Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Politics: Politics is the process of making decisions in groups. It is about how people come together to allocate resources, settle disputes, and make choices about how to live together. See also Democracy, Society._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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James M. Buchanan on Politics - Dictionary of Arguments
Boudreaux I 71 Politics/Buchanan/Boudreaux/Holcombe: (…) not even the most ideal economic or political outcomes are akin to objective, scientific truths. Economic and political outcomes are compromises among people with legitimate differences in their preferences. These outcomes can never be correct or incorrect in the same way that an answer to the question “What is the speed of light?” is correct or incorrect. The correct answer to the question about the speed of light is not a compromise among different answers offered by different physicists - the speed of light is what it is, objectively, regardless of physicists’ estimates of it. But the “correct” allocation of resources and “correct” level of protection of free speech are indeed nothing more than the compromises that emerge from the economic and political bargaining of many individuals, each with different preferences. In short, said Buchanan, politics is about finding peaceful agreements among people with different preferences on collective outcomes. Politics, unlike science, is not about making “truth judgments.” Boudreaux I 72 The challenge is to discover and use the set of rules that best promotes the making of compromises among people with different preferences. Legitimate scientific inquiry and judgment can play a role in assessing how well or poorly some existing or proposed set of rules will serve this goal. Even here, though, Buchanan warned that people’s differences in fundamental values means that there is no universal one “best” set of rules, scientifically discoverable, for all peoples and for all times. In the end, the best set of rules is that which wins the unanimous approval of the people who will live under it. _____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
EconBuchan I James M. Buchanan Politics as Public Choice Carmel, IN 2000 Boudreaux I Donald J. Boudreaux Randall G. Holcombe The Essential James Buchanan Vancouver: The Fraser Institute 2021 Boudreaux II Donald J. Boudreaux The Essential Hayek Vancouver: Fraser Institute 2014 |
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