Politics In A Nutshell

Peter Boettke describes Gordon Tullock’s public choice approach on p. 134 of his new book, Living Economics:

Politics is about concentrating benefits on well-organized and well-informed interest groups, and dispersing costs on the unorganized and ill-informed masses.

That’s precisely why non-political solutions to social problems are desirable wherever possible. When the universal human impulses of self-interest, rationality, and maximizing utility find themselves in an institutional environment like Congress or City Hall, corruption and special privilege are the results almost every time.

Markets respect no special interest. This is why failing companies swarm to Washington; government exists to cater to them.