Why Government Fails - Public Choice for Everyone

Author: Isaac Morehouse

There are innumerable arguments about the legitimacy and morality of government and its proper scope, all of which are worth exploring. Public Choice Theory examines an entirely different question than what government ought to do. It asks what government actually does.

Public Choice is the study of the operations of government using the analytical tools of economics. In short, the same assumptions about human interests and actions are applied to the political market as the market for economic goods.

The real power in this theory is its ability to reveal how poorly government works in practice. It does not address lofty notions of the ideal state, or the right and wrong of state action, but rather examines the actual operations of states to see if they are effective at achieving their stated goals.

Public Choice theory by that name is relatively new among schools of economic thought, but the application of economic insights to political institutions is not new.

This is a basic overview of the core insights of Public Choice Theory.

The rest of the original article in English can be read on Isaac Morehouse website.

Translated Serbo-Croatian version can be read here.

Isaac Morehouse

Author's website: http://isaacmorehouse.com

The rest of the original article in English can be read on Isaac Morehouse website.