Constitutions are brakes, not accelerators
30 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, Gordon Tullock, James Buchanan, liberalism, Public Choice Tags: checks and balances, constitutional political economy, economics of constitutions, public choice
Much of constitutional design is about checks and balances. This division of power slows the impassioned majority down.
Constitutional constraints are basically messages from the past to the present that you must think really hard, and go through extra hurdles before you do certain things.
The 18th and 19th century classical liberals were highly sceptical about the capability and willingness of politics and politicians to further the interests of the ordinary citizen, and were of the view that the political direction of resource allocation retards rather than facilitates economic progress.
Governments were considered to be institutions to be protected from but made necessary by the elementary fact that all persons are not angels. Constitutions were to constrain collective authority.
The problem of constitutional design was ensuring that government powers would be effectively limited. The constitutions were designed and put in place by the classical liberals to check or constrain the power of the state over individuals.
The motivating force of the classical liberals was never one of making government work better or even of insuring that all interests were more fully represented. Built in conflict and institutional tensions were to act as constraints on the power and the size of government.
Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party compared
28 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, rentseeking Tags: corporate welfare, Occupy Wall Street, rent seeking, tea party, top 1%
Representative democracy is a division of labour in the face of information overload
27 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, Public Choice Tags: constitutional law, constitutional political economy, public choice
John Stuart Mill had sympathy for the that parliaments are best suited to be places of public debate on the various opinions held by the population and to act as watchdogs of the professionals who create and administer laws and policy:
Their part is to indicate wants, to be an organ for popular demands, and a place of adverse discussion for all opinions relating to public matters, both great and small; and, along with this, to check by criticism, and eventually by withdrawing their support, those high public officers who really conduct the public business, or who appoint those by whom it is conducted
Representative democracy has the advantage of allowing the community to rely in its decision-making on the contributions of individuals with special qualifications of intelligence or character. Representative democracy makes a more effective use of resources within the citizenry to advance the common good.
Members of parliament are trustees who follow their own understanding of the best action to pursue in another view. As Edmund Burke wrote:
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.
You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. … Our representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
More Efficient Tax Systems Lead to Bigger Government
26 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: Casey Mulligan, Gary Becker, growth in government, public choice
G. Warren Nutter on the rushed nature of political and bureaucratic decision-making
25 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
The relative importance of capitalism and the British welfare state in abolishing destitution
24 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
HT: Andrew Newell
Friedman on Assigning Public Schools by Home Address
24 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of education, Milton Friedman, rentseeking Tags: Director's Law, Milton Friedman, School choice
G. Warren Nutter on the continually agitated nature of political discourse | Cafe Hayek
24 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, economics of bureaucracy, liberalism, Public Choice Tags: G. Warren Nutter
Institutions and Economic Performance | Timur Kuran speaks with Douglass North
22 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history, history of economic thought, law and economics, Public Choice Tags: Douglass North, Timur Kuran
Secret Tapes of the final Copenhagen Summit negotiations, starring Obama, Brown, Sarko & Merkel
21 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in development economics, environmental economics, global warming, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Copenhagen Summit, global warming, obama
In Copenhagen’s final private negotiations, Obama, Brown, Sarko and Merkel sat down with He Yafei, the Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs. There is a tape of this meeting at Der Spiegel
He Yafei was the smartest guy in the room. Wen Jiabao refused to attend most of the negotiating sessions.
Given the choice of walking out or sitting down with a vice-minister, they chose humiliation. One response of Obama was:
It would be nice to negotiate with somebody who can make political decisions.
There were still two important placeholders, X and Y, in the draft agreement. They marked the spots where the percentage targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, for the industrialized nations and emerging countries respectively, were to be entered.
China and India were unwilling to make that commitment. They had reached their own agreement with Brazil and South Africa.
"We have all along been saying ‘Don’t prejudge options!,’" said a representative of the Indian delegation*, prompting Merkel to burst out: "Then you don’t want legally binding!"
The entire discussion at Der Spiegel in multiple parts should be read while listening to the tape.
Recent Comments