Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
| |||
|
| |||
| Government: Government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. It is responsible for making and enforcing laws, providing public services, and maintaining order. See also Governance, State, Community, 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. | |||
| Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
|
James M. Buchanan on Government - Dictionary of Arguments
Boudreaux I 73 Government/Buchanan/Boudreaux/Holcombe: When government is used ideally, people exchange with each other politically in order to accomplish ends that they could not accomplish individually or through market exchange. >Market/Buchanan. Boudreaux I 74 Government consists of a set of institutions that, if well-designed, enable large numbers of individuals to engage in exchange collectively for their mutual benefit. In Buchanan’s division of government activities into the protective state and the productive state, it is the productive state that best embodies his idea of politics as exchange. One hopes that the activities of the protective state meet with the approval of each and every one of the state’s citizens. State/Hobbes/Buchanan: Buchanan shared Thomas Hobbes’s view that without the protective state, life would be a war of all against all. To create the protective state, individuals agree only to not violate each other’s rights, with the state enlisted to enforce this agreement. The productive state does more than the protective state. As Buchanan envisioned it, the productive state arises from an agreement among citizens to pool their resources to collectively produce goods and services that would be difficult to produce individually or through standard market activity. >State/Buchanan, >State/Hobbes. Boudreaux I 92 Government/Buchanan/Boudreaux/Holcombe: Returning to the theme sounded in the title of The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan(1), Buchanan was looking for a set of rules that would enable government to protect people’s rights so they could escape a lawless war of all against all, but that also would constrain government so that a government powerful enough to protect people’s rights would not be able to use that power to violate people’s rights. >Rules/Buchanan, >Anarchism, >Society/Buchanan. To this end, Buchanan often employed the assumption that government is a revenue-maximizing and power-maximizing Leviathan. >Power, >Thomas Hobbes. While admitting that this assumption does not always describe reality in full, he defended the assumption by noting that government institutions must be designed to prevent opportunistic individuals from abusing government power. Institutions: Institutions must be designed with the understanding that unfit people - people mad for power, people concerned more with being popular than with doing what’s right, even people who are malevolent - will sometimes gain political office. It is prudent and wise to constrain all government officials to prevent the harm that would otherwise be unleashed by the worst government officials. 1. Buchanan, James M. (1975). The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. University of Chicago Press._____________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 |
||
Authors A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Concepts A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
