Source

• public choice theory: the application of economic methods to the study of political processes

  • government is a complex social machine inhabited by people who are the same as everyone else, and in which periodic elections play a central role

• economists are interested in human action, and they believe that action involves choice

  • choice involves comparing alternatives

  • always ask: compared to what?

• public choice economists ask this question in relation to alternative ways of organizing decision making

  • compare the outcomes of market decisions to political decisions

• asking "what should government do about this?" is the wrong question because it makes certain assumptions about what kind of actor government is and what influences its decisions

  • the government is thought as a benevolent despot

  • this conception is dangerous

• government is not a single agent

  • it is made by people who want to win the next elections

• public choice theorists want to put the democratic election process center stage in any analysis of policy

  • what policy is likely to emerge from real-world democratic politics, and how does that compare to market alternatives?

• people also assume government is motivated to choose the policies that benefit the greater good

  • people in markets are motivated by self-interest

  • why should politicians be any different?

• when assessing policy

  • don't ask what is the best policy we can imagine

  • rather, what is the policy most likely to emerge

• they analyze

  • how majority rule

  • incentives that parties and candidates have to shift the cost of their programs on future tax payers and the associated debt problem

  • incentive for the current regime to make it appear as though their policies cost less than they actually do

  • lobbying processes, what political donors expect to gain

• james buchanan described public choice as politics without romance

• winston churchill said that democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the rest

  • democracy is the best system available

  • but heroic views of what democracy can achieve encourage false expecations