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| Author | James M. Buchanan,Gordon Tullock |
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| Genre | Economics |
Publication date | 1962 |
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The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy is abook published byeconomistsJames M. Buchanan andGordon Tullock in 1962. It is considered to be one of the classic works from the discipline ofpublic choice ineconomics andpolitical science. This work presents the basic principles ofpublic choice theory.
The analytical approach of the authors is based onmethodological individualism - collective action is composed of individual actions - and on the rejection of any organic interpretation of the state.[1] A purely individualistic conception of collectivity is maintained: the state is an artifact, created by men and thus subject to change and perfection.[citation needed] Buchanan and Tullock maintain that only constitutional changes, which can be shown to be in the interest of all interested parties, can be judged as "improvements" and therefore consider conceptual unanimity as the only legitimate decision-making rule.
The authors analyze the traditional political-science approach tovoting systems, includingmajority voting as the standard as opposed to theunanimity rule. They show that none of those systems is perfect, since there is always a tradeoff:
Buchanan and Tullock conclude that decisions with potentially high external costs should require unanimity - or at leastsupermajority systems.
While many political scientists define thepolitical process as a system in which thepolicy decisions are viewed as a struggle between private interest andpublic interest, Buchanan and Tullock suggest that the public interest is simply the aggregation of private decision-makers.
They show that in classical political-science theory, the "public interest" is always the correct choice with the same appeal to all voters, which may or may not be opposed by "special interests". But that theory ignores the fact that most choices appeal to many different "law consumers" with varying strengths. An illustrative example is a choice whether to increase funding forhealth care. Some voters will strongly support or oppose it, but many may not care at all.
They compare this to a market transaction, where the voters strongly desiring better health-care could purchase the acceptance of the opposition and uninterested voters with concessions, resulting in an efficient allocation of resources, increasing the happiness of all parties (Pareto optimality). However the equivalent of this in the political realm is that politicians buy the votes of other politicians (or groups of special interest) by promising to vote for their issues. In the authors' opinion suchlog-rolling is to be expected, but in the traditional political-science theory, it is anomalous. Thus their model explains certain things that the previous models of politics could not.
Employing the theoretical concepts ofgame theory and Pareto optimality, Buchanan and Tullock show that symmetry in benefits-sharing may be at most anecessary, but never asufficient condition for the attainment of a Pareto-optimal position. The introduction of side payments is the crucial element, which would lead to optimality. In a sense the introduction of side payments creates marketable property-rights of the individual political vote (Chapter 12).[2]
Part I. The Conceptual Framework
Part II. The Realm of Social Choice
Part III. Analyses of Decision-Making Rules
Part IV. The Economics and the Ethics of Democracy