lessons from public choice theory

House of Lords reform: lessons from public choice theory:

Public choice theory - the application of economics to politics - is inspired by classical liberal principles of free markets and limited government ..

.. Frédéric Bastiat. ‘If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free,’ he argued in The Law, ‘how is it that the tendencies of these organisers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?’

Tullock stated the matter without illusion: ‘ .. democracy operates so that politicians who simply want to hold public office end up by doing things the people want.’

F. A. Hayek was rather more pessimistic, lamenting in Economic Freedom and Representative Government that ‘...even a statesman wholly devoted to the common interest of all the citizens will be under the constant necessity of satisfying special interests, because only thus will he be able to retain the support of a majority which he needs to achieve what is really important to him.’