I read it everyday!
Jim Rogers
GREAT INVESTMENT INFORMATION
I love reading The Daily Bell! Interesting investment information, a political and social viewpoint that lets me know I'm not alone in the world and "annotated" with analysis. I highly recommend it to all interested readers.
Rick Rule
INSIGHT YOU CANNOT IGNORE
The Daily Bell provides unique insights on contemporary political, economic and social problems that can be found in such a concentrated form nowhere else. Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, one cannot afford to ignore it.
Dr. Edwin Vieira
POWERFUL INSIGHTS
Congratulations on the new format of The Daily Bell. I consider The Daily Bell essential reading for anyone desirous of understanding the way the world really works.
Lord William Rees-Mogg
PREMIER FREE-MARKET ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell rings out for liberty every day. It is the premier online source for insightful and hard-hitting free-market analysis and interpretation of economic, political and business events. Every friend of freedom should begin their morning with it.
Dr. Richard Ebeling
EXCELLENT ANALYSIS
The Daily Bell has a great Libertarian point of view, and excellent economic analysis. Add it to your daily reading.
Peter Schiff
ESSENTIAL READING
Liberty is under assault by Big Government. The Daily Bell is an essential tool for information for those who want to fight for freedom.
Steve Forbes
EXCELLENT RESEARCH
I really enjoy reading The Daily Bell for the excellent research and content provided on a wide variety of issues vital to the Freedom Movement.
Dr. Mark Skousen
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE
I love the Daily Bell. Published from the free-market oriented country of Switzerland, every issue is principled and informative.
Lew Rockwell
SIMPLY TERRIFIC
The Daily Bell does a remarkable job of exposing how money power uses central banking to crush people into submission via global government with economic and political slavery being the desired end result.
John Browne
ONE OF MY FAVORITE SITES
The Daily Bell is one of five sites that I review every day because I find there a clear, common-sense interpretation of everyday events.
Hugo Salinas-Price
A MUST-READ FOR EVERYONE
The Daily Bell is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the effects of the state on our economic future.
Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo
THOUGHTFUL NEWS, EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS
I always read the Bell. The news items are thoughtfully selected, and the interviews are unavailable elsewhere.
Doug Casey
A VIRTUAL WHO'S WHO
The good and the bad, the big dogs and the small, the thinkers and the doers among libertarians and on the "Right" – you can encounter them all in The Daily Bell's exclusive weekly interviews. Indispensable.
Dr. Hans Herman-Hoppe
A LEADING LIGHT
The future is created by the people who build it, not the people who predict it will not exist. You can meet lots of important builders by reading The Daily Bell.
Catherine Austin Fitts
CUTTING EDGE ANALYSIS
At a time when growing majorities worldwide are tuning out mainstream news, people are seeking the cutting edge, insightful and thought provoking analysis that the Daily Bell consistently provides.
Gerald Celente
COURAGEOUS REPORTING
There is no other publication in print or on the Internet like The Daily Bell. They have the courage to report the truth and analyze current foreign policy, politics and economic events in the context of a formerly hidden history of financial elites.
Ron Holland
SOURCES YOU CAN TRUST
The Daily Bell should be on everyone's shortlist of news sources you can trust. It's on mine, and we often refer to it in our own weekly news service at The Reality Zone.
G. Edward Griffin
INDEPENDENT
Get outside the box with The Daily Bell and experience independent views.
Paul Craig Roberts
HOME
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
THINKTANK
LIBERTY SUMMIT 2013
FREE MEMBERSHIP
The Daily Bell Newswire
Editorial
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Public Choice Theory is Overlooked
By Tibor Machan
1
Dr. Tibor Machan
Whenever public officials promise to manage affairs of state, I am baffled how they fail to pay heed to public choice theory. This is the idea for which the late, great James Buchanan, earned his Nobel Prize (an idea he developed with his friend and colleague Gordon Tullock in the book The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962]).
The gist of it is that public servants, so-called − politicians, bureaucrats and their colleagues − tend to promote goals of their own even as they claim to be serving the public interest. And this is not very difficult to grasp.
The public is, after all, a vast number of citizens whose interests vary enormously so it is a pure myth that there is a public interest that can be served by public servants. Given this plain fact, whose interest will public servants serve? The interest they consider important.
In the last analysis the so-called public interest is really the private interests public officials like best. Even the democratic process cannot sort out what the public interest is. (The best approximation is put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence where he identifies securing the protection of our basic rights as the purpose for which government is established, i.e., the public interest.)
Despite the hopelessness of pursuing and serving the public interest, politicians and their cheerleaders keep pretending that they have managed to overcome the hurdles facing them and assert that they are public servants instead of folks whose objectives are determined by lobbyists who represent innumerable, often conflicting, private and special interests.
I am confident that if one keeps the above in mind, one will have a clear picture of what is going on all the time in Washington, D.C. and other centers of political power. Intentionally or not, the public servants are all serving private and special interests and are hoping that their own calculation of how to line these up will assure their reelection because they all believe, earnestly, that somehow they will manage to figure out what is best for the country − or nation or state or the people or some equally nebulous body they claim they want to serve. (Or they are crooks!)
If they came to terms with public choice theory and learned the lesson it teaches, they would realize that the only public interest they can possibly serve is to secure the protection of the right to liberty of all citizens of the country. These citizens will then figure out what is in their own interest and pursue it good and hard in their own sphere of influence, with their own families, friends and fellows.
Until and unless this is acknowledged and implemented by our so-called public servants, there will simply continue a Hobbesian war of all against all to get a more or less sizable portion of the public wealth. And even the current worries about the national debt can best be understood as a result of this failure to appreciate the implications of public choice theory (as well as the tragedy of the commons).
Tibor Machan is the R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University in Orange, CA.