The Calculus of Consent
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The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracyis abookpublished byeconomistsJames M. BuchananandGordon Tullockin 1962. It is considered to be one of the classic works from the discipline ofpublic choiceineconomicsandpolitical science.This work presents the basic principles ofpublic choice theory.
Overview
[edit]The analytical approach of the authors is based onmethodological individualism- collective action is composed of individual actions and on the rejection of any organic interpretation of the state.[1]A purely individualistic conception of collectivity is maintained: the state is an artifact, created by men and thus subject to change and perfection. Buchanan and Tullock maintain that only constitutional changes, which can be shown to be in the interest of all interested parties, can be judged as "improvements" and therefore consider conceptual unanimity as the only legitimate decision-making rule.
The authors analyze the traditional political science approach tovotingsystems, includingmajority votingas the standard as opposed to theunanimityrule. They show that none of those systems is perfect, since there is always a tradeoff:
- a simple majority-based system imposes varying amounts of bothexternal costsanddecision-makingcosts
- a unanimity-based system has little or no external costs, but considerable decision-making costs.
They conclude that decisions with potentially high external costs should require unanimity or at leastsupermajoritysystems.
While many political scientists define thepolitical processas a system in which thepolicy decisionsare viewed as a private interest vs.public intereststruggle, Buchanan and Tullock suggest that the public interest is simply the aggregation of private decision makers.
They show that in classical political science theory, the "public interest" is always the correct choice with the same appeal to all voters, which may or may not be opposed by "special interests". But that theory ignores the fact that most choices appeal to many different "law consumers" with varying strengths. An illustrative example is a choice whether to increase funding forhealth care.Some voters will strongly support or oppose it, but many may not care at all.
They compare this to a market transaction, where the voters strongly desiring better health care could purchase the acceptance of the opposition and uninterested voters with concessions, resulting in an efficient allocation of resources, increasing the happiness of all parties (Pareto optimality). However the equivalent of this in the political realm is that politicians buy the votes of other politicians (or groups of special interest) by promising to vote for their issues. In the authors' opinion suchlog-rollingis to be expected, but in the traditional political science theory, it is anomalous. Thus their model explains certain things that the previous models of politics could not.
Employing the theoretical concepts ofgame theoryand Pareto optimality, Buchanan and Tullock show that symmetry in benefits sharing may be at most anecessary,but never asufficientcondition for the attainment of a Pareto optimal position. The introduction of side payments is the crucial element, which would lead to optimality. In a sense the introduction of side payments creates marketable property rights of the individual political vote (Chapter 12).[2]
Table of contents
[edit]Part I. The Conceptual Framework
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The Individualistic Postulate (includes topics such asmethodological individualism)
- 3. Politics and the Economic Nexus
- 4. Individual Rationality in Social Choice (includes topics such asRational choice theoryandSocial choice)
Part II. The Realm of Social Choice
- 5. The Organization of Human Activity
- 6. A Generalized Economic Theory of Constitutions (includes topics such asConstitutional economics)
- 7. The Rule of Unanimity (includes topics such asUnanimity)
- 8. The Costs of Decision-Making
Part III. Analyses of Decision-Making Rules
- 9. The Structure of the Models
- 10. Simple Majority Voting (includes topics such asSimple Majority Voting)
- 11. Simple Majority Voting and the Theory of Games (includes topics such asgame theory)
- 12. Majority Rule, Game Theory, and Pareto Optimality (includes topics such asmajority ruleandPareto optimality)
- 13. Pareto Optimality, External Costs, and Income Redistribution (includes topics such asPareto optimalityandincome redistribution)
- 14. The Range and Extent of Collective action (includes topics such asCollective action)
- 15. Qualified Majority Voting Rules, Representation, and the Interdependence of Constitutional Variables (includes topics such asQualified Majority VotingandPolitical representation)
- 16. The Bicameral Legislature (Bicameralism)
- 17. The Orthodox Model of Majority Rule (includes topics such asMajority rule)
Part IV. The Economics and the Ethics of Democracy
- 18. Democracy, Ethics, and Economic Efficiency (includes topics such asDemocracy,Ethics,andEconomic efficiency)
- 19. Pressure groups, Special interests, and the Constitution (includes topics such asAdvocacy group,Lobby group,andthe Constitution)
- 20. The Politics of the Good Society
- Appendix 1 Marginal Notes on Reading Political Philosophy (Political philosophy)
- Appendix 2 Theoretical Forerunners
References
[edit]- ^Ludwig, Van den Hauwe (1999). "Public Choice, Constitutional Political Economy and Law and Economics".Encyclopedia of Law and Economics.
- ^Buchanan, James M., Tullock, Gordon (1962).The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy.
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Further reading
[edit]- Kenneth Arrow,Social Choice and Individual Values(1963), p. 120 (source for Arrow's defense oftransitivityover unanimity).