| | This is an excellent and thorough presentation of James Buchanan's thinking. Several points surprised me. I've never read Buchanan or Knight or Wicksell. So I was surprised to learn that Knight was critical of positivism; I have always loosely assumed that virtually all economists, with their treatment of the idea of subjective value as descriptive of the way man supposedly really is, were positivists. How did Knight critcize positivism? I was startled to learn that Wicksell believed in the requirement of unanimity as a sort of principle of just taxation; that principle sounds like a handy way to abolish taxes. And I was surprised to learn that Buchanan thinks unanimity is necessary to form a workable constitution. Does this mean that he rejects the US constitution as undesireable, since it was imposed by majority vote? What about people born after the unanimous approval of a constitution? Do they get to withdraw or affirm their support?
Although I've never read Buchanan, I've never been impressed with the ideas I've have read that are attributed to him. His insights about incentives in voting for pork, in creating government debt, in the choices of politicians and bureaucrats in the performance of their operations, none of this stuff seemed original or especially insightful to me. I had heard nearly all of the same ideas expressed to me by my parents from the time I was little. I mean, every kid who grows up in a conservative household knows about Rome and bread and circuses. Everyone knows politicians lie and posture to get votes. Everyone knows taxes and giveaway programs never die; they just tend to get larger. For such insights Buchannan was awarded the Nobel Prize?
One final small point. If not methodological indiviualism, what other analytical framework is there to figure out how government and its agents function? I suppose superstitious left wingers might roll their eyes and wave their hands around as they talk about a "collective unconscious"and "the will of the people" manifesting in the spontaneous formation of a State and Social Security. But who in real life takes that kind of "analysis" seriously?
One other thought that occurs to me: since most people really do think that the Right can be distinguished from the Wrong, although in ways most of them can't explain, I find it difficult to buy the idea that politicans and bureaucrats are not influenced in their decisions by their ideas of right and wrong. Doesn't Buchanan accept that ideas have consequences? His emphasis on the pursuit of financial gain by political types, while often true, doesn't adequately describe the ideas that inspire people in their conduct.
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