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 | | Politics by Principle, Not Interest: Towards Nondiscriminatory Democracy by James M. Buchanan, Roger D. Congleton ISBN-10: 9780521621878 ISBN-10: 0-521-62187-9 ISBN-13: 9780521621878 ISBN-13: 978-0-521-62187-8 Hardcover 1998-04-28 Cambridge University Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description In his treatise, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), F. A. Hayek emphasized the central role of the generality principle, as embodied in the rule of law, for the maintenance of a free society. This book extends Hayek's argument by applying the generality principle to politics. Several important policy implications emerge. There are no direct implications to suggest how much governments should do. The argument suggests strongly however, that, whatever is done politically, must be done generally rather than discriminatorily. | ||
Reviews | ||
Workable solution to problems inherent in democracy The premise of James M. Buchanan and Roger D. Congleton's book Politics by Principle, Not Interest is Buchanan's usual theme that majority-rules democracy inherently leads to less than perfect outcomes. In theory, politics is driven by principles of fairness and justice. In practice, however, politics is the outcome of a process in which various parties (voters, politicians, lobbyists, bureaucrats, etc.) are all tugging in different directions in pursuit of their own self-interest. The outcome is unlikely to reflect the kind of political system to which most citizens would agree if they were designing it from scratch without regard for their own actual short-term interests. The authors suggest this problem can be fixed in part by extending a legal principle, generality, to politics. Generality refers to a lack of preferential treatment: people are to be seen as equals before the law, and equal treatment is to be the proper norm for the rule of law. Discrimination is not acceptable, whether based on gender, race, ethnic background, or otherwise. If the principle of generality were applied to politics, majority coalitions would no longer be allowed to treat different individuals and groups differently. "The proper principle for politics is that of generalization or generality. This standard is met when political actions apply to all persons independent of membership in a dominant coalition or an effective interest group. The generality principle is violated to the extent that political action is overtly discriminatory in the sense that the effects, positive or negative, depend on personalized identification." (p. xix) The authors discuss various applications of the generality principle to politics. "Policy arguments in support of free, open, and nondiscriminatory trade; flatter and more uniform taxation; nonparticularized standards for environmental regulation and public-goods provision; devolution of political authority to more adequately defined areas of special benefits and against means testing for transfers--indeed against discriminatory treatment of any sort--these arguments find common philosophical grounding in the rule or norm for political generality." (p. 199) Introducing generality in politics would not just increase fairness. It would also increase efficiency. Currently, vast amounts of money are spent on the effort of lobbying elected officials in order to gain an advantage in the tug-of-war of competing demands in the political process. To the winners of this process, this is money well spent, but to society as a whole it is essentially a waste of resources that could otherwise have been used more productively. A generality constraint would no longer make it worthwhile to spend money in this manner. The book is less abstract and therefore perhaps more readable than some of the earlier volumes in the Buchanan Collected Works series. The book is summarized in the paper "Generality as a Constitutional Constraint" in volume 1 of the series (pp. 419-428). Note: Page numbers refer to the Buchanan Collected Works edition. | ||
This Nobel Winner Continues to Advance His Thinking In 1962 James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock wrote the seminal work the Calculus of Consent that did a thorough job of examining the perils of majoritarian voting systems. Throughout the next four decades Buchanan has continued to develop and explore the nature and effects of alternative voting systems. This book is the next step in his thinking. Marjority systems are accepted because they offer simplicity but they also present some significant moral hazards; log rolling, cycling of votes or issues and rent seeking by participants in the system. In this book Buchanan and Congleton offer some ideas about how majoritarian systems can avoid some of those perils. Buchanan, like Madison, has always been concerned about the problems that voting systems can create both for majorities and minorities. In an era when electoral systems are being brought into question and when basic principles of the American voting process have been questioned - this book is an important contributor to the discussion of what principles should guide democratic voting systems. | ||